#this got ... agregiously long !
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So, I'm new to genshin, right (User ID: 664777468 in NA, friend me if you want :)), so I don't have a great roster of characters. Knowing that, I, as a proud Kaeya main(simp), planned one team (Kaeya, Xingqiu, Chongyun, Kazuha), and then planned a second (Kaeya, Bennett, Xiangling, Chongyun) that didn't require many more characters. I'll deal with altering the second team for Spiral Abyss later.
So, of those, I pulled for Bennett on the standard banner (i spent 30 dollars for my impatience) mainly because I quite desperately needed a pyro character that wasn't amber (i hate the bows in this game), and I've been saving up for Kazuha because I know his banner is upcoming. Xingqiu is a 4-star that I'm not willing to do another standard pull for, and I have yet to actually bother with the Spiral Abyss for long enough to get Xiangling.
Now, Chongyun is also a four star, one of the four stars featured on the Yae Miko/Yoimiya banners that are currently on. I had 45 wishes, and I desperately wanted to save enough for double pity for Kazuha, just in case, but I don't have much time to full on grind, so progress has been...disappointingly slow.
So I was like, okay, I'll do one ten pull, see if I get lucky and pull Chongyun. First mistake. It is NEVER, just one ten pull.
But it's purple, maybe I got super lucky — oh it's Fischl
But I pulled a 4 star character, so then I'm like, well, I got a four star right away, so... might as well try again! Maybe I'll get lucky. Remember, I said ONE, it is never just ONE. The pull is another purple — and oh great, it's Yun Jin. A character I actively dislike because of her design.
But, again, she was a 4 star character, so maybe, just MAYBE, I'll get lucky and pull yun yun next! And so, I'm like, I REALLY have to save for Kazuha...but let's do it one more time. Ooh, this one's purple too! Oh... oh it's SACRIFICIAL FRAGMENTS.
(This is extra agregious bc Lisa is my only catalyst user with levels. She's level 3)
At this point, I only have 15 wishes left. Because I wanted to gamble on a four star. I look at it, and I sigh, because I want Chongyun, and I've already wasted 30 wishes, so I'll do it one more time, my LAST ten pull, even though i was trying to SAVE. This one is also purple — and oh thank god HE CAME HOME! MY IMPATIENCE HAS BEEN REWARDED!
This game is dangerous, because I wasn't even like this with Epic Seven. Then again, Epic Seven didn't have 4 stars on banners... i think. If they did it was one of those fine print things that i didn't pay attention to because they made me read and didn't plaster it on the banner itself like Genshin does.
I got my boy, and my pity for Kazuha is intact, so... win-win I guess. I took a risk and I won! I'm never doing this again! ...maybe. hopefully.
Ugh. Back to saving for Kazuha. Pity is at 61, i cut it kinda close, jeez.
Here's my team as of now, I replaced Noelle with Chongyun. She was a great shielder and a competent healer, but my Bennett has enough ER and HP that he's actually a really good healer! Kazuha will be replacing Aether, and then I'll worry about pulling Xingqiu and getting Xiangling. I'm only AR 27 so don't mind the wack levels. I'm also currently crying because I cannot find Cloud Retriever on the stupid rock. I cooked you food you bastard bird stop making me climb this stupid rock over and over looking for you
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☁ * ⋆ : aw, look at this photo! it’s ORION ROCKEFELLER with their family! they’re an ARCHITECT, right? this photo must have been before HIS SON WAS BORN, but after HE RENOVATED ROCKEFELLER MANOR. i heard that when they were younger, they used to DRAW/PAINT – i can’t imagine them doing that now! man… i wonder if their family knows they ARE SUFFERING FROM UNDIAGNOSED PTSD. ( c, 18, pst. )
hellllooo everybody! i’m c ( the shawn mendes mascot on the main ) and this is my dorito of a muse, orion rockefeller. i’ve been working him up in my mind ever since we started working on goldstone and i am so freakin’ hyped to be able to finally write him with u all <3 so pls, keep reading for some info about him! ( and buckle up, bc it’s kind of a wild ride! )
tw: death, mentions of ptsd.
