(outdated, delete please)

[Dragoncat]

Idk, he kicks butt for me pretty well in both games. Try giving him daunt...

He'll get Mist in my story, I guarantee it. I always found the Boyd x Mist thing a bit weird because of age difference. Plus, Boyd and Cerai go well together...but I'm not the kind of person who sticks their OC with a canon character because they're attracted to said character and want to live out a fantasy. OC x canon...has to make sense. Which this does to me. I hope it does to everyone else.

And yep. I'd imagine constantly being treated like a little kid would be irksome. But hey, at least he gets a chance to be at the other end of the teacher/pupil thing in my headcanon with his nephew.

[Anacybele]

Rolf kicks butt for me in PoR. Not so much in RD though, because Shinon exists. :P

I don't mind Boyd x Mist though, even though there IS a bit of an age gap. I don't find it to be as bad as, say, Frederick x Lissa (they have to be at least ten years apart!) in Awakening. The only reason I used Boyd x Mist in my fic was to stay close to canon. Mist's non-married ending has her remaining single for the rest of her life, so if I wanted to stick to canon and still get her with Rolf, I'd have to make her leave Boyd. And I already had Elincia effectively do this with Geoffrey and I didn't want to repeat that.

And I agree on the OC x canon thing. That's why I characterized people like Kiara and Erica accordingly. So they would be reasonable matches for Ranulf and Geoffrey, respectively. Kiara is cute, shy, and she's afraid of beorc. Ranulf has close beorc friends in Ike and Elincia and the Greil Mercenaries, so he's a good choice to help Kiara get over her timidness around them. And Ranulf, in my fic, couldn't choose between Lethe or Lyre for his crush and they eventually started seeing other laguz guys, so he had his heart broken. Kiara is a good way for him to mend that heart.

As for Geoffrey and Erica, Erica is a parallel to Elincia personality and design-wise. Their names are a bit similar too. In the design department:

Elincia: green hair, auburn eyes, orange dress (in PoR)

Erica: Auburn hair, green eyes, blue dress

They have their hair and eye colors reversed, and orange and blue are complementary colors. As for their personalities, they both have kind hearts and pacifist attitudes. That is to say, they don't like resorting to violence unless absolutely necessary. However, Erica, unlike Elincia, doesn't fight at all. She becomes a military nurse that treats injured, sick, and traumatized troops. And her very first patient was, yep, you guessed it: Geoffrey. So like Elincia, Erica is a healer, but in a completely different sense. Also, Erica is a commoner, Elincia is royalty. Another opposite.

[Dragoncat]

I like that idea of Erica being that kind of healer, it's dawww. Only thing is, royal knights irl married within their rank or higher. It was a status thing...but then again royalty also married their cousins or even worse, siblings, because they thought their bloodline was "pure" and didn't want it "tainted". FE4 does have that, but this isn't it. I suppose Geoffrey can still keep his rank, maybe Erica can rank up because of him. But I can see Lucia/Renning and them telling him not to pull an Elincia on them and decide he'd rather not be in the royalty xD He seems to be more okay with it than she was though.

[Anacybele]

Well, Erica was born a commoner, but once she becomes one of the royal military healers, she's kind of considered a noble at that point. And then she is definitely a noble when she becomes Geoffrey's wife.

But hey, FE has sometimes had commoners go with royalty. Lyn and Rath can marry, and the former is a princess while the latter is a commoner. And one doesn't always have to stick with real life tradition. Though of course, it's sometimes nice to see anyway. Such as my version of Geoffrey and Elincia's marriage being arranged and only done for political reasons. This was actually common irl during the middle ages.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Anacybele

[Sunwoo]

But hey, FE has sometimes had commoners go with royalty. Lyn and Rath can marry, and the former is a princess while the latter is a commoner.

