Tumgik
#2. i don't think i need to explain why i hate the concept of batman breaking the no kill rule or waterboarding people
gayrogues · 10 months
Text
there is no fucking way that tom king's shitty oneshot, featuring the most out-of-character riddler known to man and a batman who breaks his no kill rule and waterboards people, got nominated for an eisner award...
#i hate the riddler issue of one bad day so much it's unreal#1. why write a riddler comic if you're gonna be like 'actually he HATES riddles and puzzles and won't be using them anymore'#now he's just some guy who kills people#2. i don't think i need to explain why i hate the concept of batman breaking the no kill rule or waterboarding people#3. trying to make the killing joke relevant again after 30 years? to say that ed was the mastermind behind it?#4. the plot is just. incredibly silly and not in a good way like you're telling me once the riddler stops using riddles he#becomes powerful enough to take over the entire city and batman can't do anything about it except kill him?#and i'm not talking taking over the city like in zero year where there was an actual plan#in one bad day everyone just gets sooo scared of him and his massive brain that they fall in line#5. that is not his fucking backstory#that's like. the complete opposite of it. keeping only the part about him having a shitty dad#he was never a prestigious prep school kid under immense pressure to be the smartest#he was just some kid who went unnoticed by everyone and that's why winning that puzzle contest was so important to him#and then his dad refused to believe he was smart enough to win the contest without cheating and you know the rest#he has a very ordinary backstory that explains a lot about him#meanwhile i feel like tom king was like 'oh shit this series is called one bad day'#'i need to give ed a pivotal moment in his life that made him fucked up and evil'#'how bout i write all this stuff leading up to him brutally killing his teacher at the age of like 15'#and it just sucked ass#i feel like there was more stuff i hated that i'm forgetting but i am not gonna re-read this comic to remember! at least the art was good#oopsie daisy these tags turned out to be much longer than i was expecting - i don't even care about the eisner awards i just saw the#category pop up on the library app that i use and i was like Why is This in here#ransom.txt
24 notes · View notes
murderbirds · 3 months
Text
It is really baffling to me that DC made one of the potentially most dangerous enemy imaginable in the form of the court of owls and they just don't know what to do with it. The concept of the elite group of a city as dangerous as Gotham City forcing Gotham to remain what it is and always has been for the sake of their own never ending greed and cheap work makes so much sense and works so well as a parallel to Bruce who is all about how to use his fortune to try and 'fix' the city, but instead people will dumb it down to just 'oh, we are so scary, we have this maze, you see.' The court of owls shouldn't be just another enemy. They should be the very essence of what Batman fights against because their reach is so great that every single one of the rogues and batman's villains were created by them, directly and indirectly. They are the ones who refuse to allow Gotham to change. You can't have all of this potential and just throw it as "villain of the week!" C'mon!
Gotham almost did it well. In season 2, we are introduced to the Court as this entity that controls all of Gotham, from Wayne Enterprises to Arkham. At this point, Strange is our main antagonist in the season, and even he is terrified of them. Season 2 of Gotham is the Court at its best. You witness how little they care about human lives and just how powerful they are, but of course, in comes season 3 and ruins everything.
Not only does the court of owls become a bunch of idiots in season 3, but they also make no sense. I understand that the big reveal is that 'oh, they are actually just being controlled by the league of shadows', which, mind you, makes no sense. The court of owls is the definition of everything that Ra's hates about humanity, but pop off, I guess. And it is funny because Ra's is probably the most effective antagonist in this show besides maybe Sofia and Strange. Ra's is an actual threat, he feels imposing, he feels powerful and it is gratifying to see him go down. He is a man led by his desire to die and to create a better world though Bruce and I could go on a whole tangent about how powerful of a narrative this can be, but I won't. This is about the Court. Not Ra's. The Court is a representation of greed from those on top and how their actions perpetuate this cycle of hate and destruction. The court is about capitalism. The league of shadows is about nihilism and trying to force the next generation to do what you wish you had. They don't work together. They are opposite extremes.
