nootherendoftheworldwilltherebe:
About three things I was absolutely positive. First, I had a pokemon. Second, there was a part of me - and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be - that wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was. Third, Gary Oak was unconditionally and irrevocably a douchenozzle.
Reblogging for the comment
How old are you?
“ten”
How long have you been ten?
“…”
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN TEN
Misty looked at Ash, his breathing still heavy from carrying her on his bike as fast as he could through the long grass outside of Pallet Town.
“You’re eyes are impossibly huge and black,” Misty said. “Your hair is… incredibly pointy, and doesn’t need product. Your face changes size and shape based on your feelings… and sometimes you speak like - like you’re from the 90’s. You never spend money on anything; you don’t go to the bathroom.”
The silence hung there, thick and heavy like a Snorlax blocking the bike path.
“How old are you?” Misty asked, not sure if she wanted to know.
“Ten,” Ash replied, with a slight smirk and an almost amused tone.
Misty new that wasn’t true. Ash wasn’t like the other boys her age. He wasn’t even like her older sisters who ran the gym in Cerulean City. He was wiser and his passion was genuine.
Ash didn’t just want to catch them all, he needed to. He was going to be the best there ever was no matter how long it took, which gave Misty this nagging in the back of her mind. She had to know for sure.
“How long have you been ten?” she asked. Her voice weak, knowing full well the answer could change everything she thought she knew.
“A while…” Ash said. His voice trailing off, as if he were losing himself in a flood of memories.
Misty let out a faint gasp. She knew now. She was certain.
“I know what you are,” she declared, as if whatever had been holding her back from accepting the truth, finally let go of her hand and let her fall right down the Diglett hole.
Ash eyes were alive now, flickering like the flame on a Charmander’s tale.
He stared right into her and said, ”Say it… out loud. Say it.”
Misty’s heart was pounding louder than the thud of a Marowak’s bone club attack.
Despite the now eerily silent meadow, she could barely be heard as she whispered, “Pokemon Trainer.”
I’ve seen this before, but the comments make it infinitely better. Like wow.
Hey guys. So I want to talk to you about one of the greatest heroines ever written for young adult literature, and that is A Series of Unfortunate Events’ Violet Baudelaire.
In any discussion of women in YA lit, there are basically three names that come up: Bella Swan (generally derided as weak and useless), Hermione Granger (whom everyone agrees is THE BESTEST!!!!), and Katniss Everdeen (jury’s still out on that one, but the consensus as far as I’ve seen is that feminist bloggers and Twilight haters alike super love her). Violet rarely comes up, which I think is a shame, because I would argue that she’s perhaps better written than all three of those other young women.
Note that I’m not saying she’s a better woman. This isn’t one of those posts where someone tries to empirically prove that this character is TOTALLY BETTER than that character, because I find that sort of thing dull and counterproductive. I’m not trying to pit different ladies against each other, because I’m generally against that sort of thing (though I don’t think having a preference between two female characters or real-life women makes you sexist). This is more of an exploration on how young women are treated in books geared toward tweens, and how we could all perhaps take a lesson from Daniel Handler (a male writer, interestingly enough) in this arena.
The first thing that strikes me when analyzing ASOUE from a feminist perspective is that Violet is, of course, a skilled inventor, a field in which you don’t see many fictional women. A different writer might have stuck to more “traditional” gender roles and cast Violet as the bookish wordsmith and Klaus as the science-minded inventor, but wouldn’t that have been boring, really? The boy tinkers around in his laboratory and invents things that save the day, and his sister occasionally correctly defines a word. Boring. But what’s even more interesting to me is that Violet, despite having tremendous skill in a traditionally “non-feminine” area, is never presented as The Exceptional Woman, which is perhaps my least favorite trope in fiction, one that has ruined countless characters for me (Veronica Mars, Ginny Weasley, River Song). Rather, each of the kids in the book has one particular skill that saves everyone else’s asses at least once, and even among the girls, they’re evenly split between the “feminine” (Sunny the cook, Isadora the poet) and the “masculine” (Violet the inventor, Fiona the mycologist).
Furthermore, her looks are only commented on once or twice, and always by another character — never by herself or the narrator. This is significant. Young women in literature are almost always given a thorough physical description, whether it’s fawning or, more commonly, one of those “So-and-so was hardly beautiful — in fact, she was really rather plain, with boring brown eyes and long dark hair that fell into her face” deals that contemporary authors love. Even in Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, Katniss and Hermione’s appearances are mentioned quite a few times. But in ASOUE, none of the Baudelaire kids are really described in detail, aside from Klaus’s glasses (which are often a plot point) and Violet tying up her hair when she has to think. THIS IS HUGE. I don’t know if I’m making a mountain out of a molehill here, but honestly, it’s so refreshing to see a teenage girl character who isn’t defined in any way by her looks, whether beautiful or exceptionally “plain.” It simply doesn’t matter; she’s got 99 problems but a zit ain’t one. Similarly, while she and Klaus both get romantic subplots with tertiary characters, they never threaten to take over the actual plot. These kids are kind of busy trying to escape a crapton of people who want them dead, and there’s not a ton of time left over to moon over Quigley Quagmire (though I loved their little romance, don’t get me wrong!).
