Mary Sue

[PepperElf]

http://web.archive.org/web/201008300...00/marysue.htm

Someone was kind () enough to send me a wayback link to the original "Mary Sue" story, written back in '73.


Thankfully the satire isn't too long, just a few paragraphs. Sadly though, there's a lot of fanfic writers who write like this ... except they're serious.

[AccountingDrone]

ROFLMAO I haven't read that in years!

I have an account at Archive of our Own and some of the writers there are barely better than that level of writing, and yes they seem to be taking themselves seriously. [I find that there are a number like that in Harry Potter and Twilight universes.]

[dalesys]

Someone was kind () enough...

Friends help you move...
Good friends help you move bodies...
True friends make sure you suffer with them...

[PepperElf]

[I find that there are a number like that in Harry Potter and Twilight universes.]

I still remember one HP fanfic writer who posted "flames welcome" on the first page of her story.

Turns out she was lying. If you questioned ANYTHING she included, even politely, she went into RAGE mode about how she knew more about Harry Potter than anyone else in the world. Yet she couldn't even spell Gryffindor correctly.

To me that's what so many Mary Sue authors are like - although in her case she was casting herself as Hermione, so it wasn't a "true" MS. The authors are really writing about themselves, from a childish ego-heavy point of view... which is why the character is always so one-dimensional.

Kinda like what I did in 5th grade, hand-writing stories about having adventures with a talking horse (Max the Mare) ... meeting up with characters from Star Wars. Only I never tried to pass it off as high-quality literature.

[dragon_wings]

Oh gods. That was awful.

[telecom_goddess]

omg and it's STAR TREK! This is unbelievable.....

[sms001]

Thanks Pepper, haven't read that since BBS days. Missed the "Rigel XXXVII" first time around; that must be a heck of a big solar system!

True friends make sure you suffer with them...

"Suffering shared is suffering lessened." (So now I gotta find some suckers friends to share with...

[DGoddessChardonnay]

omg and it's STAR TREK! This is unbelievable.....

I'm not a fan of ST but damn, that "fanfic" was an insult.

At least (or at least IMHO) my two "mary sue" characters have a bit of ATTITUDE.

More in the fashion of somewhere between Cheech and Chong (without drugs,) the Blues Brothers (without the Illionois Nazis chasing them) and Beavis and Butthead (except with brains when it comes to anything related to computers.) And toss in about a billion dollar fortune (that they managed to hide away from the bad guys) and I think you get the picture.

[XCashier]

http://web.archive.org/web/201008300...00/marysue.htm

Someone was kind () enough to send me a wayback link to the original "Mary Sue" story, written back in '73.

This was meant as a joke, right? Please tell me it's just a joke.

I still remember one HP fanfic writer who posted "flames welcome" on the first page of her story.

That wouldn't be My Immortal, would it? That's another one that I sincerely hope was written purely as a joke.

[Kristev]

God, there's so much I don't know about writing.

[PepperElf]

I'm not a fan of ST but damn, that "fanfic" was an insult.

It was written that way on purpose. The author wanted to make a point to the other fanfic writers who wrote stories like that.

[Kittish]

This was meant as a joke, right? Please tell me it's just a joke.

That wouldn't be My Immortal, would it? That's another one that I sincerely hope was written purely as a joke.

GAH! You'd think by now I'd know to be more cautious when clicking links you fiends... er... people... post. The first one was bad enough. I couldn't even get through the first page of this one.

Maybe if I pour enough on it it'll stop hurting....

[DGoddessChardonnay]

GAH! You'd think by now I'd know to be more cautious when clicking links you fiends... er... people... post. The first one was bad enough. I couldn't even get through the first page of this one.

Maybe if I pour enough on it it'll stop hurting....

Same here.

All I can say is that horrid "piece" makes me feel so much better about mine.

Wonder if she submitted that crap in HS English and got an "A"? Did that with one of my shorter stories my junior year so I already had her beat 25+ years ago.

So to her, neener neener.

[PepperElf]

Wonder if she submitted that crap in HS English and got an "A"? Did that with one of my shorter stories my junior year so I already had her beat 25+ years ago.

I did that for an online Pop Lit English class. We had to write non-fiction stories about personal events. I got lazy and "stole" from my own blog. A few things were reworded but for the most part it was almost a word-for-word copy/paste.

Which ... also makes me wonder if she really searched online to verify that we weren't plagiarizing the way she claimed she would at the start of the semester...