What questions did you remove, then?
Also known as Katz
Just the old #31 ("is your character smarter than everyone else?") and conflated the old #19 with #18 (where it was previously anyway).
edited 17th Oct '11 12:05:41 AM by jewelleddragon
The future of warfare in UC.
So apparently Samuel al-Faddil is understated at 6 or possibly 5 points. I'm not sure I believe that. There were a number of questions that I was unsure how to interpret so I created a parenthetical score to handle them as well; corrections on the intent are welcome. Detailed breakdown as follows.
Also seriously, formatting, I give up.
Section 1: Author Avatars 1. Does your character look a lot like you? No. 2. Does your character have the same name as you, or a name that is a variant of yours, such as a nickname or different spelling? (Score two points for this question.) No. 3. Does your character have the same job as you or study the same subject in school? No. 4. Does your character have a job or skill that you really wish you had? No. 5. Does your character share strong opinions and beliefs with you? Some but not all. Take the point to be safe. 1 a. Does he or she often state these opinions, argue with other characters about them, or try to win them over? His opinions are actually considered somewhat barbaric. No.
Section 2: Woobies 6. Is your character an orphan? No.
- a. Did he or she not know it? No.
- b. Were one or both parents killed tragically, especially by the bad guy? No.
- c. Has your character sworn revenge for their deaths? No.
- a. Was his or her entire town destroyed? No.
- b. Was his or her entire country or planet destroyed? No.
- a. Was it your character's fault? No. The Team CO did something stupid and got killed, the 2IC cracked up and ordered something even more stupid. Samuel was still enlisted then.
- b. Does he or she only think it was his or her fault? No.
- c. Does everyone else try to convince him or her it wasn't his or her fault? No.
- a. Something that wasn't his or her fault? No.
- b. Does everyone else try to convince him or her that it wasn't his or her fault? No.
Section 3: Awesomeness 20. Is your character part of a race/species that is not the most common for his or her location? No. I assume this is like elves or Constructs rather than different groups of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, though. If I'm wrong then we're at a parenthetical (5). a. Is your character's race especially rare (less than 1% of the population)? No. b. Is your character's race completely unknown in that place, or previously undiscovered? No. 21. Is your character a hybrid of two races? No. a. Three or more races? No. b. With the benefits of all of them, but none of the weaknesses? (Score five points for this question.) No. 22. Is your character unusually attractive? No. His appearance is exotic to the setting, being Arabic-descended in fair-skinned society, but he's not considered attractive, merely unusual.
- a. Do other characters comment on it? No. Not aloud, anyways; most of them take note of it because he's easily recognizable.
- b. Does your character glow or sparkle? No.
- a. Or is the outfit sexy and revealing? No. It's concealing and unsexy in fact!
- b. Is it impractical for the setting? No. It's a uniform created by canonical work in the setting.
- c. Do you wish you had your character's outfit? No. All those layers would be too warm for most stuff.
- a. A long-lost heir or similar? Not in the slightest.
- a. One earned by some feat of great renown? No.
- a. More than one thing? No.
- b. Without a good explanation? No.
- a. Faster than anyone has ever learned that skill? No.
- b. Does he or she defeat the master who taught him or her those skills? (Skip this question if the mentor is old and infirm or has otherwise lost some of his or her skills.) No.
Section 3a: Setting-Specific Uniqueness 36. Does your character have an unusual name? No.
- a. Does it have it contain apostrophes, hyphens, non-English (or whatever language you are writing in) letters, or is it otherwise near-unpronounceable? No.
- b. Is it a word that isn't usually a name? No.
- c. Is it a name usually given to the opposite gender (not counting names that work for both genders, like Sam and Jordan)? No.
- d. More than three names, not counting titles? No.
- a. More than one? No.
- a. More than one? No.
- b. Is it a mythical or supernatural creature? No.
- a. As far more important than larger threats? No.
- a. Does the world behave differently around him- or her (flowers blooming, the sun coming out, etc)? No.
Section 5: Reactions and Consequences 65. Does everyone automatically like your character? No.
- a. Everyone except villains, who automatically hate him or her? No.
- b. Do people obsess over him or her (following him or her around, wanting to be just like him or her, etc)? No.
- c. Even if your character is mean to him or her? No.
- b. Is it obsessive hate? No.
