When I pulled my hamstring, I went to a misogynist.

I've been meaning to make this post but RL has had me scrambling. Ah well. Linkspam dump:

- Hey Arizona, can you please stop sucking so much? In addition to the crap about the so called anti-immigration law, they've also banned ethnic studies programs and teachers with heavy accents. Because heaven forbid we learn about cultures other than our own. And someone please tell me who's going to determine the difference between acceptable and heavy accents. *rolls eyes* Next thing you know, they'll be regulating crayons:


- So in case you missed it, a while back there were some really interesting discussions about Mary Sues and bullying/the killing of talent and ideas in fandom, with a good dash of some feminism tossed into the mix. Interesting reads can be found here, here, and here. And just for good measure, here is an article written more than five years ago to prove that this issue's been around for a long time.

As much as I have mixed feelings on some of the more extreme arguments made, especially in that first link, I won't deny that there is a huge element of "she's too awesome" in Mary Sue criticism as opposed to the "hey, how about improving your writing and justifying/explaining your character's awesomeness" attitude that should be taken. And that is a crying shame, because it only helps perpetuate the existing doubles standard when it comes to BAMFs in pop culture and fandom. That second link demonstrates this point by taking three well loved male characters and puts them under the Mary Sue scrutiny, and as I was reading it, I couldn't help but think about audience reaction to Renee vs Jack on 24. In any case, it's something to think about when considering why there aren't nearly enough well written, awesome female characters in tv and in movies in general. Maybe this is why we can't have nice things.

-On a related note, this link, Your Guide To Fandom Ships and New Characters That Interfere With Them is also hilarious, and you should check it out because it makes some really funny but also thought provoking points about how people react to OTP speedbump plot devices.

And because it's too hilarious not to post:

When I pulled my hamstring, I went to a misogynist.

I've been meaning to make this post but RL has had me scrambling. Ah well. Linkspam dump:

- Hey Arizona, can you please stop sucking so much? In addition to the crap about the so called anti-immigration law, they've also banned ethnic studies programs and teachers with heavy accents. Because heaven forbid we learn about cultures other than our own. And someone please tell me who's going to determine the difference between acceptable and heavy accents. *rolls eyes* Next thing you know, they'll be regulating crayons:


- So in case you missed it, a while back there were some really interesting discussions about Mary Sues and bullying/the killing of talent and ideas in fandom, with a good dash of some feminism tossed into the mix. Interesting reads can be found here, here, and here. And just for good measure, here is an article written more than five years ago to prove that this issue's been around for a long time.

As much as I have mixed feelings on some of the more extreme arguments made, especially in that first link, I won't deny that there is a huge element of "she's too awesome" in Mary Sue criticism as opposed to the "hey, how about improving your writing and justifying/explaining your character's awesomeness" attitude that should be taken. And that is a crying shame, because it only helps perpetuate the existing doubles standard when it comes to BAMFs in pop culture and fandom. That second link demonstrates this point by taking three well loved male characters and puts them under the Mary Sue scrutiny, and as I was reading it, I couldn't help but think about audience reaction to Renee vs Jack on 24. In any case, it's something to think about when considering why there aren't nearly enough well written, awesome female characters in tv and in movies in general. Maybe this is why we can't have nice things.

-On a related note, this link, Your Guide To Fandom Ships and New Characters That Interfere With Them is also hilarious, and you should check it out because it makes some really funny but also thought provoking points about how people react to OTP speedbump plot devices.

And because it's too hilarious not to post: