If I posted a fragment from a Fear Mythos/Creepypasta (crossover?) story I'm working on, would anybody be willing to read it, or comment on it?
It's based around the (mis)adventures of Rosa, an orphan who just happens to be one of Slenderman's three Elite Proxies (The other two being, of course, Masky and Hoody. It's practically a given.). She's given a set of abilities that far surpass the other Proxies, gets privileges (Such as, but not limited to, mouthing off at her boss) and is an overall very strong character in a world where such people are generally the Fears themselves.
and then it all goes to hell.
She goes down with it, make no mistake. She loses her statues as a Proxy and all of the benefits that came with it; she loses bits of her sanity as time goes on, due to the fact that the world around her is complete and utter Chaos; and while she manages to weather the storm for a while with the aid of a certain soft-hearted Creepypasta and a certain Jerkass Creepypasta who's often seen by his fans as a Draco in Leather Pants, she eventually loses their support too.
For those of you who don't believe me when I say that Jeff the Killer's a Draco in Leather Pants-
I don't think my point could be any stronger.
The first chapter is currently under the scrutiny and editorial pen of K (who I would trust with writing my will if it came to it).
(It'll probably come to that.)
And the sweet one's Eyeless Jack. personally, I've always seen him as sort of kind (relatively speaking) considering this- he could have killed his victims and had at all of their organs, including the ones they would have needed in life- heart, lungs, liver, uterus (mention that because, unless it's a surgery performed by a very skilled surgeon, most removals of the uterus end in death of the patient due to internal bleeding and trauma to the organs around it ((it's nestled snugly between the intestines and the bladder, two organs you really don't want to damage)). It's no wonder Jack the Ripper killed his victims before taking theirs.), and, most importantly, the brain. Instead, he opts to take one of their kidneys, while they're asleep, and leave no trace except a neat row of stitches. following this headcannon, the one guy who allegedly did die from EJ woke up in the middle of surgery, freaked out, and moved around while that very sharp scalpel was still inside of him.
moron.
EJ (that's his name from now on, get over it) defines himself as neutral in the war between the Fears and the Creepypastas over our universe (which is gushing with victims and entropy, which both the Fears and the Creepypastas need to survive). Jeff's Zalgo's lieutenant- against his will, since he's the most widely known of the Creepypastas (as far as I can tell, at least...) and has an easier time spreading fear and chaos than most of the other Creepypastas (and that chaos isn't always derived from fear, either. his mobile harem seems to cause it wherever they go, too.)
That's the gidst of it. I'm trying not to spoil much, but I'll tell you this, and let you make of it what you will-
Rosa is most definitely not a Mary Sue.
the universe I have placed her in does not bend to her will.
she is not worshiped by the other characters.
she is no more capable as a Proxy than her fellow Elites.
She is, in fact, very weak and vulnerable when she loses her Proxy status, and because of this she subsequently heavily relies in EJ and Jeff to protect her and help her when she's in a tight scrap- and Jeff only complies because Zalgo told him that he could keep Rosa as his immortal pet and torture victim if she dies of natural causes. EJ does it because he genuinely likes Rosa as a little sister.
She suffers from things like starvation, dehydration, and PTSD during her tenure as a regular person in a world that has been completely been overrun by the entities she used to serve and the ones she used to fight with every fiber of her being. at the end of it all, she's exhausted, alone, and perfectly willing to die without regretting it.
She doesn't have a mysterious source of income- she works as a prostitute and an information broker in the daytime, and often loots her victims when working as a Proxy. College? She earned a substantial scholarship to the local community college for her excellence in athletics, particularly Martial Arts and Track and Field, as well as her (hard earned) excellent grades. between studying for College, her jobs as a prostitute and an information broker, and her Proxy work at night, she's often suffering from sleep deprivation.
