mary sue quiz

[egypturnash]

So... would Peggy qualify as a 'Mary Sue' self-insertion fanfic character, if I wrote such things using her? Silly meme-like thing for your online persona from Psyche_Rainvae.

What she is...

Is your character the only one of her species in existance? (+2)
Nope. She's just this black dragon. With unique flangey decorations, but that's just low-level use of shapeshifting for personal expression. (Said ability gets me in big trouble later on.)

Because all of the others died tragically? (+5)
No.

Because of unknown reasons? (+1)
No. The cause of the mass dragon extinction is pretty much known - knights!

Is she a fantasy creature that’s familiar but rarely used as an avatar (hippogriff, satyr, cockatrice)? (-2)
No.

Is she a normal, real world animal, excluding wolf? (-1)
No.

Is your character described as beautiful? (+1)
I take pains not to use that word, but I've used things like 'sleek' and 'elegant'... I think I get this one. +1.

"Unusually" or "astonishingly" beautiful? (+2)
Nope. Just an ordinarily good-looking dragon. Assuming you think dragons are ever good-looking.

Are her optics an unusual color? (+1)
Nope. Green eyes. With visible whites, even. Very ordinary eyes.

Do they change color according to her mood? (+1)
God no.

Is she unusually petite or unusually large for her species? (+1)
Ummm... it's kinda hard to tell with something with as wide a spread as dragons. Six feet high in humanoid guise, horse-sized or bus-length as her 'normal' non-anthro form... none of these seem particularly large or small to me.

Does she lack wings (ordinarily wingless creatures count!)? (-1)
Nope.

Is she wolf-sized or smaller? (-1)
No. Well... in mass, wolf-sized is about human-sized, I think. But I don't think that's quite what's meant.

Is she entirely black or white? (+1)
Ummm... yes. +1

Shiny, metallic, iridescent, sparkly? (+1)
A little. Depends on how well she's been buffed. Umm... +1

Does she have a prominent scar on her face? (+1)
No.


Does her name contain any of the following:

Star/Fire/Black/Dark/Moon/Ice/Silver/Song/Wind (+3 each)
Flame/Night/Dawn/Shadow/Snow/Wing/Heart/Eye (+2 each)
Rain/Strike/Flash/Cloud/Soul/Feather/Claw/Wolf/Blade/Tear (+1 each)
Kindasorta. The name "Peganthyrus" is a shortening of her great-great-grandmother's name, which was some growly assemblage of consonants and apostrophes that roughly translates to 'Black star of the quiet night'. So that's +3, +3, +2. However since I was being deliberately overwrought, and it's not quite actually her name, I'm going to halve it to +4. Which brings my tally so far to 7.

Deliberately misspelled (Starr, Wynd, Klaw)? (+2)
No. And no, it's not a deliberate misspelling of 'Pagan' either.

Two part name (first and last)? (+1)
Nope.

Both parts composed entirely of words from the above? (+20)
No.

Made up fantasy name starting and ending in the letter a? (+1)
Made up fantasy name, but only one 'a' somewhere in the middle.

Do you use this name for everything you do on the internet? (+5)
Pretty much. I sign my art as 'Egypt Urnash' a lot lately, but that's an anagram of 'Peganthyrus'. +5 for 12 so far...


Got Magic?

Unusually keen senses? (+1 for each)
No.

Telepathy or empathy? (+1)
No.

Healing? (+1)
No.

Healing that works completely and perfectly regardless of the affliction in question? (+10)
Nope.

Control of the weather or other natural elements? (+1)
I don't think 'exhales fire when provoked' counts here. It's not like she can do anything more complex with it than set stuff alight.

Precognitive dreams or visions? (+1)
No.

Is she a shapeshifter? (+1)
um... yes. +1

With more than two forms? (+2)
er.... yyyyessss... +2

More than three? (+3)
normal, nearly-human, monstergirl, two sizes of non-anthro dragon, other stuff I've done on a brief whim, yes... +3

Unlimited forms? (+10)
Limited only by what I feel like bothering to write. She tends to make it obvious that it's still her but it's an aesthetic choice, not a limitation. +10

ALL of the above? (+100)
Oh, shit... that brings me to 128. I should just stop right now. Can I take some points off for never really using it and pretty much sticking to forms that're quite identifiably "black dragon"? No? Shit.


What’s she do?

Does she have a beautiful singing voice? (+1)
No.

Is she royalty? (+1)
Hell no.

Is she the most powerful or high-ranking of her kind? (+3)
No.

Is she the very best at what she does? (+3)
She's really good at being a cold-hearted bitch, but she's not the nastiest one in the world. Since she's me she's a decent cartoonist, but I know damn well I'm not the very best at that.

Is she a phenomenally skilled warrior? (+1)
Warriors are for eating, not being.

