How to be
Chatterbox: Inkwell
How to be
How to be a Mary Sue in just ten days!
1. Remember to have long, shiny, silky hair, that you either let down or wear in braids.
2. Preferably, it is neon green or something like that. If you can't go for that, then at least golden-blond or raven-black or as red as a ripe carrot.
3. Of course, it should come from magic or you should just be born that way. Dye is unacceptable.
4. Your eyes must be green or purple. See number three.
5. You must have an extremely unusual name and a least four middle names.
6. Any teachers who show favoritism toward your enemy are the Evil Overlord.
7. Of course, any teachers that show favoritism toward you are the Wise Old Mentor.
To be continued... By you!
submitted by Tiffany W.
(July 10, 2012 - 1:38 pm)
(July 10, 2012 - 1:38 pm)
28. You must have endless upgrades/powerups.
(July 26, 2012 - 12:43 pm)
29.You must actually be a princess in disguise.
30.You must be stunningly gorgeous yet completely skilled in the ways of the bow and arrow.
31.You must only fall in love with 2 or 3 guys who are, of course, the most poular/handsome/sweet guys in the world, but every other guy has to fall in love with you. If they don't, they are either a complete imbecile or a warped, twisted, unwhole villian MWA HA HA who is in cahoots with the Sugarbowl.
32.If this is a fantasy story, you must be an elf or some such amzing magical creature. If not, then you must have a frighteningly large herd of admirers and someone who is completely jealous of you and there will be a big showdown but you will use your charm and wisdom, and she will become another one of your retinue of followers. Similarly, there may also be a girl with an equally large herd of admirers who is a complete cheese puff but after a large feud/battle/showdown she will become your best friend.
33.You must be uber athletic, amazingly smart, witty, poular, and skilled at everything. If you so much as get below an A+ on your report card the warped, twisted, unwhole villian MWA HA HA who is in cahoots with the Sugarbowl will swoop down and strip from you your Mary Sue title.
34.You must either be really tall and shockingly gorgeous, or really short and incredibly cute.
35.You must spell bettter than I do.
36.You cannot be on "the bad side" or in cahoots with the warped, twisted, unwhole, villian MWA HA HA who is in cahoots with the Sugarbowl. Shame, that.
The Captcha says rbfg. 37. Don't be in cahoots with really big friendly giants.
(July 31, 2012 - 11:45 am)
37. You must wear some form of make-up, yet still look gorgeous without it.
38. You must do one little tiny bad thing, then get so guilty you did it, you must tell on yourself and be viewed as an angel for telling.
39. You must save at least one thing, whether it's a cat or the whole world.
(August 2, 2012 - 11:37 am)
37. You must be the only person in your giant herd of followers to be able to communicate with magical beings, use magical things, etc.
38. Anyone else in your herd who can do these things must be killed off.
39. Early on.
40. Tragically.
41. Except you can't say that.
42. So you put on a brave face.
43. Although he was going to be your love interest
44. But in that case, you're allowed to cry
45. But you still don't, because you have Unicorn-Man (coughFablehavencough)
46. You only eat cheeseburgers
47. Or candy bars
48. But you're still really thin
49. Because your metabolism was sped up
50. By a magical spell
51. You can't die
52. Because that would be problematic
53. Actually this goes for any book
54. Except maybe one written about the afterlife
55. Or in third person
56. Your friends all worship you
57. You're an orphan
58. Or your parents are the warped, twisted, unwhole villains MWA HA HA who are in cahoots with the Sugarbowl and want you to join the Dark Side.
~Ash out~
(August 2, 2012 - 8:43 am)
*note*
Some people claim that Mary Poppins was the original Mary Sue... she's not. Just GET THAT THOUGHT OUT OF YOUR HEAD. Although "practically perfect in every way"can describe a Mary Sue, she is not. Disney people will back me up.
--L
(August 5, 2012 - 5:25 pm)
I'm not a Disney person, but Mary Poppins is much too vain to be a Mary Sue. Yes of course, Mary Sues are pretty and gorgeous and all that junk, but I think most don't spend a good portion of their time while shopping standing in front of a shop because the windows reflected you in different colors.
(August 5, 2012 - 7:07 pm)
Mary Poppins is arrogant, self-righteous and smug, condescending, vain, and snappish with the Banks children when she doesn't get her way.
She can and will use her magic to ensure that she gets her way (remember the windstorm that blew all those other nannies away?).
She has no compunction about coming and going from the Banks house as she pleases, up to and including vanishing without a trace and without notice whenever she bloody well feels like it, and never mind if this causes huge inconveniences to the family.
She's highly passive-agressive with almost every non-magical human character she interacts with, and outright malicious with the (admittedly somewhat deserving) Miss Andrews (if memory serves, she locks her in a birdcage and then drops her out the window).
Mary Poppins is not a nice person. She is, however, a good person. There is a fine, but important, distinction there.
She's not a Mary Sue.
Mary Sues are legitimately intended to be perfect, or practically perfect. They will be superpowered to the point of being ridiculous, have legions of slavish supporters, fight against laughably incompetent villains to make themselves look better—if indeed there is a villain at all—and be held to different standards of morality than the rest of the characters. They will be beautiful and popular, always.
