Reposting since the rollback ate my previous post. thank goodness I saved it.
A nice well rounded guide, but the portion about mary sues and gary stus is misleading [though I know not intentionally].
This might be strange to hear about, but there are some things I've found over the years. This isn't an attack on anything nor directed at anyone, and I know this can be a touchy subject people feel very strongly about. But since this seems to be the enforced guide in the forum, I imagine that means its open to discussion by others unless told otherwise. Hear me out, I don't mean to offend anyone.
1. There is no such thing as a mary sue/gary stu.
2. Mary Sue/Gary Stu is a slur with no meaning beyond acting as a derogatory.
3. What people really mean is that they don't want god modders, power players, etc when using this term in a rule set. But these other topics were already covered, and the extension is superfluous.
So why on earth did I say these things? Here's a rough explanation:
Some of the first things I ask when these things come up is 'Do you know the history of 'Mary Sue'?' Do you know what sort of impact it had historically? Do you know what the meaning is from then, to now?
This one label actually has some interesting, and very unfortunate history. I will leave it up to everyone to decide if they wish to pursue it, or you can ask and I can talk more in depth about it.
The gist of it is this: it was created in 1973 by a woman to make fun of star trek fan fiction authors, who often wrote stories about female protagonists whom either fell for, or had crew fall for them, was often exceptionally well at her job at a young age, and was well beloved by said crew.
It was only a few paragraphs long but created a storm. Suddenly it wasn't ok to make any kind of female protagonist because they would be called sues. Litmus tests cropped up to 'test' to see if your character was a sue/stu or not. Women authors were taken even less seriously. It was a disaster that I don't think the original creator has shown any regret for, nor has done anything about it.
Over time this definition was warped to basically mean 'any character that irritates us, that we don't like for whatever reason we want, or just to be cruel'. It lost its original meaning and became a meaningless derogatory to act as an insult to slap onto someone's work. Not only that, its a sexist one. Gary stu came later, but not only is it more rarely pointed out, but is has just as little ground as mary sue anyway.
In RP communities, slapping the 'mary sue/gary stu' label is a powerful and negative act, and can destroy someone's will for a character. Who has any right to do that? There is no gain, no goal. You teach someone nothing when using this slur. Because of it, you've had the rise of the 'anti-sues' or anti-stus', the response to the original slur because authors were so afraid of that label, they tried to make there characters as nondescript, average, and plain to the point they blend into a grey background. And now even they get just as much spite for having 'terrible characters' when the whole reason it happened was people were calling other peoples characters terrible and unworthy of existance. This was a no win situation, no one developed or grew as authors or writers, and poisoned the idea of what a good character should be.
So, i've only just touched the tip of the iceberg, but here is the gist. Ok, so now what? What do we do about it?
The major flaw in the sue/stu lable is the fact that characterization is a subjective process. Its an art form, its an expression. And most importantly, its a thing that whose normalcy is based on the world they originate.
This is most easily imagined when you have two characters that cross paths from two different worlds, say they are at some sort of nexus.
One is a space outlaw, who has an awesome ship that can blow up planets. They are quite attractive to the other gender.
The other is a malicious demi-god whom eats technology and can mind control other beings.
What is the problem here? You can call these both power players, god modders, and sues. But what if these behaviors are average and 'normal' in the universe they come from? You don't know that. When someone brings a character to a nexus setting, they may bring them /as is/ and get a rude surprise when they come into contact with characters that are significantly more powerful or weaker then theirs is.
This also applies to AU's, characters in fan worlds, and all the like. A character is subjective, we can do /what the heck we want/ with it and no one has a right to stop you. Its an art form, and its a form of expression. It does not matter of its an author insert, or based on your favorite Disney villain.
Characters with dead parents, exceptional talents, or are 'the chosen one' are not automatically bad characters like one would think. What did I just mention that sounds familiar? Harry Potter is always my favorite example, because not only does he fit all the labels, he is still a well written, fascinating character in a well written, fascinating world. these aspects aren't bad things, and we all have to learn how to use them well. We didn't all start with all the knowledge we have now about characterization. And the best way to learn how to do it is by going out there and writing stories or RP. What right does anyone have to essentially kick someone to the curb just for trying to learn? What are you teaching by essentially telling someone 'you suck, get out'. That's /bullying/.