Furthermore, LET’S TALK ABOUT THE MORAL AMBIGUITY OF THIS CHARACTER. There are quite a few moments in the books wherein Violet and Klaus discuss whether or not their actions — causing lots of deaths, burning down the carnival and the Hotel Denouement, et cetera — mean that they’re just as bad as the people from whom they’re running. I mean, there have probably been lots of essays written about how smart these books are (come on, it’s essentially a kids’ book series about ethical relativism!) but honestly, how often in the lit world, kids’ or adults’, do you see teenage female characters struggling with these kinds of huge moral issues? Not particularly often, to my knowledge.
This obviously isn’t the most well-written little post and I’m probably going to revise it a bunch of times until it’s actually a smart piece of analysis and not just a FEELINGS GEYSER about a criminally underrated kids’ book series, but for now, I’m just going to post it and that’s that.
The end, but not really.
excellent character, excellent series
I really love the SOUE for just… inverting the “one girl, two boys” dynamic you always see. It was never really even mentioned as a thing that Klaus was a boy who hung around and depended on his two sisters ALL the time. It wasn’t even bought up. They were equals, gender didn’t even come into it, it was taken for granted.
And Violet was the oldest, and she was always the protector of the other two. She would do anything to protect her little brother and sister. She specifically mentioned that was her job.
This was why I was REALLY pissed when the movie just went and had Klaus rescue Violet and Sunny for the climax when it was Violet who actually saved the day in that book. NO. I thought it was amazing that Violet scaled the tower with a goddamn GRAPPLING HOOK SHE MADE HERSELF to try to save her little sister and protect her brother. And then she thought of a way to escape getting married to the worst criminal pretty much ALL BY HERSELF. And there wasn’t even a thing made of it, it was just Violet being Violet.
The series got sort of iffy plotwise towards the end, but it always stuck out to me as a children’s book that had such a good treatment of female characters and really influenced me as a kid.
Tho on minor details, I think labeling Bella as weak and useless is going about it the wrong way. The problem isn’t that she’s not an *strong* enough, but that she perpetuates really harmful messages that Meyer as a writer wants her to perpetuate.
Robert Pattinson’s ‘Twilight’ commentary.
I’ll always admire Pattinson’s sense of humor.
I think Leslie Knope is actually me you guys
On Twilight: “Yeah I read the first ten pages, couldn’t get into it, more of a Harry Potter girl myself”.
Also she’s a naive idealistic feminist who eats nothing but candy and loves all the ladies. This is the comedy show protagonist I’ve been waiting for. Since I always thought I’d be a good one.
Man I already knew all this was horrifying, but listed out like that
wtf is Stephenie Meyer even
that is the eternal question
Adventures of Comic Book Girl: Mary Sue, what are you? or why the concept of Sue is sexist
Looks like this essay was needed, so I went ahead and did it. Not sure I said everything I wanted to say, but I tried.
So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects…
Posted this on plurk but I love this, ignoring the rather weak Twilight jab at the end.
It made me think of the Doctor Who fandom and the hate flung at River. She’s snarky, she can handle crazy situations, she can fly the TARDIS, the Doctor is attracted to her. MARY SUE THEY SAY.
But the thing is, River basically has all of the same traits as the Doctor. But how dare she do it with a vagina! Does the Doctor ever get called a sue? Rarely. I have argued with people who refused to accept what a huge canon sue he is. And even then while he has some sueish traits, he has flaws too. Just like River.
Basically, Mary Sue is a gendered term and should go. Let’s face it, lIke Batman, there are tons of cardboard stock male characters too.
It wasn’t really meant to be a jab, actually! Well, maybe, I don’t like Twilight (only because of misogyny/racism/prothestilyzing though, otherwise I’d be fine with it. Poorly written? Yeah, but who cares, lots of books are.) but I genuinely put it in there to demonstrate that even if I do identify a canon character as being a rather cardboard, stagnant power fantasy, the issues that cause her stagnation are usually STEEPED in much more problematic things that can be identified without resorting to the Mary Sue oneliner and the related sexism to tear down the character…and pointing out those things are ultimately more rewarding.
I don’t think Bella would be such a flat character if she wasn’t stuck in Meyer’s narrow box of what a woman should be, so ultimately, looking at the stereotypes the story perpetuates is more productive than mindlessly hating the character for the wish-fulfillment elements.