orion was born on february 14th, 1979 which makes him an aquarius, and also a valentine’s day baby
he's a GIANT goofball. ever since college, he's always been sort of a social butterfly and a people pleaser
genuinely one of the most caring people on the planet??? as a kid he'd get into fights with bullies who were picking on the smaller kids
has the DEEPEST divide between his private and public life. even his own son is mostly unaware of his childhood/background
he's an architect, and designs buildings/infrastructures for communities and stuff like that. he's won tons of awards for his work and travels a lot for conferences and things like that
his mother passed away during childbirth, so he never got to meet her, but her name was emily rockefeller ( originally adams ) and from what his father told him about her, she was a lovely, kind, but passionate woman and she would’ve loved him fiercely. ( his father also often told orion when he was being particularly stubborn that orion reminded him of emily, and that he has her eyes. )
his father was james “jimmy” rockefeller, a decorated US airforce pilot. he was also a descendant of the rockefeller family ( if you’re not from america/not too versed in american history, the rockefellers are considered the richest family in american history — john d. rockefeller was a stupid wealthy man! )
growing up without a mother was difficult, but he and his father were extremely close, and james made sure that he was close with his mother’s family, especially her sister and her parents. as for his paternal family, he didn’t know much about them growing up, besides the fact that he’s distantly related to america’s first millionaire. he was also pretty close with a lot of his father’s friends from the military and their children as well.
orion had a relatively normal childhood, save for the slight melancholy around mother’s day every year. his father did his best to deter him from any sort of toxic masculinity, and made sure he was getting the best education possible. when his father was away on assignment, he was usually in the care of his mother’s sister. he rarely got into trouble at school except for the occasional fight when he’d stick up for the smaller kids who were getting picked on.
his father was rarely away on assignment, maybe only once or twice, and when he was he usually returned within a few months. in the summer of 1990, he was deployed to iraq to serve in the gulf war, and he promised orion it would be his last deployment.
in february 1991, when orion was about to turn twelve, his aunt picked him up early from school one day, and said they were going to see one of his father’s military friends. orion thought it was odd, but he wasn’t going to complain — what kid doesn’t want to leave school early? when he got there, the home was full of people he didn’t recognize, all with solemn looks on their faces. his aunt had to turn away as they bore the news.
that afternoon, one week before he turned twelve, orion learned that his father had passed away. he was spared the details, but learned later in life that the plane he’d been piloting had been shot down in a freak ambush.
orion doesn’t remember much of the next few years of his life. they were a blur of a young boy learning how to mourn all over again, and trying to grow up at the same time. at first, he was placed with his mother’s sister, but as a traveling artist, she was deemed unfit to care for him. he was then sent to a distant uncle on his father’s side somewhere in rural Iowa who treated him like he wasn’t even there. orion attempted to run away twice, and succeeded on his third try when he made it all the way to chicago. he survived there, somehow, for a few weeks before he was found by a few federal agents — lo and behold, his uncle ( who probably wasn’t even his uncle, but orion doesn’t remember ) refused to take him back. so, orion, at the age of fourteen, was put in the foster care system.
on paper, nobody would’ve wanted him. riddled with the deaths of his parents and a habit of running away, coupled with the fact that he missed the “desirable adoption age” by about thirteen and a half years, most people didn’t even want to try. the ones that did, decided he would be too difficult to handle after they met him and saw the cold isolation in his eyes, and the stubborn set to his jaw.
he was moved from foster family to foster family over the next four years, all over california, and had been re-placed five times by his eighteenth birthday. but all the while, he managed to get through school and save as much money as he could, selling five-minute portraits in downtown LA and getting small gig jobs here and there. by the time he turned eighteen, he was determined to have enough to go to college — or at least move out on his own and finally do something on his own volition for once.
little did he know, someone would come knocking on his foster home’s door asking for him a few days after he turned eighteen. they represented the rockefeller estate, and they wanted to have a chat with him about his father.
james had left him his entire estate. all of it. every penny, everything he’d ever owned, all of his mother’s belongings — and on top of it all, the massive manor passed down through the rockefeller family located just at the edge of goldstone, california. his hometown.