Terrible example, because Rath is not a commoner. Even if the Sacaean's "royalty" or "hierarchy" or whatever you want to call it system doesn't work like traditional royalty, Rath is the son of his tribe's chieftain and therefore not a commoner. In that respect, he and Lyn are on "equal" standings as they are both the children of their tribes' chieftains.

Also, no offense, Dragoncat, but after reading a bit of your story, I'm not as convinced about your OC as the rest of you are. It's not enough to say "I don't like Mary Sues, so I don't make them". You may not think your character is a Mary Sue, but it is up to the court of public opinion (the overall opinion of people reading your stories) to decide that. And I have to say, I am just not that convinced right now.

[Loki Laufeyson]

Im still confused as to why everyone in the story has to fit some sort of trope. If an OC is a commoner, i feel like it shouldnt matter to the narrative as a whole, unless you are writing political intrigue. (which you arent)

[Dragoncat]

Also, no offense, Dragoncat, but after reading a bit of your story, I'm not as convinced about your OC as the rest of you are. It's not enough to say "I don't like Mary Sues, so I don't make them". You may not think your character is a Mary Sue, but it is up to the court of public opinion (the overall opinion of people reading your stories) to decide that. And I have to say, I am just not that convinced right now.

I never brought up mary sues. But since you did...here are her flaws:

Blunt, can offend people without meaning to

Tendency to joke around in serious situations, likes to annoy people

Not very physically strong

Childish

I was leaning more towards saying why I paired her with who I did. They're both hothead jokesters. And stuff. But anyway if she comes off as a mary sue, credit that to me still needing to work on writing skills, mainly length and description, not lacking skills in character creation.

Im still confused as to why everyone in the story has to fit some sort of trope. If an OC is a commoner, i feel like it shouldnt matter to the narrative as a whole, unless you are writing political intrigue. (which you arent)

Nobody said that. We were discussing...idk. But no, if they're commoners it doesnt affect much.

[Anacybele]

Terrible example, because Rath is not a commoner. Even if the Sacaean's "royalty" or "hierarchy" or whatever you want to call it system doesn't work like traditional royalty, Rath is the son of his tribe's chieftain and therefore not a commoner. In that respect, he and Lyn are on "equal" standings as they are both the children of their tribes' chieftains.

I don't recall this ever being stated anywhere. Only that Rath is a member of one of the Sacaean tribes and Lyn is the daughter of the chieftain of another tribe as well as the daughter of a princess. Besides, does it really matter? I still think that you don't always have to have a noble/royal marry another noble/royal. Besides, the chieftain was still considered a commoner because Lord Hausen originally didn't approve of Madelyn's marriage to the guy.

I also agree with Florina/Loki.

Blunt, can offend people without meaning to

Tendency to joke around in serious situations, likes to annoy people

Not very physically strong

Childish

lol, that's just like me. Except for the joking in serious situations part. And the only person I like to annoy is my brother. :P

And not that I think Cerai is a bad character, but a good character has to have more than just character flaws. They should have development and good dynamics with other characters. They also have to have some depth. I think Cerai is showing nice bits of all of these so far. Well, not so much development, but that's because this story is still at the beginning.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Anacybele

[Sunwoo]

I never brought up mary sues. But since you did...here are her flaws:

Blunt, can offend people without meaning to

Tendency to joke around in serious situations, likes to annoy people

Not very physically strong

Childish

The thing about flaws is that you need to do more than just list them. You need to show in context WHY they are bad, and HOW they affect people in a negative way. For example, I can say that I have a character whose flaw is that he's afraid of speaking up. Except if it never affects anyone or the plot, it's not really a flaw. Now, if his inability to speak his mind got someone KILLED and he could've avoided it only if he opened his mouth, THAT demonstrates how it's a flaw. I haven't really seen Cerai's flaws negatively impact the plot yet.

I was leaning more towards saying why I paired her with who I did. They're both hothead jokesters. And stuff. But anyway if she comes off as a mary sue, credit that to me still needing to work on writing skills, mainly length and description, not lacking skills in character creation.

