Don't Tell Me Blaring Your Favorite Music Isn't Therapeutic And Beneficial To Your Health.

Dusk in True Stories (1986)

Smooth Criminal - 88

Mervyn Peake - Illustration to Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll. 1945

How it feels having the most hated character as an F/O

“If you hate my story. I’m sorry, it was not written for you.”

— (via alterated)

What is up y’all; Happy New Year! I would like to make this message towards all the people in the OC/SI (self-insert) x Canon communities who are just starting out and/or still young, and spread some positivity and words of welcome.

Now I know y’all have been hearing stuff like ‘how you gotta not make a Mary Sue and make sure run your OC through the Mary Sue Litmus Test’ and let me tell you right now? Those Litmus Tests are straight-up garbage and the scoring system on them is so jittery that if you mention your OC is intended to be a romantic interest, it gives you a massive amount of points against you. So don’t even bother with those tests since all they do is cow you into making a really bland character.

Also, the term ‘Mary Sue’ was coined by a woman named Paula Smith who didn’t like the idea of women having power fantasies and was also responsible for that 1970s fanfic ‘A Trekkie’s Tale’, which was a parody of a self-insert fic. Nowadays it seems to mean ‘literally any female OC put into a canon setting and/or is the romantic interest of a canon character’, even if they’re more on the ‘ordinary’ side. (Heck, look at Bella Swan— she’s intended to be really plain yet people still treat her as a Mary Sue.) Speaking of which…

If your OC has any special abilities, or has an unusual hair or eye color (such as pink or purple), that does not make them a Mary Sue. If your OC has knowledge of other languages, is good with animals, or excels in a particular subject (which are both things humans are capable of as well), that does not make them a Mary Sue. If your OC has a really dark backstory or has had tragedy happen to them, that does not make them a Mary Sue. If your OC does something awesome such as save a life or defeat a villain, that does not make them a Mary Sue. Do not let people make you think any of these things qualify your OC as a Mary Sue. All OCs, regardless of appearance, ability, or backstory, are valid.

Now then, shifting the gears a bit, if people try to argue the existence of ‘Gary Stu/Marty Stu’ and try to hold male OCs to those same standards? You might as well be calling hundreds of male canon characters ‘Gary Stus’ because there’s quite a lot of them that fit the above criteria. So in the end it’s pointless to try and spin that.

Finally, a reminder to people who think it’s ‘acceptable’ to pick on OCs they decide are ‘Mary Sues’… you are wasting your time, you’re bad people, and you need to reevaluate your life. The days of ‘Mary Sue Witch Hunts’ are LONG over— though, such things shouldn’t even have had to exist. Remember those days; when content creators were terrified of making ANYTHING because people were so obsessed with snuffing out Mary Sues? Do you really want to bring those days back? (And if anybody thinks ‘yes’, thank you for letting me know the type of people who should really be pushed out of fandom.) And if you think that sending hate messages, making hate art, and even going so far as doxxing people who do this stuff is acceptable? (Yes, that last thing has happened at least once.) Please, do the entire community a favor and unplug your router, cancel your internet plan, and never show your face again.

Not to mention, a lot of the people making these ‘Mary Sues’ are tween-to-mid-teen girls who just innocently make fun stuff for a fandom, have a favorite character they fell in love with, and want to fit in. If you really think Mary Sue witch hunts should be brought back, you’re basically supporting the idea of driving people nearly half your age away. If anything, young fans who make OC/SI x Canon content should be welcomed in, given a safe space they can spread their content, and encouraged to make more. They deserve recognition just as much as older, more experienced content creators do.

Now with all that in mind, let’s make the OC/SI x Canon community a safe, welcoming place for content creators of all ages, call out the Mary Sue witch hunters, and just generally have fun!

“don’t reduce this female character down to a love interest” does not translate into “this female character shouldn’t have a love interest.”

preventing female characters with strong, compelling narratives from experiencing love, intimacy, and affection is just as regressive as reducing them down to sexual accessories for male characters. it assumes that women must choose between a romantic interest and depth of character and ignores a far more productive message: that women are capable of possessing both. 

do you ever look at someone and just fucking melt

Happy 58th Birthday to Michael J. Fox! ❤

I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God’s business.