#TSC Editorial

[iris-nonsense]

I finally bought the italian edition 😭

[bookishjules]

Some kinda crazy publishing news for Cassie Clare fans??

"Melanie Nolan at Knopf has acquired Cassandra Clare's The Wicked Powers trilogy, the final installment of Clare's 23-book YA fantasy series, The Shadowhunter Chronicle[s], which follows Kit Herondale, Ty Blackthorn, and Drusilla Blackthorn from The Dark Artifices series as they are drawn into the final conflict between the demons;"

[source: Publisher's Weekly Children's Bookshelf]

Did you catch the crazy part? For the past seventeen (17) years, TSC has been published under McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. And now, the final trilogy, which, as you may remember, we have been waiting years for it to be picked up, is going to be published by Knopf, an imprint of Random House (the same house that published Sword Catcher btw).

What does this mean? A different editorial team. A different marketing team. A different design team. Etc. etc. etc. Its honestly the last of these that scares me the most, but I feel like with such an established series as TSC, they would be dumb not to finish it out with the same font and cover styles etc. that have been characteristic of it for years.

What caused the switch? Great question. We can speculate all we want, but all I know is it just makes me that much more intrigued to find out what The Wicked Powers has in store.

[bro-zachariah]

Algo que posta nunca voy a entender son las decisiones relacionadas a los nombres de la saga de Cazadores de Sombras en español. Tipo podría hablar como 10 horas de que la saga principal deberia llamarse Los Instrumentos Mortales o de que la precuela debería llamarse Los Artefactos Infernales pero principalmente nunca voy a entender por qué Los Artificios Oscuros se llama cazadores de sombras RENACIMIENTO. No ya enserio ¿Acaso en los Instrumentos Mortales era algo así como la edad media y por eso se llama RENACIMIENTO? Hasta tendría muchísima más lógica ponerle nose Cazadores de Sombras: la guerra fría. Por último y como futura editora quiero preguntarle a la gente de editorial Planeta por que razón decidieron dejar el primer libro con el título en inglés y el segundo lo tradujeron al español, no posta, no me entra en la cabeza.

[crimeronan]

Can you explain the appeal of Julian Blackthorn? This is a genuine question because I read the books and came away utterly bored by him and unconvinced of his moral greyness as opposed to like, Adam Parrish’s. He seemed so one dimensional to me but I want to know if I’m Wrong TM considering I tend to be very very biased toward my favourite characters and bored by the rest, and my favourites were Mark and Kieran. So maybe I just didn’t pay him enough attention??

it’s been a while since i wrote any earnest tsc meta but cringe culture is dead and the chance to infodump about my julian thoughts has me vibrating where i’m sitting so.  yes okay.

technical stuff

(aka: things pertaining to How The Story Is Constructed)

cassandra clare’s characterization has become much stronger just in general since she first began writing the series like twenty years ago

perhaps most importantly: the more recent stuff i’ve read from her has involved characters who actually grow, change, and learn from their past mistakes 

rather than repeating the same stupid decisions over and over again

and over and over and over some more

seriously take a shot every time someone in tmi miscommunicates or self-destructs in ways They Have Learned Not To Do for no real reason. u will die of alcohol poisoning

in tda this shines ESPECIALLY with the evolution of mark, kieran, and cristina’s relationship, but that’s a separate post

clare’s trademark is also the angsty traumatized jerkass love interest with a secret heart of gold

the woman is almost singlehandedly responsible for draco in leather pants and the proliferation of this kind of character type in fandom and teen lit. this isn’t a criticism it’s me marveling at how if you commit hard enough to a single trope you truly can change the world.  follow your dreams

sad jackass with a heart of gold isn’t an Inherently Problematic Character Type

but poorly done it can lead to relationship dynamics in which one partner is constantly being hurt by and then forgiving the other despite them making no real effort to change, because they are narratively absolved due to being sad

