The Mary Sue Line in your work.

Called the "Able Line" for those familiar with the SCP series.

Basically, what would a mary sue look like in a fan work of your work?

My now-defunct fantasy setting: This setting had its problems, one of which was Tinaj-Morek; A stygian elf historian and immensely powerful mage. Without Who Wants to Live Forever? or any other meaningful flaws, including moral flaws, despite the fact that he had once been a lieutenant to the setting's original Dark Lord, he was pretty much a Canon Sue. Anyone better than him would be one without some very good writing to prevent it.

My Superhero setting: A sue would have to be

• Stronger than Jagannath, a Posthumous Character slain by an Alex Mercer Expy
• More unkillable than Carnifex, that same expy
• More philosophical than Zarathustra
• More badass than Wisp, and
• More goth than Creepy Doll.

The Canvas: Actually, everyone here is pretty much a high-powered escapist character anyway, but a sue would be someone who was dropped in knowing what was going on, easily navigating the Masque, powerleveling through the Devoid, effortlessly finding the components to their gate in the Collage, obviating the Coliseum by rallying everyone else to their side, and oneshotting Yggdrassil.

Let's hear yours.

edited 29th May '11 10:18:23 AM by AngryBob

My Sues would look and act like Greek gods. Because they are Greek gods. I HAVE DOZENS OF SUES IN MY WORK AND NO ONE CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT BECAUSE HISTORY, YO.

Someone who could manage to stop the God of Creation without getting rid of his omnipotence.

More powerful than Gregor or Baraqiel, prettier than Ianto, more incorruptible than Sed, more badass than Evan the Grey, cleverer than Ariadne or Timon, more miserable than Perry...

Sweet Jesus.

edited 29th May '11 11:55:54 AM by JHM

Well, the Mary Sue would have the ability to control both men and women of both genders, be a reincarnated god/dess, get more powers by killing random stuff, regenerate like insane, be immune to said gender controlling powers, and phase in and out of physical reality.

She'd probably carry some of the impractical joke weapons that are too heavy for a normal person to carry too.

While different character have those powers mentioned above to some extent, none of them have all of them and the ones they do have are pretty tame.

Let's see...

They'd probably win over Richard, The Stoic, be a better strategist than young Aaron (who's a bright, natural talent), and be a clone just like Karlo without suffering all the repercussions (being hated by the Revolutionaries, not being a perfect human because she was created by an imperfect human), saving her scientist/creator from the civil war and also ending the Sentrian Civil War with her Words of Wisdom.

Oh Lord, that's gonna give me nightmares. There's probably more traits I missed, but I can't think of anymore right now. It's bad enough! D:

Just for starters

• Stronger than Skyline(resident Flying Brick, second strongest in recorded history).
• Faster than Ring Jet(resident SuperSpeedster)
• Smarter than BlackFox(super-genius) and Exabyte(natural mega-genius) put together.
• If female, able to seduce Break, Frankie and/or Adrian(all homosexual males).
• Able to convince Barrage that it's not All About Him(self-explanatory).
• Knows Beta's real name(Only his closest friends and family know it), and has managed to endear him/herself to Beta with little to no trouble (Beta's not exactly the nicest person when it comes to strangers).

edited 29th May '11 12:10:34 PM by Anaheyla

Oh right, thanks to the whole Law VS Chaos motif in my story, the Sue would probably also either be an angel like being to smite the evil of the world and bring sparkly goodness or be a half demon thingy out to have lots of orgies, technically not rapes, and carry along the whole super power package that would normally result in absolute meltdown if anyone tried to do that much.

Damn, my story just has a set of powers just waiting to be abused.

EDIT: Or she could be a human/angel/hybrid thing with all of the above!

edited 29th May '11 12:13:15 PM by Usht

Hm.

• They will be female.
  • She would be even prettier than Lien, Chiara, Lily, Haruka, and Selene.
  • She would hook up with Vince, Adrian, Eli, Matt, Rafi, or more than one of them.
  • She would be an even stronger fighter than Adrian.
  • She'll be able to use all eight elements of magic, and be the greatest magic user EVAR!
  • If she views Vince as a villainous jerk (which he is to a degree) she'll somehow make him publicly admit his inferiority to her.
  • If she disagrees with Kiyoi's methods and reasons for cleaning corruption out of the government, she'll coerce all of the people in the government to either leave or get off of their magic addictions, then proceed to call Kiyoi obsolete.
    • If the above doesn't occur, she'll completely ignore his existence, because Old People Are Useless.
  • She will kill Akura, or shame him into committing seppuku.
  • If she hates Akura, Kiyoi, or Vince, one of them will be removed from the compass rose statue in Allista square- which features each of them looking out in one of the cardinal directions -the one she hates the most will be replaced with her.

That was fun.