Now, let's get back on track. In season 3, the court decides that they want to 'start over' by killing off most of Gotham's population through the Tetch virus, but they never really explained why besides 'oh everything has gone wrong so we will now start over' and I just want to understand what exactly is it that has gone wrong. At this point, the court is still almost unanimously the one on top. The one who was actually the biggest threat to them, Galavan, is dead. Bruce is still a kid, so even if you do need to do something about him eventually, wouldn't it be easier and more practical to just get rid of him? Wayne manor has basically no defenses. One almost immortal guy nearly killed Bruce, Alfred and Jim, and you have an entire army of those available. Oswald isn't a threat either, at this point, he is more interested in his own greed than anything else. Hell, if they had offered him to join them, chances were, he would have accepted it. Would he be a problem in the future? Possibly, but if you are willing to try to get Jim "golden boy" joy your organization, the guy who wins a medal for not following rules, I think letting Oswald in is fine as long as you make him think he is on top. That leads us to the only remaining threat, Jim. James Gordon, at this point, isn't a part of the police anymore. He is just a private investigator. He has little to no power. Kill him, arrest him, threaten to destroy everything he loves if he doesn't stop. It doesn't matter, but don't invite him to join you. He has no power at this point, why do you even want him? Because he sorta promised Bruce to help save his parents? What? It just makes no sense that they would want Jim in their organization, who doesn't even have a place of his own at this point in the story, but not Oswald or Barbara or Butch or any actual major player in the city. And the most mind boggling thing of all is the fact that the court would go out of their way to subdue both the Riddler and the Penguin and throw them both into cages and do nothing about it. Why? What was the point of that? Weren't you going to destroy the city anyway? Why not just place them in the blast of a bomb or get rid of them? Or better yet, just kill them and get rid of their bodies! Why do you want them alive?! You didn't give two shits about Edward in season 2, why are you keeping him locked up now?! If you want something from them, why don't you talk to them?! What are you trying to accomplish?!
In any case, what I'm trying to say is, the Court of Owls makes no sense in season 3 and is just there to do what the plot requires them to do, and that is true for most other Batman media I have seen with them. They are there just to fill a role instead of being an actual threat, and this goes all the way back to their introduction, when, once again, they are treated as just a villain of the week with no further development.
6 notes · View notes
me4ml · 3 years
Note
Why don't you like Maribat? Why do you think it's a spite or salt ship?
This is presumably because of my Adrigaminette post or the whole Maribat being on the ship list thing.
Quick disclaimer: if you read/ship/write/like Maribat, cool! This is not an attack. This is me answering why I, personally, do not like it. It’s tagged anti, and salt, so it should be filtered. Please don’t harass me over it.
Another note before we start: a lot of what I’m about to write is based on what I’ve read, fic wise or meta, and I blocked off the Maribat tag and fandom a long time ago. It may have changed over there-I doubt it, and I have zero desire to go and look-but this is based on what I’ve seen and read about.
There are, principally, three reasons I can’t stand Maribat, why I think it’s a spite/salt ship.
1). I don’t like Damian Wayne.
2). I don’t like how Damian and the DCU are written in Maribat.
3). Maribat is a mutated salt fic.
If you want to see my reasons why, the rest is under the read more.
1). I don’t like Damian Wayne.
Damian’s not just my least favorite Robin, ranking behind any of the others who have born the name. He’s my least favorite Batfam sidekick overall.
Part of this is his introduction, where he’s a violent, murderous, arrogant, entitled, snotty little brat of a thug. Lest we forget, one of his first acts is to go out, kill a guy, cut off his head, stuff a grenade into the decapitated head’s mouth, and try to blow up Tim. This is his introduction! There are a number of other occasions, including how he treats Jon, his best friend, and the rest of his siblings.
Another part is that he believes that he deserves to be Robin simply because he’s Bruce’s son, and therefore has the blood right to be Robin, to become Batman, and damn anyone else, who are all pretenders. Doesn’t matter that those characters might have a right to become Robin, or the future Batman, he’s the bio son, he deserves it!
Additionally, Damian feels.....not unnecessary, but repetitive, in his actions/characterization. There are other characters who can perform pretty much the same way for whatever storyline is necessary, without including Damian.
Trained by an abusive family to be the best, as an assassin and warrior? Cassandra.
A killer who breaks the main rule of his mentor, which causes tension and strain in the family? Jason.
Incredibly intelligent and talented? Tim.
Damian isn’t unique in what he does, and while that can make him an interesting character, it can also make the focus on him unnecessary.
As well, so much of Damian’s actions and motivations feels like he gets away with stuff, in-universe, because he’s Bruce’s biological son, and so Bruce gives him too much slack, and out-universe, because the writers let him/the fans will defend him. He gets woobified, or leather pantsed. Which leads to:
2). I don’t like how Damian and the DCU are written for Maribat.
