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snick_backupIt seems to me that Mary Sues - tragic, unique, capable, practically perfect in every way - clearly feed some deep human desire; otherwise, they would not spring up independently in so many writers' works, particularly in the works of adolescents with little exposure to any kind of literary thought. I wrote myself into Happy Days (I had red hair and was devastatingly clever) long before I'd ever heard of fandom, and in my non-fannish storyworld I several suspiciously Sue-ish main characters. I didn't tell those stories because I saw someone else do it; I told them because I wanted to. And is this, in and of itself, really so laughable a motive?
This isn't to say that Sue-fic isn't usually bad. It usually is. But often (nearly always?) that has as much as to do with the writer's skill set as it does the fabulous fabulousness of the Mary Sue. Because, come on, I pretty much adore any fabulously fabulous female character a writer can convince me of (*girlcrushes on Susan Sto-Helit*). It's only when they fail to convince me that I roll my eyes.
It's one of the reasons we laugh at badfic, isn't it - because the author hasn't the skills (or sometimes the desire) to disguise their id? And author revelation in stories is embarrassing, indecent. Either we mock or we avert our eyes.
I... don't really have a point here, except that I feel a comradely empathy for writers writing their Mary Sue fics, even though I don't generally care to read them. Also that blasting Sue-fics for being Sue-fics seems a bit disingenuous. It's kind of like blasting mpreg for being mpreg (and we all know how I feel about that). Blasting those things for being badly written is a different critique.
This isn't to say that Sue-fic isn't usually bad. It usually is. But often (nearly always?) that has as much as to do with the writer's skill set as it does the fabulous fabulousness of the Mary Sue. Because, come on, I pretty much adore any fabulously fabulous female character a writer can convince me of (*girlcrushes on Susan Sto-Helit*). It's only when they fail to convince me that I roll my eyes.
It's one of the reasons we laugh at badfic, isn't it - because the author hasn't the skills (or sometimes the desire) to disguise their id? And author revelation in stories is embarrassing, indecent. Either we mock or we avert our eyes.
I... don't really have a point here, except that I feel a comradely empathy for writers writing their Mary Sue fics, even though I don't generally care to read them. Also that blasting Sue-fics for being Sue-fics seems a bit disingenuous. It's kind of like blasting mpreg for being mpreg (and we all know how I feel about that). Blasting those things for being badly written is a different critique.
