![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Sit down, Wesley.
(ETA 2: Just to clarify - I don't think Wesley is a kitten-chasing jerk and I tend to see him the way Wheaton does - as a character who was heinously annoying to some because of bad writing, but who had potential to not be. These characters are never MEANT to be jerks or look bad, but because of reader perspective having the potential to differ VASTLY from writer intent, they do. Wesley in the show was a punk kid; Wesley-types IRL are quite another story.
What I am trying to say is: passive aggressive pot-shots at me implying that I'm some kind of bandwagon hater can go fall down a hole. XD I didn't even know there were entire fanboy hate parades; I was never active in or part of online TNG fandom. My perspective on the guy is informed by my experience as a minigeek on the sofa asking my dad what Warp 5 meant since I got into the show in medias res.)
Okay so - I've determined through my own meandering experience and the commentary and snark of friends that one of the hallmarks of a Sue/Stu/Wesley is the fact that they get to have their cake and eat it too.
It's like this: they are wish fulfillment and they often have everything the writer doesn't/didn't/wants. As such, they rarely have to follow the rules that govern other characters - there's a sliding moral scale and it usually tips in their favour. They do not have to face the consequences of their actions, and if they are punished we are 'asposedta' not like the disciplinarian. They rarely face criticism or critique and when they do we're supposed to believe that the critic is a baby-eater. Everyone else will rise against the critic and run them out of the room, at best. Usually this is the author's desire for vindication against their perceived opponents saying yo 'sup.
This is all well and good and awesome for Wesley and Wesley's author, but - it's not so much fun for the reader. It can feel voyeuristic, or exclusionary.
The bottom line is that Wesley writers don't seem to stop to think what life is like for the people who aren't Wesley.
Would you like to live in a house with a person who's beyond reproach by degree of the people around them? Would you honestly like to deal with someone who cannot take a whit of criticism and is incapable of acknowledging cause-and-effect and thus unable to face the consequences of their actions? Would you seriously like to deal with being ganged up on by everyone else for questioning the golden boy?
Because seriously.
From the outside, an IRL 'Wesley' is the dunna nunna nunna nunna LEA-DER of a cult of personality, at best. At worst, he is abusive, and has basically ass kicked or manipulated everyone around him into responding in outrage to the idea that he's a fallible human being like the rest of us schmoes. I have seen setups like this in real life and they're really frightening to witness. People will just beat the shit out of themselves for questioning their charismatic superteam leader, and heaven help the halpess nong who isn't on the sentai team and who points out that IRL!Wes isn't as rad as he thinks he is.
Whenever Wes - IRL o fic - fouls up like damn, the world stops so he can be brought back up again. Everybody else's problems and other outlying plot lines get ignored. Again, dealing with this in real life - with a person for whom the world MUST STOP every time something goes awry for them - is crazymaking.
A lot of people HAVE dealt with this crap, so reading Wes-fic is decidedly un-fun for them. And you know, that is not THEIR PROBLEMBAWW. Even if something didn't occur to the author, it might occur to the reader. A reader is going to have her/his own take on things and dropping anvils isn't going to do anything but have the opposite effect. Sure, tinhattedness exists (see the great Harry Potter shipwars, still ongoing, and the FF7 fandom ship kerfuffles), but you cannot dismiss all alternative readings of your work as tinhatting.
Like I said a lot of people have lived these situations, whether via an asshole roomie or a cracked out cosplay group leader or a cliqueboss. Form the outside looking in, Wes is not Captain Awesome. He's kind of a dick.