I technically have a Mary Sue (Well, a parody one) in my original story. She technically follows the rules of the universe by having one ability, but since her ability is Mega Manning, it's a bit of a story breaker. She also has common Mary Sue traits with golden hair, violet eyes, gag boobs and her parents are dead.

...Except her parents were killed because the bad guys wanted to use her for her ability and they'd get in the way, she's forced to work for the bad guys because she's too damn spineless to try standing up for them, and I can actually sympathize with her a bit. What. I guess that makes her a deconstruction?

An actual Mary Sue in my universe would either ignore the one power per person rule I have established or would have a story breaking ability like the aforementioned Mega Manning.

A mary sue with violent eyes would be pretty awesome.

(S)He'd be able to out-gambit the Director, which is basically a Story-Breaker Power all on its own. (Especially since the Director's Xanatos Gambit s are the fuel that underpins the entire canon.)

edited 29th May '11 1:31:42 PM by Yej

Let me think this out:

• More charming than Ian Down. If a character knows more famous people than him in a shorter period of time, that crosses the line too.
• Having a more mysterous set of parents than Devver (he beats out on Naruto in this apartment department).
  • By extension, being more charismatic than him.
• Get away with either Sweet Polly Oliver or being transgender than Alexis.
• Being able to warp reality better than Joel.
• Having better cybernetics than Seat Two of the Cyborg Association
  • Or being less agnstier than Percy (from another work).
• Being more of a Chessmaster than Justin, being more insane than him, and getting away with controlling everyone better than him.
  • Being more of a Hollywood Genius than any of the masterminds in Justin's story.
• Being more powerful than AnA.

And lastly.

• Being more powerful than The Author himself. It's literally impossible.

All of these characters get away with these sueish traits because they fall behind in other apartments, and the focus drifts to other characters too.

edited 29th May '11 2:42:08 PM by chihuahua0

Other "apartments"?

Well, my previous work was a Naruto fanfic that already had a Mary Sue, so we'll go with my currently planned work:

• Would have to be able to out-fight Keaira
• Would be prettier than Lena
• Better swordsman than Yuki or Leo
• Better strategist than Mordecai.

That said, my world is pretty high-power, with quite a few lesser deities and demigods running around, so a Sue would basically have to bend the fabric of reality (Which, come to think of it, fits the definition, doesn't it?)

I once worked on a setting that explicitly used Power Levels, which were normally 2s and 3s. The greatest hero was a 9, and the villain, of course, went Up To Eleven. Due to the way the system worked, it would theoretically be possible (albeit extremely unlikely) to have a mentally unstable Jerk Sue reach a power level of 20. This would probably require them to have been Mind Raped at least once, thus making them a Sympathetic Sue as well (and God-Mode Sue almost goes without saying.)

Let's see... what traits would a Suenyaverse Mary Sue have?

• Is a Pure Soul, almost certainly, and from Earth, even though there is canonically only one suitable Pure Soul on Earth (Cora).
• If not, she's probably from Earth anyway, and a total Instant Expert when it comes to magic. Even if she's not a Pure Soul, she has the proficiency of one.
• Prince Jasper is her One Twu Wuv.
  • Which results in horrible things happening to Cora, who is probably turned evil for this.
• She gets a pet purple drake, because purple drakes are the bestest, she tames it herself (even though that's canonically near-impossible) and it's super-amazing and purple is a sparklier color than red*
  ^{Team Pet Mango is a red drake, which is sort of the Infinity -1 Sword of drake colors}
  anyway.
  • But she builds up a huge army of Wilde anyway, one of which is a Wilde of the author's creation: A winged wolf.
• She has her spellcasting charms on a crown or something else extremely showy.
  • She's also incredibly skilled with a sword or something, thus making Danbarre respect her instantly.
• She's sexier than Mariselle.
• She's able to shut up Boysenberry with a few well-placed words, and he becomes a spineless sycophant to her ever after.
• She discovers later that she has a Secret Legacy in Suenya, and she's actually part human, part elf due to its Genre Blind author not realizing that Our Elves Aren't Better in this universe.

A Wordkeepers-verse Sue would probably be worse:

• If it's not another person realizing they accidentally got their True Name at birth, they're a mage with a ludicrous Family name like "Dragon" or "Wolf" or something else a teenager things sounds "cool."
• They probably also befriend a dragon, for good measure.
• Their Family spell is stupidly powerful and can solve everything.
• They have all the powers of the main characters, only better. She's probably a were-creature, too.
• If Alex, Apollo, or, bizarrely, Nick is not her One Twu Wuv (resulting in Ran turning evil this time, and being killed)...
  • ...She manages to convince everyone that Radston Serpentine is just a poor misunderstoowd cutesy-piepoo who only needs real wuv. Even though his character is that he deliberately cultivates this image in order to manipulate women into doing what he wants, I.E., he ruthlessly weaponizes the Draco in Leather Pants effect.
• Single-handedly defeats a whole bunch of Agency members, then, showing off her powes.

Actually, he or she would probably also be banging Wisp or Zarathustra.