No one is perfect at writing, and everyone writes a Mary Sue at some point. As long as you are willing to listen to people who point out flaws in your character and think about what they're saying (even if you don't agree with them), you're good.

I don't recall this ever being stated anywhere. Only that Rath is a member of one of the Sacaean tribes and Lyn is the daughter of the chieftain of another tribe as well as the daughter of a princess.

It is literally said in his and Lyn's A support AND Rath's single ending that he is the son of the tribe chieftain ;/

Not to mention that Rath and Guy's C support implies it as well.

Also, it doesn't matter, but what you said about Rath was a factual mistake. Not to mention that it's never said that Hausen disapproved of Madelyn's marriage to Hausen because he was a commoner. I can think of several reasons why he would not approve of their marriage. The Lyn/Eliwood ending and the Marquess of Araphen both suggest that Lycia may have some prejudices against Sacaeans. Maybe Hausen wanted Madelyn to marry a Lycian lord for stronger alliances. I don't know. But it was never said that he disapproved of her relationship with Hausen because he was a commoner.

EDIT: From SF's own home page.

Lyn: Rath… Tell me the rest of your story, please. Why did you have to leave the tribe?[/size]

Rath: …The tribe diviner saw a bad omen in the stars. As…the chieftain’s son, I had to leave to prevent disaster.

Rath returned to his tribe in Sacae. His deeds earned him warm greetings from his father, the famed Silver Wolf.[/size]

Guy: Warrior Guy, of the Kutolah tribe![/size]

Rath: The Kutolah?

Guy: Yes! One of the three tribes of Sacae! Led by the Silver Wolf, Lord Dayan himself!

Rath: …I’m Rath.

Guy: Rath? Say, Rath…you…you aren’t Kutolah, too, are you?

Rath: …

Guy: Our chieftain had a son named Rath, you see. He left the tribe when I was young, so I don’t know what he looks like…

Edited January 14, 2015 by Sunwoo

[Anacybele]

Also, it doesn't matter, but what you said about Rath was a factual mistake. Not to mention that it's never said that Hausen disapproved of Madelyn's marriage to Hausen because he was a commoner. I can think of several reasons why he would not approve of their marriage. The Lyn/Eliwood ending and the Marquess of Araphen both suggest that Lycia may have some prejudices against Sacaeans. Maybe Hausen wanted Madelyn to marry a Lycian lord for stronger alliances. I don't know. But it was never said that he disapproved of her relationship with Hausen because he was a commoner.

Well, sorry that I don't support Rath with Lyn or Guy. I hadn't any idea.

And Lord Hausen disapproving of Madelyn's relationship with Lyn's father is the WHOLE REASON SHE RAN AWAY AND WASN'T HEARD FROM IN A LONG TIME. Madelyn was missing in action until she finally sent Hausen a letter. It unfortunately didn't arrive until after she died. Kent and Sain explain this whole story at the beginning of the game.

[CT075]

have you considered reading the supports of the character that you're arguing about before making a claim about said character

it might make people more inclined to take you seriously

[Anacybele]

I would have, but I didn't know that Rath had any supports other than Lyn to check out.

[Sunwoo]

Well, sorry that I don't support Rath with Lyn or Guy. I hadn't any idea.

You could literally look up the script on SF, though, not to mention that I was merely correcting a factual error you made on a character I like very much and a game I played numerous times.

And Lord Hausen disapproving of Madelyn's relationship with Lyn's father is the WHOLE REASON SHE RAN AWAY AND WASN'T HEARD FROM IN A LONG TIME. Madelyn was missing in action until she finally sent Hausen a letter. It unfortunately didn't arrive until after she died. Kent and Sain explain this whole story at the beginning of the game.

