The passion of the Mary Sue and her husband Gary Stu
Hello, LJ. Hello, flist. I haven't been around... because I've been feeling sort of generally like shit healthwise. Or rather, good emotionally and rather shite physically. It's complicated and I'll write about that later.
Today, thinking about how I can avoid making two characters into raging Mary/Gary Sues. I almost want to think of that as a married couple. Mary and Gary Stu. I am a little concerned that two characters of mine could end up this way.
There are five protagonists in the thing. But two of them are very loud and determined to narrate while the other three are more taciturn. And may not really be that insanely eager to push there way up to the camera and TELL US THEIR THOUGHTS and their lives and the dreams and such. I think that, given five characters, even if people can't stand Protagonist A and B's general lolcow bullshit, there's still Protagonist C, D and E around. And if people can't stand ANY of these characters, I guess they can just look at the pretty pictures. (The pictures WILL be some serious pretty, that's a very high priority in production.)
So as I prepare to start writing the first chapter of this sucker, I wonder about how I can steer A and B- Delilah the Hawaiian remote viewer/telekinetic and Mitchell the Czech Catholic telepath- clear of being obnoxious Stus. I was just thinking how, when presented with a pair of protagonists in a romantic relationship with one another, the audience may automatically assume the characters are a Classic Romantic Leads. Therefore meant to be beautiful, bland, Impassioned(tm), and have a Love Story(tm) and basically be the male and female ideal (ie: boring as fuck with a few 'quirks' maybe) and ew yuck gag me please I hate movies like that.
I was thinking that hopefully, both are ridiculous enough in their behaviour that they don't really come off that way. But if they do, I guess there's only so much I can do about it. I can frame their lolcow adventures in a certain way. Rather than highlighting how the moonlight shone in someone's very glossy hair or color-changing eyes or how sexy someone's whatever looked in those silk boxers or lingerie or handcuffs or etc, I can focus on Delilah screaming at cops and Mitchell being a snot about the Bush administration and both of them getting arrested. Or bitching about their job. Or just being annoying to one another the way anyone in a long term relationship is now and then. Maybe that would do it.
Delilah's a singer, though. Worries me. Isn't Mary Sue always some glossy pop singer, though? With a billion dollar contract? Or else she just enraptures the very birds themselves with her voice? (Or something?) I think Delilah's actually just, ultimately, a CIA agent's psychic asset who likes to sing in the shower. She seems to want to be a metal queen in an 80s hair band. Or sing jazz standards, something like that. Hopefully that's lacking a certain je ne sais quoi of Sueish cool-grasping. I think Mitchell's problem could be that his whining could take on Stuish 'My Mainpain, Let Me Show You It' connotations. (And god, save me from that bullshit please.) But I do think the character mostly just rages rather than whines. He's not really angsty so much as pissed. Temperamental. I keep wanting to say 'bitchy', actually. Waspish. Isn't Gary Stu usually manfully dignified in his beautifully transcendent and meaningful pain and shit?
As far as I can tell, the acid test of a Stu is that they behave like a complete twit and yet everyone adores them for it. So maybe, just the fact that these characters *do* get arrested when they speed, get reprimanded by their superiors when they get arrested, get on one another's nerves, sometimes don't have perfect hair and may actually even have a zit now and then, get cranky and behave badly and yet this is not somehow everyone else's fault for not adoring their specialness enough will do it.
Or maybe I should worry about C, Madelyne, the classical violinist and pyrokinetic? Does Mary Sue come in classical musician form?
Anyway. I'm actually feeling pretty bad and on drugs! (Codeine, woo.) But I'm thinking about this stuff. And drawing. So I guess things are going okay.
Miss my flist. I'll have to figure out how to be regularly around on LJ one of these days, so I can get back into the swing of commenting and so on.
