Communities with inexperienced mods: I was part of the Ms forum back in the day. That was a real target for the predictable sort of trolls and spammers, who did get deleted. What took it down in the end was a mod intern who really really liked a few of the posters and really really hated another group. Who left posts referring to 'jewboys' up after complaints, but deleted posts for containing the word fuck, sometimes. Eventually it imploded, after a few months of really strange moderating. The excuses were about having a variety of posters and a broad base, but what it really meant was a kind of oligarchy, but for a really odd value of 'elite'.
I've just come across a ye olde speaker. Someone who types out 'ye' and other quaint little pseudo-celtic words.
Can they go in with the anti-punctuation crowd, the ellipsis abusers and the people who seem to think cryptic answers are actually helpful?
Actually my partner, he of the very Arabic* looking beard got pulled over in a random search when he wasn't even flying the other week. It's one of the reasons I decided against the headscarf - we might be your usual Aussie mongrels (albeit I'm Christian not agnostic like my partner) but me in a headscarf and him with a beard? Not fun.
*Arabic, Amish, bushranger or Leprechaun beard, depending on the viewer.
I'm not a parent but I remember several people snarking at my mother about my hair - "why do you let her do that?". Apparently it's better for a clumsy child to have long hair than short and mistaken for a boy...
Her response? "If Ananke wants to look like an idiot then she can."
Probably not the nicest thing to say but it stuck with me - how much fun is rebellion if all your mother says to any 'outrageous' style is "well if you wanna look like a dork..."??
wow. Big thread.
WRT the Ender character, I'm leaning towards non-MS. He's is persecuted a whole lot, pretty much continually. He has no real friends except his little sister. He ends up having to kill someone and suffers through that. His good points are his weaknesses. His intelligence and reflexs alienate him SEVERLY from his comrades. He is used, well aware of that use and powerless to stop it. IMO Bean is far more of a MS, although he has his own sets of drawbacks.
I'd lean towards Cordelia Naismith not being a MS either. Again she suffers for her choice and the consequences of her actions are not always for the best. Her relationship causes an almost irreversible rift between Aral and his father. Her virtues are again her weaknesses. I think those things are shown in such vibrancy to hammer home how much she has lost, and WHY there are so few women like her. But LMB also shows a different side of Barrayar with Alys, and shows how Cordelia's power and clout are not always effective.
Ayla (Clan of the Cave Bear) becomes a MS. I mean she invents THE NEEDLE for crying out loud! Yet none of this is truly terrible until the sequels. While Ayla is smart, beautiful and string, she also has no self-esteem, is repeatedly raped, loses her child and lacks even the most basic skills to form a friendship. While she is universally beloved she rarely forms friendships (the shamans of various clans are the exception I think)
Laurell K Hamilton has degenerated into porn. The first few, up to 9 I'd say (although thats just out of sheer love for Edward) do OK but as soon as sex is involved into Anita's character soemthing is lost. While Anita remains emotionally crippled, it loses it effect. She no longer suffers for the stupid/impetuous choices she makes out of emotional immaturity, instead she can either break stuff, or fuck stuff, and it works out. I'm guess the Merry Gentry series had somewhat to do with it. Those stories are far better IMO, simply because the sex is introduced as part of the character and with consequence rather than the reasonless screwing in Anita's stories.
MarySues never suffer through the consequences of their actions. Instead the consequences are always what they want. They get away with things when they need to, and get thrown in jail to meet the local badass who will become their slave. There is no other way, they pay nothing out.
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|---|---|
| 2008 | 3 |
| 2005 | 2 |
| 2003 | 1 |
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