We interrupt Batman fannishness to bring you the following:

[trinityvixen]

That idiot's written back to me again, and this idiot's gone and responded to him...again. I won't bore you with the seven-page long response (most of which was reiteration of what it meant for his character to be Mary Sue), and bring you the highlights rel instead:

Some of his interesting logical jumps:
1) By calling him an uninteresting character, you're assuming he's not a good Navy SEAL and not what he's truly destined to become at some point in the story, a turning-point if you will? Remember how Spider-Man (Peter Parker) went from becoming a nerdy college student to a wall-crawling, web-slinging superhero? It can happen
(to borrow a line from the badfic people: ::headdeskheaddeskheaddeskheaddeskheaddeskHEADDESK::) 

2) Fangora sounds like a pretty original and vampire-like name to me, let alone an original one. Unless you can give me a link or reference to a horror-movie magazine or whatnot saying that that name was already taken
(www.fangoria.com, dude)

3) Christian (slated to become "Headhunter" later on, as in the Doomsday Saga) pair with Rayne Verdalos from BloodRayne (Kristanna Loken's character in the upcoming movie). But as far as in-story relationships go, that's the BEST I can do, and plus, it would be more fitting. A vampire-slaying couple; works better than a Daywalker pairing with a Nightstalker and leave the other, a male, dead in the water if you ask me. Why didn't I think of that earlier? 
(Because crossover characters don't count as canon! Not a Mary Sue! REALLY!)

4) how he "magically" became a Daywalker? Well, if I remember correctly, he said he was granted that power from a God just as he was dying in the last story. Him being bit by a vampire and then tasting the Sierra Black Mist potion as mentioned in the last story might've done it.
(Take that, Michael Ian Black! Drink Sierra Mist, become a vampire! Or worse, Wesley Snipes!)
 
5) There can only be one Daywalker? Read Blood Key, Blood Union, Vicious Circle and New Comer before you say that. They all involve a new Daywalker/hunter they made up, too. It's not like any of them remembered to put a copyright on AU character-creation, hint hint.
(I said it before, I'll say it again: ::headdeskheaddeskheaddeskheaddesk:: He's using other fanfiction--other fanfic Mary Sues to say his okay!!!!! AND THEY AIN'T COPYRIGHTED FOLKSES! WE COULD CHURN OUT A BUNCH OF THESE AND IT'S OKAY!)

6) By "poor sentence construction," you must have meant the first-person writing style in BoB:ANS and not the detailed third-person writing style in the Doomsday Saga
(I would have thought 'poor sentence construction' explained itself, but then again, I though "Dear God, please stop writing" was a big enough clue, too)

7) My guess is that the Mary Sue idea comes from the fact that everything about him, as portrayed in the story, happens without a detailed origin. That if I were to write a follow-up of it, starting from the very beginning, it would be a prequel rather than sequel. Well, that's what prequels are there for. You can't fault George Lucas for deciding to release the first Trilogy, which started out as the first 3, only to bundle it down to Eps 4, 5, and 6 with prequels. Prequels are there to give the viewers the who's who of the ENTIRE story, from beginning till end. This is one of those stories that requires a prequel to do just that, and that must be the only reason he's a, what you would call, Mary Sue as of now (the idea of him pairing with a cannon character or whatever IS unrealistic, and that might also be what all this "Mary Sue propoganda" is coming from. But what if I change it, which I will? Is he a Mary Sue then? 
(Is he honestly calling Darth Vader a Mary Sue!?! And yes, damn it, you're still writing a Mary Sue! Incidentally, anyone want some Mary Sue propaganda? You know how much I love Mary Sues; buy these posters and see why!)

The following is restraint, the very picture of it, I daresay:
--With ‘Fangora,’ it seems as thought you jotted down a list of attributes of vampires and found the one with fewest syllables and slapped an ending on (I guess ‘allergictodaylightora’ is a bit hard to roll the tongue around, and ‘suckfacera’ a bit too lewd)

--Also, I never commented on your other story, but ‘Headhunter’? That’s ridiculous. It’s like naming your character “Lawyer!” and expecting people to cringe at the might of his ability to file briefs and be a pain in the ass.

--Sierra Black Mist? No relation for the 7-Up and Sprite alternative *Sierra Mist* that you’ve seen on commercials, is it?
(side note here: Okay, maybe he is autistic. Who seriously would use that name? I'll let you know if the Supreme Diet Dark Pepsi monster rears its ugly head, too.)

--You need to introduce problems for your OC that aren’t *attitude* problems. He cannot be super-strong, super-smart, super-good looking, and, oh, right, he’s also really angry, poor baby.