I try not to hate on Twilight needlessly for the sake of being cool, I only bring it up to crit the sexism and other isms element since it’s widely known- and the sexism element/fact that Bella is one of the most widely agreed upon “canon sues” was the only reason it was bought up.
Just wanted to make that clear, carry on!
Adventures of Comic Book Girl: Mary Sue, what are you? or why the concept of Sue is sexist
Looks like this essay was needed, so I went ahead and did it. Not sure I said everything I wanted to say, but I tried.
So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects…
My point wasn’t that there’s no such thing, but that it only bothers people when they’re female and the term started because it bothers people when they’re female and VERY QUICKLY came to mean “any female character”.
I pointed to Bella Swan as an example. The point is, if a genuine “Sue” does exist, there’s generally waaaay more problematic things going on than a female character being powerful. You’ll have lookism and stereotypes up the wazoo. Focus on that shit. It’s more difficult than crying “Sue!” but ultimately more worthwhile.
I do think characters need to earn their happy ending, need to run the gauntlet absolutely. But guys are allowed to have skills right off the bat that girls will be “sued” for.
My example: Winry Rockbell vs. Edward Elric- since that’s what started this whole thing.
Winry is called a Sue for being a skilled mechanic. What did she do to earn her genius level abilities, huh?
Edward Elric is NOT a sue for the same genius level skill in alchemy right off the bat.
Winry is a Sue for being helpful to the plot and “not earning” Ed’s love. No one cares about Ed being helpful to the plot and he does not need to earn Winry’s love.
That’s how the Mary Sue double standard works.
Hahahaha I knew people would be pissed at the Batman thing. Yep, there’s no single Batman either. But the overall concept is a thing, and it’s complete wish fulfillment- and it’s why Batman can be insufferable and problematic in some versions.
Adventures of Comic Book Girl: Mary Sue, what are you? or why the concept of Sue is sexist
Looks like this essay was needed, so I went ahead and did it. Not sure I said everything I wanted to say, but I tried.
So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects…
I’ll just say that the fact there’s not an agreed upon consensus for Mary Sue is sort of the point of the article and why it basically means “female character” at this point.
And it is DEFINITELY not because I’m scared of my own writing being criticized. Believe me, I tear my writing to pieces all by myself, and I take college workshops which require people to successively state the flaws in my writing and my final is to revise a piece whole from the cloth. I don’t really worry about my OC’s being perfect because I tend to have the stories focus around their fuckups and need to grow as people, since that’s what fascinates me about characters. Also I never write OC’s in fanfic, and fanfic concerning any character more has to do with exploring possibilities canon doesn’t cover (see: Batgirl team up, WW/Sailor Moon crossover) than turning into wish fulfillment and generally has to do with the characters battling and talking out their flaws so. But I do have lots of work to do as a writer and will take any critique and consider it, even if it’s unhelpful flaming shit (I’ll consider it AND tell you to fuck yourself).
so yeah.
Adventures of Comic Book Girl: Mary Sue, what are you? or why the concept of Sue is sexist
Looks like this essay was needed, so I went ahead and did it. Not sure I said everything I wanted to say, but I tried.
So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects…
Okay, I lay down for ten minutes and my brain would not turn off so I’m going to give my final word on this. I did not expect this post to get over 100 notes. If I had, I would have spent more time on it, to really make it painstakingly clear what it was talking about. I definitely wouldn’t have written it in a half hour, late at night, without bothering to edit.
The post has now been divorced from the original context it was in, which was among a series of posts where I was furious to see that female characters are now called Mary Sues on sight- without their names even being known, they just appear in a trailer for a couple minutes- and with growing fury at any female character in fandom being labeled as such. It made me start thinking about the long history of the term.
I’m going to reblog this very quickly twice with the addendum posts I made so they’re in the reblog stream and then, I’m going to ignore all the debate on this post because it is so overwhelmng it’s breaking my brain.
In fact, I think I’ll ban myself from tumblr for a couple of days until it all dies down. This is because I have a ten page final paper to write by Tuesday and I really should be focusing on that instead of Mary Sues.
Mary Sue, what are you? or why the concept of Sue is sexist
Looks like this essay was needed, so I went ahead and did it. Not sure I said everything I wanted to say, but I tried.
So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly. They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she’s generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.
God, what a Mary Sue.
I just described Batman.
Wish fulfillment characters have been around since the beginning of time. The good guys tend to win, get the girl and have everything fall into place for them. It’s only when women started doing it that it became a problem.
TV Tropes on the origin of Mary Sue:
The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish Fulfillment.