The dark side of Suedom, of course, is that oftentimes they DO come off as arrogant, vain, smug, condescending, self-righteous, passive-agressive, malicious, ruthless, and self-centered.
The difference between Mary Poppins and a Mary Sue is that Mary Poppins was intended to be that way. She was supposed to be good but terrifying, lovable but severely flawed. It doesn't come across well in the Disney movie, because they whitewashed a lot of her nastier side to the point that it barely exists outside of simple vanity (it's better in the musical, though, wherein they utilized the Miss Andrews plot to great, and terrifying, effect), but in reading the books it is supremely obvious that Mary Poppins is not intended to be perfect. Or even practically perfect—her insistence upon that phrase is used as evidence of a lot of her deepest flaws.
Mary Sues are not intended to be flawed. At all. Their flaws are a result of their authors' being blind to the idea that the Sue might have flaws, because Sues are generally born when an author is so utterly besotted with the good side of the character that they forget that that character has flaws—something which is most evident in fanfiction, of course, but noticeable in original works as well.
If anything, I would say that Mary Poppins is a deconstruction of the Mary Sue archetype, wherein the traits typical to most Sues—perfection, slavish devotion from close friends, and the aforementioned resultant problems—are examined in the harsh light of reality and without any of the reality-warping that real Sues do to ensure that they really are perfect within their personal canons. Hence, we get the Banks children being fully aware of (and able to take advantage of) Mary Poppins' numerous flaws and the fact that all of her cheerful friends (with the possible exception of Bert) are dead scared of her. With good reason.
(Also, Mary Poppins is not Disney. Mary Poppins is P.L. Travers and subsequently adapted by Disney. Minor point, yes, but the books are too wonderful to overlook.)
((Incidentally, the character of Mary Poppins is startlingly similar to the Doctor's. Which clearly is another indication that she's a Time Lord, natch.))
(August 5, 2012 - 9:49 pm)
Yeah. Mary can be really cruel and occasionally straight up terrifying, and the narrative and other characters are definitely aware of those things. Also, she's a huge liar, which I don't think you mentioned - immediately after she and the Banks children do anything magical, she'll deny to them that any of it happened (does she want them to think they've gone mad or what?). Disney's version almost is a Sue, but Travers' is not.
(August 6, 2012 - 9:34 am)
Right! I'd forgotten about that. And then get snappy with them if they insist that, no, really, they really did just visit the bottom of the sea!
(August 6, 2012 - 4:34 pm)
I'm like the resident Disney person, so, yes, I agree. Watch her closely and you'll figure it out. She's not downright mean, but her insistance about being practically perfect shows that she is vain and possibly insecure. Also, she teaches lessons by pretty much torturing the kids into it in the Broadway musical (Playing the Game *shudders*)
(August 6, 2012 - 3:08 pm)
Pfft. "Playing the Game" is positively tame compared to "Temper, Temper," which is the number it replaced. And why was "Temper, Temper" replaced, you ask? Because it was giving children nightmares.
A variation of the same scene is in the original books as well.
(August 6, 2012 - 6:18 pm)
@ Ash
I disagree on the candy bar and hamburger thing. Mary Sues don't depend on their diet, no, but they still generally eat healthy. Of course, they're not all the same, but generally...
And you agree on the subject of Fablehaven, yay! GAH KENDRA I HATE YOU SO MUCH.
-everyone loves her
-the fairy queen does anything Kendra wants
-she's in love with the avatar of a unicorn who is four thousand years old AND LIKES HER BACK.
-she Always Does The Right Thing
-she *spoiler alert* slays the Demon King. She picks up a magical sword for the first time, walks up to the powerful and gigantic demon king, and slays him. She is about fifteen years old with no proper training.
-if Seth does something awesome, she does something awesomer
-she always ends up saving everyone in the end.
(August 6, 2012 - 9:52 am)
You have a point, which leads to:
(What number are we on again?). You must be a vegetarian and rub it in everybody's face that you don't eat meat, that all people who eat meat are barbarous, horrible, evil, twisted, MWA HA HA etc. and your sheep people agree, become vegetarians, and then you up them by becoming vegan. (optional)
~Ash out~
(August 7, 2012 - 9:13 am)
59. If you are in a fantasy book and are NOT a magical creature, then you must be the one human in a whole slew of creatures and have everyone think you're amazing for being human.
60. You must be the Chosen One. Variations on this theme are acceptable.
61. You must only get into trouble accidentally, through no fault of your own. It should always be random or somebody else's fault.
62. When you do get into trouble, you should usually be rescued or heavily aided by another person. Everyone must think that you are amazing for getting out/solving the problem afterwards when really, you didn't do much at all.
63. Deny that you are amazing. Be bashful about it. This will only make people compliment you more.
64. Suffer some tragic loss at some point in the story (preferably a family member, love interest, or aforesaid wise old mentor) and grieve for days about it. If the tragically lost is a love interest, proceed to almost immediately find a new supernatural/immortal/handsome boyfriend.
(August 6, 2012 - 11:56 am)