- c. Does everyone else in the story hate them for it? No.
- d. Does something bad happen to people who dislike your character, especially ironically? No.
- e. Does the person who disliked him or her die (not counting villains)? No.
- f. Would he or she have died, but your character saves him or her? No.
- a. Does your character get to have sex with lots of other characters? No. As far as the story goes he's been celibate.
- b. Or could he or she if he or she weren't too virtuous? No.
- c. Do people of the wrong sexual orientation fall in love with your character? No.
- d. People who ought to be out of his or her league? No.
- e. Villains or enemies? No.
- a. Through love and/or sex? No.
- a. Does he or she not get in trouble for it? No.
- b. Does he or she convince the authorities that he or she is right? No.
- a. Or does he or she get a cool punishment when other people would get a serious punishment? No.
- b. If he or she does get punished, does the authority figure wish he or she didn't have to punish your character (and only your character)? No.
- a. Alternately, are there no disagreements because everyone knows your character is right? No.
- b. Does something happen that proves him or her right? No.
- c. Is the person who disagreed with him or her punished, especially ironically (skip this and the following if you already counted it in question 67)? No.
- d. Does the person who disagreed die? No.
- e. Would he or she have died, but your character saves him or her? No.
- a. Does he or she convince other people of his or her views? No.
- b. Does he or she change the entire culture to his or her views? No.
- a. Something that no one is allowed to do? No.
- a. If your character does have a job, is he or she never seen actually doing it? No.
- b. If your character is in school, is he or she never seen studying, but always gets good grades? No.
- a. Are his or her only personality flaws stubbornness, impulsiveness, or a bad temper? No.
- b. Are these always justified (he or she only impulsively does the right thing)? No.
- a. Does he or she consider his or her popularity to be a curse? No.
- b. How about his or her exceptional talents? No.
- a. Does your character come back from the dead because the world needs him or her so badly? (Score five points for this question.) No.
Section 6: De-Suifiers 85. Is your character of a different gender from you? No.
- a. A different (real) ethnicity? Yes. 14 (16)
- b. A different sexual orientation? No.
- a. Is he or she a senior (65+ or the equivalent)? No.
- a. Is he or she disfigured in a way that is not cool or sexy? No.
- a. Are there significant negative consequences? No.
- b. Does he or she ever lose a fight against someone of the same or lesser skill level? No.
- c. Does your character ever ignore a problem hoping it will go away (but it doesn't), or give up on something without trying? No.
- a. Does your character get rescued by someone who isn't a love interest? Often. 11 (13)
- a. Does a wrong choice ever lead to negative consequences? Yes. 9 (11)
- b. Does he or she admit that he or she shouldn't have done it and tries to change? Formal apology. 7 (6)
- a. Alternately, is your character in a committed relationship for the whole story with no significant romantic rivals? No.
edited 17th Oct '11 6:58:58 PM by Night
Nous restons ici.
Ahr river
- 6-2
- 9-4
- 10-6
- 11-8
- 11a-10
- 15-12
- 16-14
- 18-16
- 23-18
- 38-20
- 44-22
- 52-25
- 59-28
- 62a-31
- 69-34
- 71-37
- 85-36
- 91-35
- 91a-34
- 91b-33
- 91c-32
- 92-31
- 92a-30
- 93-29
- 93a-28
- 94-27
- 95-26
- 96-25
- 96a-24
- 96b-23
- 97-22
- 98-21
- 99-20
- 100-19
—
...I think I just realized the problem with Nicky. I think he might be an anti-sue.
Or he might just be a shitty character. Who knows.
Read my stories!
Pretentious Git
Hmm, ran this on the protagonist trio from my current project and came out pretty well and balanced with 14, 14, and 13 for the three of them. The team sorcerer had a lead coming out of World Warping, but the other two caught up in Reactions and Consequences with one of them converting an enemy with love, and the other having authority issues that she dodges the bullets on, and they all scored a few points in De-Suifiers.
Then I did it again for two characters from other, darker books, and they both surprised me by scoring 9s. One of them in particular got a lot of points knocked off in De-Suifiers.
What matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too. - F. Rogers.
Felt like arbitrarily bumping this - I still don't think much of Mary Sue tests, but this is the best I've ever seen.
Apparition in the Woods
Let's run the villains through this one...