(there’s a lot of this with earlier jace content.  in some ways i think will was later created specifically to be a same-archetype protagonist who actually does get called on his shit and grow. that’s also another post)

also if all of your sexy male love interests are tortured jackasses with a heart of gold then people start calling you a one-trick pony

enter julian blackthorn!

from the very start everything about him is designed to be the INVERSE of the heart of gold jackass.  which immediately makes him interesting just from a meta perspective

(mark and kieran are also both alternate angles on this time-honored archetype.  mark gets the heart of gold and kieran gets the jackass and then they’re both much more deeply messy than that.  yet another post)

julian is kind, self-sacrificing, empathetic, artistic, emotionally supportive, responsible, and favored by old grannies everywhere

so a completely nonthreatening milquetoast guy, right

immediately forgettable if you’re only here for the dramatic conflicts and shithead antics of clare’s other protags

except that he is A Mess

and that he has structured his priorities very carefully, and they are as selfless as you expect from The Hero (TM) but they are also Not Heroic (TM) and they do not align with the moral framework The Hero (TM) is supposed to use

moral ambiguity in characters always exists in relation to their narratives imo. you mention adam parrish - trc’s narrative already mucks around in different ethical shades of gray, and adam falls on the canon scale about where julian does on his canon scale.  both more willing than the average pov character to do the ruthless thing or make the fucked-up choice if the ends justify the means; both with an intensely strong sense of internal priorities that they adhere to at all costs, both so unbelievably fucking down for murder; etc

i do think there are ways julian’s choices could have been pushed even further, but considering the number of readers who hate his guts already, i can see why clare opted not to go for the most controversial possible conflicts

so we’re flipping the narrative

instead of seeing this angsty bad boy and peeling back the layers of his trauma to find his heart of gold, we’re seeing the put-together selfless family man and peeling back the layers of his Responsibility Mask to expose the rotting husk underneath

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THAT IS FUN AS FUCK

then when julian DOES lash out in hurtful, uncontrolled ways, he has significantly more narrative justification for it than most of clare’s protagonists (will elaborate in characterization thoughts)

julian is also interesting as fuck because of how his struggles allow for a more in-depth look at the failings of shadowhunter society, something that’s also sorely lacking in clare’s earlier work

his apparent amorality is simply the result of him making pragmatic and impossible choices because he has been faced with fucked-up ethical dilemmas since age 12 Because Society Has Failed Him

which opens the door for narrative exploration of how and why he’s been failed so badly & what needs to change

i also love that he has such a coldly calculated way of analyzing situations and allowing harm to occur when need be, bc a lot of clare’s early protagonists have such a bad case of Rush In And Get Myself Killed Because I’ve Got Feelings About Impulsive Heroism syndrome that i wanna push them in front of a truck

probably there’s other meta narrative stuff i could say but i’m stopping myself and moving on to character analysis

characterization stuff

(aka: reasons why i’m also attached to him in a vacuum)

i don’t read him as one-dimensional at all tbh

u may feel the narrative pushes “ruthless julian blackthorn” too much without delivering enough actual ruthless julian But i don’t think that’s the same as having only one dimension

from the get-go, the big question centered on julian is always “how far are you willing to go?” and the narrative pushes the stakes slowly higher and higher to continuously test julian’s “the price is always justified” mindset

he has a far more layered and realistic response to trauma than clare’s early protagonists - trauma affects every single aspect of his personality and how he conducts himself, and the effects vary depending on the circumstances

his conviction that he has to be the perfect parent to his siblings because they will fall apart if they see him show weakness??  rooted in how he feels like he’s fallen apart since losing the stable adult support he once relied upon

his willingness to hurt semi-innocent people, commit coldblooded murder, manipulate people using political leverage, allow harm to befall any stranger if it protects his family??  rooted in how he has already had to ask himself how much he’s willing to sacrifice, and how his family is his only source of stability when the world has never done Shit for him

his conviction that he has a darker heart than anyone else because he killed his possessed father, even though intellectually he knows he was saving his brother’s life??  rooted in having no means of processing this trauma and being unable to voice his feelings for fear of backlash from a deeply non-understanding society

