Aliasing mary_sue → invalid_tag
Link to alias

Reason:

It's a TV Trope that has no purpose here. Potential use for bullying characters, which is never good.

FatherOfGray said:
It's a TV Trope that has no purpose here. Potential use for bullying characters, which is never good.

(Just saying "Trope" would be better)

What about intentional examples, like this?

post #362244

FatherOfGray said:
Aliasing mary_sue → invalid_tag
Link to alias

Reason:

It's a TV Trope that has no purpose here. Potential use for bullying characters, which is never good.

Bad alias, because names.

Halite said:
Bad alias, because names.

In such a rare instance "mary_sue_(character)" can be used.

I'd just alias it to fan_character. Even though that's only meant for franchise characters, it's easier to clean them up from there.

Halite said:
Bad alias, because names.

If we really need one with a name, we can use mary_sue_(character), but I doubt we'd see much of that anyways (unless they're named that way to literally make fun of the character).

parasprite said:
I'd just alias it to fan_character.

Yes, this.

FatherOfGray said:
In such a rare instance "mary_sue_(character)" can be used.

This works, too.

parasprite said:
I'd just alias it to fan_character.

A Mary Sue can be a canon character as well.

The trope is by definition poorly defined.
How about we just remove the tag from anything where the character isn't named mary sue?

Aliases for 9 posts are pointless, and absurd.

Halite said:
The trope is by definition poorly defined.
How about we just remove the tag from anything where the character isn't named mary sue?

Aliases for 9 posts are pointless, and absurd.

Pre-emptives.

None of the images which had it were using it as a character's name. It's also fairly widely known as a slanderous trope term and commentary on a character's ill-concieved underdevelopment or on a story's writing, so most people would avoid using it as an actual name unless it's a parody of that. In which case, it would get the "mary_sue_(character)" tag to distinguish it as being the rare case of it being used as an actual name for the character. We currently don't have anything that qualifies, but if we ever do, that's how we'd handle it.

Only some of them were actual fan_characters, others were not. Fan_character means it's not-canon, but is clearly based on an existing franchise. But some were original characters which are not based on any franchise. Or were parodies of exaggerated character traits and designs of either the stereotype of fan chaarcters, or the 'mary sue' trope...and still not based on any existing franchise.

A lot were added as commentary by taggers over the years, and didn't truly fit the image itself. I tagged out all that was under there into fan_character, parody, and a few other places.

The term itself "mary sue" does have a few definitions, which makes it less clear as a tag. And it tends to be abused for commentary reaction to an image instead of actually tagging what is in the image. It's kind of like "bad_anatomy" was: you can have wonky anatomy in a picture, but having it as a tag doesn't have much benefit while inviting a whole lot of misuse. Mostly though, "mary sue" is a term referencing a set of concepts that fit a lot better in literary discussions, cinema discussions and in writing. An image usually doesn't have enough information about a character's development to identify them as being a "mary sue" by most of the definitions. That mostly leaves the parody use, and that's already covered by the parody tag.

So between the tendency to be misused, the multiple ways/definitions it can be used even with the definition, and the ill-suitedness to an image site, I think invalidating it is probably a good idea.

So, alias to invalidate is approved.