{"id":102978,"date":"2016-05-01T19:29:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T19:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/05\/01\/dr-kara-scifigrl47-one-last-post-on-the\/"},"modified":"2016-05-01T19:29:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-01T19:29:17","slug":"dr-kara-scifigrl47-one-last-post-on-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/05\/01\/dr-kara-scifigrl47-one-last-post-on-the\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

dr-kara<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

scifigrl47<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

One last post on the subject, and then, I promise, I am done. 8)<\/p>\n

One last question. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Imagine a girl. \u00a0Who loves Captain America 2, even though she never saw the first one. \u00a0Or who has been watching Battlestar Galactica reruns non-stop for the last couple of months. \u00a0Or who found that old Orlando Bloom folder and thought about PotC movies for the first time in years.<\/p>\n

Imagine that girl, having an idea. \u00a0How awesome would it be if Peggy time traveled to the present to help Steve? \u00a0Or if Starbuck was a Cylon? \u00a0or if Elizabeth\u2019s best friend from childhood showed up and they ran off to be lesbian pirates?<\/p>\n

What if.<\/p>\n

What if she could find herself, find a place for herself in a world, in a place that she loved? \u00a0What if between work and school and family and friends and afterschool activities and a thousand other things, what if that girl wrote her story? \u00a0HER story. \u00a0One unique to her, even if it was every trope in the entire world, all rolled into one monstrosity on FF.net.<\/p>\n

Maybe she wants to be a writer someday. \u00a0Or a filmmaker. \u00a0She wants to create comics. \u00a0Or tv shows. \u00a0Or run websites. \u00a0Or maybe not any of that. \u00a0Maybe she wants an audience. \u00a0Maybe she just wants to share this one story with a community she loves.<\/p>\n

But she writes it and she posts it and someone says, \u201cMary Sue.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if she knows anything about fandom, if she\u2019s been on the internet, she knows that\u2019s bad. \u00a0She knows that means she\u2019s failed somehow, that this story, this fun thing that she\u2019s thought so much about, is somehow unacceptable.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s told that her female characters are unwelcome. \u00a0Her story is unwelcome. \u00a0She is unwelcome.<\/p>\n

Maybe she shrugs it off and keeps writing. \u00a0Maybe she conforms, writes fewer \u2018Mary Sues,\u2019 and more canon white het males. \u00a0Maybe she grows up and becomes a screen writer and carries a life time of \u2018girls don\u2019t belong\u2019 judgments into everything she creates, perpetuating the cycle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And maybe she just stops trying to find herself in that world. \u00a0Maybe she internalizes it. \u00a0Maybe she keep dreaming, but never posts another word.<\/p>\n

I am adult, with experience, and a job, and something of a readership. \u00a0And let me tell you, the first time that landed in my comments, it hurt. \u00a0There was a drop of shame in my stomach, a little roll of nausea. \u00a0That I had created A MARY SUE.<\/p>\n

My first thought? \u00a0How to devalue the character. \u00a0How to lessen her. \u00a0How to strip her of the things that made her funny, made her clever, made her loyal and strange and amazing. \u00a0Because my readership, I thought, didn\u2019t want amazing. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Amazing was a failure, somehow.<\/p>\n

I caught myself doing it. \u00a0I caught that thought before it got too far. \u00a0I caught myself thinking, \u201cdoes she really need to be here?\u201d when I never thought that about any of the male characters. \u00a0I caught myself.<\/p>\n

And then I got angry.<\/p>\n

I got angry with myself, that I was so easily browbeaten. \u00a0That I had almost let one anonymous voice, one mocking, disdainful voice, change how I saw this character. \u00a0That I almost let someone do that to her.<\/p>\n

That I had come so close to writing her out. \u00a0Because she was a Mary Sue.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t care if you use the term as gender neutral. \u00a0It\u2019s not. \u00a0It carries connotations in fandom. \u00a0It carries shame. \u00a0It carries the unspoken weight of \u2018fake geek girl\u2019 and \u2018codebabes\u2019 and \u2018I like my fangirls like I like my coffee, and I HATE coffee!\u2019 \u00a0It is another attempt to shame and silence, and I am done with it.<\/p>\n

And if my niece grows up in ten years, and gives me her fic, about how Angelica Perfecton gets engaged to Spider-Man and saves Tony Stark by fixing his armor and teaches Steve Rogers how to paint?<\/p>\n

Then I will be so overjoyed that she is a fan. \u00a0That she is a fan who CREATES. \u00a0Who makes the space safe for herself. \u00a0Who dreams big. \u00a0Who wants to be the center of the world she loves so much.<\/p>\n

Because it is her right to do that without shame.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care if you use the term as gender neutral. \u00a0It\u2019s not. \u00a0It carries connotations in fandom. \u00a0It carries shame. \u00a0It carries the unspoken weight of \u2018fake geek girl\u2019 and \u2018codebabes\u2019 and \u2018I like my fangirls like I like my coffee, and I HATE coffee!\u2019 \u00a0It is another attempt to shame and silence, and I am done with it.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

dr-kara: scifigrl47: One last post on the subject, and then, I promise, I am done. 8) One last question. \u00a0 Imagine a girl. \u00a0Who loves Captain America 2, even though she never saw the first one. \u00a0Or who has been watching Battlestar Galactica reruns non-stop for the last couple of months. \u00a0Or who found that … <\/p>\n

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