With any weapon? (+1)
--

With a Very Special weapon? (+2)
--

Passed down to her by a dying family member or master? (+3)
*snigger* There is a magic sword from a past lover stuck in the umbrella stand, but it's not like she uses it, it's just a memento.

Is it magical? (+2)
--

Is it named? (+1)
I think that sword is probably named. But she doesn't know it. Mostly she keeps it around because of what it does in the presence of evil. Purrrr.

With one or more of the words from the list? (+10)
--

Does she have a perfectly normal history that you don’t get into? (-10)
Yeah, pretty much. Hey! That means I'm down to just 118!

Have you written down the character’s history in story form? (+1)
No.

Was she captured and/or abused by humans? (+10)
Nope.

Was she adopted? (+1)
Nah.

Is she a human who was turned into her current form? (+1)
No. Dragon by birth.

Is she a member of a rogue team that plays by its own rules? (+1)
The natural size of a team of dragons is pretty much 'one', so no. Maybe two if they're, like, mated. So, no.

Is she the leader? (+1)
--

Is she your Otherkin/furry/were “trueform”? (+10)
ummmm... maybe a little... but no, not in any meaningful way.

Do you secretly believe that someday you’re going to transform into her? (+5)
No. Well, in some ways I have already. But that's metaphor, not literal, and I think this is a literal transformation.

Do you publicly believe that someday you’re going to transform into her? (+10)
--

Bonus question: In making your character, did you borrow ANY idea, be it in name, terminology, world, physiology, or function, from Mercedes Lackey? (+20)
I haven't read a single one of Lackey's books, so no.

Scoring:

0-5: Congratulations! You have created an original, believable, and interesting character!
6-10: Your Mary Sue tendencies are few and small enough that they probably don't matter much.
11-15: Borderline.
16-20: I'm sorry, dude, but you're pretty much a Mary Sue.
21-30: This is prominent enough that you might seriously want to consider making changes to your character so as not to annoy your neighbors.
30 or more: Please do not come near me.

118.

One hundred and eighteen.

This test for Mary Sueness is not kind to avatars who can shapechange. Holy crap. I could cut off 115 or so points if I said "yes, she can shift, 'cause there's a fair amount of precedent in myth for it, it's not something unique and special about her", but, oh well. Peggy's an absurdly overpowered version of myself. She's not even the most ludicrously powered of the characters I regularly play, not by a long shot - but Twin, who can devour stars by accident, only gets a 25 or so, because while (she) could have any shape (she) likes, (she) only has the one so far; I haven't even written a naked-singularity-with-no-matter-body desc yet.

[ Edit: Okay, the 'all of the above? +100' seems to apply to the entire magic section, not just shifting. I keyed into the escalating progression, not the section-ending spot. So my Mary Sueitude is 18, not 118. Much better. If I care about it, which I'm not quite sure I do. ]

I like to think that Peggy is reasonably believable, interesting, and original anyway. You don't see too many dragons who have a casual aura of just having stepped out of a film noir.

(Come to think of it, most of my characters end up as shifters if they stick around long enough. I just like to change, I guess. Peggy was always conceived as a non-anthro dragon who preferred to be humanoid, and other shapes kinda accreted over the years; Kalinda claims to have explicitly designed and assumed her cobra body; Egypt was explicitly described as being a shifter from the start, though the only real sign of it is her random scent message... if I play 'em for a while with any real amount of RP, other shapes probably get written for silly whims. Well, Myra probably never would've been anything besides a monster.)

Comments

[shoesie.livejournal.com]

I think by "all of the above" she meant all of the magical stuff, not all of the shapeshifting stuff. But it's kind of hard to tell.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Could be. Still leaves me in the 'definitely Mary Sue' range.

On the other hand, since Peggy is an idealized evocation of myself, plus some fantasy, it's not surprising. Bad if she was a character in a story, not bad if she's just my online mask.

[milkpanzer.livejournal.com]

It's not the character but how you play it, IMO. I've read some pretty horrendous Mary Sue stuff and the MS characters have little in common with anything on that quiz.

[defenbaugh.livejournal.com]

Bah eat the test designer!

[psyche-rainvae.livejournal.com]

Here I am for the eating, then, if that's really what would make you happy, but it might be helpful for me to first reiterate that this test is just for fun, and nobody is required to give their results a second glance.

ugh..

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

i took that quiz and scored a -3.....



which i think means i'm just exceptionally dull, or something.

Re: ugh..

[applefish.livejournal.com]

i got a -12.
hee haw

[rainwing.livejournal.com]

My name is Rainwing. That totally blew it for me. I have such a stupid cliche name. It's not even evocative cliche. Bleah.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, back in fifth grade, there were no less than three Rainwings in my class. The teacher referred to them by their last names (Peterson, Shapiro, Jablonsky) to avoid confusion. Nightclaw kept teasing Rainwing Jablonsky about his last name, until we found out his full name was Nightclaw Mutchler. What the hell kind of name is Mutchler?!