Did you literally not hear me say that I KNOW Hausen disapproved of Medelyn's relationship with Hassar (why do Lyn's grandfather and father have similar names)? I said that it was never said the REASON for the disapproval was BECAUSE HE WAS A COMMONER. I'm certain I know FE7 better than you do, considering I have completed it over 20 times. Hausen may have disapproved of Hassar, but there is no evidence that it was because he was a "commoner". Maybe it was because he was a Sacaean or he wanted Madelyn to marry a Lycian. All we know is that he disapproved but not why.

[CT075]

I would have, but I didn't know that Rath had any supports other than Lyn to check out.

have you considered not making claims about characters about which you know nothing

(alternatively have you considered researching a character and/or taking something at face value before blindly denying something just because you were unaware of it)

Edited January 14, 2015 by CT075

[Anacybele]

Did you literally not hear me say that I KNOW Hausen disapproved of Medelyn's relationship with Hassar (why do Lyn's grandfather and father have similar names)? I said that it was never said the REASON for the disapproval was BECAUSE HE WAS A COMMONER. I'm certain I know FE7 better than you do, considering I have completed it over 20 times. Hausen may have disapproved of Hassar, but there is no evidence that it was because he was a "commoner". Maybe it was because he was a Sacaean or he wanted Madelyn to marry a Lycian. All we know is that he disapproved but not why.

Whoa, chill out. I misunderstood what you said, SORRY.

[Loki Laufeyson]

Nobody said that. We were discussing.

Im really puzzled as to how and why you never seem to understand what it is im saying. But yeah you are troping your characters and pretty hard. Let me show you.

I never brought up mary sues. But since you did...here are her flaws:

Blunt, can offend people without meaning to

Tendency to joke around in serious situations, likes to annoy people

Not very physically strong

Childish

I was leaning more towards saying why I paired her with who I did. They're both hothead jokesters. And stuff. But anyway if she comes off as a mary sue, credit that to me still needing to work on writing skills, mainly length and description, not lacking skills in character creation.

Your character's flaws feel as if they've been handpicked out of a list of cliches in order to make the character seem flawed. A Sue is basically a character who the whole plot revolves around and everyone praises their names to the skies for no real reason other than existing. If your character is never being called out for being childish, not physically strong, being annoying, etc and these traits never effect her growth as a character, they are just empty tropes in order to Un-Sue your character.

I like that idea of Erica being that kind of healer, it's dawww. Only thing is, royal knights irl married within their rank or higher. It was a status thing...but then again royalty also married their cousins or even worse, siblings, because they thought their bloodline was "pure" and didn't want it "tainted". FE4 does have that, but this isn't it. I suppose Geoffrey can still keep his rank, maybe Erica can rank up because of him. But I can see Lucia/Renning and them telling him not to pull an Elincia on them and decide he'd rather not be in the royalty xD He seems to be more okay with it than she was though.

This is a very good example of troping your character. "Maybe ill rank her up" because...its a standard trope? Why bother doing that? Do you see what im saying now?

EDIT: HOLY FUCKING CRAP, SF YOUR QUOTE BOXES NEED TO STOP GLITCHING AAAAAAAAAAA

Edited January 14, 2015 by Loki Laufeyson

[Dragoncat]

I was curious, so...

That's her result on this: http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm

Want me to test Leo and Samba or someone else, or do you believe me when I say I don't write mary sues? ;) But yes, her flaws haven't been really brought to the surface. They probably will, if I can find a place for them. And no they weren't picked out of a list to de sue.

Oh, and please stop arguing about Lyn and Rath and etc in my feedback topic...

Edited January 14, 2015 by Dragoncat

[Loki Laufeyson]

Why on earth would anyone believe those tests, oh my gods. Theres so much wrong with those. The character of Rose in Anne Rice's latest book would not get a high score of Sue-ness on a litmus test. Does that mean that character isnt a Sue? Not at all. That character is a freakin' Sue. So much so, i had no qualms saying so on the author's facebook page.

