Subject: That's...special.
Author:
Posted on: 2009-03-22 00:25:00 UTC
Alas, I find myself too busy giggling and holding conversations with three other people to snark. I especially like the part where we're racist, sexist, and class-ist. (And I think there've been a few poor Sues; lots of potential for wangst and all.)
Taking a break from Fandom Wank the "Death Star" debate...
I was searching the 'Net for references to our, er, highly esteemed organization, and came across this. It's an article on Mary Sue that pretty much gets everything wrong. Oh, and we're mentioned.
Protectors of the Plot Continuum
Another form of community policing
*giggle*
in fan fiction is the more activist approach known as the Protectors of the Plot Continuum (PPC). The PPC establishes a voluntary virtual brigade of agents who 'correct' perceived problems in fan fiction
Yes, the likes of "Aragorn daughter of Arathorn" are only a PERCEIVED problem.
The establishment of the enormously elaborate organisation of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum affords fan fiction community members opportunities to be playful and clever with fictional structures. Like fan fiction itself, the PPC also affords opportunities for self-indulgence, in a community-sanctioned environment. The authority and standards of a virtual community can thus be enforced within the guise of a free-wheeling enterprise.
Here that, guys? We have authority! And here I thought we were just fanfic vigilantes out for a little fun. I had no idea we were Ye Fandom Police.
Teach me more, O knowledgable one!
As in most authoritative structures, opportunities abound for highly opinionated and perhaps overly assertive people to bully meeker writers within virtual environments using such devices as 'Mary Sue' litmus tests and PPC agents.
The hit the nail on the head. I mean, all of the Suethors we've dealt with have been exceedingly meek, their avatar characters without any ego or pretension. THEY'RE MEEK I TELL YOU!
Chander and Sunder (2007) would make a stronger argument that such regulation attempts to shut down political spaces that may be opened up by fan fiction. In their analysis, a Mary Sue has the potential to challenge media agendas on many questions including gender, race and class.
It's not enough that we are bullies...we also aid and abet racism, sexism, and classism! We sure get up to a lot for an online fanfic community.
I guess they're right, Boarders. I apologize for not realizing all these years that Mary Sue was a feminist beacon for the ages. She defines, sorry, defies all the most awful stereotypes of women, from the aggressive Warrior Chick to the fainting flower to the Can't Seem to Stop Using My Feminine Wiles seductress.
(And how many poor and/or minority Mary Sues have you seen, by the way? Yeah, me neither.)
According to an article they cite, Mary Sue is often a pejorative expression, used to deride fan fiction perceived as narcissistic. We dissent from this view. In this essay, we rehabilitate Mary Sue as a figure of subaltern critique and, indeed, empowerment. … As exemplified by Lieutenant Mary Sue, this figure serves to contest popular media stereotypes of certain groups such as women, gays, and racial minorities. Where the popular media might show such groups as lacking agency or exhibiting other negative characteristics, Mary Sues are powerful, beautiful, and intrepid (599).
I'm going to leave this paragraph open for comment. I know I'm not the only snarker here. Have at it, Agents! Your honor is at stake!*
__________________
* = Unless, you know, you don't take Mary Sue assassinations 100% seriously and are here to have fun. But that, of course, is out of the question.
~Araeph
Iesu Christos, somebody bothered to write a critical anthropological study of the PPC? And they even cited sources?
WHY?!
I mean, really, if you're going to do something that serious, you might as well write about the Shining Path, or the Pre-Raphaelites, something that actually matters in the real world.
Somebody is taking themselves waaayyy too seriously.
...and they didn't even get it right!
It's like someone researching "the prejudiced, disturbed mind behind A Modest Proposal."
I especially like the dismissal of the concept of standards in fan fiction as "authoritarian," and the presumption that all Mary Sues are parody characters. (While the trope-naming Lieutenant Mary Sue herself was a parody, I highly doubt that Jenna Silverblade was.)
How much do you want to bet that "authoritarian" is a euphemistic Godwin here?
Evil, Grammar Nazi oppressors, who silence all dissent with our badfic parodies!
I think I'll quote Silvormoon here:
There is an assumption that because this is informal writing, not only should it not be required to be good, but that we should like it and praise it anyway. It's as if, the moment we enter the realms of fanfiction, we've stumbled into a world where bad writing is considered a virtue and should be defended, while good writing is stuffy and snobbish and difficult, and therefore should be considered suspect at the best of times and ridiculous at worst.
There is this vaguely formed but persistent idea that "This story is good because I wrote it and posted it, and I should get recognition and praise for it." Somehow, the virtue of the story has been redefined while the rest of the rational world wasn't looking. The story is not good because it was technically superior, or because it has engaging characters or a clever plot or because it engages our emotions. No. All the story requires to be good is that this person bothered to sit in front of a computer for a few minutes and bang on a keyboard for a while, and we ought to praise them simply for letting the story - such as it is - exist. My theory is that this is symptomatic of this new idea that children's self-esteems should be bolstered regularly by telling them everything they do is wonderful just because they gave it a try. It allows people to come away with an idea that they should be praised for everything they do - indeed, that the rest of us have a moral obligation to do so. Just watch. Go find yourself a substandard fic, and review it telling them everything they did wrong and request that they make an effort to fix it. Four times out of five, you will get back a nasty response - by email, author's note, or carrier pigeon - telling you that YOU are a mean, cruel person for not liking their fic, and if you didn't like it then it's ALL YOUR FAULT for being so callous and stupid.
This, of course, is rather like telling the person in your glue-stick house that the roof came crashing down on their head because they weren't smart enough to bother to prop it up.
*whispers* Better keep it down, guys. We don't want to rile the academics!