Oh, and the director of the orphanage she's staying at (it's set in the future where orphans can't leave the orphanage without being adopted, fostered, or with the expressed permission of the director) likes having his way with her every once in a while, which only adds to her list of problems. as well as the usual consequences- she often has to drop a pay-per-session class at college to pay for an abortion, or treatment (or cure, it's set in the future after all) for yet another STD that he's transmitted to her that could get her fired from her job as a prostitute (which is often the source of the STDs, too).
because of all of this, Rosa's very cynical, sarcastic, and serious all of the time- unless she's trying to screw with someone for information that she can then either report to Slenderman or sell on the black market. Pragmatism is practically her lifestyle- whereas other teenagers her age (she's nineteen) have all sorts of high-tech, updated gadgets with the latest features, the only electronics she has are an old radio that hasn't stopped working in the entire time it's been in her possession (which is her only reason for replacing anything) and a laptop that was made in the 2000s (the story is set circa 2050, so expect a few new technologies to crop up once in a while) that's chipped around the corners and sometimes displays the Blue Screen Of Death. (She 'persuades' the robotics professor at the college to fix it when it does that.) She has no phone, no video game platforms, no car, no motorcycle (although she's taught herself through observation how to hotwire and operate one), and no television set. She doesn't put much faith into the vague hope that someone will come and rescue her when things get bad, mostly due to the fact that no one ever does.
She has no social life, due to the fact that she perpetually views the people around her as sheep being herded by the various cruel shepherds that are the Fears and Creepypastas. because of this, she's shunned by the people around her- and even, at times, bullied by her fellow college kids who are both jealous of her grades (despite her background), and disturbed by her 'freakish' behavior.
So yeah, that's Rosa. Definitely far from the Mary Sue territory. I tried as hard as I could with her on this issue. If you have any suggestions, do advise. if it's flames, I'm going to go get the fire extinguisher.
She's not kidding about that.
... So that's where you've been.
Sorry, I got bored of just listening to Minerva drone on and on and on about how Lucius is bad news, I shouldn't be drooling over a guy with no body, blah blahblah blahblah....
Right. And I'm a fairy princess. what's your real reason for assimilating here, and blocking my attempts to delete your text?
I'm bored as FUCK, what more do you want from me?
I'm sorry, this post is going to have to end here.
High level proxy who got fucked by slendy and wound up on the run? Deja vu, man.
ReplyDeleteAs for other stuff, proxydom tends to lead more to theft and such than prostitution. Information broking also helps out, but the main costs are bribes and such.
Also, while martial arts and superpowers are both a thing, amongst proxies one tends to end in madness, and the other tends to be supplanted by the art of stabbing people repeatedly.
Uh, got a little critical there before you even posted the first chapter. Sorry 'bout that, it'll be interesting to read. A little escapism's always a good thing.
Nobody really exceeds academically when they have deep mental health issues.I have had deep mental health issues and known people with deep mental health issues. I think you would benefit from educating yourself on mental health and how utterly crippling it is when damaged.
ReplyDeleteAs a writer it is your responsibility to be aware of the implications being carried across. So again, what this says to me as someone who has mental health issues, it says "See, if you were just as hardworking as my character, you'd totes succeed". It will have those same implications for orphans and prostitutes and countless others who have been in those situations. And that's slightly insulting, consequently it will steer people away.
On to the more important stuff. I suspect that for you to insist so fully your character is not a Mary Sue, someone must have brought it up?
Some advice that I once benefited from: reject the term "Mary Sue". Write it on a piece of paper and throw it in the bin. I mean it. Forget you ever heard it. Not a fan of TVTropes, but when it says that Mary Sue has no true definition, it's correct. And what good is a term if it doesn't have a definition? Useless. It's become a landmine of a word. Forgetting about it was the best goddamn thing I ever did.
Onto why. "Mary Sue" doesn't work because it looks at random traits. Typically, Mary Sue is female, delicate, beautiful, gets what she wants, etc. So, is Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire a Mary Sue? Hell naw, and we'll look at why in a minute.
From now on, instead of looking at whether a character is a Mary Sue or not, look at whether there is good characterisation, and poor characterisation. Instead of trying to avoid a Mary Sue, try to make a rounded character. Characters are tools. We use them. We don't sympathise with them. We don't think they're good or bad.
For these examples I'll be using A Streetcar Named Desire. Famous play, short play, you can also see the film of it.
Blanche DuBois. As I said, she is beautiful and delicate, and always gets what she wants. How is she not a Mary Sue? What is considered "delicate" can also be considered "weak". What is considered "beautiful" can also be considered "vain", because let's face it, to be good-looking you have to work at it. Blanche gets what she wants. Consequently, this requires Blanche to be manipulative. Contrast Stanley. Stanley is strong, practical and down-to-earth. He's also brutish (going with strong), ruthless (goes with practical), and ill-mannered (goes with down-to-earth).