The world revolved around Mary Sue. Everyone loves Mary Sue. Mary Sue gets everything she wants. Even the villains want Mary Sue. Anyone who hates Mary Sue is irrationally wrong in the universe. Mary Sue gets to do a lot of stuff. If she doesnt get to do a lot of stuff, theres always someone really badass around to do all the stuff for Mary Sue. Mary Sue is static. She does not grow as a character, she never develops because she is perfect the way she is. Mary Sue overtakes the plot completely. Mary Sue is the envy of everyone.

Mary Sue can look like everyone else.

[Sunwoo]

The Mary Sue litmus test isn't really a good guide to determining a Mary Sue. It wasn't until much later that I learned this. To me, a Mary Sue is not determined by her traits or her weaknesses or not even her background. What is most important in determining a character as a Mary Sue or not is how she is written. How she reacts to the world around her. How the world reacts to her and the things she does. Is she believable? Is she relatable? Does everyone bend over backwards or do things they wouldn't normally do for her? Is she just too "smart" or "good" and can keep up with everyone without people likely getting annoyed? Are the only people who dislike her "bad" or "disliked"? Those tests can't encompass everything.

[Anacybele]

Er, I was recommended a test like that awhile back when I was getting critique on my writing. And I listened. It actually DID help me improve my character creating skills and open my eyes on just how terrible and Mary Sueish the character I tested was. After making changes over the years, people now love this character (at least out of those who read the story the character is in).

And Florina/Loki, if you're wondering, yes, the recommendation came from Zelda Universe of all places. It might be hard to believe, which is understandable, but I DID listen to some things people there told me. :P

Although, I find that everybody seems to have a different definition of a Mary Sue, because I've seen some people say one character is Sueish and others say that it isn't. Micaiah is a perfect example of this. I'm on the side that thinks she IS Sueish. But that's irrelevant. I'm just trying to show why I think that there isn't really one universal definition of Mary Sue.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Anacybele

[Dragoncat]

Did you guys even look at that test? Many of the questions are just what you're saying.

I mean, believe what you want, but...I find those tests to be helpful. And like was said, as long as I'm not raising my OCs to god levels and taking criticism as a cut to me, I'm good. Seriously, let me be proud xD

Ninjad again! You my friend are good at that. But yes, seconded.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Dragoncat

[Anacybele]

Yeah, I agree that the tests are helpful, but I wouldn't go so far to say that a good score automatically means your character is awesome. It's just saying on paper that it has the potential to be. It's what you do with that potential that counts.

And sorry lol. I'm a fast poster, I can't help it. XD

Edited January 14, 2015 by Anacybele

[CT075]

have you considered that your mental image of your character does not necessarily equate to what other people see

for that matter those tests are shit

[Loki Laufeyson]

Hi.

I did this litmus test on the character of Daenerys Targaryen from the series A Song of Ice And Fire. (or Game of Thrones) To illustrate what a pile of crap that test is, i did this. This was the result:

Dany looks like a big ol' Sue, right? Liek, what a gross score omg.

But guess what, that character is anything but a Mary Sue. She gets smacked so hard with the Reality Tuna, that it caused the author to write her into a corner. (famously known as the Mereenese Knot) She has very real flaws and undergoes a huge amount of changes during the course of the series. Litmus test calls her Sue. The reality is, Not A Sue.

And thats why people dont rely on those.

[Snowy_One]

Just ran Kelly through. She got a 1, least if I were writing her and spent time following through on what I would do with her plot. No offense intended to Dragoncat of course. Just how things would be in my hands (since they're in hers, though, if she becomes a sue or not will be up to her). Heck, a potentially very good plot-point might be that Kelly's success in making magical weapons is leading to a loss of Laguz lives as common-folk, whom previously couldn't use magic, can now get weapons that are effective against Laguz relatively easily and she now has to deal with the unintended consequence. *shrug* Just tossing out ideas.

Anyways, IMO a 'Mary Sue' is a character whom simply gets showered in undeserved praise and attention (or whatever relevant thing applies) simply for holding the spotlight. For example let's contrast Simon from Gurren Lagann and Batman in 'Act of God'.