he used some ( a relatively small portion ) of the money to accept his offer at university of california, san diego as an architecture major, and was at the top of his class there all the way up until he graduated as part of the class of 2001.
in his junior year of college, like any other guy, he slept around a bit, and thought nothing of it — up until a girl he’d slept with months ago approached him in the middle of his senior year and told him she was pregnant. she didn’t want to keep it, but it was also too late to terminate the pregnancy, so she was thinking of putting the baby up for adoption. immediately, memories of his entire adolescence flooded back to him, and he begged her not to — instantly, he offered to take full custody of the child, and she could visit whenever she wanted, if she wanted to at all. she agreed, and lo and behold, branwen rockefeller was born. ( he named him branwen after somebody his father had told him about when he was a kid — he doesn’t remember the story, or if he was related to him, but he remembered the name. )
he then went on to pursue a masters in architecture, and his main project was actually renovating the rockefeller manor — obviously, after 22 years of being owned by a bank, and many years before that of no upkeep, it needed some renovation. orion spent his entire MA studies renovating it and actually presented the whole process to receive his masters degree, which he did.
he spent the next few years traveling — with branwen by his side, they’d stay in goldstone for most of the school year, but every chance they’d get to take a vacation, orion would take them somewhere he’d always wanted to go as a kid.
finally, in 2014, when branwen was starting high school, orion figured it would be a good time to completely settle down in goldstone, stop travelling so much and pour his attention into the one thing he’d left unfinished — the manor. it wasn’t unfinished from a construction perspective — it was stunning actually, fully furnished with a gym, a home theater, countless bedrooms, and fully ready to be lived in — but for orion, there was one thing he’d always wanted to do when the timing was right: give kids who felt lost a place to call home. give kids who were like him, back in the day, a place to call home.
so that’s what he did. he spent months gathering the proper licensing and credentials to finally open rockefeller manor to the public. he’s a licensed social worker now, and rockefeller manor offers a place to stay to anybody between the ages of fourteen and twenty one, so long as they display a significant need for help. ( orion often ends up taking the “tougher cases” — the ones with nowhere else to go. and sometimes, kids just show up on their own, nobody to represent them — and who is he to turn them down? )
now, he divides his time between architectural projects for work ( he’s designed countless buildings all over southern california, and is incredibly busy designing new projects all the time ) and taking care of the manor, whether that be the kids that live in it or the building itself.
( as for his secret, he’s experienced symptoms of ptsd ever since his dad passed, but never really knew what it was. it worsened when he began moving around, unable to ever really call one place home, and now that he’s completely boxed away the memories of his adolescence, he’s completely compartmentalized it and honestly made it worse whenever he does get around to thinking about what he’s been through. he’s also never told anybody about his background -- the furthest he’ll go is that his father was an air force pilot, and he grew up in goldstone. he’s always just tried to push through it and ignore it, but when he’s under significant stress or there’s a lot on his plate, he’ll tend to shut down or even spiral into a panic attack. he keeps himself so busy because he can’t be by himself for too long, as his past has drilled into him an innate fear of being alone. during these episodes, he’ll often shut himself in his office with the door locked until it passes, terrified that one of the kids will see him like this — too stubborn to let any of them, especially the ones who look up to him, see him as weak. )
WANTED CONNECTIONS:
obvs, the kids from the rockefeller manor !! he's definitely a parental/paternal figure to them and runs a pretty tight ship to keep everybody in line, but he also knows when it's time to just let them be.
childhood friends?? he lived in goldstone until he was twelve and then disappeared after his father passed until he was in his thirties, essentially. so it would be interesting if there was somebody who knew him as a kid and can see the huge difference in him now (he used to be really irreverent and rambunctious and is now a Certified Gentleman)
his personal assistant !! this one is on the wc page on the main, but he has an assistant that helps him organize his work as an architect. they're probably the closest person to him other than his own son, so maybe they've caught glimpses of his ptsd episodes??
friends!!! he def has a lot of friends around town, he's a pretty familiar face throughout goldstone
perhaps??? a past love interest??? he swore himself off from dating after he had branwen, at least for a while, bc he wanted to focus on being a dad and taking care of the manor, but uh .... love doesn't work like that buddy pal ! hehe
literally anything else i am a heaux for plots
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Forgetting
Around the age of 13, I had a strange fear of forgetting.