--You have to let the characters’ personalities dictate who they hook up with; your OC doesn’t deserve/isn’t necessarily compatible with Rayne because they’re both hybrids. In fact, Rayne would most likely kill Christian as she does innumerable gun-toting psychos in her videogames. I would also advise against crossing over the fandoms. For one, the physics aren’t compatible (by physics, I am talking of the rules of the videogame BloodRayne since that’s the *original* not the movie). That yet another attractive female is playing your OCs new love interest does not help your case for Christian not being a Mary Sue (and for the record, Rayne is more attractive than the Terminatrix Kristianna Loken any day, but either way bodes ill for your OC’s status as Mary Sue).

--When I say that your writing was poorly constructed, I am talking primarily about GRAMMAR and secondarily about its style—its ability to flow and keep me interested. But I’m so glad for you that you have someone else whose grasp of sentence construction is as tenuous as your own.

--Allow me to be mean and disillusion you here: Christian will never be Spider-Man, even if had the tights and the tight buns, and the only Lucas attribute you possess is a fascination with and admiration for yourself.

(sorry, this one's a bit long; methinks I was exorcising my own demons on this poor soul)
--As for George Lucas, I won’t deny he made some of the most wonderful films back in his day. What he did for science fiction can never truly be replicated (though I give Peter Jackson credit for reviving fantasy in much the same way with his films). However, the utter junk that the prequels are…let’s just say I’m surprised that anyone seeking to defend his work would *want* people to draw a comparison between it and Episodes I, II, or III. Is Christian the squeaky child from Episode I who, despite having one facial expression and going ‘wooooo’ all the time is supposedly so angry and lonely the Jedi fear to train him? Maybe he’s the moody teenager of Episode II (and this does seem rather accurate) who broods over nothing, gets his undies in a snit whenever he doesn’t get his way, misbehaves and is miraculously forgiven, suffering NO consequences for his violent, unsafe methods/behavior (sounds more and more like Christian as I go along), but who will, despite having nothing to offer but a pretty face, will score with a woman of power who also happens to be pretty darn cute herself.

I can’t wait for Episode III Christian. I doubt multiple amputations will slow him down. He’s a Daywalker, right? Just regrow them after drinking some blood. No worries.

The short-short version of my lateset exchange and advice to the ignorant can be summarized as follows:
1) You cannot use one-sentence reviews to show that you are doing everything right (or even most things right).
2) Justifying your Mary Sue by pointing out others doesn’t change the fact that you are writing a Mary Sue.
3) Research anything you do not possess intimate knowledge of (the military, basic grammar, etc.)
4) Your OC is only as heroic as your favorite characters in your head. You have to prove it to your reader. This will be hard if your character is neither sympathetic, adequately flawed, nor anything resembling a sane individual.
5) If you see a name in public, in a store, on the street, on the can of soda in front of you, don’t use it in your story.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

You are a sadist. Or a masochist. I can't decide which. This writer obviously does not have self-awareness as an author to even understand your comments, so you're really wasting your time. They're never going to believe that they're bad, at least not from you telling them so.

I have come up with the three things you must do as a writer to become good:
1 - Acknowledge that you can write great stuff.
2 - Acknowledge that you can write absolute shit.
3 - Learn to tell the difference.
Your author here is on step 1.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You're right of course. Step 2 is hard, to be fair, but we all have to do it sometime.

Three's not so hard once you've seen dramatic examples of 1 and 2, thank you this author.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/iharthdarth/


dude, just........ ^_______^

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Okay, maybe he is autistic. Who seriously would use that name?

This stubborn refusal to grasp anything you say to him could be an example of high-functioning autism, yes. You should see some of the students my mother gets and the problems they have.

But what I suspect is even more likely is he's your average, stupid, pain-in-the-ass 16-year-old boy. You're pandering, which would obviously make him defensive; you're taking over his head, which confuses and scares him; and you're doing it all as a faceless entity over email. How did you think he was going to react?

Yes, it's important that this kid not think what he's writing is great literature, and it's possible that he'll become a better writer if given some constructive criticism. But I think you desperately need to chill and let it go.

[cbreakr.livejournal.com]

as a general clarification for the totally uninitiated: what is a Mary Sue and what is an OC?

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

OC = original character（one of the ones not in canon).

Mary Sue definition (it's whatever the first one Google gave was).

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

And so the saga continues... I think he's a dead horse at this point though. Probably best to just let time work its magic.

By the way, only one thing -- actually any original work is copyrighted as soon as it's written in fixed form. Publication on the Internet should definitely count. But, you can't copyright an idea anyway, so basically you're right.