Subject: Teh Specs offers you GUIDANCE!
Author:
Posted on: 2012-09-08 21:28:00 UTC
*Wa-SMACK!*
Calm down, Eru d-[WOOHOO!] it!
This will all be fine, we just have to... You know... Be resilient to the onslaught and other dramatic, hero-sounding stuff.
Yeah.
That'll work.
As soon as they mention Ginny Weasely "conveniently becoming a lesbian" and yu hear the first Sue's name, it's obvious. No one would blatantly offer Mary Sue cliches up like that if it wasn't a parody.
... that the Mary-Sue Hunters are rather disturbingly characterised. I didn't read far (and can't at present), but I got far enough to reach 'I just hate women and I want a job where I can kill them', which... well, a) is disgusting, but more relevantly, b) plays into the idea that anyone who objects to Mary-Sues Just Hates Women. Which isn't true.
hS
They appear to be rather easily swayed by the Suefluence. Something isn't right there...
...they're a bunch of amateurs. If they were the slightest bit professional, the story would have been over by the eighth page.
In fact, it should have ended something like this: "Damn right, cutie pie! This sista was only here on work exp-" *FLAMETHROWER NOISES*
Although the 'SUDDENLY, ROMANCE' between that particular Sue and the misogynistic Sue Hunter might explain why her sudden appearance was enough to bring things to a screeching halt.
I say they're all lost - Sues or bit-characters, every one. -sigh- And they had such promise...I think...
If done correctly, that would be quite interesting. I know there's an unfinished story on that very topic called "Suedom" hanging around on Miss Cam's website but I never got around to reading it.
It's more a story seen through the eyes of two unwilling Sues... who work quite hard to stop it.
Also one of them gets gangrene. But it is fun. It's by Andy and Saphie, who were quite famous here once.
hS
(PS: I believe it also features the only known appearance of a certain Agent Huinesoron... ~hS)
Mind-numbing, of course, but fun.
I think the authors have a good idea - I certainly found a lot of it very funny - but they don't seem to really grasp what makes a Mary-Sue a Mary-Sue, or a Mary-Sue Hunter a Mary-Sue Hunter. Several of the "Mary-Sues" get a decent enough characterization that I actually sort of start to like them, while the Mary-Sue Hunters are mostly portrayed as men (There is canonically one female Mary-Sue Hunter, and she's an ex-Sue who mainly wants revenge for being bullied at the Mary-Sue Academy) who don't like other people having fun and kill Sues just for the sake of killing Sues. They're not really out to protect Canon, they just... hate Sues. (And they can very easily be won over by Sue seduction. Like, immediately.)
Only one Sue-Hunter (their leader and founder, though) is of the Just Hates Women type, as far as I can tell, but honestly, most of the Sues are better-characterized than the Sue-Hunters.
I can't tell whether the authors are making fun of overly-dramatic Mary-Sues, playing the devil's advocate just for the challenge, or genuinely believe that Mary-Sues are a good (or at least cool and fun) thing. Either way, though, the Mary-Sue Hunters are, for the most part, presented in a really unflattering way. The whole comic is, while funny, sort of uncomfortable after a while, because I keep wondering, is this really how people see Mary-Sues and the people who hate them?
... eg here, it seems that the author thinks 'Mary-Sue' is a synonym for 'OFC'... or 'fanon version of female canon'. Which is an incredibly broad definition (coming out as 'woman in fanfic'), and the fact that they are (almost) all portrayed as classic Sues says something bad about this author's respect for fanwriters.
Which is ironic, when you think about it.
hS
That's a twist. Hmm...
Maybe the creators aren't fans of fanfiction in general, so they decided to break their own rules to make everyone who does like fanfiction look silly?
My head is starting to hurt.
I agree - after about the third page, I found myself wondering if this is what Mary Sue-haters look like to the rest of the community.
And then I remembered how I used to react to Twilight-bashing - how I used to look at anyone who went about trumpeting their 'anti-Twilight propaganda,' which usually included pointing out the Sue-ishness of the whole thing - and (while I am now able to laugh at what is becoming less and less of a fandom for me), I find the answer to be yes...conditionally.
Since most of my old run-ins with anti-Twihards were on deviantART - and I've discovered that this is the comic's place of origin - I can't help but wonder if maybe some of the characterization for the Mary Sue Hunters comes from the comments, pictures, and forum posts made by deviants (members of the site, not rogue PPCers or anything like that). If you look, a lot of them - though not necessarily a majority - are less "why Sues are unhealthy for canon" and "how to avoid creating a Sue," and more "OH MY GLOD WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING SO STUPID YOU FAIL AT WRITING FOREVER!"
So, maybe the authors have only ever encountered the out-of-control Sue-haters who are fire and brimstone and BLARGH YOU SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO WRITE. Maybe they don't even know the PPC exists, and think that all Sue-haters are psychotic and don't actually base their Sue-hate on anything logical, like canon breaking or character defiling.
Or...maybe it's just meant to be silly all around. Who knows?
That is rather disturbing. Is the creator trying to create propaganda perhaps?
I'm still convinced that someone will write a worse!fic about this comic and re-Sue all the Sues, quite frankly. By around page...30?...it even attempts to water down some of the Sues by portraying Bella Swan as an 'evil' Sue.
Which they all are...
Anyway, ignoring my pro-Twilight inclination (which, I discover, is waning significantly of late), the whole thing looks like an attempt to show people that Sues can be shades of good and bad too - or at the very least, it's an attempt to say that 'At least they don't kill people!'
Which might create character sympathy. Which could lead to fanfiction. Which would make me cry.
(So many 'which'-es...it looks like Halloween!)
Oh yes, it is funny, and many of the "sues" are really actually well devloped.
Still, it seemed relevant.
Why is this comic a bad thing? It seems like a parody comic.
Word.
Clearly, whoever is writing this knows what is s/he doing.
Cupcakes? Why would I thank cupcakes?
Why not?
...You are just the worst kind of person...
Beware of the Specs,
He lurks on the boards...
Just to note: that was supposed to be a link to a funny picture, but it wouldn't post the link, and I'm not sure if images are allowed.
So yeah.
And the Board should accept links, too - either simply by pasting the link, or by using HTML-style coding.
hS
(PS: For reference, that's [a href="http://linkhere"]Here's My Link[/a], with instead of [ and ]. hS)
Thankie.
I need to learn the html codes...
Indeed.
But it is, at the same time, terrifying.
("And there was much rejoicing!" "Ye-wait, what?")
Are we soon to have a slew of badfics wherein canonical Mary Sues are made into even larger Mary Sues? And why have Sues been made the protagonists? Is this an attempt to show the Sues' point-of-view on the whole 'you are a threat to canon that cannot continue' thing?
Or...oh. Oh, Eru. This isn't a sign that Suethors are learning to PPC-proof their characters, is it? Please tell me that's just me being paranoid.
...And why is Venus the patron Sue-goddess? That's just confusing...
*Wa-SMACK!*
Calm down, Eru d-[WOOHOO!] it!
This will all be fine, we just have to... You know... Be resilient to the onslaught and other dramatic, hero-sounding stuff.
Yeah.
That'll work.
Uh oh.
I don't have boots with long enough straps to pull up for this sh-[WOOHOO!]tstorm.