This isn’t really too weird for me, because I’ve always just been afraid of a lot of things at a lot of points of time, but this fear in particular really sticks by me to this day.
And there are a lot of reasons for it.
For one thing, how many people would say that they think about forgetting a lot? I’d say about 90% of you wouldn’t even think about it when someone asks you what you’re afraid of. You might even say that you... forget that you’re afraid. And that’s reasonable, it’s not something you’re supposed to think about, ironically.
But something you should know about me is that I
A. Am an overthinker
B. Lack any sort of confidence in anything I ever do
Both of these to the point that it caused my grades to slip an agregious amount, and anything my teachers ever did to try and help only made things worse.
(I got 60s in Art and Music that year)
So you implant this fear of suddenly being unable to recall the faces of friends, or staring blankly at your favourite book, or being told things you should know but just can’t remember, to a girl who has no confidence and is just afraid of everything. And suddenly that’s a new kind of terror that you’ve given a 13 year old child.
Anyone who knows me who reads this might be surprised. Arachnophobia sure. But forgetting? That’s not something I ever talked about.
But they’ve also probably never visited, never saw the white board I had in my room, of the names scrawled in scribbled handwriting in faded red and blue marker, putting photographs and labels in categories...
You get the idea.
I really can’t tell you how long I remembered the fear of forgetting. How long I thought it was reasonable to leave the names of my closest friends to dry up somewhere that I could see it. How long I tried writing in journals, to have a sense of record keeping, to have something I could hold onto and look at and remember.
Of course, I — ever the hopeful — believed memories could always come back. Now of course, I know that’s not a guaranteed.
But after the feeling had passed, after I had convinced myself of my unreasonableness, I tried to erase the names on my whiteboard wall. The surface was nice to have, to study, to understand concepts and write down definitions.
And I think it was the cheap marker, or the way that I wrote it, or maybe it was simply just science plus time. But no matter how hard I tried, the words just stubbornly refused to come off.
I’m not saying it’s still there. I think I managed to wipe it off a while ago, scribbling new ink over the old to get the whole thing off. But the entire white board is stained pink now, and no matter how hard I may try, that colour’s never going to rub off.
If that’s not a good of a reminder as any, I don’t know what is.
#original story#fear#personal story#forgetting#creative writing#not sure why I wrote this#but here you go#childhood#whiteboard#original fiction#non-fiction
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Christmas Sucks
who the fuck expected this bitch to come back especially since dbh is fuckin dead
also this was requested uwu
Masterlist
Ko-Fi
Word Count: 1.3k
Connor RK 800 x Gender Neutral Reader
“I’m going to die because of feelings, wow, it really be like that.”
“Please get off the floor.”
“You’ll have to drag me, coward.”
You’re on the floor, specifically, the floor of your Police District’s Department, next to your table, your feet laying over the wheels of your rolly chair, one hand is laying over your eyes to block the fact that you are actually fucking crying right now-- And the other is doing some class act finger guns at Connor.
What a dumb robot, actually coming to your aid when you started to breathe irregularly and fell on the floor.
“Are you alright, Detective? You should’ve gone home hours ago. You know there’s no pay in overtime this week.” He grabs your protruding arm, dragging you away from your table.
You keep your other hand still over your eyes, your lips twitching and you speak yet another intrusive thought into existence without thinking.
“I want to die.”
Your arm is instantly dropped to the floor, you choke on your spit realizing what you just said- Letting out a pitiful gurgling noise. For a second it’s quiet, not peaceful kind but eery kind. It doesn’t help that you’re still blind. Waiting for the response, the ‘typing’ speech bubble of real life.
The android grabs your shoulders, pulling you up so fast your arm falls from your face and you get minor whiplash.
“What. Is. Wrong?”
You look at his stern expression and try to mimic it to distract from your mental spiral, and maybe get him off your case thinking you’re just being a goof. “Grr.” The sound effects might seal it in.
