User talk:KTJ
KTJ, I found the "yellow duck zine" and added it as a footnote on the Mary Sue page. :-) --Mrs. Potato Head 00:48, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
- WOW! I had everybody I know looking for that! You're a genius! --KTJ 06:00, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
- Not so much genius, but I did have some perseverance and luck; if I hadn't read the interview, the reference would have slipped right by, and if I hadn't been paying crazy-attention to every little bit of the run of Menageries I'm doing right now, I'd have missed it! Sometimes the print in those editorials is teeny tiny and often just faded enough to make me want to skip them. I'm glad I didn't! BTW, I love the work you're doing on the Mary Sue page, as well as others, KTJ. --Mrs. Potato Head 19:19, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks. It just has frustrated me for years seeing the way it is going. I'd do anything to set the record straight. My name's Bluejay :) --KTJ 03:10, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
- Hey, hey Bluejay. --Mrs. Potato Head 03:46, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks. It just has frustrated me for years seeing the way it is going. I'd do anything to set the record straight. My name's Bluejay :) --KTJ 03:10, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
- Not so much genius, but I did have some perseverance and luck; if I hadn't read the interview, the reference would have slipped right by, and if I hadn't been paying crazy-attention to every little bit of the run of Menageries I'm doing right now, I'd have missed it! Sometimes the print in those editorials is teeny tiny and often just faded enough to make me want to skip them. I'm glad I didn't! BTW, I love the work you're doing on the Mary Sue page, as well as others, KTJ. --Mrs. Potato Head 19:19, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
"revisionist, apologetic days?"
"'Fesarius' is extremely enjoyable, what might be called a funzine. 'A Test of Womanhood,' however, is not a primary contributer to this era of good feeling, because it is as pure a Mary Sue as we seldom see in these revisionist, apologetic days. Spinks will be fine writer when she gets these things out of her system, so in the meantime we must bear with [her]..." I just added this fan reaction to the Fesarius page and wondered if there was a place for it on the Mary Sue page? --Mrs. Potato Head 18:10, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
- I think there is. To figure out where, I'd like to read 'A Test of Womanhood' for one thing. It does not look like "Mary Sue" to me from the one page I was able to read. When was the review with the "revisionist, apologetic" stuff written? --KTJ 22:33, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
- The comment is from Menagerie #12 published in 1977, month not stated. Also in that Menagerie is this review of a story in Berengaria #9: " 'The Human Time' surprised me. Its first 30 pages were purest Mary Sue, as first Kirk, then McCoy, then Scott finally fall head over slobbering love with the delicate, friendly, witty, warm, intelligent, beautiful, blue-eyed Dr. Petra (Vegan for 'My Pet') Minda Abelard. But [the author] double-crossed us -- and turned this kiddie tale around in to a sensitive, sensual story that is a real and adult as any Faddish or Poblockian piece. 'Time' is not a wholly Good Story, hampered as it is by its beginnings. But it was perhaps only a single rewrite away from it." Both reviews are by the same person, the second editor of Menagerie. --Mrs. Potato Head 23:12, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
- Glad to meet you. I've been wondering about Menagerie, because I remembered a zine that was completely different and didn't have Paula Smith. Turns out there were two zines by that name and the one I was thinking of was the old California Menagerie, run by Linda Stanley. I knew some of the people who worked on that, although they would not remember me. Be that as it may, I still think some of these stories sound like guest-star appearances on the show. Remember when all the male co-stars thought Miranda Jones was so beautiful? Of course, I'd have to see it.