the way he represses every single negative emotion he ever has, to the point where emma - his actual literal magic soulmate who can feel his emotions - is startled to find him hurting or angry??  once again all about how he has to be the perfect father or he’s failed completely

the way his anger is so totally disproportionate to different situations and the way his negative emotions can only come out in completely uncontrolled breaks??  all that repression baybey.  this kid has not processed a single bad feeling in five years.  every single real grievance and petty annoyance has been festering indefinitely inside him like a slowly spreading infection

julian’s arc involves him needing to get thru being his worst self to actually start to heal

as in, he has to actually learn to acknowledge his feelings, take care of himself, lean on his family, and let other people take some responsibility

he also has to learn that in his quest to be the perfect emotionally controlled authority figure, he has not actually learned how to control or deal with his emotions. like. At Fucking All. good god

the narrative setup is also about asking “how far are you willing to go?” until the answer is finally “not this far.  not this far”

and once he reaches that point, he has to reevaluate everything about how he weighs his priorities and morals and plans, etc

(i also like that emma has a perpendicular arc in which she’s always the one tempering julian and telling him “no we can’t go that far” until she’s willing to do something horrific that he absolutely won’t and HE has to stop HER. very sexy)

it’s also just really nice to have a character who’s learned to relate so well to literally every single member of his family while still having a very detached ruthless interior consciousness. i have similar feelings about how adam teaches himself to love people, but with julian it’s spelled out more explicitly in canon & it’s a more central character theme

i’m sure i’m also forgetting stuff here but this post is long enough so i’m gonna say good enough

and like i said in the tags on my other post, there are things i’d personally write differently if it were my story - plot points i’d shift, character contrasts i’d up, themes i’d explore differently, pacing i’d adjust, etc.  i have plenty of ways i could be nitpicky and editorial about the effectiveness of julian’s arc.  but i also don’t feel like writing them out at the moment & none of my critiques on effectiveness have an impact on the core appeal of his character 2 me.  he’s so fucking good

[96thdayofrage]

After the towers fell, Americans wanted to feel safe from terror attacks, by any means necessary. The notion that some kind of profiling had to go on in order to tighten up security procedures was fairly uncontroversial eighteen years ago.

As a result, few cared about the long-term implications of giving the state power to informally tab people terrorists, before blasting out to 18,000 different entities, including schools, embassies, and potential employers.

There was no real brake on the listmaking process, which allowed “the watchlist” to balloon. The list expanded from 680,000 people in 2013 to 1.2 million in 2017. Some 4,600 of the people on the list are said to be Americans.

Inclusion on the TSDB happens according to a space-age, Homeland version of the infamous stop-and-frisk policing technique, another program that became an end run around probable cause. In the mid-2000s, hundreds of thousands of people in cities like New York, mostly young black and Hispanic males, were stopped every year based upon the “reasonable” or “articulable” suspicion that a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime.

Similarly, a person could land on the TSDB based upon the “articulable intelligence” that a person “is engaged, has been engaged, or intends to engage” in terrorist activities.

There was no requirement that a person commit a crime before being placed on the list, and being acquitted of a terrorism-related offense didn’t prevent one from being placed on this informal dishonor roll.

The mere fact of the list gave federal authorities enormous power. One whiff of a person’s name near the “known or suspected” terror roster would be enough to end applications for FAA or transportation licenses, hazmat permits, access to military bases, and a variety of government or private sector jobs or education opportunities.

This is probably a highlight of the program for some – it’s difficult to question the wisdom of keeping a suspected terrorist away from hazardous materials – but the huge problem was that people had no real recourse for contesting their inclusion on the list.

The official complaint method for travelers who experienced difficulties was the Department of Homeland Security’s Travel Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP). However, as Trenga noted:

The submission triggers a review… which, in 98% of cases, results in a determination that the claimed travel difficulties had no connection to an individuals inclusion on the TSDB.