He keeps face and the more you stare the more the anxiety builds, and his choice of tension break doesn’t help.
“You do realize you’re crying, right?” Connor squints, swiping a tear off your cheek with his index finger.
You let out an exasperated sigh, sucking in as your eyes switch between his face and finger, you try to smile but with your turbulent emotions, it’s rather screwed. “Please don’t lick that.”
Connor tilts his head to the side, prodding you on, “Detective.”
“I want to help.”
Your screwed smile falters, twitching till the corners of your lips point right to the floor, you squint as your sight becomes too wobbly with all the tears to keep focused.
“Christmas fucking sucks!” You slam a fist into the carpeted floor, gazing at the ground “Every fucking year-- I’m like ‘this year, no matter what, Christmas is going to be great!’ And guess what? It never is! It never fucking is! Everyone’s always got their own fucking prerogative and guess who’s left alone with nothing and no one? ME BITCH! I couldn’t even afford a fucking tree this year. I’m...”
You clench your fist together, holding it in your lap-- You want to hit something.
“I’m fucking pathetic.” You breathe in deep, unclenching your fist.
“Of course, no one wants to hang out with me, of course, seasonal depression still hits like always, of course, I can’t afford anything nice for anyone or myself-- Not even a fucking tree. Of course, even at work, I manage to fall over just cause I see a Christmas photo on Facebook and that broke the camel’s back in half.”
You prod your cheek with your tongue, shaking your head chuckling, “There’s no fucking point in trying anymore. It’s always going to be horrible. So I might as well do what every movie I’ve ever seen has taught me--” You pat your legs, finally looking back up at Connor with a charming smile, holding your arms out comically.
“Drown myself in my work on Christmas Eve and keep going until this nightmare is over.”
You stretch your legs out as you stand up, paying no mind to Connor’s distraught expression. You crack your hands behind your head and shake the numbness out of your legs, you look at Connor with a one-sided smile and do jazz hands.
“Bah-Humbug.”
You plop back into your chair, rolling into your desk.
After about 5 minutes of you silently working in pain and Connor sitting in the exact same position on the floor, he finally gets up and walks up to you-- Pretty expected as you two are the only ones working on Christmas Fucking Eve.
“I’ve made plans.”
You keep typing but glance up at him for a moment, “Good for you, it’s good to get out of here for a bit.”
“They’re plans with you.”
You stop typing. You look up at him, giving your full attention, “Why?”
“You’re my priority.”
Despite the pang to your heart, you snort, getting back to your work. “Dude, I get what I said was troubling but I’m not gonna kill myself or anything- Don’t worry about me- I don’t need to be ‘priority’.”
“You’re my friend.”
You shut your eyes and stop typing once again, “Connor--”
“Humans make me tired.”
Connor, without a moment to waste, picks you out of your chair, throws you over his shoulder, and slams your laptop shut in only a few short moves. “Let’s go.”
“Crime never sleeps, Connor.”
“Neither do I.”
It’s a silent taxi ride on the way to wherever. You open the window and watch as snowflakes fall on your arm.
“You’re going to get frostbite.”
You shrug.
“At least something will bite me.”
“You have reached your destination. Thank you for travelling with Detroit Taxis. We look forward to seeing you again soon.”
Once you get out, you’re met with a shockingly normal house. You side eye Connor as you walk up to the porch, “I didn’t expect you to live here.”
“What did you expect?” He asks, sliding a key into the front door.
You pick at the paint on the porch beam, rubbing it off of your fingers, “Something more ‘2038′ I guess.”
He opens the door, his shoulders slug when he steps in, almost immediately leaving your side, “Hank!”
“You gave me like 20 fuckin’ minutes! What was I supposed to do?”
You smell fresh Pillsbury cookies and note the Christmas lights strewn across the ceiling. By your feet, a dog walks up, he’s wearing a Santa hat, it’s super festive.
Hank on a ladder painting a white banner to say “CHRISTMAS SUPPORT GROU” is less festive.
Hank looks to you, dropping the paint bucket quite aggressively on the floor.
