Multifandom recs

[selenak]

No more Amazon shopping for the foreseeable future for me: behold AmazonFail! Bah.

Thankfully, that wasn't all I woke up to this morning: various episodes in various fandoms caused people to get creative in fanfic, which is always a good thing:

Sarah Connor Chronicles: A collection of drabbles, most of them post-s2 finale, each of them carrying a punch in the best way.

Battlestar Galactica: The name of this story is your name. An absolutely breathtaking story that encompasses millennia. Post finale, Caprica Six-centric.

Doctor Who: A flight of fancy: crossover with Highlander, and just the one I wanted. Christina, meet Amanda.

Also: a look at various discussions reminds me yet again why the term "Mary Sue" has become an absolutely worthless designation, impossible for me to take seriously and instead, again, to me, reading as "I don't like this (female) character". I'd say: "I wish that once, just once, a new female character can appear on a show and she is NOT called a Mary Sue immediately by certain sections of fandom", but I know better. It will never happen.

Comments

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I'm really sad at the way "Mary Sue" has been hijacked. It was such a useful, specific term. /dinosaur

[selenak.livejournal.com]

It was, but it really has become ridiculously overused. *is dinosaur as well*

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

Also: a look at various discussions reminds me yet again why the term "Mary Sue" has become an absolutely worthless designation, impossible for me to take seriously and instead, again, to me, reading as "I don't like this (female) character".

I assume you've seen the people calling Lady Christina a Mary Sue? Feh. It's an utterly useless term anymore, people use it for anything and anyone.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I mean, I guess she's a Mary Sue because... people on the show liked her? (except for, of course, all the police chasing her. They weren't too fond of her).

If a character is female and does anything ever (particularly if that anything involves romance with a lead male character), she'll be called a Mary Sue at some point. Which is frustrating.

Lady Christina definitely fits into a specific character type (for she is a witty rogue, of the female and rich variety), but that's certainly not the same thing.

[weirdofromafar.livejournal.com]

I did quite a bit of growling when I was collecting reaction posts for who_daily last night. The term "May Sue" has been so overused overtime that...I'm not even sure what the original definition stood for.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Wiki has a useful summary of the term's history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue). In this specific case, one of the ironies is that if you use the term to mean what it orignally meant - glorified authorial alter ego inserted into story - the obvious candidate isn't Christina at all, but Malcolm. You know, the fanboy Welshman who has the Doctor's old job (scientific advisor with UNIT), gets told by the Doctor he's a genius, too, helps saving the day in a crucial way and tells the Doctor he loves him in the end. The actor even looks a bit like RTD.

Christina might not be everyone's cup of tea, and that's fine, I don't like each and every character we get presented with, either. But crying "Mary Sue" is just ridiculous.

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about institutional sexism today. The world really just is not friendly to women who want to do things, is it?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

No. If they're confident, they're smug; if they're shy, they are whiny.

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

If you're assertive, you're a bitch. (Thank God for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler coining the phrase 'Bitches get things done.')