Too Mary Sue/Gary Stu'ish?

[RobotInDisguise]

I'm wondering if these four characters are too Sue/Stu'ish. Can you help me? Thanks.

Name: Wolfram aka Wolfie
Beast mode: wolf
Description: This girl is the foil of her older brother, Luminus. She’s sweet, innocent, honest, and gullible. She’s seven stellarcycles younger than Luminus and despite his atrocities, believes that there’s still good in him. Her story’s similar to that of her father’s and her brother uses her love for him to make her spy on his enemies. Wolfie’s also somewhat vain and would never take her vast energon bead collection out of her fur, so she can’t transform. Because she’s young and much smaller than her brother, she looks like a cute pup rather than a snarling wolf. Like her father before her, Wolfie is very chivalrous and often a magnet for trouble. Unbeknownst to her, Luminus is grooming her to run the newly formed Predacon Empire in his absence.

Name: Luminus
Beast mode: wolf
Description: Luminus’s design is based on Silverbolt and Blackarachnia’s, but without looking at his beast mode, one could never tell that he shared some of Silverbolt’s design. He was once a Maximal, but he switched sides and helped the TriPredacus Council to conquer his homeworld the minute he foresaw Pax Cybertronia’s death. He does everything for personal gain and is an ambitious demagogue. After studying as much history as he could access, he concluded that he, as a powerful politician, was to shape it for millennia to come. Up close, he’s dark and cold, but often times, he kept a façade of friendliness and sympathy. The character resembles Cybertron Sideways in that he often keeps a veil over his face like Ishizu from Yu-Gi-Oh. He is manipulative to the point of using his sister as a pawn and pretending to love her. Because politicians were not allowed to carry weapons, all that Luminus had were his claws and his bodyguards, making him quite useless in battles.

Name: Katan
Beast mode: none
Description: This is Dinobot’s third clone. She’s a top bodyguard who lives to protect the lives of Predacon politicians. Like her father before her, she follows a code of honor and thus tends to question her loyalty to the TriPredacus Council from time to time, when she doubts that their actions are good for Cybertron. Katan tended to regard Maximals as her enemies until she captured one of Luminus’s bodyguards in battle and got to know her prisoner. Eventually, her prisoner, Commander Starfire, convinced her to switch over to the Maximals and she took her team to the other side, though none of the Predacon warriors ever changed their activation codes or symbols. Katan became like an older sister to Wolfie and though she and Starfire differed on their opinions of what was to be done with Luminus, she bonded her spark to his. Katan hates Luminus with a passion because of his back-handednes, thinks him irredeemable, and would not hesitate to destroy him given the opportunity. She also likes to crack bad jokes and will maul anyone who fails to laugh.

Name: Starfire
Beast mode: yet to be determined
Description: Starfire was the chief of Luminus’s bodyguards and his best friend until the wolf defected to the Predacons. Afterwards, he sought to bring back his old friend and felt very much betrayed. One day, he set foot in the wrong space and was captured, but he eventually convinced his keeper, Katan, to release him. He played on her desire to save Cybertron in order to get her to defect to the rebellion and became her bondmate to symbolize the joint effort of Predacons and Maximals alike against the oppressive empire that Luminus and the TriPredacus Council established.

[EverBlue]

Definitions and opinions of Mary Sue's and Gary Stu's will vary amongst different people. Some people will consider Mary Sue to be a sickeningly sweet and innocent character who can do no wrong. Others may consider a Mary Sue to be a fan-created character made for the sole purpose of having a canon love interest as well as the rest of the canon cast act lovey-dovey and out of character. Many also consider a Mary Sue to be a blatant self-insertion of the author and his/her friends who simply overwhelm the established universe with their collective ego's and ignore the established characters in favor of their own storylines and fan-created characters. Or in most cases, people will consider Mary Sue/Gary Stu a combination of all of the above.

As for my definition of a Mary Sue or Gary Stu? It can vary. For the most part, I consider a Mary Sue to be an original character in fanfiction inserted into an established universe who basically takes up the entire storyline with his/her melodrama and upstages the canon characters, forcing them to play more of a backseat role. Even if the original character takes up roughly 30% of the storyline, it's still really pushing it in my opinion. My personal opinion on writing fanfiction and the quality of fanfiction depends on what the author does to develop the already-established and well-rounded canon cast. "Canon Characters First" has always been my policy in enjoying fanfiction. Don't let that mislead you though, because there are Mary Sue's and Gary Stu's in canon(but that's another argument altogether).