When you approach something like say, the FR world [or any other established rp group]. You do have an obligation to have knowledge of the world you are playing in if you want a fair shot at being able to play with others. This is what people try to communicate when they say 'no sues, no stus'. But not only is this meaningless, this does not explain what /is/ ok. Because its far more complicated then that, and little nuisances wont always be obvious to others. Sometimes you have to spell it out.
1. Establish the norms of the world
2. Establish acceptable deviation
3. Establish unacceptable characteristics
These are fairly self explanatory. Everyone reading the lore is great, but you cant make people read the lore. The idea of what a dragon should be is so diverse that it may be useful to make a brief list of what considered acceptable in the FR lore. You can't make people read, but you can provide for those who would if they had an easy place to find it.
With that said, with something like FR where individuals have control of what happens in their threads [as long as they apply to site rules]- all of this kind of goes out the window-
-and onto the shoulders of the thread starter. It is a thread starters job to clearly dictate what they find to be acceptable and not acceptable. They can decide if its ok to play one of the dragon deities, or all of them- or to not allow any sort of deity relations. They have no right to whine, complain, or talk bad about someone when they didn't set the rules. And their preferences have NO bearing outside their own thread.
Someone can always make suggestions about a character to perhaps offer ideas for it in the FR/world your playing in. But 1. Don't offer unless asked. 2. Don't expect or get offended if that person doesn't take said advice.
When all is said and done, people have different preferences for what they want to rp, who with, and the rules it entails. The mary sue/gary stu label is meaningless because it is a subjective term. What one person calls a sue, another would not- all for different reasons. It is up to individuals to take responsibility for what they want to rp with when making a thread, write it out clearly- and if they so wish- police it within that thread.
Its a pointless and useless endeavor to police it across the whole forum with mods when there is such a diverse set of interests, tolerance, and compatibility with others. You cannot make everyone happy. But you can sure as heck keep around and RP with the people that share your vibe. A good attitude rather then an elitist mood can make all the difference in both how you affect others and whether or not others want to be around you.
Lets not spread around a derogatory subjective label, instead lets explore RP, the FR universe, or whatever universe you wish to play in- in an open and friendly way.
Edit: Fixed the formatting, at some point all the apostrophes got upset and turned into jibberish!
A nice well rounded guide, but the portion about mary sues and gary stus is misleading [though I know not intentionally].
This might be strange to hear about, but there are some things I've found over the years. This isn't an attack on anything nor directed at anyone, and I know this can be a touchy subject people feel very strongly about. But since this seems to be the enforced guide in the forum, I imagine that means its open to discussion by others unless told otherwise. Hear me out, I don't mean to offend anyone.
1. There is no such thing as a mary sue/gary stu.
2. Mary Sue/Gary Stu is a slur with no meaning beyond acting as a derogatory.
3. What people really mean is that they don't want god modders, power players, etc when using this term in a rule set. But these other topics were already covered, and the extension is superfluous.
So why on earth did I say these things? Here's a rough explanation:
Some of the first things I ask when these things come up is 'Do you know the history of 'Mary Sue'?' Do you know what sort of impact it had historically? Do you know what the meaning is from then, to now?
This one label actually has some interesting, and very unfortunate history. I will leave it up to everyone to decide if they wish to pursue it, or you can ask and I can talk more in depth about it.
The gist of it is this: it was created in 1973 by a woman to make fun of star trek fan fiction authors, who often wrote stories about female protagonists whom either fell for, or had crew fall for them, was often exceptionally well at her job at a young age, and was well beloved by said crew.
It was only a few paragraphs long but created a storm. Suddenly it wasn't ok to make any kind of female protagonist because they would be called sues. Litmus tests cropped up to 'test' to see if your character was a sue/stu or not. Women authors were taken even less seriously. It was a disaster that I don't think the original creator has shown any regret for, nor has done anything about it.
Over time this definition was warped to basically mean 'any character that irritates us, that we don't like for whatever reason we want, or just to be cruel'. It lost its original meaning and became a meaningless derogatory to act as an insult to slap onto someone's work. Not only that, its a sexist one. Gary stu came later, but not only is it more rarely pointed out, but is has just as little ground as mary sue anyway.