“Full disclosure, I didn’t have a lot of time so your gift is from a suitcase I found in my attic.”
Connor comes back to you, handing you a Santa hat and offers you cookies in another hand. “Here is your festive hat, your festive cookies--” He looks down at the dog, “Festive Sumo--” He points to Hank with his plate of cookies, “Festive Hank--” He moves to point at the Christmas tree in the corner. “Festive tree-- That we can light on fire in respect of our support group.”
You squint, smiling but still confused, “I don’t quite understand.”
Hank comes down from his ladder, with the hat, he looks like a homeless Santa. “Christmas kinda sucks, for a lot of people.” He puts his hand on your shoulder in that dad type way, “But it shouldn’t suck alone.”
Connor pipes in, “I’ve curated the most classic Christmas movies to date and have a playlist ready to go-- Also an excellent hot chocolate recipe that I’m very sure we don’t have all the ingredients for.”
You grin, “Sounds good-- Sounds- Sounds like a good Christmas, for once.”
“Well, it’s my first Christmas, so I hope it gets better than this.”
--
uwu what’s this?
me writing a Christmas special based on my own experiences but with a happy ending? more likely than u think
For real though, Christmas is hard for me and MANY other people, likely a couple few reading this- And while I know an old man and his robot dog can’t come into your life and actually fix everything, I hope this made things less shitty.
Hang in there champ, it’s almost 2019 and even if times a construct it’ll vaguely feel like we get a restart at least.
also
saw spiderverse today and it’s mad my new favourite movie and ik Marvel is kinda tired but genuinely this movie made me feel the way watching Spiderman when I was 8 made me felt. I haven’t felt that kind of childlike wonder in a long fucking time, especially with a movie-- I highly RECC that cause it healed my sour mood today.
i wonder if i still have my taglist sticky noted,,,,,?
i DO
but it’s SUPER ANNOYING CAUSE THE INTERNETS LAGGING SO F U C K IT
thanks 4 reading wow
also didn’t read this over there are probably agregious errors but leave comments to boost my confidence anyways
#Connor#connor rk800#connor x reader#connor rk800 imagine#DBH#dbh connor#dbh x reader#dbh imagine#connor rk800 x gender neutral reader#gender neutral reader
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I'm kind of torn on the Mary Sue issue. On one hand, I don't care what anyone writes for their own amusement, but writing is still an art that does and should have standards for professionals. As someone who has degrees in writing and does it as a profession, it's a little insulting to be told that the work your poured tons of research and time into is on the same level as amateur self-insert fic. That's why I advocate for different standards for fandom vs pro work.
I feel you, anon. and I have a lot of respect for people like you who got degrees and write professionally, because words are held rather cheap with the internet being around and anyone who can get paid to write words impresses me to some degree. but:
I’ve always felt like comparing fanfic and original fiction to be not exactly congruous? and
I think Mary Sue suffers from maligning because she’s disproportionately evoked by the youngest/least experienced of writers.
this got … pretty long … so i’m dividing it up a little for ease.
the concept of ‘standards’
first of all, I also advocate for different standards between published/professional/marketed works and fan works, but I do so because of 1)potential spread and 2)they aren’t accomplishing the same thing.
In general, a fanwork will have limited appeal outside of the fans of the canon the work is based in; they cannot stand on their own without some additional effort. Further, fandom has its own language to some degree or another, and fanworks are frequently best understood in the context of other fanworks, like scientific papers citing other scientific papers in passing because the audience is expected to be other scientists in the field who have read it. In other words: the audience is probably fairly niche and in on the ‘lingo’. its potential damage circle is therefore relatively small. if somebody fucks up their research for a fic, it’s nbd, for instance.