Do I consider your characters to be too Sue-ish or Stu-ish? I'm not sure. From what you've described, they seem like well-rounded characters with enough psychological and physical weaknesses not to turn into invincible badasses who can kill everyone. How much of the story will they be involved in? In what ways will they affect the mainstream Beast Wars timeline? Do they serve specific purposes or are they basically jack-of-all-trade characters? How much will they be developed at the expense of the established characters?

But ultimately, fanfiction is about the fans re-creating the universes in ways that they think it should be interpreted. There's nothing wrong with creating a Mary Sue/Gary Stu or having a canon character act OOC, so long as you admit to yourself and your readers honestly that your character may have some Mary Sue qualities or that you've created an author's pet out of a canon character who may act a bit out of sync from the main storyline. Whether or not I like your OC's is immaterial if you REALLY want to set out to write the story that you want. As long as you have a well-written story with good grammar and some semblence of a coherent plot, then you should do fine. Most people who review your fics on fanfiction.net or anywhere else will more than likely praise your story for being well-written than analyzing your fan-created characters. In short, don't worry about what people think of your characters. Chances are, they probably are Mary Sue's if you worry about whether or not they're too Sue-ish or how popular they'll be with the readers.

Other than that, I'd say go for it if you want to write a tale of a prequel or contemporary of the Beast Wars. The only thing I'd recommend you do is change Starfire's name to something else. Starfire just makes him sound like a Teen Titan... a female Teen Titan to be precise.

Hope that helped you out.

[RobotInDisguise]

Thanks. I'm actually plotting for this to be a BW sequel that ignores BM and anything that comes after it.

[bloody_kimono2004]

Eh....Yeah I kinda want to do a BW fanfic my self......but due to the fact that there isn't much of a plot except riding it out during the series......

But since we have an RP going......and when it's sorta done.......I wanna get permission from star to write a fanfiction about it......or whatever.....:op.......

So far I write Naruto fanfic and I'm writing with my own OC in it......
she doesn't act like a mary sue....... lemme give the bio...

Name: Kaida
age:17-18(yes i know common)
History:
Lived in a orphanage in cloud village from baby to age 6, the orphanage was massacred by a man named Ryuji who was the master of genjutsu. He wanted to kill Kaida too but didn't instead he took her with him out of lightning country and hid in fire country. There he trained her until she was almost twelve and then he was killed by Stone ninja who were soon killed off by Kaida's rage. She mourned for him since he was the closest thing to a family she knew. She stayed in the forest grounds killing anyone who came near her home that she made deep in the forest.

Bio: She wasn't liked very much at the orphanage and no one liked her very much she was quiet and never talked to anyone, she was like a lifeless doll. Then Ryuji came and took her under his wing. Not only did he teach her the way of the ninja but taught her about the more positve emotions as well. She became a well disiplined pupil and learned everything he knew and brought some life back into her. That is until he died, making her very emotionless and uncaring (much like Gaara).
And ever since then she's been alone.

The plot for her is to discover some emotions that she was never taught. among other things. She learns about trust, foregiveness, love......
and this one for kicks and giggles since she never was around girls: feminine modesty XD

[RobotInDisguise]

Eh....Yeah I kinda want to do a BW fanfic my self......but due to the fact that there isn't much of a plot except riding it out during the series......

But since we have an RP going......and when it's sorta done.......I wanna get permission from star to write a fanfiction about it......or whatever.....:op.......

So far I write Naruto fanfic and I'm writing with my own OC in it......
she doesn't act like a mary sue....... lemme give the bio...

Name: Kaida
age:17-18(yes i know common)
History:
Lived in a orphanage in cloud village from baby to age 6, the orphanage was massacred by a man named Ryuji who was the master of genjutsu. He wanted to kill Kaida too but didn't instead he took her with him out of lightning country and hid in fire country. There he trained her until she was almost twelve and then he was killed by Stone ninja who were soon killed off by Kaida's rage. She mourned for him since he was the closest thing to a family she knew. She stayed in the forest grounds killing anyone who came near her home that she made deep in the forest.