[psyche-rainvae.livejournal.com]

You are my hero.

[rainwing.livejournal.com]

XD;

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*g* This is what happens when you pick a name for yourself when you're a moony fantasy-loving twentysomething - or when you pick a name for a character who happens to come to represent yourself over time. And then it's six years later and you're stuck with it. I look marginally better until I pull out the Old Dragon Tongue version of the name and the translation, then I look more stupid than stupid - oh, look, she's a black dragon, and reclusive, and her name reflects it, how cuuuute. And I thought I was so clever when I came up with it, too!

It could be worse, you could've spelt it 'RainWyngge'. *giggle*

[corvirax.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, because I can mostly grok the meaning from context but am probably missing some of it, what are the connotations of having (or being, I'm unsure) a "Mary Sue" character?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

It's a thing from fan-fiction, mostly. A blatant self-insertion and self-inflating character. If you're writing a piece of fan fiction and there's this character who looks and acts suspiciously like you, discovers their awesome hidden powers, is the child of one of your favorite characters (or has your favorite character fall in love with them), and ultimately saves the day... it's probably a Mary Sue.

[corvirax.livejournal.com]

Aha, right. So "I am truly secretly a beautiful unique special snowflake" wish-fulfilment silliness, then.

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

If it's any relief, I took it for Haruki a couple weeks ago and got a 3. :) But yeah, I think the test is totally skewed. It's reasonable for its original context, since these things are power-fantasy cliches in a genre-fantasy environment like the Harry Potter and anime stuff they're trying to discourage people from inserting immortals into. But, c'mon, Peggy was spawned for an environment where shapeshifting and nigh-immortality are written into the laws of "physics"! I don't care about their "no exceptions" rule -- it was intended to keep people from rationalizing that "well, mine is SPECIAL," which is the problem, innit. In your case, it is just culture. I think a more apt question would be "will she be taking on innumerable forms, arbitrarily and wantonly, in any story involving her?" (Oooh, wanton shapeshifters! :D )

Also, hon, is it possible you misread the "all of the above" to mean the shapeshifting stuff and not all the magic stuff? (I wouldn't have noticed, except it occurred to me that "all of the above" in this case wouldn't make any sense if it just referred to the shapeshifting. Saying "unlimited forms" implies 1 form, 2 form, and 3 forms, which would make it effectively worth 110 pts. all by itself, instead of 10! Can you tell I spend too much time each day thinking about point systems? :> ) That knocks you down to a manageable 18.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*nod* I was thinking something along those lines, really. That it doesn't quite apply to the context. Although it's close; I've seen a lot of these things as clichés in muck characters, and not being used with transformative self-awareness, either.

I think you're right; the 'all of the above' probably does apply to all the magic-abuse ones, not just the shapeshifting. I mis-parsed the context of it. Oh well!

I'm just vaguely embarassed because, well, I've always tried to keep her from drifting into an uberpowerful l337 dragon. She's just this bitchy black dragon. Lots of presence and attitude but not a world-destroyer or anything. (I saved all that up for Twin, it seems.) I try to keep Peggy as something no more special than the person behind the keyboard, and I'm too close to pass judgement on that.

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

If it were later in the morning and I were smarter, I'd get up on my podium and write ten or twelve ranty paragraphs about how The Man is making you feel ashamed of your shifty tendencies to KEEP YOU DOWN, or something. :) Be proud to be an elitist polymorph!

[nigel.livejournal.com]

Hmn... -12. Well, "Nigel" was never meant to be much more than a foxy-type representation of myself, and the character tends to change whenever the real world me does, so I guess that's not surprising. I have the feeling that if this quiz was more directly "furry" related I would have scored quite a bit higher though.

[delcan.livejournal.com]

*grin* Zero. -10 for being normal, +10 for being 'kin. There's a moral in that somewhere.

[rainwing.livejournal.com]

I think so too. n.n

Cliche *is* the status quo after a while, after all.

[hydra-velsen.livejournal.com]

I'm not a mary sue. :/

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

I'd almost say that's more a Powergamer test than a Mary Sue test, but YMMV.

By the way, I'm not sure how to score a linear spectrum between human and another form, since they're (technically) infinite in number but strictly limited in character. I'd say the human and dragon forms count as two; the others in the middle are "interpolations". I think the (2|3|unlimited) forms is more aimed at "polymorph" types, so you could knock 13-15 points off if you wanted to.

[blackfirepixie.livejournal.com]

My character is none of these things is there like a Gary-Stu test or something? Cause my character is a guy