Seth Williams
Section 1:
- 1. One could conceivably make the argument. +1
- 2. No
- 3. No
- 4. I kind of wish I could be that smart and physically skilled, minus all the accompanying evil. +1
- 5. No
Section 2:
- 6. Even if he was, he's in his 40's, so no.
- 7. Yes. +2
- 8. No.
- 9. No.
- 10. No.
- 11. No.
- 12. No.
- 13. Yes, but more because it's classified than because he particularly cares either way. +2
- 14. No.
- 15. No.
- 16. Seth? Feeling guilty? HA!
- 17. No.
- 18. No.
- 19. No.
Section 3
- 20. No.
- 21. No.
- 22. No.
- 23. Yes. +2
- 24. Yes, very. +2
- a. Assuming knives count, yes. +2
- 25. No.
- 26. Does Badass Longcoat count? +2
- 27. No.
- 28. No.
- 29. No.
- 30. Yes. +2
- 31. No.
- 32. Yes. +2
- 33. Yes. +2
- 34. No.
- 35. No.
Section 3a:
- 36. No.
- 37. No.
- 38. No.
- 39. No.
- 40. No.
- 41. No.
- 42. No.
- 43. No.
- 44. No.
- 45. No.
- 46. No.
- 47. No.
- 48. No.
- 49. No.
- 50. No.
Section 4:
- 51. No.
- 52. No.
- 53. He is the main villain.
- 54: Yes. +3
- 54a. No.
- 55. No.
- 56. He gets fought to a standstill once in a while, and were he to get in a marksmanship contest he'd get his ass handed to him.
- 57. Kind of. He manipulates everyone else into setting off the plot, but doesn't really do much personally unless he absolutely has to. There's a reason I call him the bastard son of Stalin and Iago.
- 58. No.
- 59. Does being scary as hell count as a good reason?
- 60. Since he's the villain, this is kind of a given. +3
- a. His goals are the larger threats.
- 61. No.
- 62. No.
- 63. No.
- 64. No.
Section 5:
- 65. NO.
- 66. No, everyone hates him because he's the sole Complete Monster in an otherwise Gray and Grey setting.
- 67. See above.
- 68. No.
- 69. No.
- 70. Amazingly, no... at least, he won't disobey a direct order.
- 71. No.
- 72. No.
- d: He usually kills them himself or arranges for their death. Again, bastard son of Stalin and Iago.
- 73. No.
- 74. No.
- 75. No.
- 76. No.
- 77. No.
- 78. No.
- 79. No.
- 80. No.
- 81. No.
- 82. No.
- 83. No.
- 84. No.
Section 6:
- 85. No.
- 86. Yes. -1
- 87. No.
- 88. No.
- 89. No.
- 90. No.
- 91. No.
- a. No.
- b. Yes. -1
- c. No.
- 92. Yes. -1
- 93. Yes. -1
- a. Well, they're certainly negative for him. -1
- 94. He's pretty much the only one in the comic who doesn't do this, which is supposed to make him even less likable. Because of that, I'm subtracting a point here anyway. -1
- 95. No.
- 96. He mistreats everyone, villain or not. Hell, his introduction is him essentially pulling a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on a guy over his protests that he has a family to go back to. And don't even get me started on what he does to Ryan. -1.
- 97. N/A.
- 98. No.
- 99. Yes, mostly because the thought of Seth having any kind of love life squicks the hell out of me. -1
- 100. Yes. -1
Total Score: 15.
Whew, I was seriously worried about turning him into a major Villain Sue for a bit there.
Shadowed Philosopher
Did anyone ever finish javascriptizing this? I would probably use it, but it's honestly not worth the effort if I have to keep jumping back and forth between places.
Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)
Since I like to print out my Mary Sue tests and take them on the road for fun, I could... make a PDF version that could be printed out and put all the point values next to the question, and post it on GoogleDocs. I don't know how to use JavaScript, but would that help?
So I ran about ten characters through this test and boy are they understated. Then again, I've seen a lot of Mary Sue tests and know the common pitfalls, but still...
- Ryu Akamura: Chancellor and consort of the Divinissian Empire's empress. Pulls an underground revolution due to a perceived lack of competency in this level of government using questionable methods, with the full knowledge that it will probably overwork his battered body to death.