Bio: She wasn't liked very much at the orphanage and no one liked her very much she was quiet and never talked to anyone, she was like a lifeless doll. Then Ryuji came and took her under his wing. Not only did he teach her the way of the ninja but taught her about the more positve emotions as well. She became a well disiplined pupil and learned everything he knew and brought some life back into her. That is until he died, making her very emotionless and uncaring (much like Gaara).
And ever since then she's been alone.

The plot for her is to discover some emotions that she was never taught. among other things. She learns about trust, foregiveness, love......
and this one for kicks and giggles since she never was around girls: feminine modesty XD

I think she'll be okay.

Starfire's name is now changed to Horizon since I always wanted to name a character that.

I know that robot pregnancy doesn't make sense, but this is just humor. Anyhow, here's one of my characters that I'm thinking about working into a G1 fancomic:

Name: Starflare (might be subject to change)
Alt mode: Something suitable for Seekers
Age: Teen, younger and less mature than Skywarp
Appearance: Think female Starscream with bits of pink
Bio: This is Starscream's illegitimate daughter, who's kinda named after him. She's there for humor (kinda). Because her father denied/didn't know about her for millions of years and thus was never in her life until very recently, she's pissed and is plotting to take his place as Air Commander.

I guess the opening conversation kinda goes like this:

Starscream: You dare to tell me that you have my child?
Femme: Yes...
Starscream: Get out of my sight!
*giant window opens somewhere in the background*
*Seeker in Cybertronian alt mode flies in and transforms*
Starflare: Daddy?
Femme (as she backs up in fear): Aah well there she is.
*Starscream encircles and examines the new Seeker and sees that she looks an awful lot like him*
Starscream: A pretty creature, if I do say so myself. You are now under my command!
Starflare: Am not!
Starscream: I am Air Commander and every Decepticon Seeker is under my command.
Femme: You'd better go with him, especially after all that bragging about your air stunts.
And it's just chaotic from here on out.

[bloody_kimono2004]

yeah and I always wondered how robots actually were able to have kids......I heard so many different procedures

[Guest]

They build eachother. Actually, between that last post and now, I decided that Starflare's mother would scan Starscream while he's asleep and create a girl based on his design.

[EverBlue]

Personally, I think the whole Transformer reproduction thing is best kept vague and open-ended, heh. Just use your imagination when writing about it.

[bloody_kimono2004]

o.o.........thats very tempting...........

[RobotInDisguise]

So is she a Sue or not? I know I'm playing with fire because she's Screamer's daughter and female clone when it comes to attitude.

[EverBlue]

Like I said before, definitions of a Mary Sue can vary so I'm gonna give my viewpoint on Starflare. It's by no means a fixed view on Mary Sue-ism or whether or not your character is a Mary Sue so just take it as a fanfic author's opinion and not absolute fact.

That being said, I don't think having an attitude and being related to a canon character are necessarily indicators of a Mary Sue(even though they can help ). Whether or not I think your character is a Mary Sue depends on the role she plays in the story. Like I said before, a Mary Sue in fanfiction(to me) is an original character created by an author who appears in an established universe. There, she usually becomes the center of the story to the point that she takes most of the attention away from the canon characters and becomes the primary focus. All the canon characters are watered down and emasculated by her presence and overbearing drama. Whether she's Little Miss Sunshine or Little Miss "Pity me, everybody hates me!" Gothic Drama is besides the point. She's still taken over the story to the point where there's no more breath left for the canon characters. Heck, even if she's only in 50% of the story, it's still really pushing it in my opinion.

Do I consider Starflare a MS? Hmm, it depends on the role she plays in the story. Will she be a background character or will the story focus primarily on her? If she's acting as a more restrained character whose role is to move on the plot without upstaging the canon characters then no, I don't consider her a Mary Sue. If the story focuses mainly on her tale while all the canon characters become merely afterthoughts, then yes, I consider her a Mary Sue.

That's my take on the subject. I hope that helped you out some.

[RID]

So I should make Starscream teh spotlight character and 'Flare just the arrogant newbie who fades into teh background once she's settled in. That I love to do.