- I have yet to see one of these Mary Sue stories. Now, I stopped reading fanzines (except for Nu Ormenel) pretty much when K/S became popular, because I disagreed with the idea -- I just didn't think there was any way Kirk or Spock (or McCoy) were gay, let alone with each other. I have distinct memories of sitting in the bus station reading a story where an injured McCoy lies on top of Kirk to avoid getting hypothermia on a cold planet, and thinking "I can see where this is going". If "Mary Sue" came in just about the same time as K/S, maybe that's why I never saw any. And it certainly isn't that I don't know what they mean, because I had to put Dragonsinger down halfway through after Dragonsong had been so damn wonderful. I called'em, "Oh, come on!" stories. :) I felt the same way about one of the Telzey Amberdon novels --it's not enough that she's a genius and a true telepath, she has to be a champion athlete too? Male or female, pulling a new ability out of a hat that hasn't been previously mentioned, and that kind of inability to fail -- I wasn't wild about Valentine Michael Smith for that reason either. --KTJ 03:48, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
- I totally agree with you that some of the Mary Sue stories are much like the guest-star shows! Apparently, canon can get away with things fan writers can't. I like the picture of you sitting at the bus station, zine in hand, and your eyes rolling. :-) --Mrs. Potato Head 23:43, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
- And shaking my head. Heh. I like this, "Apparently, canon can get away with things fan writers can't." Yes! Nobody that I know of complained about Miranda or any of the others being unrealistic, just as nobody said a word about T'Rruel or T'Aniyeh or Lian or T'Pelle or Dorothy Conway. You couldn't write characters like that today, you'd be run out of town on a rail.
- I totally agree with you that some of the Mary Sue stories are much like the guest-star shows! Apparently, canon can get away with things fan writers can't. I like the picture of you sitting at the bus station, zine in hand, and your eyes rolling. :-) --Mrs. Potato Head 23:43, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
- I have yet to see one of these Mary Sue stories. Now, I stopped reading fanzines (except for Nu Ormenel) pretty much when K/S became popular, because I disagreed with the idea -- I just didn't think there was any way Kirk or Spock (or McCoy) were gay, let alone with each other. I have distinct memories of sitting in the bus station reading a story where an injured McCoy lies on top of Kirk to avoid getting hypothermia on a cold planet, and thinking "I can see where this is going". If "Mary Sue" came in just about the same time as K/S, maybe that's why I never saw any. And it certainly isn't that I don't know what they mean, because I had to put Dragonsinger down halfway through after Dragonsong had been so damn wonderful. I called'em, "Oh, come on!" stories. :) I felt the same way about one of the Telzey Amberdon novels --it's not enough that she's a genius and a true telepath, she has to be a champion athlete too? Male or female, pulling a new ability out of a hat that hasn't been previously mentioned, and that kind of inability to fail -- I wasn't wild about Valentine Michael Smith for that reason either. --KTJ 03:48, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
- I've got a theory I can just barely get a handle on -- I have never been able to find the words to describe my feeling that the "Mary Sue" concept was flawed from the outset, not just that it's being used to abuse and bully amateur writers today, and not because unrealistic characters don't exist, of course they do. There is something else going on. Paula went around telling people not to write this type of character, and it turned into an industry. Why? --KTJ 04:22, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, I bristle when I hear anyone telling others how and what to write, and in that respect, the Mary Sue debate is no different than the slash debate. The universe is big enough for all sorts of ideas and styles and the people that write them. Mary Sue, as the page on Fanlore hopefully illustrates, touches on all sorts of topics and issues relating to gender and empowerment, what's desirable, the micromanagement of peoples' creativity, and fannish drift. --Mrs. Potato Head 12:22, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
- It sounds like we're heading in the same direction. Can we take this to email so it doesn't run off the page sideways? :D --KTJ 07:38, 24 May 2011 (UTC) ktj at karitas net
ktj -- as per your question on my talk page on how to contact the wiki committee, there is a link on the front/main page of the wiki, sort of in the middle and says: "If you have a question or concern, contact us." Hope that helps! --Mrs. Potato Head 13:27, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Labeling
It would be a fascinating page, to try to document when fiction labeling began! --Mrs. Potato Head (talk) 00:39, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Snapewives
Thank you, KTJ, for working on the Snapewives page. --MPH (talk) 22:38, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
Fanlore Gardener
Hi KTJ! I’m reaching out as a member of the Fanlore Committee. Thank you for all your work on Fanlore - it's always great to see your contributions. Recently, we've had some issues with our emails on Fanlore, and we wanted to make sure you'd received an email we sent a few months ago inviting you to become a Fanlore Gardener. If you're not interested, that's totally okay - but since we hadn't heard from you, we wanted to follow up, in case our email (or your reply!) got caught up in our system. If you are interested, we'd love to set up a time to chat more about what Gardening involves. Please contact us here: http://www.transformativeworks.org/contact_us/. (To reach Fanlore Staff, select "Fanlore" from the dropdown menu, and set "Fanlore Policies" as your subject.) - Fandomgeographies (talk) 19:04, 17 March 2018 (UTC)