Wesley breaks the rules of the world and doesn't have to face consequences, and watching someone like that get away with shit you never could is so SO annoying. it's like watching an asshat co-worker whose weight you are always pulling get promoted over you. XD
And yeah, I class 'everyone wants to jump their bones' as rule breaking, because so often this person becomes the ideal standard of beauty for EVERYBODY, regardless of culture or upbringing. At worst, they skew characters' sexuality entirely. If you have someone like Jack Harkness running around then maybe that's plausible but even then you have to deal with the fact that this person ACTUALLY HAS PHEROMONES. What are the implications of that, and so on? Also, a Sue turning a gay man straight or a Stu turning a lesbian straight is patently gross. That's honestly treating gay and lesbian love as a problem that wants fixing. This goes, too, for turning kinky people vanilla or turning transfolks cis. 'Alternative' sexuality is not a problem that needs fixing.
An example of a situation that can really show Wesleyism or not: supposing your character is crashing with an old college roommate for a few days. There's roaches at his joint, he needs a place, his friend steps up. This is going to disrupt things. A good guest - yes there are good guest rules, entirely too many people asshat aorund and whine about bad hosts when they have no business doing so - is going to try to make things as easy for the host as possible as the host does for him. There might be conflict - does the host have a significant other? What's the effect on them. If the guest has a HUGE impact and behaves carelessly, and the S.O.'s concerns and the consequences of the gest's actions are handwaved or brushed off or presented as the S.O.'s problem or the S.O. being unreasonable or just a plain bad person, you have Wesley on your hands. If however you get the guest and the S.O. squabbling and the host going BREAK IT UP GUYS and mediating as best he can, and the characters ultimately settle the problem like adults instead of behaving like doofus high schoolers - that works better. It's more realistic. Hell, they don't even have to SETTLE anything, you can keep the conflict going of nerves are chafed andother issues have been brought to the fore. But for pity's sake don't just depict the S.O. as a total dickhead harpy. Abrupt guests are disruptive and a guest who is inconsiderate is AWFUL. There are certainly grap hosts, but if your character is Wesleyriffic then it's not going to be the host and S.O. who turn out looking unreasonable. Trust me on this one. I've borne witness to this kind of a thing.
If Wesley is the host of course the guest is going to be depicted as an asshat, or possibly the S.O. as a jealous douche.
Wes doesn't have to face consequences. He lives blame-free. It's never his fault even when it really IS. His life is charmed. And so he really cannot live like common people [/shatner], because he doesn't want to even when he says he does. What he wants is all the perks and joys of living like joe schmoes, but without all the work involved. It's really the authorly equivalent of 'slumming'. Everyone else is beneath Wes somehow. So if Wes is like a famous superhero who says he wants to just be an ordinary Yamada Tarou but he just can't stop expecting the perks that came with fame and acts all entitled and coasts on his reputation, he's going to look the right asshole to the reader. Even if you the writer of Wes don't think he's being unreasonable...?
Try walking in the shoes of characters who are not Wes. XD It's an enlightening thing. Personally I was really BAA about Suetacularity as a kid and so now I try my best to go 'okay if I was Vicky I'd see THIS, if I was Nick though I'd think THAT way' and work my way around the situation thus.
The bottom line is this: rules apply to everyone's ass. Everyone has to face consequences for their shit, no one is free of karma etc. etc. If your character screws up, is disruptive, is careless, makes a mistake or otherwise acts like an ordinary person, handle that as you would the action of any other character. Let them NOT be vindicated. Have them be wrong but self righteously upset anyhow because it's their pride that's stung. Don't always have a hady scapegoat! Blaming the villain's fuckery for every error Wes makes is - cheating XD; And it makes the villain look kinda weak too. Not real bright. if however the villain's taking advantage of the character's errors or the consequences of their unaddressed business to start shit, that'll make them seem a lot more cunning and a lot more of a force to be reckoned with.
There is no such thing as a consequence free life, and blessing your hero with one is not going to make your work enjoyable for readers. Hell, even Superman, lord of boyscouts, does not have it easy. Aerith, who's often called infallible by detractors (I disagree with that but that's not the point XD), doesn't have it easy and the game does not treat this as woe-is-her because Aerith doesn't. Her optimism probably makes people think she is weird. She sure weirds Cloud out a ton, and neither of them are depicted as evilbadwrong - Aerith for talking him into a dress or Cloud for being not sure about this dress thing. Sometimes neither party's right or wrong and a situation just IS. Sometimes people disagree and neither are all correct or all incorrect.