In RP communities, slapping the 'mary sue/gary stu' label is a powerful and negative act, and can destroy someone's will for a character. Who has any right to do that? There is no gain, no goal. You teach someone nothing when using this slur. Because of it, you've had the rise of the 'anti-sues' or anti-stus', the response to the original slur because authors were so afraid of that label, they tried to make there characters as nondescript, average, and plain to the point they blend into a grey background. And now even they get just as much spite for having 'terrible characters' when the whole reason it happened was people were calling other peoples characters terrible and unworthy of existance. This was a no win situation, no one developed or grew as authors or writers, and poisoned the idea of what a good character should be.
So, i've only just touched the tip of the iceberg, but here is the gist. Ok, so now what? What do we do about it?
The major flaw in the sue/stu lable is the fact that characterization is a subjective process. Its an art form, its an expression. And most importantly, its a thing that whose normalcy is based on the world they originate.
This is most easily imagined when you have two characters that cross paths from two different worlds, say they are at some sort of nexus.
One is a space outlaw, who has an awesome ship that can blow up planets. They are quite attractive to the other gender.
The other is a malicious demi-god whom eats technology and can mind control other beings.
What is the problem here? You can call these both power players, god modders, and sues. But what if these behaviors are average and 'normal' in the universe they come from? You don't know that. When someone brings a character to a nexus setting, they may bring them /as is/ and get a rude surprise when they come into contact with characters that are significantly more powerful or weaker then theirs is.
This also applies to AU's, characters in fan worlds, and all the like. A character is subjective, we can do /what the heck we want/ with it and no one has a right to stop you. Its an art form, and its a form of expression. It does not matter of its an author insert, or based on your favorite Disney villain.
Characters with dead parents, exceptional talents, or are 'the chosen one' are not automatically bad characters like one would think. What did I just mention that sounds familiar? Harry Potter is always my favorite example, because not only does he fit all the labels, he is still a well written, fascinating character in a well written, fascinating world. these aspects aren't bad things, and we all have to learn how to use them well. We didn't all start with all the knowledge we have now about characterization. And the best way to learn how to do it is by going out there and writing stories or RP. What right does anyone have to essentially kick someone to the curb just for trying to learn? What are you teaching by essentially telling someone 'you suck, get out'. That's /bullying/.
When you approach something like say, the FR world [or any other established rp group]. You do have an obligation to have knowledge of the world you are playing in if you want a fair shot at being able to play with others. This is what people try to communicate when they say 'no sues, no stus'. But not only is this meaningless, this does not explain what /is/ ok. Because its far more complicated then that, and little nuisances wont always be obvious to others. Sometimes you have to spell it out.
1. Establish the norms of the world
2. Establish acceptable deviation
3. Establish unacceptable characteristics
These are fairly self explanatory. Everyone reading the lore is great, but you cant make people read the lore. The idea of what a dragon should be is so diverse that it may be useful to make a brief list of what considered acceptable in the FR lore. You can't make people read, but you can provide for those who would if they had an easy place to find it.
With that said, with something like FR where individuals have control of what happens in their threads [as long as they apply to site rules]- all of this kind of goes out the window-
-and onto the shoulders of the thread starter. It is a thread starters job to clearly dictate what they find to be acceptable and not acceptable. They can decide if its ok to play one of the dragon deities, or all of them- or to not allow any sort of deity relations. They have no right to whine, complain, or talk bad about someone when they didn't set the rules. And their preferences have NO bearing outside their own thread.
Someone can always make suggestions about a character to perhaps offer ideas for it in the FR/world your playing in. But 1. Don't offer unless asked. 2. Don't expect or get offended if that person doesn't take said advice.
When all is said and done, people have different preferences for what they want to rp, who with, and the rules it entails. The mary sue/gary stu label is meaningless because it is a subjective term. What one person calls a sue, another would not- all for different reasons. It is up to individuals to take responsibility for what they want to rp with when making a thread, write it out clearly- and if they so wish- police it within that thread.
Its a pointless and useless endeavor to police it across the whole forum with mods when there is such a diverse set of interests, tolerance, and compatibility with others. You cannot make everyone happy. But you can sure as heck keep around and RP with the people that share your vibe. A good attitude rather then an elitist mood can make all the difference in both how you affect others and whether or not others want to be around you.
Lets not spread around a derogatory subjective label, instead lets explore RP, the FR universe, or whatever universe you wish to play in- in an open and friendly way.
Edit: Fixed the formatting, at some point all the apostrophes got upset and turned into jibberish!