When the complainant is a match to someone on the watchlist, the complaint goes to the “TSC Redress Office,” which would then conduct an internal review and send the complainant a determination letter that, no matter what, would not inform the person if they were or were not on the list.

In a lot of War on Terror programs, the fact that no one can be sure if they’re even on a list becomes a major defense against challenges to the system. As an American Bar Association editorial noted back in 2011,

A second doctrinal problem arises from the deeply problematic intersection between secrecy and the doctrine of standing…

For years, the government has advocated… a restrictive theory of standing… requiring would-be challengers of government surveillance programs to demonstrate that the government has actually intercepted their communications.

It’s a Catch-22. You need standing to challenge an abuse of authority, but that very abuse of authority prevents you from gaining information to secure standing.

Want to claim the government is violating disclosure rules under the FOIA law? You might have a problem if you can’t prove what’s being rebuffed in a FOIA request. Want to contest your inclusion on the No-Fly List, or the TSDB? It’s a problem if you don’t even know for sure you’re on it.

I watched this process play out in court last year. When an American citizen named Bilal Abdul-Kareem, who claimed to have survived multiple drone attacks overseas, sued to get himself removed from the “Distribution Matrix,” he faced a serious hurdle because he could not prove he was on the list.

The government argued the suit should be thrown out because neither Kareem nor his co-plaintiff, a journalist named Ahmad Zaidan, could “plausibly” make a case they were on a list.

“The much more plausible explanation,” the government lawyer argued in a DC court last spring, “is that plaintiff Kareem experienced explosions in Syria because he was covering the Syrian civil war as a journalist.”

The Kill List, the TSDB, and all the secret surveillance programs pose the same problem: they exist more or less completely apart from meaningful public oversight. They’re bureaucratic states within states.

For instance, part of the PATRIOT Act governing the issue of National Security Letters (NSLs) – by which the FBI can demand that private companies turn over subscriber information, billing records, and other private data – allows the government to place gag orders on recipients of such letters.

Because of this, we only have a faint idea of what NSLs look like. In one rare case, a man named Nicholas Merrill balked and sued when his company was issued a National Security Letter. In that case, the government argued that even releasing the existence of the letter would compromise national security.

This is frightening given that a) no courts need to approve the issuance of such letters, and b) the quantity of such demands is massive. Over a ten-year period, the government reportedly issued over 300,000 NSLs, at one point reaching a pace of 60,000 issued per year. The Merrill case in 2015 represented the first time a gag order was lifted on one of these operations.

The recent watchlist lawsuit should remind us we’re assassinating, torturing, snooping on, and blacklisting people all over the world, by means of a continually expanding federal bureaucracy that exists outside of any specific mission, and refuses to recognize the oversight authority of courts or congress.

One of the reasons these secret bureaucracies keep expanding is that there is no powerful lobby, no civil liberties version of PhRMA or the National Rifle Association, to oppose them. The people affected by these programs aren’t drug companies or gun manufacturers, just everyone, and everyone doesn’t have much juice in Washington.

[marinadobairro]

O retrato de uma época

Observemos esta foto. Trata-se do Bolsonaro e dois jornalistas da Revista VEJA, ilustrando a página do editorial desta semana.

A coisa é boa demais para não comentarmos! Shall we?

Podemos interpretar esta foto de várias maneiras. A primeira seria sentir asco: “nossa, que presidente tosco! Não sabe se vestir!!!”

Esta é exatamente a reação que a VEJA quer de seus leitores.

A coisa curiosa é que o eleitor do Bolsonaro NÃO vai reagir assim. Ele vai achar o máximo. “Que genial. Meu presidente é que nem eu em casa: blusa de futebol, bermuda e chinelão”.

A coisa toda do Bolsonaro (e que mídia nenhuma sacou até agora) é que as pessoas CURTEM ESSA TOSQUICE. As pessoas acham o máximo. Apoiam. Concordam. Então estampar foto dele assim no editorial é tudo que o Bolsonaro quer - na verdade, ele não tá nem aí.