Life is not not not not as clear cut as Wesleyfic makes it appear to be. That kind of fic sets up a huge us 'n them dichotomy, and for someone like me who's been the 'them' for ages it ain't fun. If the author was also the 'them' it boggles my mind, because if you know what it's like to be 'them' why would you inflict it on someone else? Probably wish fulfillment. But being the 'us' doesn't feel real good for real long, is all. And honestly we should be outgrowing that shit. it's not a healthy behavioural model/schema/what word do I want here I don't know.
Once again I find myself unable to manage a coherent conclusion. So, yeah. Just make everyone follow the same rules and be bound by the same laws of existence and we'll be FINE.
ETA: I have no idea why I feel the need to babble about this but the Sudden Roomie example came about in part because that keeps happening to one of my cousins (though her roomies don't suck and I was listening to One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer which sees the narrator failing to be allowed to crash with his buddy. One Bourbon really doesn't make any bones about the fact that the narrator is pretty much a lazy punkass. He gets out of paying rent by making eyes at the landlady, parties all night, and so on. Which is basically the punchline, he's the architect of his own fail. And he seems to know it. Compare and contrast this dude with Wesley. Seriously I'd rather hang around with Bourbon guy, he's less entitled.
What I am trying to say is: passive aggressive pot-shots at me implying that I'm some kind of bandwagon hater can go fall down a hole. XD I didn't even know there were entire fanboy hate parades; I was never active in or part of online TNG fandom. My perspective on the guy is informed by my experience as a minigeek on the sofa asking my dad what Warp 5 meant since I got into the show in medias res.)
Okay so - I've determined through my own meandering experience and the commentary and snark of friends that one of the hallmarks of a Sue/Stu/Wesley is the fact that they get to have their cake and eat it too.
It's like this: they are wish fulfillment and they often have everything the writer doesn't/didn't/wants. As such, they rarely have to follow the rules that govern other characters - there's a sliding moral scale and it usually tips in their favour. They do not have to face the consequences of their actions, and if they are punished we are 'asposedta' not like the disciplinarian. They rarely face criticism or critique and when they do we're supposed to believe that the critic is a baby-eater. Everyone else will rise against the critic and run them out of the room, at best. Usually this is the author's desire for vindication against their perceived opponents saying yo 'sup.
This is all well and good and awesome for Wesley and Wesley's author, but - it's not so much fun for the reader. It can feel voyeuristic, or exclusionary.
The bottom line is that Wesley writers don't seem to stop to think what life is like for the people who aren't Wesley.
Would you like to live in a house with a person who's beyond reproach by degree of the people around them? Would you honestly like to deal with someone who cannot take a whit of criticism and is incapable of acknowledging cause-and-effect and thus unable to face the consequences of their actions? Would you seriously like to deal with being ganged up on by everyone else for questioning the golden boy?
Because seriously.
From the outside, an IRL 'Wesley' is the dunna nunna nunna nunna LEA-DER of a cult of personality, at best. At worst, he is abusive, and has basically ass kicked or manipulated everyone around him into responding in outrage to the idea that he's a fallible human being like the rest of us schmoes. I have seen setups like this in real life and they're really frightening to witness. People will just beat the shit out of themselves for questioning their charismatic superteam leader, and heaven help the halpess nong who isn't on the sentai team and who points out that IRL!Wes isn't as rad as he thinks he is.
Whenever Wes - IRL o fic - fouls up like damn, the world stops so he can be brought back up again. Everybody else's problems and other outlying plot lines get ignored. Again, dealing with this in real life - with a person for whom the world MUST STOP every time something goes awry for them - is crazymaking.