- Score: 8
- Sora Akamura: Identical twin brother of Ryu and mate of Lien Thi Khang, who are both a form of soul-devouring, animalistic merfolk. Is stoic and can be abrasive, but is really a kind Friend to All Children underneath, and disagrees with his brother's methods.
- Score: 6
- Matthias Cline (teen): A seventeen-year-old who has lived much of his life with a severe heart defect and cardiorespiratory problems, but took them in stride until he met Joseph, a fellow Ill Boy who is actually strong enough to go out and do shit, whereas Matt cannot. In the wake of more frequent absences from school and growing increasingly weaker, Matt is understandably bitter about this.
- Score: 6
- Matthias Cline (adult): A middle-aged blind theater actor who does not seem to have aged past his teenage years, resulting very young women hitting on him without realizing that he's married with a child. Also part fairy, has lightning magic, a ring that augments his energy-sensing abilities to allow him to 'see', and can is actually a rather good fighter. Hates being famous.
- Score: 14
- Elijah Cline: Matt's older triplet brother by a few minutes. Is a phenomenally good artist, but is also kind of batshit crazy due to seizure-induced brain damage. He loves his art more than his life or health, and thus has a strong phobia of mental institutions, places of medicine, or other places where his art could be taken away from him. Kind of paranoid, and afraid that anyone, strangers and close loved ones alike, could report him.
- Score: 3
- Vinicio Acquati: A slightly eccentric, fantastically wealthy scientist who, through a lab accident, has been infected with an alien virus that is slowly overtaking his body. In the meantime, he gains the powers of a god. Father of Matthias and Elijah and has a lab colleague in the form of Adrian Kunstler, but the two do not really like each other.
- Score: 17
- Doctor Adrian Kunstler: A Russian-German virologist who lived through two world wars and lost his wife and daughter to the second, but he's pretty much gotten over it by the time the story begins. Smiles near-constantly and has a tendency to do what can pretty much be called trolling to people that he despises. Does not really like Acquati. Also heavily muscled, quite handsome for having stopped aging at fifty, and is a master of physical combat.
- Score: 9
- Cyrus Favonius: A former peasant turned priest of an ancient religion whose main job involves exorcisms. Those who do not practice this religion tend to find its doctrines (such as the priests' required prayer tattoos and vows of celibacy) barbaric in comparison with more common faiths, and people are a little scared to ask them to help with paranormal problems. Nevertheless, he seems happy with his job.
- Score: 7
- Lien Thi Khang: Sora's mate, a centuries-old mermaid with beauty and youth evocative of a Trophy Wife. However, she is amoral, animalistic, and cares only for husband and egg, disregarding the thoughts and wishes of victims that she devours the soul of.
- Score: 12
- Vincent Guillory: An AU, depowered version of Vinicio Acquati transplanted into 1790s France. Guillory is an eccentric Renaissance Man who was discredited from the scientific community due to his dealings with magic, forcing him to move across the country to a farm in Marseilles. Can seem dreamy, reclusive, and almost mad at times, yet is a genius nonetheless.
- Score: 9
Drummer Boy
I might be able to make an Excel spreadsheet.
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
The Web Wanderer
My quick yay/nay on if a character is a Sue is the amount of change they enact upon the world vs the amount of change the world enacts on them. If it's more than a hair over 1:1, then you're gonna be walking uphill to explain to me why your lead is not a Sue, or Jesus in Purgatory.
Does that make Jesus as portrayed by The Bible a Sue? I really dunno, and I don't want to start a flame war about it. Let he who is without sin, as they say.
My webzone.
Drummer Boy
Spreadsheet should be up by tomorrow morning.
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
vigilantly taxonomish
^^ How do you measure "change enacted" in objective terms, though?
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The Web Wanderer
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Very carefully. 
You're generally introduced to characters and settings a lot over the course of the story, but there are five big points to keep aware of. Our first impressions, when something happens, somewhere near the middle, within the darkest hour, and our closing impressions. A character or the setting has to do a bunch of changing to accommodate the other during any given time, and there has to be an active give and take. If the setting does all the changing and the character stays the same, then odds are that the author is just writing the story as a vehicle for the pet lead to do awesome things. If the character is completely decimated when the setting stays the same, it's probably Russian a Deconstruction of the standard dynamic of what should happen. Somewhere between those two ends, we have things moving back and forth between character and settings, and the more things that shake around in both the world and the characters, the more dynamic a story it is. This would be closer to the Reconstruction end of the scale, with mutual change throughout the story, as well as where your average guy does stuff tale lies, with the changes in the character being mirrored in the real world by his own actions.
