Many hate her, but she is alive in every fandom. She fences with Methos and Duncan MacLeod; she saves the Enterprise, the Voyager, or the fabric of time and space; she fights with Jim Ellison in defense of Cascade; she battles evil in Sunnydale alongside Buffy Sommers. 150 Years of Mary Sue, by Pat Pflieger, exploring vanity fanfic back to the 19th century. Bonus blackhole of content:
TVTropes on Mary Sue.
posted by cortex
on Jun 5, 2011 -
155 comments
"While going through my archives, I found this piece and emailed it to my friends -- most of whom didn't get it at all. There's usually only one way that change ever comes to the eternal childhood immortality of a comic strip, and that's by the strip being cancelled -- and sometimes not even then."
How it turned out.
posted by bayani
on May 2, 2011 -
59 comments
I’m crammed into a burrow so small that my knees are up around my ears and the boom mike keeps slamming into my head, inhaling the potent scent of toffee-apple brandy and trying to drink a talking mouse under the table. But is it really the boom mike that’s making my head pound? I know for sure that my camera man doesn’t usually have two heads. I have to face facts. The mouse is winning.
No Reservations: Narnia. [more inside]
posted by pts
on Dec 31, 2010 -
40 comments
My Immortal is an infamous piece of fanfiction by Tara Gilesbie that has the distinction of being the
top Google result for "worst fanfic ever". It's a fascinating read, both for its unique turns-of-word (like when Draco and the author begin to "make out keenly"), and for how effectively it reveals the author's culture and insecurities — the way it alternates between denunciations of superficial "prep" culture and elaborate descriptions of its protagonist's wardrobe, its constant obsession with sex mixed with a squeamish aversion of any eroticism, and its desire, chapter by chapter, to both denounce its critics and to prove them somehow wrong.
TVtropes,
Urban Dictionary, and
Encyclopedia Dramatica each debate whether the piece is sincere or satirical. "If it's fake," says UD, "it's complete genius; and if it's real it's total desecration of a perfectly good book/movie series."
posted by Rory Marinich
on Nov 19, 2010 -
85 comments
"I asked [Bono] why, in his opinion, [Tony] Stark couldn’t be content with charitable work à la Bill Gates, shaping the world with his billions. "You have to understand these guys," was Bono's one-line reply. "Bill's software. Stark's all hardware." Vanity Fair profiles a year in the life of Tony Stark, and asks what the literal and figurative ascent of the inventor/playboy/superhero means for 21st Century geopolitics. Is Iron Man
"the embodiment of an outdated American fantasy -- a self-made, unilateral, technological solution to hopelessly complex problems"? Or is he merely the improbable but logical outgrowth of one young man's vast wealth, careless hedonism, prodigious intellect, and strained familial and mentor relationships? Christine Everhart examines the political implications and personal motives of Stark's quest to beat swords into plowshares -- while profiting from the retrofits.
[more inside]
posted by Asparagirl
on Sep 12, 2008 -
19 comments
Art Binninger was a sci-fi buff in the 1970s with the resources of the audiovisual squad at Vandenberg Air Force Base at his disposal. The result was
Star Trix, a claymation Star Trek parody, that spawned
three short films and Star Trix: The Flick (parts
1,
2,
3,
4, and
5). Art Binninger himself explains
the whole saga on his web site.
posted by jonp72
on Dec 15, 2007 -
3 comments
Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction. For years, people have asked themselves, what would happen if certain crewmembers hooked up? Endless combinations have been thought out and pondered, but perhaps the most popular of all, Janeway and Seven of Nine, has been given the full treatment here. Possibly not safe for work (especially the "R" rated stories), because you could be carried out as you laugh yourself to death. A look into the bizarre and often highly amusing world of fanfiction.
posted by insomnyuk
on Oct 19, 2003 -
66 comments