A lot of people HAVE dealt with this crap, so reading Wes-fic is decidedly un-fun for them. And you know, that is not THEIR PROBLEMBAWW. Even if something didn't occur to the author, it might occur to the reader. A reader is going to have her/his own take on things and dropping anvils isn't going to do anything but have the opposite effect. Sure, tinhattedness exists (see the great Harry Potter shipwars, still ongoing, and the FF7 fandom ship kerfuffles), but you cannot dismiss all alternative readings of your work as tinhatting.
Like I said a lot of people have lived these situations, whether via an asshole roomie or a cracked out cosplay group leader or a cliqueboss. Form the outside looking in, Wes is not Captain Awesome. He's kind of a dick.
Wesley breaks the rules of the world and doesn't have to face consequences, and watching someone like that get away with shit you never could is so SO annoying. it's like watching an asshat co-worker whose weight you are always pulling get promoted over you. XD
And yeah, I class 'everyone wants to jump their bones' as rule breaking, because so often this person becomes the ideal standard of beauty for EVERYBODY, regardless of culture or upbringing. At worst, they skew characters' sexuality entirely. If you have someone like Jack Harkness running around then maybe that's plausible but even then you have to deal with the fact that this person ACTUALLY HAS PHEROMONES. What are the implications of that, and so on? Also, a Sue turning a gay man straight or a Stu turning a lesbian straight is patently gross. That's honestly treating gay and lesbian love as a problem that wants fixing. This goes, too, for turning kinky people vanilla or turning transfolks cis. 'Alternative' sexuality is not a problem that needs fixing.
An example of a situation that can really show Wesleyism or not: supposing your character is crashing with an old college roommate for a few days. There's roaches at his joint, he needs a place, his friend steps up. This is going to disrupt things. A good guest - yes there are good guest rules, entirely too many people asshat aorund and whine about bad hosts when they have no business doing so - is going to try to make things as easy for the host as possible as the host does for him. There might be conflict - does the host have a significant other? What's the effect on them. If the guest has a HUGE impact and behaves carelessly, and the S.O.'s concerns and the consequences of the gest's actions are handwaved or brushed off or presented as the S.O.'s problem or the S.O. being unreasonable or just a plain bad person, you have Wesley on your hands. If however you get the guest and the S.O. squabbling and the host going BREAK IT UP GUYS and mediating as best he can, and the characters ultimately settle the problem like adults instead of behaving like doofus high schoolers - that works better. It's more realistic. Hell, they don't even have to SETTLE anything, you can keep the conflict going of nerves are chafed andother issues have been brought to the fore. But for pity's sake don't just depict the S.O. as a total dickhead harpy. Abrupt guests are disruptive and a guest who is inconsiderate is AWFUL. There are certainly grap hosts, but if your character is Wesleyriffic then it's not going to be the host and S.O. who turn out looking unreasonable. Trust me on this one. I've borne witness to this kind of a thing.
If Wesley is the host of course the guest is going to be depicted as an asshat, or possibly the S.O. as a jealous douche.
Wes doesn't have to face consequences. He lives blame-free. It's never his fault even when it really IS. His life is charmed. And so he really cannot live like common people [/shatner], because he doesn't want to even when he says he does. What he wants is all the perks and joys of living like joe schmoes, but without all the work involved. It's really the authorly equivalent of 'slumming'. Everyone else is beneath Wes somehow. So if Wes is like a famous superhero who says he wants to just be an ordinary Yamada Tarou but he just can't stop expecting the perks that came with fame and acts all entitled and coasts on his reputation, he's going to look the right asshole to the reader. Even if you the writer of Wes don't think he's being unreasonable...?
Try walking in the shoes of characters who are not Wes. XD It's an enlightening thing. Personally I was really BAA about Suetacularity as a kid and so now I try my best to go 'okay if I was Vicky I'd see THIS, if I was Nick though I'd think THAT way' and work my way around the situation thus.