Tirando um ou outro ser que se acha mais ‘esclarecido’, ou gente já horrorizada pelo Bolsonaro desde antes das eleições, ninguém ficará muuuuito ofendido com essa foto. As pessoas vão se divertir.

Eu, por exemplo, ri alto aqui. Da VEJA.

Isso porque eu interpretei de uma ooooutra forma: esta foto ilustra a pouquíssima relevância que a “maior revista semanal do Brasil” (e toda a mídia) tem para o Bolsonaro. É praticamente nula.

Pense comigo: se você vai receber alguém em casa, você se veste sempre pensando nos seguintes aspectos:

a) a importância da pessoa para você b) o tipo de evento (informal ou formal) c) o clima

Bom, está calor. E claramente era um evento informal. A importância? O que você interpreta dessa foto? Que importância o presidente está dando pra coisa toda? Pouquíssima. Perceba que, pela roupa do Bolsonaro, é como se fosse uma visita do técnico da TV a cabo.

Imagine a cabeça do redator-chefe na hora. Ele, já precavido e imaginando a tosquice, foi de tênis e provavelmente sem gravata. Ele esperava tosqueira, mas nunca chinelão e blusa de futebol. Você pode ver que a repórter está claramente horrorizada e com nojinho da coisa toda.

Enfim. Eles voltam para a redação. Como ilustrar isso? Foto de capa, óbvio, e foto no editorial. Eles querem causar asco no leitor, assim como causou neles serem recebidos por alguém vestido assim. Podem também querer que o fã do Bolsonaro compre a revista. Enfim, objetivo comercial, capa é pra vender, blablabla.

Porém, se fosse eu, que interpretei isso como um retrato do que a mídia significa para o Bolsonaro, eu nunca deixaria isso exposto na minha revista.

É muita vergonha alheia a ‘maior revista do Brasil’ ser tratada assim. É se igualar ao influencer de direita que vai lá fazer uma live com o presidente e é recebido assim, feliz da vida.

A VEJA, perplexa, não entendeu. E expôs sua baixíssima importância para todos os seus leitores. Tsc.

A verdade é dura: Ninguém mais lê revista (só eu, pelo visto).

Bolsonaro, ciente disso, não tava nem aí e recebeu os jornalistas de chinelão.

De novo: eu ri alto aqui. Mas da VEJA.

[thesueclan]

The Validity of Reviewing Mary Sues (Is There Any?)

Bunny Mod

This is just an editorial in between bigger articles from both Mod Loli and me. This came from a thought that I had last night and decided to expand upon.

Just a little while ago a thought came up in my mind about why Mary Sue blogs are so popular. It's at this point that they're a dime a dozen with one for nearly every fandom and many that are just general sue blogs. Although The Sue Clan does technically fall under that umbrella, I do pride myself with this blog by not running it like those which just grab characters from off the web and critique them as a form of comedy. This blog differs by focusing more on bad characters than just the Mary Sue. By most definitions a Mary Sue is a self-insert character/wish fulfillment character and we tend to focus more on more generally bad characters.

And in thinking about that, I began to wonder, is it actually valid to review Mary Sues as one would a "normal" character? After all, if Mary Sues are just the author reimagined, then what's actually being critiqued is the person's ego.

While I do think that it's completely legitimate to comment on a person's actions and work, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to comment on an actual person for being a dork. After all, I think that most people would say that it's kinda mean to make fun of someone for indulging in something that makes them happy. So why does it become funny to do that when those emotions are pushed onto a character?

My guess is that when it's an actual person, we as people can recognize that they're kinda in their own bubble with that sort of thing. They can have their imaginary crushes and/or dreams of abilities much greater than their reality and life goes on. But when it comes to storytelling media, it is a product which we have willingly consumed. If we don't like what's in it, we may feel like we've wasted our time investing ourselves in the story and characters. Naturally we would want to voice our complaints or hear them from someone else to feel validated in our own opinions.

