Nightfury326

This test? The Mary Sue Litmus Test? I used this religiously. I would make a new character and then run them through this like my life depended on it. I was thirteen, and I thought that if my characters were Mary-Sues then no one would take me seriously. I bought totally into the popular idea that any woman who had more than two talents was a Mary-Sue. I was convinced that I was better than those other people who had OC’s that I saw as Mary-Sues. I would look at examples of Mary-Sues and try to avoid them, even if they were characters that I personally loved. I didn’t even need to click that link. I still had it bookmarked in my ‘writing’ bookmark folder from seven years ago.

It drove me to change my first ever OC’s. I was thirteen. Thirteen! I was an 8th grader in middle school utterly terrified of people seeing my sexy demon OC or my pretty immortal OC or my cool freedom fighter OC and the first thing they’d think was that they were too good. The culture around (mostly women) original characters needing to be watered down or having to have the character’s (mostly women’s) skills and talents justified were toxic as hell to me, and I’m sure to others.

The test specifies that if a thing is normal for your setting you don’t count it. (true, I’ll give you that)

It’s pretty hard to get a character to the high levels of Mary-Sue (incorrect, many characters in popular media score high, and so did my characters when I was younger)

If the score is low the test will say that’s just as bad as if it were high (it’s virtually impossible to do this)

Even the creator knows the quiz is harmful, and so is the idea of a Mary-Sue.

The point is that young creators who want to make powerful, fun, beautiful, and universe-breaking original characters found this quiz and been led to think there’s something wrong with their characters. That there’s something wrong with them for writing it. This is my personal experience. 

She will also no longer be allowed to do any favours—there are elderly people living in isolated farms around here, and she (and other postmen) often offer to bring some groceries to them (which they don’t buy during their shift) in winter when the roads are bad, or meds from the pharmacy, and starting next year there will be inspectors doing surprise inspections of postmen’s cars to check for anything that is not post, with penalties if they find groceries or other stuff. I couldn’t think of why so she explained gloomily that the post company started a (paid) service to provide this kind of assistance so it is now wrong to offer the same help for free. 

1. You are responsible for your own media experience. 

2. There is such a thing as a healthy level of avoidance towards topics that make you feel unwell or even (in a real-life clinical definition of the term) trigger you - but you are the one to actively take care of what you view.

3. Avoiding does not mean policing others.

4. You have no right to tell artists to censor themselves - you may criticize what others do, you may dislike it, that’s fine - but actively asking for censorship when you could easily unfollow or block a person just makes you look incompetent in your use of the internet.

Which isn’t the same thing

The basic premise is that it is “when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand.” Or in other words, once you learn something, you can’t at all remember what it was like to not have that knowledge or context anymore. It creates gulfs between people who have different knowledge bases who are communicating.

This has come up for me in life SO MUCH around topics of abuse, boundaries, consent, and relationship dynamics. (All types of relationships, not just romantic.) I’ve read about and studied and dissected these things to death so it’s second nature for me to talk about it. Then, I will think that a friend and I have the same values of what’s abusive or acceptable.......but then later I learn that what they meant is totallyyyyy different than me.

Or when I bump into people who truly think that thin = healthy or who don’t understand what being trans is at even the most basic level. I’m like “Jesus this asshole is hopeless” and I no longer remember what it was like back when I very FIRST learned these concepts.

It’s one thing if someone is willfully ignorant or a proud bigot. But if someone is TRULY learning something new, they need the super super basics patiently available to them so they can get the knowledge you have...and then THAT could become a bridge between you.

One time I was having a lazy argument about evolution with a Jehova's Witness. I just threw out my basic talking points, basically assuming that I was dealing with an educated but stubborn person. Turns out, she had NO IDEA what the actual details of evolution are. She had zero understanding of mutations or even how chromosomes work. Once I backed up and gave her a mini lecture on evolution and she actually understood it, her mind was blown. She ended up having a serious crisis of faith and I still wonder how that went for her in the end.

Since then if someone is arguing a bad point very passionately, I try to figure out where the disconnect in information is. And sometimes I'm the one with wrong information and I learn something new! But when I'm right I try to be more patient and introduce the new information as clearly and neutrally as possible. And you know what? A lot of times it works wonderfully and I have a new ally or friend. Sometimes not, but at that point it isn't on me for just assuming someone has all the information I do when they don't.

Like I get that so often people can be close minded and aren’t actually acting in good faith to listen or be open to changing views at all. But sometimes it’s not that.......there’s actually a serious case of the curse of knowledge. Major knowledge gaps are a challenge but if they can be identified and navigated around, great shit can happen.