(no subject)

[liptonrm_backup]

Once again I got home from work and went right to bed. Apparently I have a choice, I get either mornings or evening but not both of them. Good to know.

Had a dream that began as a science fiction novel, vaguely Ursula K. LeGuin based but then changed into a movie that the brothers and I were watching. Then there was something about a weird little car watching the house and then I was putting on my pyjamas and suddenly there was a Klingon staring in my window. It turned out to be a whole bunch of Klingons who were delivering Christmas trees to my neighbours.

Yeah, there's nothing deep or poignant about it, I just felt like sharing. ;-)

I think I'm going to head across the street at lunch and get a new pair of glasses. I could certainly use them, my old ones are terminally scratched and don't sit right on my nose anymore, though they do like to perch themselves on the tip of my nose which gives me a very sexy librarian feel.

Somehow yesterday I managed to get chocolate yogurt splattered all over my shirt. I'm thinking that I might need to stop reading my f-list while attempting to eat food because obviously I become much too overstimulated. It's a simple process, really, food goes from spoon to mouth, no mysteries.

Speaking of food, a couple weeks ago the Wrestler and I helped our neighbour shovel rocks into a trailer and last night she brought over a pound cake. This is not any normal pound cake but the best-tasting pound cake I have ever eaten. It literally melts in my mouth. There must be like a zillion eggs and tons of cream and sugar in it but I don't care because it is absolutely delicious. *savors a bite* I so need this recipe.

I just spent the past half hour trying to verbalize my opinion on Mary Sues and why I don't think they're the most evil thing that ever eviled but I ended up going around in circles and never actually finding a point. I will say here, for the record, that I do believe that Mary Sues (the perfect character who everybody falls in love with) make for fairly tepid and boring characters but that doesn't mean they are not without their good characteristics and that the fear of writing one should not keep us from adding original characters to our stories. It's all part of the process, baby.

And also, for the record, I still have loads of Mary Sues that I play around with but you lot will never hear about them because they're silly and a little embarassing but I can't help but love them.

Now, back to copying.

Comments

[hiyacynth.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of the Klingon Christmas Tree Delivery Service.

My first Mary Sue stepped off a stagecoach in Virginia City with a book in one hand and a six-shooter in her purse, and was met by all four Cartwrights, but Adam had a special twinkle in his eye for her. And then I realized that any female guest star either died or ran away with a cousin/ranch hand and so I gave up on the idea.

Sigh. We should write a poem in Mary Sue's honor.

[liptonrm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Cartwrights weren't good with women. Poor guys never had the hope of a good, longterm relationship. I'd say something about forced situational bisexuality but I know how freaked out I get when people allude to those sorts of things in my childhood fandoms.

My first well-developed Mary Sue was a 10th member of the Fellowship. She was a Ranger, (the only female Ranger, natch) who met up with Strider and the hobbits right outside of Bree. She was lots of fun.

[hiyacynth.livejournal.com]

They're only half brothers... /severelydirtywrong

[liptonrm.livejournal.com]

We are not even going there. ;-)

[writerj.livejournal.com]

I never had a Harry Stu per se; instead I have a bad habit of taking one of the existing characters and reimagining them in Stu-ish proportion. My most egregious example being Jack Kelly in "Newsies". Turned him into Aladdin meets Spider-Man, complete with tragic past, unearthly acrobatics, undeniable charm, and incessant reminding of the reader that he has hair the color of tarnished sunsets and (the kicker) violet eyes. (When we all know Christian Bale has hazel eyes.)

Still, I suppose that was better than all the G-D "sisters" and what not that kept cropping up in Newsies fandom.

Nowadays I no longer have Harry Stus to that extent.

OTOH for some reason everybody's gay.

[liptonrm.livejournal.com]

Aaah, the canonical Sue/Stu. Those are a lot of fun too. And you even gave him violet eyes, that's the absolute best part.

And it is better, in its way, then the blatant self inserts. You were at least attempting to write about the characters and were gaining experience and understanding.

Nowadays I no longer have Harry Stus to that extent.

My Mary Sues have toned way down as I've aged. Now they're primarily an answer to the question, "If I were at Hogwarts/in the Shire/in Narnia what would I do?" It's progress, of a sort ... *determinedly doesn't think about Narnia Mary Sue*

OTOH for some reason everybody's gay.

*snort* THE PACT don't forget about the Pact! What happens in barracks 2 stays in barracks 2.

[writerj.livejournal.com]

Well, in the case of Newsies, it was more a case of "I can do this better." Which, come on, would not have been difficult considering the source material. I spent most of college trying to fix that story into a picaresque street odyssey epic with magico-realist elements and pseudo-alternative history (e.g. Jack grows up under the Roosevelts' wing and when his friend Franklin dies of polio takes over the family's political dreams, the rest is obvious). Ah, well. Finally I changed his name. "The Seasons of Danny," about Danny Levy and his friend Johnny Dolan, is still percolating on the backburner somewhere. It stopped being about Newsies and started being one of those heartbreaking gay coming-of-age love stories set in the world before the Great War. sigh.

Or I could have just made one of them Filipino, changed nothing but the name, and sold it as "How Danny Sanchez Got Busy, Got HIp and Got a Life". NOBODY WOULD EVER KNOW.