The Princess Diaries (2001) dir. Garry Marshall + trivia
The Importance of Mary Sue
When I was in Ninth Grade, I won a thing.
That thing, in particular, was a thirty dollar Barnes & Noble gift certificate. I was still too young for a part-time job, so I didn’t have this kind of spending cash on me, ever. I felt like a god.
Drunk with power, I fancy-stepped my way to my local B&N. I was ready to choose new books based solely on the most important of qualities…BADASS COVER ART. I walked away with a handful of paperbacks, most of which were horrible (I’m looking at you, Man-Kzin Wars III) or simply forgettable.
One book did not disappoint. I fell down the rabbit hole into a series that proved to be as badass as the cover art promised (Again, Man-Kzin Wars III, way to drop the ball on that one). With more than a dozen books in the series, I devoured them. I bought cassette tapes of ballads sung by bards in the stories. And the characters. Oh, the characters. I loved them. Gryphons, mages, but most importantly, lots of women. Different kinds of women. So many amazing women. I looked up to them, wrote bad fiction that lifted entire portions of dialogue and character descriptions, dreamed of writing something that the author would include in an anthology.
This year I decided in a fit of nostalgia to revisit the books I loved so damn much. I wanted to reconnect with my old friends…
…and I found myself facing Mary Sues. Lots of them. Perfect, perfect, perfect. A fantasy world full of Anakin Skywalkers and Nancy Drews and Wesley Crushers. I felt crushed. I had remembered such complex, deep characters and didn’t see those women in front of me at all anymore. Where were those strong women who kept me safe through the worst four years of my life?
Which led me to an important realization as I soldiered on through book after book. That’s why I needed them. Because they were Mary Sues. These books were not written to draw my attention to all the ugly bumps and whiskers of the real world. They were somewhere to hide. I was painfully aware that I was being judged by my peers and adults and found lacking. I was a fuckup. And sometimes a fuckup needs to feel like a Mary Sue. As an adult, these characters felt a little thin because they lacked the real world knowledge I, as an adult, had learned and earned. But that’s the thing…these books weren’t FOR this current version of myself. Who I am now doesn’t need a flawless hero because I’m comfortable with the idea that valuable people are also flawed.
There is a reason that most fanfiction authors, specifically girls, start with a Mary Sue. It’s because girls are taught that they are never enough. You can’t be too loud, too quiet, too smart, too stupid. You can’t ask too many questions or know too many answers. No one is flocking to you for advice. Then something wonderful happens. The girl who was told she’s stupid finds out that she can be a better wizard than Albus Dumbledore. And that is something very important. Terrible at sports? You’re a warrior who does backflips and Legolas thinks you’re THE BEST. No friends? You get a standing ovation from Han Solo and the entire Rebel Alliance when you crash-land safely on Hoth after blowing up the Super Double Death Star. It’s all about you. Everyone in your favorite universe is TOTALLY ALL ABOUT YOU.
I started writing fanfiction the way most girls did, by re-inventing themselves.
Mary Sues exist because children who are told they’re nothing want to be everything.
As a girl, being “selfish” was the worst thing you could be. Now you live in Narnia and Prince Caspian just proposed marriage to you. Why? Your SELF is what saved everyone from that sea serpent. Plus your hair looks totally great braided like that.
In time, hopefully, these hardworking fanfiction authors realize that it’s okay to be somewhere in the middle and their characters adjust to respond to that. As people grow and learn, characters grow and learn. Turns out your Elven Mage is more interesting if he isn’t also the best swordsman in the kingdom. Not everyone needs to be hopelessly in love with your Queen for her to be a great ruler. There are all kinds of ways for people to start owning who they are, and embracing the things that make them so beautifully weird and complicated.
Personally, though, I think it’s a lot more fun learning how to trust yourself and others if you all happen to be riding dragons.
Mary Sues exist because children who are told they’re nothing want to be everything.
A girl making herself the hero of her own story is a radical act. Stop shaming girls for doing it. Stop shaming yourself for it.
Who I am now doesn’t need a flawless hero because I’m comfortable with the idea that valuable people are also flawed.
That… that’s important. So’s this whole post, but I just.. wanted to pull that out for a moment and look at it a little longer.
btw a lot of harry styles looks hes been praised for being gnc are like. direct copies of juan gabriel's suits
like. Juanga was mocked all his life because he was a fat openly gay man who dressed and acted flamboyantly but now everyone's praising Harry because he's conventionally attractive, white & straight
just learned that magnolias are so old that they’re pollinated by beetles because they existed before bees
They existed *before beetles*
Why is this sad? Why am I sad?
This is how I feel about Joshua Trees. They and avocado trees produce fruit meant to be eaten and dispersed by giant ground sloths. Without them, the Joshua Trees' range has shrunk by 90%.
(my own photos)
Not only they, but the entire Mojave ecosystem is still struggling to adapt since the loss of ground sloth dung. their chief fertilizer.