On the other hand, an original work with a professional marketing team will certainly reach a much more diverse audience and probably a much larger one. It’s therefore responsible, imo, to be proportionately aware of the potential impact of the subject material and approach it accordingly (though true fiction will always have an unpredictable effect on any given individual, so there’s only so much the creator can do). I’d expect accuracy where research was done, if for no other reason than to avoid spreading false information to such a big potential audience.
and of course I’d hope that if somebody is being paid to write, their grammar/prose/proofreading will meet a certain standard of readability. (the same cannot be expected of free works done for fun that take a few minutes to post on the internet.)
having said that: standards for quality fiction writing will always be subjective. I’m always going to have questions about why The Sound and the Fury is an American classic (I couldn’t make sense of it no matter how hard I tried). What gets published can be as simple as having good luck with the slush pile reader that day. I’ve seen fanfiction complimented with incredible research: there’s a Tokyo Babylon work-in-progress with an author who has traveled to fic-relevant locales to nail story and character details. I feel the line is blurring these days, especially because there are people who make a living off writing commissioned fanfiction now (too small-scale to be an IP concern, of course).
I think the fundamental difference between fanworks and original works is not quality of the work itself or effort expended. It’s related to structure and aim.
Fanworks, even AU fanworks, are like interior decoration. A 'good fanwork’, even an AU fanwork, works within a pre-built framework to elaborate on or add to or evoke what drew its audience to the framework in the first place.
Original works build a whole new house, creating a new framework from bare construction materials to draw in and house the emotions of its readers. (and then maybe its readers decorate the house with their own fanfic.)
tl;dr: if an AU fanfic was so different from canon and the characters were so OOC that the author can shave the serial numbers off and repurpose it as an original story, it might be a great original work. But it wasn’t a very good fanfic, was it?
why is mary sue so offensive to us?
I don’t know if you’ve ever read the post Mary Sue, What Are You?, but what I keep coming back to is its iconic opening. the author describes an OC at length: orphaned as a child when her parents were killed in front of her, she decided she would dedicate her life to fighting for justice. She grew up to be rich, athletic, beautiful, sexy, angsty, a genius, undefeatable in a battle of wits and agility, and everyone who meets her is instantly lovestruck. In other words, a classic Mary Sue …
but also Batman with female pronouns.
I think one could argue that Batman is not always well-written, but the relevant point here is that Batman - and Mary Sue - might be 99.9% perfection in the shape of a human around whom the universe revolves, but if its their own canon and the universe doesn’t recognize their perfection the way the reader/writer does, it’s not really 'bad’. (And there’s something to be said about why giving this power fantasy male pronouns seems to render it so much more palatable than female pronouns, but for more on that I point you to the referenced essay.)
Your ask is worded to suggest that Mary Sue is synonymous with unprofessional writing. I … kind of agree? Mary Sue is frequently the main character of Baby’s First Fanfic, and let’s be real: Baby’s First Fanfic is often being written by somebody who might be as young (or younger than) 12-13 years old, with all the inexperience, grammar mistakes, and lack of training that suggests. and as far as characterization goes, I think that anyone who takes decent writing classes will be discouraged from writing a Mary Sue. But like Batman, Mary Sue can be a perfect princess and get away with it under certain circumstances.
I posit that Mary Sue characters (or Gary Stus) - whom I will call Flawless OCs from here - are not really a problem on their own. Further, Flawless OC is more agregious in fanfic than original works. Because what makes the Flawless OC so irritating isn’t their perfection, really: it’s what the character’s presence must do to the universe (which is, in the case of fanfic, the universe the reader came to experience in the first place) that’s the real problem.
To show what a good fighter Flawless OC is, they defeat the best canon fighter.
Flawless OC has a backstory more tragic and painful than the most tragic canon backstory, and they cope with the trauma of it better.
There’s no room for Flawless OC because canon wasn’t holding a spot open for a self-insert, so now there’s a 6th Lion or a 10th Fellowship member or a Second Child Who Survived Voldemort.
The entire universe bends to ensure Flawless OC has perfect luck; their enemies are helpless before them. Everything seems to go their way except in the chapter where the their love interest is supposed to rescue them from danger. (the rescue goes flawlessly, of course.)
Depending on the author wish that Flawless OC is meant to fulfill, Flawless OC will defeat any undefeatable enemy, solve the unsolveable problem, be the envy or lust object of any character, etc etc, often without regard for the original context of the enemy/problem or the canon personality of the character.