The bottom line is this: rules apply to everyone's ass. Everyone has to face consequences for their shit, no one is free of karma etc. etc. If your character screws up, is disruptive, is careless, makes a mistake or otherwise acts like an ordinary person, handle that as you would the action of any other character. Let them NOT be vindicated. Have them be wrong but self righteously upset anyhow because it's their pride that's stung. Don't always have a hady scapegoat! Blaming the villain's fuckery for every error Wes makes is - cheating XD; And it makes the villain look kinda weak too. Not real bright. if however the villain's taking advantage of the character's errors or the consequences of their unaddressed business to start shit, that'll make them seem a lot more cunning and a lot more of a force to be reckoned with.
There is no such thing as a consequence free life, and blessing your hero with one is not going to make your work enjoyable for readers. Hell, even Superman, lord of boyscouts, does not have it easy. Aerith, who's often called infallible by detractors (I disagree with that but that's not the point XD), doesn't have it easy and the game does not treat this as woe-is-her because Aerith doesn't. Her optimism probably makes people think she is weird. She sure weirds Cloud out a ton, and neither of them are depicted as evilbadwrong - Aerith for talking him into a dress or Cloud for being not sure about this dress thing. Sometimes neither party's right or wrong and a situation just IS. Sometimes people disagree and neither are all correct or all incorrect.
Life is not not not not as clear cut as Wesleyfic makes it appear to be. That kind of fic sets up a huge us 'n them dichotomy, and for someone like me who's been the 'them' for ages it ain't fun. If the author was also the 'them' it boggles my mind, because if you know what it's like to be 'them' why would you inflict it on someone else? Probably wish fulfillment. But being the 'us' doesn't feel real good for real long, is all. And honestly we should be outgrowing that shit. it's not a healthy behavioural model/schema/what word do I want here I don't know.
Once again I find myself unable to manage a coherent conclusion. So, yeah. Just make everyone follow the same rules and be bound by the same laws of existence and we'll be FINE.
ETA: I have no idea why I feel the need to babble about this but the Sudden Roomie example came about in part because that keeps happening to one of my cousins (though her roomies don't suck and I was listening to One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer which sees the narrator failing to be allowed to crash with his buddy. One Bourbon really doesn't make any bones about the fact that the narrator is pretty much a lazy punkass. He gets out of paying rent by making eyes at the landlady, parties all night, and so on. Which is basically the punchline, he's the architect of his own fail. And he seems to know it. Compare and contrast this dude with Wesley. Seriously I'd rather hang around with Bourbon guy, he's less entitled.
no subject
I don't know - I always think that conflicts in fanfic tends to be handled poorly. You've got the "everyone's wrong but me" sliding into character bashing or pointless angst. You have the "happy sunshine butterflies" sliding into saccharine stickiness. You have the "It's a utopia / Captain Awesome" but it's anything but -
I wonder if it's just hard to see the problems in it?
no subject
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! HA. HAAAAAAAA.
*headdesk*
no subject
*HUGS*
no subject
This is pretty good analysis, though.
no subject
Wil Wheaton is pretty awesome, too.
no subject
Thank god none of that made it on the internet.
no subject
Of course I was also a little girl that thought Wil Wheaton was dreamy, which probably had a lot to do with why I never gave a shit. But I also watched SeaQuest, even after the mermaid shit, and way after it jumped the shark, solely for Jonathan Brandis, so you really can't trust my judgment on these things. *pours out a Mt. Dew for him*
no subject
And this is a great summary of the reasons Wottaguys don't work.
no subject
Also - well, some people have pitched giant fits at me when I use the terms Sue or Stu. Like they'll demand to know why I am comparing badfic to like, massive destruction of property WHEN I NEVER DID but yeah XD;
I'm glad it made sense I mean, from the outside perspective - which one usually is in because a Wottaguy or Wottagal is not a character the reader gets to identify with mostly - these characters are self righteous jerks. And if you've seen a lot of unhealthy relationships where people DO just defend the golden boy by default? yeah, it gets hinky.