For all his (numerous) faults, when written well, Damian can be an interesting character. For example: How does he deal with being deeply insecure? By putting on a mask of arrogance and overconfidence.
Some more examples: How does Damian act like an actual child, when he’s never had a childhood? How can he be a hero, if he’s been trained to be a killer? Can he ever catch up to his siblings, or will he feel like they’re always better than him?
Damian’s sense of being Batman’s son, of being the heir to the Cowl, slams right up against the idea of the Batfam: that there are people who have just as much of a right to call Batman their father/father figure, people who are just as talented and skilled and capable as Damian himself is, if not more. Watching Damian develop, when he’s written right, is actually enjoyable; mainly because when it’s done right, it shows Damian actually progressing and growing, becoming more of a person, with friends and interests. Most times, seeing Damian with his pets can be adorable, same with when he hangs out with Jon.
Is he still a brat? Still sometimes a bit too much of a Demon, an al-Ghul? Yes, but that’s always going to be part of him, and as long as he’s shown to try and grow, or gets called out on that, it’s less of an issue (There’s a completely different rant to be written about how DC likes to chuck character development or backstory into the trash when it suits them for a new run. Damian gets hit with this, as does Tim, or they get handed the idiot/conflict ball, but not the space for it).
Maribat hurls this all out the window. Damian’s bad traits are all “fixed” offscreen-he’s developed, matured, gotten better, whatever you want to call it. It’s basically a writer’s hand wave to make Damian into the character who will be the lead of the story, perfectly suited for his main role of being Marinette’s boyfriend and utterly devoted to her every whim and will. He’s enchanted by her at first glimpse, and defends her against everyone who hates her, because no one can understand her like he can!
Uh, what? This is not Damian Wayne. Even at his best, he’s no broody boy, pulled from his “dark path” by the love of a gentle girl. He’s a Jerk with a Heart of Gold-emphasis on the Jerk. There’s a reason his nickname usually involves “Demon.” Is Damian trying to get better? Yes. But even then, he’s not the type to immediately fall in love. He takes a while to warm up to people, for them to earn his trust, and Marinette would not be like that?
Let’s say that Robin is in Paris for a case, he runs into Ladybug and Chat, and after they explains what’s going on, Robin gives them a stare over his mask, and goes “TT! What a worthless hero, I would have caught him already.” LB and Chat would probably want to deck him, and that’s before he keeps talking.
Same with if Damian transfers to the class, or they meet on a field trip to Gotham. Damian’s not gonna care about some random French teenagers on a tour, or if he was transferred he’s gonna be trying to figure out why his father sent him to Paris, and be focused on the mission, not making friends.
Of all of the Robins, the ones that would be the most likely to capture Marinette’s interest would be Dick or Tim, not Damian. He would remind her too much of Chloe, as Damian, and as Robin, he would be dismissive of Ladybug’s abilities, which would absolutely piss her, and Chat Noir, off.
In characters that aren’t Damian, no one seems to be written properly over in Maribatland. One huge example is that Marinette is so beloved, so pure, that she can make any character fall in love with her, and reform by her pure goodness, including a fic where the Joker-THE JOKER!-becomes her “Uncle J,” and pranks Lila on her behalf.
Uh-huh. Sure. Completely and totally something that one of the biggest, most sadistic twisted, notorious villains in pop culture would do. Maribat winds up worshipping the ground that Marinette walks on, cause she’s “Teh best evar!”
Which then leads to my third and final point:
3). The whole Maribat concept is a mutated salt fic.
Most of the themes you’ll find in Maribat? You will find in nearly every salt fic.
Maybe my biggest issue with the whole Maribat idea is that it doesn’t feel like a proper crossover, which, at their best, explore how characters from one universe and their rules would interact with characters from another universe, and the rules of that one. Putting ML and DC together is a rich opportunity to play with concepts in both worlds!
And yet, it’s mainly used to bash ML characters who the writers despise, predominantly Adrien, Alya, and Lila, with members of the class thrown in depending on feeling, and potentially even Marinette’s parents! The only “good” ML characters are the ones who are on Marinette’s side, usually Luka, Kagami, a Chloe who for some reason has been redeemed and is now Marinette’s best friend, and whatever members of the class the writer decides to throw in there.
You’ll notice it’s not called “MiracuBat”, or LadyBat and Bat Noir-it’s MariBat. It’s meant as a focus on Marinette, making her-the hero of the Miraculous Ladybug franchise, someone in-story in story who is incredibly smart and talented and the leader of her team, future Guardian-even more awesome.....by beating down everyone else around her.
