Leaderboard

I'd have to agree to a large extent. Female OCs tend to bear the brunt of these sorts of accusations, and as someone who writes both het and slash, I can honestly say that a lot of the people that read and/or write slash or yaoi are inclined to hate any female character on sight. There is also a great deal of wish fulfillment that comes into play with the female OCs. For some, they are who the author would love to be, and that causes the author to exaggerate the OC's abilities. For others, I've seen it degenerate into a sort of virtual self-loathing, with the OC representing everything the author would change about themselves. Either way, the accusation of "sue-hood" is one that is used too widely, in my opinion, to bash any character that a reader doesn't like, even if only because that character is the "wrong" gender.

Yes. I was still taking every comment too danged seriously back then. Concrit is useful. I guess those litmus tests are useful as a checklist of things to watch out for, not so much as things to avoid, but things that you shouldn't do without a very, very good reason, keeping in mind that you may alienate readers who are burned out by bad examples of all of the above. If you choose to use badly-abused fanfic tropes and clichés, you have to be a better writer than most, as you're starting off with a handicap. I do wish that readers would be a little more careful not to scream "Mary Sue" at every OFC in fandom. The funny thing is, my worst offenses are never OFCs. It's writing canonical characters I love. Sometimes I make them too perfect, too KEWL.

I have actually put myself into the limitus test once, just out of morbid curiosity. Apparently I am a Mary Sue, but my RP character isn't... O.o... W.. T.. F? So yeah I take these tests with a grain of salt. I figure they are a nice guideline if I am unsure if the character I am making is too over the top, but then most the time I don't care. I tend to get an idea for a character and run with it. Mary Sue/Gary Stu be damned. If people don't like it, Its not like i have their eyes taped open forcing them to read it. Probably why I don't post anything I write. I write for me cause I like it. I write my dreams cause they are hot/interesting and I write stories that are fantasies, things I would love to have happen. Are they any good? well I dunno. Is the character a Mary Sue? well since it's me sometimes I guess it's a self insert which is just as bad or something. um.. I think I was trying to make a point and lost it.. hold on.. *shuffles around* Ok, yeah.. Honestly I wouldn't take any of them seriously. You should always write for you, not for anyone else. If you like it, then thats really all that maters.