In short, Flawless OC usually have two major issues:
they render canon irrelevant to glorify Flawless OC, and
the universe constantly validates their choices to a degree that wrecks narrative suspense.
what makes each of these things 'bad writing’ is different.
The first problem I mentioned - warping of mythos, plot, and characters to accomodate the Flawless OC - is a fanfic problem. Canon-warping absolutely allowed, but what makes it fanfic - the canon source that acts as our shared experience and usually our main reason for being a potential audience to the fic - is almost always nigh-unrecognizable. That makes for bad fanfiction, but it doesn’t always make for bad fiction. Change all the parts of canon enough and you’ve arguably got an original work. It might even be a good original work if the author has writing skill.
The second problem - the validation of the universe - is what makes Flawless OC a dull read in any context. If Flawless OC wants something, you know they’ll get it. If Flawless OC hates someone, you know they’re going to catch hell. If Flawless OC needs to be vulnerable for their love interest, something just bad enough to make them vulnerable will befall them. The perfection of the OC is less of an issue than the lack of meaningful conflict. (A character can have no faults and still be interesting to follow if they must struggle against a universe that doesn’t care.)
to wit:
there’s a fantasy book by David and Leigh Eddings - The Redemption of Althalus - that I read long ago. it stuck with me to a peculiar degree because for a book with such a unique conceit, it was incredibly boring. This is published fiction: it had editors, a marketing team, and was written by professionals with lots of experience! But looking back, none of this saved the story from featuring Gary Stu in a universe that catered to his every need.
The main character, Althalus, is ostensibly a person in need of redemption for being such a bad person all his life and never punished for it, but he’s a loveable, quick-witted rogue almost from the start. To 'redeem’ himself, he’s tasked with saving the world from Enemies (we’re told they’re evil, but I don’t think we see them more than once or twice). Protected by the Goddess of Luck - literally - for the entire novel, there’s never a single moment where Althalus’ victory over the Enemy is in question. He never does anything really awful that would explain his need to be redeemed (in fact, it turns out the Luck Goddess is the one who protected him from punishment all his life). The enemy is weak, forgettable, and constantly outwitted, and the protagonists, supposedly people of gray morality, never did anything worse than be snarky.
The unique conceit that kept me reading was the House at the End of the World. Being the home of the Goddess, it had doors that opened to anywhere on the planet. but for an idea with such double-edged possibilities, it turned out to be an impregnable fortress of Good. The House and its owner were the forces that bent the whole book’s universe to the inevitable triumph of the main character and his companions.
A counter-example might be Miraculous Ladybug. I’ve often wondered if Mary Sue could be written well and be likeable, and Marinette - the titular Ladybug - is probably close. She’s good at almost everything and always outwits her enemies; even when she seems confident to the point of arrogance, it’s justified by her endless successes. (Her only real flaw is being clumsy when she’s distracted, and it only happens when it’s conveniently cute. this is a walking Mary Sue cliche.) Her power is to be lucky, after all.
However: even though everything ends up right for Marinette at the end of every episode, she’s not rewarded when she acts poorly towards others. She causes herself problems when she does. Her luck powers give her the ability to bend the universe a little, but the universe is otherwise unforgiving; she’s subjected to the same banalities as everyone else and learns to be a better person along the way.
OTOH if you put Ladybug in another canon with a makeover to recast her as Flawless OC, changing everything so she could occupy a central role like the one she has in her own series, she’d be insufferable: hence Ladybug is a solid example of how a Mary Sue can prosper provided she’s in a universe designed to both feature her and contain her powers for the sake of Good.
I apologize for how long a reply this is. Still: I hope it successfully illustrates for you that:
though original writing and fanfic writing use the same tool (words), and both can use them masterfully, what original writers like you do and what fic writers do are, in general, very different things.
And Mary Sue is what you make of her. In the right universe, she’s just a very lucky person. :)
#in defense of mary sue#in defense of fanfic#origific vs fanfic#fandom meta#miraculous ladybug#david eddings#i think i read that book because I liked some other book of his#but wow it was a dull read#I kept waiting for everything to fall apart#but it didn't#anywho#long post#y ik es#Anonymous
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