Word to what Silvor had to say. That just about sums up the series of events that led to the mission I'm currently writing. Except add in some power trips and disproportionate vendettas...yeah.
I draw a distinction between being critical (that is, pointing out flaws in a story) and just flaming. Even if a piece is utterly gawdawful, I'm going to explain why it's gawdawful—politely—if I take the time to review it.
None of my reviews, even the most scathing, are intended as personal attacks on the stories' authors. If I say "gargoyles are not sexist, and Angela is as far as it gets from a spoiled brat," or "giving Arthas Menethil a bastard love child conflicts with continuity"...it means no more and no less than that.
But from the way some of these fanthings take it, you'd think that it meant "how dare you have fun?" Or even "die in a fire and take your time with it, you miserable beast!" And quite frankly, that's really their major malfunction. (If your self-esteem is really that fragile, maybe you shouldn't be putting your stories up on the intarwebz for all and sundry to read...)
I really need to get an English opperating system.
Leto
*ROFL*
Yeah, and Betty Crocker was a supermodel. XD
Someone needs to make a list of savemeleggy1!!!/Can't-stop-using-whiles Sues and send it to whoever wrote this.
By the way, are you serious about that? If so, then include a list of strong female characters in the PPC, as well as reasons that they hold better to the feminist ideal than even the abrasive Amazon!Tsundre! Sues.
And let's not get started on abrasive Tsundere!Sues who still play the damsel-in-distress role.
The whole document is so hilarious, my sides hurt from laughing so hard.
Ye Gods, dear Eru, Glaurunging hell and Flaming Denethor. If we're the fandom police, then I obviously mislaid my badge.
It's for our entertainment, not other people's misery.
*goes back to laughing like a hyena*
I actually have some authority in one of the fandoms I "police".
A little while ago someone pointed me in the direction of a possible Suefic. The writing was good, but the premise a little iffy. I pointed that out to the writer and she made some changes to the story. Later, she received a review which (among other things) said this: "Personally, I’m glad that you took IndeMaat’s advice. She is one of the absolute best in helping people with their writing, and I hope you continue to listen to her and learn from her, because she won’t steer you in the wrong direction."
And that is not a unique sentiment in that fandom.
But there are also a lot of people who think I'm a bully. ;-)
This kind of thing really makes my day. Thanks!
Alas, I find myself too busy giggling and holding conversations with three other people to snark. I especially like the part where we're racist, sexist, and class-ist. (And I think there've been a few poor Sues; lots of potential for wangst and all.)
That they cite us as being led by Jay and Acacia, when to my knowledge both had been gone for some time by the time I found this place (Dec. 2006, for reference).
I was aware of the PPC for at least a couple of years before that, but that was when I found the Board.
Ahahaha. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DidNotDoTheResearch pretty much sums it up. Mary Sues... Well, they are beautiful in a disturbingly over-exaggerated way, some are powerful in a vicious dominatrix/rapist/whatever sense, and intrepid... well, I've got nothing. Lesson to everyone writing college papers: Check your facts very carefully.
Thank you, Araeph, that made my day.
For some reason I can't access the article. I hope it gets fixed: there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Let the Suethors hate and fear us.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119882748/abstract
Try that link, then click which viewing format you want: html or pdf.
Fresh off of TV Tropes, I kind of held a similar view. However, it didn't last long at all after reading through TOS and some bits of the Wiki. If all we wanted to do was act as Canon Police, we would have no need to make our characters, well, characters. Make them suffer, twitch, writhe, and in some cases, die- or Get Put On A Retirement Bus. There'd be no point in writing stories if all we wanted to do was act as enforcers of good storywriting.
But it's the stories that make it fun! And thinking any different, I have to say, simply shows a lack of research on the writer's part.
... I assumed you'd put in the wrong link, since there's no way you could actually be referencing something on Wiley Interscience. This couldn't be an actual academic paper.
Then I clicked.
Sweet Cuivienen.
hS
Anyway, any assesments of this half week? You can contact me at my LJ*.
* http://www.livejournal.com/ Also, this is perfectly optional, you can choose not to reply.
...I am not a character in a Soap Opera, and I should stop thinking that everyone else should act like one. Anything I can do to lighten the humor?
We could actually make a soap opera RP. Kind of like the Multiverse Moniter, but with even less pretense to accuracy and twice as much raw corny.
"I have a terrible announcement to make. My three-way mpreg lovechild... has CANCER!" *dramatic organ sting*
*We will return to All My Agents after these messages.*
A slightly modified version of the main body of "Odalisque", by the Decemberists. Starting at the first "Lazy lady" and going through to the end of the second chorus.
"...And what do we do, with ten dirty Sues, a thirty-ought full of rock salt and a warm afternoon? What do we do?"
Will Captain Dandy/Tiger lily be one of them? The 'Slap Slap Kiss' routine is sure to get us a lot of fangirls, I think.
PS: Then we can unleash the missiles!
The link's not working for me, but just the excerpts are enough. :)
Oh, Araeph. Thank you for that. *hug*
~Neshomeh
*toasts with Bleeprum*
To humor and good writing! And a hard-boiled egg!
This title is on the page: "Slippery texts in a culture of unfinish"
Does that sound mildly dirty to anyone else besides me? Or have I been spending too much time in the drama room?
Well, if you consider unrealistically, effortlessly beautiful Caucasian girls a minority race, then of course they promote diversity.
...of microbes swimming around in a petri dish.
"Slipper texts in a culture of unfinish," indeed. Though I guess it could be taken as rather dirty, yes. Either way, the mental image is strangely appropriate. :)
"Intrepid"?! Bahahahaha!
Ahem.
Ah, yes, the Mary Sue. Boldly going where every no other has gone before! She makes me proud...
...to be an assassin.