Marinette is simultaneously treated as an beaten-up, beaten-down walked-on carpet, and the best person to ever exist ever, go who only needs a group of new, different, better people to recognize that and save her from the clutches of those greedy and ungrateful assholes! That doesn’t include the fics where she’s the unknown child of a superhero or supervillain, making her even more special.
It’s Chameleon salt, class salt, with pointy ears and a cape on.
Some specific examples.
Adrien: Adrien is a spineless doormat who prioritizes Lila over Marinette, or an entitled bastard sexual harasser, only fixated on Ladybug, or even both. Sometimes it’ll get worse, as Adrien will threaten or abandon Marinette if she steps off of his “high road,” and Chat will be a budding rapist, stalking or capturing Marinette after he’s learned she’s Ladybug, while ignoring her prior to that. He will, of course, have his ring stripped and handed off to Damian, who is the “true” soul of Destruction and so therefore a “perfect match” to Marinette’s Creation soul. Occasionally it will be Jason, or Tim, or Dick, but the key thing is that it’s not Adrien!
While Damian’s issues are magically fixed, Adrien gets no such courtesy. Adrien has been abused, just like Damian, and while Damian’s abuse is more extensive and extreme, abuse is abuse. If anything, if Damian met Adrien, he would probably see another abused kid, and want to be his friend/have his “adopt stray person!” Instincts go off. I can much more imagine Damian dragging a bewildered Adrien into the Batcave and yelling “Father I’ve found another one for you to adopt!” than I can Damian immediately hating Adrien, or Chat, simply for breathing.
We never see Clark taking Adrien under his wing, or Bruce, or any of the other Batfam; nor any of the other Justice Leaguers. We never see Selina try to fight Bruce over the kid, because he’s cat-themed, and Selina can train him, this one’s hers Bat, get off!
Adrien’s never treated as a kid, or given actual development. A major complaint among salters is that Adrien is treated as perfect and never develops, and in fic, rather than developing him, Adrien either remains static, with his flaws narratively exploded, or is developed negatively. He’s there to be beaten up on and punished by the writers, if not actually physically beaten up by characters in the fic.
Alya: the not-so-good friend, the cheap excuse for a journalist, the awful person who abandons Marinette for Lila and her “connections.” Never mind that Alya was Marinette’s friend from the beginning, or that Marinette’s chosen her multiple times for a Miraculous. One instance of questioning Marinette about Lila, and Alya’s a backstabbing bitch.
Maribat treats Alya as neglectful, bossy, domineering and submissive at the same time to Marinette and Lila respectively, and as a journalist, the worst of the worst. She’s played as a two-bit paparazzo, and once again, the DCU is used to punish her. We don’t see Alya get mentored by Lois or Clark-indeed, if they notice her, it’s with disdain or disappointment. Often, they’re crushing her under their heel, calling her not only a bad journalist, but a bad friend/person. This forgetting, of course, that Alya runs her blog as a hobby so far, she’s only a teenager, and that she’s had Marinette’s back against Chloe and Lila.
The Class: the dupes or allies as needed. Class salt levels depend on what the writer needs. If they’re pro-class, they’re all on Marinette’s side, aside from Alya Adrien and Lila. Chloe, for some ungodly reason, is “redeemed” nigh instantaneously, and often will become Marinette’s best friend, if that isn’t Kagami already. Kagami will drop Adrien like a wet tissue, never trying to reconcile him with the clas, or encourage him to stand up for himself, or if she does, Adrien, of course, will not listen.
If the writer is anti-class, whoo boy. Openly mentally, emotionally, physically abusive to Marinette, the worst gang of people you would ever have the displeasure of meeting, they all need to be in Arkham.
We never see any of the class make friends with the Batfam, the Titans, Young Justice-unless they’re on Marinette’s side, of course. There’s no Alix stopping Selina at the Louvre, for instance, or Max hanging out with Babs. It’s all based on how Marinette is treated as to whether or not the class is portrayed as being worse than the worst of the Rogues Gallery.
Wrapping it all up, Maribat has made me dislike the entire concept of a DC/ML crossover.
Even if someone had written an non-salt, in-character crossover, I don’t know if I would read it, simply because the well has been that poisoned.
216 notes · View notes
freedom-of-fanfic · 6 years
Note
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. :)
156 notes · View notes