Notice the strange emphasis on female here. TV Tropes goes on to say that is took a long time for the male counterpart “Marty Stu” to be used. “Most fanfic writers are girls” is given as the reason. So when women dominate a genre, that means people are on close watch, ready to scorn any wish fulfillment they may engage in. This term could only originate if the default was female.
In fact, one of the CONTROVERSIES listed on the TV Tropes page is if a male sue is even possible. That’s right, it’s impossible to have an idealizied male character. Men are already the ideal.
In our culture, male tends to be the default. Women take on the distaff parts. “Him” and “mankind” are what humanity are, “her” and “womankind” are secondary. Yet this isn’t true for Mary Sue as a term. That name was created first. It was a Star Trek fic that coined it and the female desigination was likely a big reason it caught on. This female is name the default to use when describing idealized characters. Marty Stu and Gary Stu are only to be used if you’re discussing men specifically. Heck, there isn’t even an agreed upon term for them. So the only time female can be default is when discussing a badly written character, someone who is more powerful or important or liked than they should be allowed to be, someone the plot focuses on more than you would like, someone you don’t want to read about. Hmmm.
What’s really wrong with a thirteen year old girl having a power fantasy, even if it’s badly written? Who is it hurting? Men have baldly admitted to writing power fantasies and self inserts since the beginning of time. How many nerdy, schlubby guys suddenly become badasses and have hot girls chasing after them in fiction? See: Spiderman- blatant everyman who happens to stumble across amazing powers and catch the eye of a supermodel. Mary Sue is considered the worst insult to throw at a character as it renders them worthless. But since when are idealized characters automatically worthless? Aren’t all heroes idealized in some way? Don’t all heroes represent the author in some way? Aren’t these characters supposed to be people we look up to, people who represent human potential, the goodness that we strive for? Fantasy by nature is idealized, even the tragic ones.
If you look at the TV Tropes page for Mary Sue, it’s ridiculous. You can be a sue for having too many flaws, or not enough, for fixing things or messing things up, for being a hero or a villain. And of course, this is specifically pointed out as a trope related to the Princess and Magical Girl genres- genres aimed towards women are naturally full of Mary Sues. Magical girls are powerful and heroic and actually flaunt femininity as a good thing. They are a power fantasy designed for girls. So of course, a girl using traditionally feminine traits to dominate and triumph means she’s a sickeningly pure Mary Sue who makes everything go their way. Feminine traits are disdained and look down on, so when the positive feminine traits are prominent, the reader has an aversive reaction. How can a character be so feminine and triumph? She must be unrealistic, she must be badly written, because everyone knows it is impossible to be feminine and powerful.
Let’s look at what kinds of Mary Sues people will point to. People will claim a female character is a Mary Sue if she is a love interest. Put a female character within a foot of a male character, and people will scream “Mary Sue!” Why does someone falling in love with her make her a Mary Sue? Well, she hasn’t “earned” this awesome dude character’s love. What has she done to show she’s worthy of him? Fans miss the irony that this line of logic makes the male character seem more like the Sue in Question, as he’s apparently so perfect one has work for his coveted love and praise.
The idea that woman has to “earn” any power, praise, love, or plot prominence is central to Mary Sue. Men do not have to do this, they are naturally assumed to be powerful, central and loveable. That’s why it’s the first thing thrown at a female character- what has she done to be given the same consideration as a male character? Why is she suddenly usurping a male role? “Mary Sue” is the easiest way to dismiss a character. It sounds bad to say “I don’t like this female character. I don’t like that this woman is powerful. I don’t like it when the plot focuses on her. I don’t like that a character I like has affections for her.” But “Mary Sue” is a way to say these things without really saying them. It gives you legitimacy.
If a character is badly written, there’s generally something much more problematic than idealization going on. The plot will be dull and the character will perpetuate harmful stereotypes while other characters act oddly. For instance, Bella Swan is one of the only characters I’d even begin to classify as a Mary Sue, yet it’s not really her supposed Mary Sue traits that bother me. I don’t mind that she gets what she wants and everyone loves her, that she’s Meyer’s power fantasy. What I actually mind is that Stephenie Meyer has her perpetuate harmful anti-woman stereotypes- women need to be protected, women are shallow, women’s worth rests in desirability. That’s what’s actually harmful about her and worth discussing. I would criticize that rather than even get to the fact Bella got to be “too perfect and powerful”- that’s just a tiny, insignificant thing not worth mentioning in a huge pile of problems.
And that’s why I don’t call characters Mary Sue anymore. There’s really nothing bad about a power fantasy or wish fulfillment. It’s what’s fiction’s about. If one of my characters is called a Sue, I’ll proudly say “yep”, because that must mean that she broke out of that box a female character is supposed to be in. So I’ll go and say it: I love me some Mary Sues.
