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ffdotnetrants2012-06-03 07:47 pm
My thoughts on this deleting drama
Removing stories with cursing in the title/summary? Well, I don't agree, and I think they should be more fair about warning first (instead of trying "most users got a warning from other users first" bullshit), but, well, okay.
Removing stories with explicit sex and violence? Well, I disagree with that too, especially because the definitions are so arbitrary and inconsistently applied. As I mentioned on a previous post, they would probably take down the Hunger Games or Harry Potter books if they were fics on that site, despite the fact that both have teenagers as a/the primary audience. Not to mention that adult stuff is, for many people, the entire reason they use the site. But I guess I could see that too. Their site, their rules and all that.
But deleting entire accounts with no warning? Removing stories with "blood" or "kill" in the summaries? Really? Fanfiction, we need to have a talk. This is getting out of hand. There's a difference between cleaning the site up and taking the enjoyment out for everyone and alienating your users. At this rate, you are going to drive many of your users away from the site and thus lose advertising revenue. If you want to clean up your site, there are much better and smarter ways to do it.
If they had handled this whole thing better, I might not have minded so much. But this is beyond stupid.
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And yeah, I enjoy mediocre stuff too, I was just being humorous.
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Honestly, I haven't read how this whole imaging thing is going to happen. But I can't help but imagine that it'll be easier to see which stories I know I won't want to read. Instead of wasting my time skimming through it.
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And true. You can't judge a book by its cover, but... You can.
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I don't hate Mary Sues, as I feel like they are a rite of passage, but I won't read them (intentionally). Looking back at my old fics (never published) all my OCs were Mary Sues. It's funny, now I literally cannot make one in my mind. I can't daydream a Mary Sue character interacting with any fandom character. Even for fun, knowing I won't write it.
My huge problem with Mary Sues is not that they're powerful or unique with a trillion names or drop dead gorgeous or everything comes easy to them. As I think just because you have an OC with any of those doesn't automatically make her a Sue. It's that they don't have a personality. For me, that's what a Sue is. No personality, yet the author wants you to love that character. It's why I can't stand Twilight.
Right now, I'm currently a beta for a writer who has a pretty close Mary Sue. She kind of walks in and everyone just welcomes her when they should be suspicious. And they were super quick integrating her into their group. Being a complete stranger, her character is super rude, yet the canon characters don't mind, despite the fact that they don't even know her. I've been pointing that stuff out to the author, but as she doesn't send her chapters back for a second read through I don't know if she fixes what I point out. I'm not going to go and read her final draft because I don't want to get upset if she doesn't take my advice as it is just advice. But her character is starting to get on my nerves. I promised myself that if the next chapter her character still annoys me then I'm going to have to tell her to get another beta. It's just not fair to her or to me. But she updates so rarely that I tend to forget how annoyed I get.
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I agree that Mary Sues are often a rite of passage, though of me, by the time I started getting into OCs, I was already aware enough to know what not to do. My first fics were total disasters for other reasons. LOL.
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For me and writing OCs. I've always been a fan of I guess "girl power!". Huge Sailor Moon and Tamora Pierce fan, because they had some strong female characters, especially Tamora Pierce. I find it very difficult to read stories that don't have a female as the center lead. So when I discovered the joy of writing I just started writing my own original stories with a mix of fanfic.
So in my fanfic stories I would turn the focus on an OC female character. She would be super powerful, but I never really focused on her being the beautiful thing in the world. Mainly, super strong and special either related to canon character or in love with. Seeing as how it's my own work, I would say they were more of a higher quality Mary Sue as they did have some problems, but still a Mary Sue none-the-less. Of course, all this was my private writing, so no one got the "pleasure" of reading it.
I don't even know HOW I discovered FFN. I know I had dial up internet till... 2003... 2004 I think. Around that time I used to post a lot in writing.com, but that was mainly original stories. I think I discovered FFN in 05, around the time I first discovered FFNrants on LJ. And I think at that time people were majorly ranting about Mary Sues and thus I learned what they were. lol.
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Ah, I see. That makes sense. :)