Demonstrated by this exchange they have:
BLANCHE: Would you think it possible that I was once considered to be - attractive?
STANLEY: Your looks are okay.
BLANCHE: I was fishing for a compliment, Stanley.
STANLEY: I don't go in for that stuff.
BLANCHE: What - stuff?
STANLEY: Compliments to women about their looks. I never met a woman that didn't know if she was good-looking or not.
In this exchange, Blanche comes off as beautiful (positive) and vain (negative). Stanley comes off as practical (positive) but also very rude (negative).
Next step is to USE those flaws. Twilight might have actually been a good book (well, maybe that's ambitious of me) if Bella's flaws were ever utilised. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche's negative side (manipulative, idealist, vain, flighty) is the inevitability that leads her to her fate.
Seems I rambled on a bit, oh well, hope it helps.
As a young writer, I have a very hard time trying to round out my characters. Back when Dementia was still a figment of my imagination running wild across the pages, she displayed a tenacity to always get what she wanted- or take it if it was denied from her. Jeff pisses her off? She beats him six ways from Sunday and leaves him to wake up on a blue moon. Slendy pisses her off? She beats HIM six ways from Sunday, and leaves his Proxies as nothing more than heaps of meat on the ground. Everyone was so scared of her, of picking fights with her (and losing badly) that they just gave into whatever she asked. That, and she never seems to come off as someone with an issue- the way I always played out the situation, SHE was in the RIGHT to fight. It got to the point where I was giving her superficial flaws (a lethal allergy to cyanide, for instance- which made it the only poison she wasn't immune to. Or her tendency to dive headfirst into a fight- never mind the fact that she didn't have anything to worry about.)
DeleteRosa, on the other hand... she works herself thin. and it's going to be evident- she's a perfectionist, and won't settle for anything less than the best from herself, because she's proven to herself over and over again that she CAN reach that bar if she just works hard enough. You could also say that she's a workaholic- After everything goes to hell, she doesn't know what to do with herself, because there's no Proxy work to do, no college work to do, the Brothel's certainly not getting any customers (which I'll explain the reason behind in the story, don't worry), so she's left with nothing to do but survive to the best of her abilities when the big players are suddenly eying her like a fresh piece of meat. And her perfectionism, while initially starting out as a VERY handy talent considering it makes her a very dangerous target for most (due to her self-defense experience)- but as she becomes more and more fatigued, she gets more and more frustrated at the fact that she can't execute her movements as precisely as she used to. frustration makes her even more sloppy, sloppiness leads to mistakes, and mistakes almost get her killed.
I never thought of the way the story would come off for actual prostitutes and orphans (though now that I think about it, I'm betting a lot of prostitutes would be offended at the ease that Rosa has with getting rid of STDs and having an abortion). And I know of several examples of mentally unstable people performing well in school- Ted Bundy was a top-notch law student who also spent his free time kidnapping, raping, and bludgeoning women, just to name one. he's notable because his clean-cut demeanor kept him off the main suspect list until he was pulled over for speeding and got caught with a bunch of his toys in the back of his Beetle.
Rosa isn't mentally unstable so much as she is highly dependent, emotionally distant, and a perfectionist. The kids who see her as a freak are just sensitive to her haughtiness and notice the perpetual bags under her eyes, which makes her a little crazy-looking when her face isn't caked in makeup.
Otherwise... I'll refer to your comment when working on her. You've given me sound advice, and I'd be a fool not to follow it.
- P
I'm 16. I'm a young writer too.
DeleteI'll re-stress it: research mental health before you try to write it. It's easiest to think of it in terms of physical health: if one is going to write about a leukaemia patient, they research leukaemia. Mental health is no exception. Theodore Bundy was more ASPD than a PTSD sufferer. The ASPD lacks stimulation, hence his tendency to seek it via extreme, illegal methods. The PTSD sufferer, conversely, is overwhelmed with stimulation. As with a seesaw, mental instability cannot be nailed down into a single archetype.
Indeed there are unstable people who live a double life like you never dreamed, a la Richard Kuklinski, who was thought to be bipolar. Nice to meet a fellow serial killer enthusiast BTW. ^_^
Glad I could help! :)
I'll get on that. And it's great to meet you too. I thought we were rare, but apparently we're pretty prolific on the 'net.
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