For those of you who don't know, Act of God was a one-shot non-canon story in DC where all characters with 'abnormal' powers suddenly lost their abilities leaving only tech-based and martial-arts heroes around. Ignoring that a sizable chunk of heroes who got depowered got their powers from either technology/technology so advanced as to seem like magic, or were abilities inherent to their race, the whole story ended up being little more than a reason to gush over Batman and how awesome he is.

If you don't know what Gurren Lagann is, go watch it and be prepared to experience awesome as you witness giant mecha powered by willpower fight using entire galaxies as weapons!

Anyways, the reason I consider Batman to be a Mary Sue and not Simon is this. Despite that Simon is CLEARLY on the Mary Sue level from the get-go the show makes it very clear that it's entire point is to be awesome and just keep becoming more and more awesome with each step and Simon just happens to be the incarnation of that. With Batman, however, the writer decided to depower the entire DCU, including many characters who shouldn't have lost their powers, then have any hero left-over get killed off or sell off their tech for cash with only Batman remaining on the up and up. Even that wouldn't be so 'bad' if written right (could have been a half-decent what-if), but then when heroes who lost their powers come back want to learn crime Batman ends up being the ONLY possible teacher (what, no one else survived who can teach? Not even Nightwing or another Batman character?), but the entire bit serves to mock how these characters who wanted to be heroes, who WERE heroes at one time, only did so because they had life 'easy' and never had to go through any 'hardships' unlike Batman and it's only by accepting that Batman is awesome and his methods work that they can resume being heroes. I.E. They weren't 'real' heroes before because they never had struggles or hardships that couldn't be dealt with via their special abilities.

Simon, on the other hand, despite going from a near-literal mole-person to the leader of human and beast-man civilization fighting against a being that outright stopped the progress of both simply because, isn't a Mary Sue because the show has made one thing very clear from the get-go. The entire point is to be awesome and keep moving forwards and, ultimately, it's message is to keep moving forwards despite the hardships because tomorrow will always be a brighter future. This is shown to be true for all the characters as all of them end up growing and becoming better-off for it through Simon's leadership and the world does grow because of it. The spotlight is on Simon because this is his story, but just because he is front and center doesn't nullify what the others have done and are doing. He is their leader, but he is raised up because he has so many willing to lift him that he inspired to be lifted first.

You can also see this in the Matrix movies. In the first movie, even though Neo is the main character, the focus is not JUST on Neo. We see many characters engaging in their own struggles or having their own degrees of importance. Even during the famous gun-battle it's not just Neo being awesome but Neo AND Trinity being awesome and, ultimately, the story extends to include us as well. Given the choice would we opt to live in a seemingly nice lie of a world, or go for a depressing, but real, one? All that is gone in the sequels however as the story remains firmly locked on Neo and his own trials despite there being other characters whom should be having their own arcs going on yet get shoved to the side in favor of Neo's plot.

Likewise, with the Star Wars movies, in the original trilogy even though Luke was the de-facto hero all the characters had their own little plots and didn't get shoved aside. Heck, in Empire Han's story is, arguably, the one most front and center with Luke's going off to the side a bit more. While Luke is the hero and leads them he would have still been on Tatoonie and likely have never left or been caught in the Death Star or been blasted when the Death Star fired on Yavin because the rebels didn't have a plan. Instead we have Han, Obi, and Leia all offering their own contributions that are merited. However, in the prequels, we find out that Anakin is the de-facto leader from the get-go and the moment he joins the group it goes from a story about two jedi and a queen breaking a trade blockade to being about how Anakin is going to save us all and the remainder of the movie is basically action scenes and hearing about how Anakin is going to be awesome. In II and III the same holds true as well as the stories focus immensely on what Anakin will do and showcasing his prowess despite us never seeing something another Jedi, technically, couldn't do or done anything to really deserve that spotlight other than becoming Vader by the end.

Just my thoughts, of course.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Snowy_One