Wisp is a Badass Normal in a world where every Badass Normal before her has been crushed, eaten, atomized, or dismembered. She does what she does specifically because getting close to a super lead to said super's death when she was used as bait. She obsessively avoids getting close to anyone for their and her own safety.

Zarathustra was built as a robot by its creator specifically so that it wouldn't have to worry about human concerns in realizing its role in the world.

Feh, misunderstood thread

For me, the line is simple. Magic Is Evil, and it will destroy you in the end. Any character who breaks that rule, by being good-aligned, sane, and not scared shitless of the Eldritch Abomination that it must constantly feed souls and amuse in order to avoid being devoured, breaks the fundamental essence of what magic is and represents — pure Mary Sue material right there.

Also, the nation of Uel, where much of my story takes place, sits on the equator of a planet orbiting a sun that dwarfs our own in size, luminosity, and power. As a result, the Uelane are a dark-skinned people, and even they do their best to avoid staying out in the sun too long. Meanwhile, the brutal sunburns suffered by the O'Malley family, Alice, Alexander, and various other light-skinned characters who don't pack a lot of sunscreen, are a plot point. So any Uelane Black and White Beauty or Heroic Albino is had better have a damn good plan for not fearing the sun. I mean, I suppose it could be pulled off (some son of a Mauros or one of the various minor nations that make up the Federation), but at least something should be made of not getting scorched.

Thank you, Cygan. I just misstated, it seems.

edited 29th May '11 6:14:11 PM by KillerClowns

...what? Did you post this in the wrong thread or something?

It doesn't seem to have anything to do with Mary Sues, as far as I can tell.

Any character who breaks that rule, by being good-aligned, sane, and not scared shitless of the Eldritch Abomination that it must constantly feed souls and amuse in order to avoid being devoured is a Mary Sue.

So any Uelane Black and White Beauty or Heroic Albino really toes the line.

My characters are already Mary Sues :D But if I were to go over the top...

A Mary Sue would have to be stronger than Zekador, more intelligent than Kassoria, and more compassionate than Nahiira. Also, she would have been born mortal and asscended to immortality and have excellent magic skills as well as swell engineering and fighting prowess.

A Mary Sue of my work...Hmm...I've made up a few for kicks, but if it were somebody else writing a fanwork, then a Sue would likely be:

• Possessing no emotional issues or pathos;
• Ueber-powerful with absolutely no drawbacks, physical or otherwise;
• Be in a stable, happy relationship with no issues - ever;
• Somehow related to every single viewpoint character (7 of them);
• Manage to be completely immersed in the political world, and never have to worry about double-crossing, assissination, or a coup d'etat;
• Give one character back her eyes, arm, and child;
• A second her optimism and her beloved;
• A third proof of worth in his greatly-respected father's eyes;
• A fourth clarity and soundness of mind (if a sociopath can be "cured");
• A fifth power, respect, and his girl;
• A sixth confidence in his decisions and the ability to love his Unwanted Spouse;
• And the seventh no worries about the future of his land or his children;
• Lastly, she would have to be completely immune to threats of blackmail (better, have nothing with which to be blackmailed), assault, and harm to loved ones by the villain - further, actually be immune to the above.

They'd be a cyborg with a nuclear fusion core. And they'd carry sixty quantum processors in their brain. And they'd have the strength of TEN MILLION MEN

I'd say that a Mary Sue for my work-in-progress would have at least one of the following traits:

• A purely 'good' or 'evil' mindset, as the world of Acht Sunden has Grey-and-Gray Morality. Bonus points if they convince the canon characters that pure good/evil actually exists.
• When it comes to having powers...
  • If they were the embodiment of a 'ninth' sin, with powers that may or may not be suspiciously similar to one of the eight already known, and with a completely stable mind.
  • If they had personally killed one of the old embodiments, don't look middle-aged if they're human (since the current human embodiments are all in the mid-20's), and are capable of controlling their gained power without it constantly manifesting as something like a flaming head (like Polonius).
  • If they were an embodiment from the past brought back to life by an artifact that is constantly being fought over, and showing no sign that they ever could have died of anything except old age.
  • If their powers come from any means other than being an illegal clone of a previous embodiment, or the above two means (revival and inheritance).
• If Monya (resident Jerk with a Heart of Gold that prefers to run straight into a battlefield and lose a finger fighting over talking with the enemy forces) or Vodack (crazier than most dog-kicker that's on a personal crusade against the world's even crueler gods) seems to turn into a mellow lamb whenever that never-before-seen Relationship Sue is around.
• If Damien, the Crazy-Prepared embodiment of pride, willingly stands aside so that Mary Tzu can go ahead with her strategum.

If I think of any other ways someone could horribly mess up the world I've dedicated a lot of time into planning out, or if I decide to talk about my not-as-major projects, I'll post again.

edited 29th May '11 9:51:26 PM by EndarkCuli