Mary Sue and 'shipping

Awhile back, my friend Finn and I were having some Pimm's cups, and we got to talking about fan fiction culture.  I think how it came about was that we were talking about the X Files, I said I'd never seen it and asked if the characters ever hooked up, and Finn asked if I was a 'shipper.

Thus started my descent into madness fan fiction vocabulary, and the esoteric etymology behind some of the words.  I've only scratched the surface, I'm sure, but here are some of my favorites so far.  The definitions are taken from this online fan fiction glossary, the content of which may stun and bewilder if you had no idea this world existed.

'shipper: (short for relationshipper) a 'shipper is someone who believes that a chosen pair of characters "belong together," and who diligently reads and/or writes tales to that effect. The term originated in the X-Files fanfic, but has migrated over to comicfic in full force with the advent of the X-Men movie and a subsequent boom in Logan/Rogue 'shipping. 

The whole notion of 'shipping gets waaaaay more interesting with Harry Potter fanfic.  Each 'ship, or pairing of characters in the canon (meaning original work by the author), is given it's own esoteric name based on characteristics of the people involved.  For example, "Orange Crush" is Harry and Ginny.    This is an entire list of Harry Potter 'ships, and links to subsequent fan fiction threads for each 'ship.   (Sadly, I understood most of the meanings of the 'ship names.)

There are, like, a million of these.  Characters, children of characters, ghosts, monsters - every combination of relationship you can imagine.  Platonic 'ships are not allowed on this board,  and  incest / beastiality doesn't really seem to be a barrier to developing 'ships for these characters. So beware.

Sometimes the 'ship names are also denoted by HMS (her majesty's ship) at the beginning.  So HMS Orange Crush would tell me exactly what the fan fiction thread would be about, if I understood the language.  uh, and now I do.

Ok, on to Mary Sue.

Mary Sue : The generic name for any new character (usually female) who's a ego-stroke for the writer: she's beautiful, has amazing skills/powers, gets into a love affair with an existing character, or (usually) all of the above. Mary Sues often convince characters to hook up romantically, especially in slash. Good writers can write good Mary Sues, but this is not the norm.

So basically, people who write Mary Sue's insert a character that is essentially a stand-in for themselves into their stories, and let all the cool shit happen to them.   The term "Mary Sue" originated in a 1974 Star Trek fanzine ( which is where fan fiction lived before the internet) by one Paula Smith.  She created a  Lieutenant Mary Sue ("the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet -- only fifteen and a half years old"), and I guess Lieutenant Mary Sue got to make out with Captain Kirk and do all sorts of snazzy stuff. 

This comic, which is hilarious, makes fun of Mary Sue stories where the writers place their own character in an imagined 5th House in Harry Potter, called...(wait for it)....Sparklypoo.  Yes.  Hopefully the guy that made it doesn't mind me putting it up here.

I thought it was pretty funny.  Apparently there are a lot of people who like to read Mary Sue's, and they're known as Suvians.   You are probably realizing, at this point, that fan fiction has a lot of names for a lot of things that don't really need names, just like in marketing!

There is just so much stuff. crazy stuff.  terms like "pepper-jack cheese", which refers to a lame detail included in a fanfic because it's peculiar to the author. Coined after a story wherein the author insisted that Hermione loved pepper-jack cheese because she (the author) did. Commonly seen in Mary Sue stories.

I love that this whole world exists.  It completely amazes me - I knew about fan culture and fan fiction before this, but I guess I never explored the details until now.  It's kind of funny, because there are people who can't STAND to see deviations or alterations of something they've read or seen, which is the camp that I thought I fell into.  But now that I've been reading some*, I think I'm becoming more accepting of the evolution of characters beyond the vision of their original creators.   I mean, anything that contains the phrase "Ginny performed a quick birth control spell" is pretty amazing, you have to admit.

*shut up.

Comments

[Johanna]

"fan fiction has a lot of names for a lot of things that don't really need names, just like in marketing!" hahahaha

I find it so fascinating too that there are worlds and cultures that are SO expansive that I have absolutely no clue about. When I think about all those cultures existing at the same time, my head wants to explode.

[Alex Rosu]

Ha Ha! This is great! Can't wait to see your interesting NY presentation.

[lauren p!]

some people have way too much time on their hands:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOs6db5yO8

[Flourish]

What's hilarious is that the fanfic community actually DOES "need" those terms. I mean, none of them exist just for giggles, yknow? People get super passionate about what ships they want to and don't want to see, what kind of stories they do and don't want to read, and so on.

(I'm so excited to have gotten tapped for this presentation - discovering a whole new world of folks who are interested in fanfiction!)