I dunno, right now I'm having a love-hate relation with Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality, I dislike mostly because tweaks Harry so that he can get through all the standard character trappings with no problem and can match wits with just about everyone except Dumbledore and Quirrel with no problem, but it doesn't make him an out and out Sue because he's has a massive God Complex about being the Science Man in the land of puny Wizards, and has about as much social skill as a bag of rocks when genuinely trying to communicate with someone. So it's part Harry vs. the Wizardry World, and Harry vs. his Dark Lord nature, but it's at an extremely low boil, so that both Harry and Hogwarts at large are taking their sweet old time accommodating each other, and that's throwing me for a bit of a loop. Not gonna try and say if that's bad or good, but it's making it hard to place on my scale, and it makes me uncomfortable about what to make of it, obvious overtones about rationality aside.
My webzone.
Drummer Boy
And this is where I pass out and hope I didn't fuck up anything.
Some of the formatting for the instructions and such might look weird, but I had to shove them into their own cells on Google Docs because it cuts them off, unlike Microsoft Excel.
edited 19th Feb '12 11:06:32 PM by SnowyFoxes
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
That looks...confusing.
How are we supposed to answer the questions? The instructions didn't explain a damn thing.
EDIT: Okay, we're apparently supposed to download the file. What file should we download it as?
edited 20th Feb '12 12:44:08 AM by Rynnec
Drummer Boy
Download it as an Excel spreadsheet so the formula still works. Downloading as Openoffice should do that as well, but I don't use Openoffice so I can't test that.
If you say "yes" to the question, look at its point value. Type that point value into the space in the score column. Everything will be added up at the end.
edited 20th Feb '12 7:24:33 AM by SnowyFoxes
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
I only have one problem with this test in the De Sueifier section. How is multiple personality disorder friggin cool? If you play it seriously and realitsically it should not be cool. By that logic, ANY mental disorder that some immature 14 year old thinks would be "fun" wouldn't count.
As far as scores go, I was nervous when I first started but all my characters came out under 10 points. Why do I always get so worked up about these things?
edited 17th Jun '12 3:19:57 PM by JewelyJ
According to several other tests (the Springhole test comes to mind), some writers use MPD as an excuse for their player to do reprehensible or downright evil shit so that their character can have a claim to innocence. Example:
Krystallyne: Huh? I didn't do that; that was Dark'ness's fault! You're wrong!
Alice: ...Oh. Sorry. ; - ;
Though I've never actually heard of it happening myself.
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
Also known as Katz
Handled properly and realistically, multiple personality disorder would be a serious problem and not cool at all. But handled properly, any disorder would be a serious problem, up to and including sex addiction: that's why they're disorders. But in fiction, these are rarely treated realistically and often used because they seem cool, exotic, or plot-expedient. (And it's a de-suifier anyway: the point is that Mary Sues are pretty much never autistic or developmentally delayed, whereas it's perfectly possible for them to have multiple personalities.)
Snowyfoxes, while you are made of pure liquid awesome for putting this together, I've downloaded this as a .xls and I still can't make it work. In fact I don't see a score column at all.
Ah I see.
(Though in my stupider days I did use Asperger Syndrom something I have as an excuse for my Japanese Sue to use honorifics all the time. Excessive politeness/formalness or something...I dunno I might just die of humiliation if anyone else connected that to me.
edited 17th Jun '12 3:20:50 PM by JewelyJ
Drummer Boy
Really? Huh. Did it show up on Google?
EDIT: Apparently it decided to disappear when I was uploading it.
edited 20th Feb '12 10:25:37 AM by SnowyFoxes
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
Drummer Boy
For some reason, it got shifted over one column or something. I also put the formula back in, because that disappeared as well.
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
I added/changed a couple of questions to section 3 with an eye towards non-fantasy characters. They are #25 and #31 (the numbering of 18-25 has changed consequently).
Those are the last changes I'm planning to make, so as far as I'm concerned it's OK for Javascripting.