Btw. While I've been resting and sick and stuff, I've discovered the unbelieveably batshit entertainment of scientology. Man, this is the GOOD crazy. Better than the conspiracy ufo/paranormal stuff even. They actually have their own navy. Words fail.
Today, thinking about how I can avoid making two characters into raging Mary/Gary Sues. I almost want to think of that as a married couple. Mary and Gary Stu. I am a little concerned that two characters of mine could end up this way.
There are five protagonists in the thing. But two of them are very loud and determined to narrate while the other three are more taciturn. And may not really be that insanely eager to push there way up to the camera and TELL US THEIR THOUGHTS and their lives and the dreams and such. I think that, given five characters, even if people can't stand Protagonist A and B's general lolcow bullshit, there's still Protagonist C, D and E around. And if people can't stand ANY of these characters, I guess they can just look at the pretty pictures. (The pictures WILL be some serious pretty, that's a very high priority in production.)
So as I prepare to start writing the first chapter of this sucker, I wonder about how I can steer A and B- Delilah the Hawaiian remote viewer/telekinetic and Mitchell the Czech Catholic telepath- clear of being obnoxious Stus. I was just thinking how, when presented with a pair of protagonists in a romantic relationship with one another, the audience may automatically assume the characters are a Classic Romantic Leads. Therefore meant to be beautiful, bland, Impassioned(tm), and have a Love Story(tm) and basically be the male and female ideal (ie: boring as fuck with a few 'quirks' maybe) and ew yuck gag me please I hate movies like that.
I was thinking that hopefully, both are ridiculous enough in their behaviour that they don't really come off that way. But if they do, I guess there's only so much I can do about it. I can frame their lolcow adventures in a certain way. Rather than highlighting how the moonlight shone in someone's very glossy hair or color-changing eyes or how sexy someone's whatever looked in those silk boxers or lingerie or handcuffs or etc, I can focus on Delilah screaming at cops and Mitchell being a snot about the Bush administration and both of them getting arrested. Or bitching about their job. Or just being annoying to one another the way anyone in a long term relationship is now and then. Maybe that would do it.
Delilah's a singer, though. Worries me. Isn't Mary Sue always some glossy pop singer, though? With a billion dollar contract? Or else she just enraptures the very birds themselves with her voice? (Or something?) I think Delilah's actually just, ultimately, a CIA agent's psychic asset who likes to sing in the shower. She seems to want to be a metal queen in an 80s hair band. Or sing jazz standards, something like that. Hopefully that's lacking a certain je ne sais quoi of Sueish cool-grasping. I think Mitchell's problem could be that his whining could take on Stuish 'My Mainpain, Let Me Show You It' connotations. (And god, save me from that bullshit please.) But I do think the character mostly just rages rather than whines. He's not really angsty so much as pissed. Temperamental. I keep wanting to say 'bitchy', actually. Waspish. Isn't Gary Stu usually manfully dignified in his beautifully transcendent and meaningful pain and shit?
As far as I can tell, the acid test of a Stu is that they behave like a complete twit and yet everyone adores them for it. So maybe, just the fact that these characters *do* get arrested when they speed, get reprimanded by their superiors when they get arrested, get on one another's nerves, sometimes don't have perfect hair and may actually even have a zit now and then, get cranky and behave badly and yet this is not somehow everyone else's fault for not adoring their specialness enough will do it.
Or maybe I should worry about C, Madelyne, the classical violinist and pyrokinetic? Does Mary Sue come in classical musician form?
Anyway. I'm actually feeling pretty bad and on drugs! (Codeine, woo.) But I'm thinking about this stuff. And drawing. So I guess things are going okay.
Miss my flist. I'll have to figure out how to be regularly around on LJ one of these days, so I can get back into the swing of commenting and so on.
Btw. While I've been resting and sick and stuff, I've discovered the unbelieveably batshit entertainment of scientology. Man, this is the GOOD crazy. Better than the conspiracy ufo/paranormal stuff even. They actually have their own navy. Words fail.