Many, many trees and plants in the Americas have widely-spaced, extremely long thorns that do nothing to discourage deer eating their leaves, but would've penetrated the fur of ground sloths and mammoths. Likewise, if you've observed a tree that drops baseball or softball-sized fruit which lies on the ground and rots, like Osage Oranges, which were great for playing catch at my school, chances are they were ground sloth or mammoth chow.
You can read about various orphaned plants and trees missing their megafauna in this poignant post:

First quote from the linked article. Found it poetic.
The Lord Of The Rings stars Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd, Sean Astin, and Dominic Monaghan show support for The Rings Of Power cast amid racist backlash: “You are all welcome here”.
The cast of The Rings of Power also posted a statement on the official accounts of the show on social media.
We, the cast of Rings of Power, stand together in absolute solidarity and against the relentless racism, threats, harassment, and abuse some of our castmates of color are being subjected to on a daily basis. We refuse to ignore it or tolerate it.
JRR Tolkien created a world which, by definition, is multi-cultural. A world in which free peoples from different races and cultures join together, in fellowship, to defeat the forces of evil. Rings of Power reflects that. Our world has never been all white, fantasy has never been all white, Middle-earth is not all white. BIPOC belong in Middle-earth and they are here to stay.
Finally, all our love and fellowship go out to the fans supporting us, especially fans of colour who are themselves being attacked simply for existing in this fandom. We see you, your bravery, and endless creativity. Your cosplays, fancams, fan art, and insights make this community a richer place and remind us of our purpose. You are valid, you are loved, and you belong. You are an integral part of the LOTR family – thanks for having our backs.
Namárië
Someone else will probably already have said this in the notes, but in case they haven’t:
If you buy You’re All Welcome Here products (which include everything from shirts to stickers) from the guy who’s made them, Don Marshall, 50% of the proceeds will go towards organizations supporting POC. I’m not very clear on the details tbh because I’ve yet to look into it, but here’s the site:
I think now that queens dead they should have her stuffed and put on display in Cairo for the next 150 years.
BLAZE REJECTED MY POST WOW LOL
We'll make sure at least 100k people see it for free then.
have you ever seen a fictional male character that is obviously designed by straight people to be ugly as possible but you KNOW would be extremely popular with gay men???
Fictional male character: “yeah, i’m not very attractive because i’m big and hairy and i sweat alot haha”
Me and every autistic gay man in the distance:
YOU KNOW WHAT NAH YOUR RIGHT!
[id: screenshots of tiktok captions. the images say, “but the only reason we still love princess diana is because she did not have the time to disappoint us.”]
begging queer kids to read up on princess diana’s involvement with the community. yes, she was a rich, pretty monarch. yes, she died young.
but the reason why queer people love her is because she used her privilege during the aids crisis to advocate for sick queer men, when very few others would - much less someone of her status.
diana spent years advocating for the health and care of queer people with hiv/aids. in 1987, at the height of the epidemic, she opened the first specialist clinic dedicated to treating aids patients (the first clinic of it’s kind in the uk).
she also fought public hysteria by hugging and shaking bare hands with aids patients, at a time when aids was thought to be spread by skin to skin contact. not only that, she visited patients in the clinic regularly and even comforted them through their sickness.
and when queen elizabeth told her to try focusing on “something more pleasant”?
diana ignored her and kept fighting.
and this is only her work towards the aids crisis. she publicly called out the royal family, brought attention to numerous world issues, and was known as an advocate for empathy and kindness. she’s known and loved as the people’s princess for good reason
Diana also literally walked across a minefield (through a lane cleared by the humanitarian organization HALO Trust, which she was promoting, but there was still some risk). She used the paparazzi who always followed her around to raise awareness of the plight of landmine victims in Angola, met with survivors who still talk about her visit, advocated on their behalf to the UN, and then went to other places suffering the same problem.
Her advocacy was instrumental in helping push forward a treaty to ban the use, production, and export of land mines. She was attacked by British politicians for meddling in government policy, but the Ottawa Treaty was signed by 122 countries including the UK three months after her death. One of the anti-landmine groups in which she'd been involved received the Nobel Peace Prize.
I remember the photos of her holding hands with dying AIDS patients, of her sitting by them and listening to them like fellow human beings, at a time when tolerance was radical and most people feared AIDS was transmissible by touch.
I also remember her holding HIV-positive babies, when most people were paranoid about fluids from AIDS patients— and let's face it, babies leak. (There was a brutal subtext to criticism of Diana's AIDS work: was she neglecting, even endangering, the heir(s) to the throne?)
Like Carrie Fisher, Diana wasn't a perfect human being. But she did indeed use her privilege to advocate for and amplify the voices of those with none.
The video camera is plugged into the VCR, allowing it to record itself being poked and prodded.
GIF’d version of Vide-Uhhh! (2005)
twistedlilheart
I will forever consider this one of the coolest but oddly creepiest things.