pugbutter

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

and I never said that he was manipulating anything for a personal vendetta.

@Sanctus Spooki

Are you sure about that? Maybe you should explain what you meant when you said this, then:

It's so easy to simply label a character that you don't like to be a Mary Sue, and even easier when you toss away the actual definition of a Mary Sue, and substitute your own ... you can cover up the personal bias you hold against them behind some overused criticism like 'Mary Sue/Gary Stu'

@Sanctus Spooki

It sounds to me like you think I'm pretty damn sinister.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

I don't know where these phony accusations are coming from. How can I use Mary Suedom as a catch-all for any character I want to hate when I gave very clear, explicit parameters on my idea of what a M.S. character looks like, and when only a small contingency of characters is sure to fit within these bounds? Furthermore, why would I choose to hate a character first, and then grasp for reasons to justify this hatred only afterward? Doesn't the cause come first and the effect later?

Frankly I'd forgotten that your character ever existed, so I'm glad you don't think I wrote that passage just to spite you. But I'm not rescinding my opinion just because he fits within my personal definition of a Mary Sue. Feeling offended and entering a kneejerk self-defense response simply aren't sufficient arguments in persuading me to do so.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

It's a good thing no one in this thread has done that, then.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

It makes it so that you can dislike any character whatsoever

@Sanctus Spooki

Wow, people disliking characters that I like? Disgusting. How hasn't this been made illegal yet?

ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛚᛁᚷᚺᛏ ⧐ Runelight

bump

How to add photos?

@Happyhappy Head here to learn what other cool things you can do with BBCoding, too.

Lords of the Stars

I'm not joining the RP for my own reasons, but I'm subscribed because I look forward to reading it when the IC starts up. Love me some LotGH.

ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛚᛁᚷᚺᛏ ⧐ Runelight

To be fair, I didn't "think of" any of that. It's ripped straight out of the mythology, albeit in a vulgar, greatly simplified fashion.

But this reminds me of Banner Saga so I'll have to keep an eye on it. Depends on how much Fantasy is thrown in tbh, since I think it'd work better as a desperate survival story than as a traditional Saga-styled thing where we're all heroes and we can slay any entity, no matter how mighty, with enough strength and courage bolstering our hearts.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

@SleepingSilence Mary Sues in roleplay are gorgeous because they're created by the audience as representation of themselves, whereas in films and books the Mary Sue is presented to the audience by an outside party, usually for a solitary story beat (power fantasy, steamy romance, w/e). In the latter case, averageness is more relatable because the audience is entering a world over which they have no creative control, with which they're unfamiliar. The fantasy is the audience themselves entering the world through a sympathetic vessel.

The first time you pick up a book series you have probably had no exposure to that fictional universe's laws, folkways, customs, and cultures before, and while a "fish out of water" is a perfectly acceptable device for introducing the audience to this world, the Mary Sue is a character who, while living among all these rules, can ignore them or even be ignorant to them at will, entirely without repercussions. Among these rules of course is beauty standards, and if a character can be lusted over by all cast members of the opposite sex despite not deserving it (being "average" and not, by that culture's standards, a near-perfect physical specimen), then they have broken rules of their own universe without consequence. Therefore they're still Mary Sues, despite what the author says about how "plain" they are.

That's the difference. When it comes to middle-aged housewives and 12 year old pre-teen girls watching a romance movie, which is the better fantasy? Hot guys swooning for a busty supermodel who looks nothing like them, or hot guys swooning for an average chick who kinda-sorta-maybe looks like them, and could some day be them in a romantic encounter at a restaurant or something? Whereas when you're the one writing the fantasy, of course you'd be as beautiful as possible, because beauty brings with it more power than just sexual desirability. It has more utility in RP and it's simply more fun (*for these people, not for me) to pretend you're beautiful and not normal, since you're already normal IRL.

ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛚᛁᚷᚺᛏ ⧐ Runelight

@Komager There are, broadly speaking, two afterlifes which a Norse person can look forward to: if he died an ordinary death from sickness, old age, etc., then he goes to the less pleasant one.

If he dies with a weapon in his hand, he goes to Valhalla.

The Valkyries are the spirits which carry dead warriors' spirits to Valhalla, at which point these men become "Einherjar." These spirits will be instrumental in the coming battle between the gods, Ragnarök, because they will fight on behalf of Valhalla's ruler, Odin.

Also note that an eternal winter, "Fimbulvetr," preludes Ragnarök, during which the sun dies and all life on the planet will eventually cease. The Final Winter and Ragnarök mark the end of the world, basically.

But the Valkyrie are nowhere to be found in this version of the story, so basically, it is deduced that a cosmic force has conspired to weaken their side in the coming war, the side whose army should be filled with Einherjar. Without the Valkyries, no more Einherjar can enter Valhalla and fight for Odin.

Warriors who fall in battle during this time are probably becoming world-wandering ghosts, or worse, they're being sent to the other underworld, the one reserved for non-warriors.

To summarize, the world is currently a doomed shithole. The sun is gone, and people cannot go to Valhalla no matter how bravely they have died. This is an expedition into uncharted, hostile territories in order to restore balance to the forces of life and death. Rescue the Valkyries so Odin's army can win Ragnarök.