But that doesn't change that the character is still a stand-in for the author, and making fun of their character is making fun of them for self indulging. We as the audience see it as a character while the author sees it as a reflection of themselves. Most people don't take too kindly to being critiqued, especially when it's negative. Plus, in this situation not only are their egos being critiqued but also their skills as writers which can make the blow that much heavier.

I do think that the "caustic critic" does have a place when reviewing bigger products like movies, games, books, etc., because a lot more resources were put into a product that just wasn't good but is still making money. When the work is amateur, how fair is it for "reviewers" who are also amateur at their "jobs" to critique something so harshly without asked input from the author? It's different when it's a consensual agreement between amateurs (like what we do here) because there's an understanding that both parties aren't professional and there's a higher sense of empathy between them, but when it's done behind the authors back to get a quick laugh, it becomes more akin to schoolyard bullying.

I don't think that this is usually done in malice because as I said earlier, most blogs/people do this as a form of comedy. Most even go out of their way to say that they don't condone the bullying of the individual. But if their self proclaimed specialty is making fun of characters which are little more than reimaginings of the individual, then how different is making fun of the character from making fun of the person behind it?

Now, this doesn't mean that I think that writing Mary Sues is a good practice. A Mary Sue is just another type of bad character and they should try to be fixed when the author becomes aware of that fact. But if the worst that the author is doing is just indulging in their self imaginations then what purpose does a harsh back alley critique serve?

In short, I just don’t think that there is any.

Those are just some of my thoughts on the subject. If you have any comments, please feel free to do so.

[thesueclan]

Sue Clan Editorial #1: The Meaning of "Sue"

Bunny Mod

  By my own personal definition, a Mary Sue is defined as:

n. Any fancharacter (regardless of gender) that disregards the original plot/concepts of the source material for personal gratifications to an extent where the work becomes unenjoyable to the reader.

By my definition this means that:

*No Canon character can be classified as a Mary Sue By Their Own Right

*The Character in Question Can Be Wish Fulfilling/Powerful Without Being A Sue

*Sues are not exclusively female

*Sues are not based purely on Aesthetics

*Sues are not based Purely on "Sue Tropes"

*Sues are not always Self Inserts

  I exclude Canon characters from the title of Sue because Mary Sue is a term used and originating from fanfiction. Any canon character that fits the qualities of being a Sue (which will be in detail below) can only be classified as being a poor character by my personal usage of the term.

I also exclude canons from this term because canon characters get a lot more leeway into what they can and can't do as characters on the basis that they're what defines the world. The world of any story is based on the interactions of the main character(s) with the world (the world including their environment and the other characters present). Either the character affects the world or the world affects the character, which in turn defines both of them.

For a character to truly be defined as a sue, they also need to fail on the following two standpoints: The Character Development Standpoint, and The Conceptual Standpoint.

(More under the cut)

The Character Development Standpoint is exactly what it sounds like: the development of the character. Character development is important because it helps the reader to gain attachment to character in question. By learning about why they're the way they are, we can determine for ourselves whether or not we like or dislike the character and whether we're going to care enough about them to continue following their story, However if a character fails to have character development or no explanation as to why they do what they do, they become flat and bland. BUT, this isn't enough to make the character a Sue.

A lack of development and depth just makes the character flat. There are plenty of flat characters (canon or otherwise) that are popular based solely on their aesthetic value. This is the primary reason why certain sues are popular despite them having zero personality: because they appeal to the viewer's aesthetic values, which can be enough for a lot of people. For that matter, this is also why a lot of canon characters are portrayed poorly in fanon, their aesthetic values are so strong that their actual character development is overlooked.

  For a character to truly be a Sue, they must also fail on The Conceptual Standpoint.

The Conceptual Standpoint is self-explanatory: if the character fails to utilize and/or acknowledge canon concepts, then they fail on the conceptual standpoint.

  A canon concept can be anything ranging from: "This person is the best at so-and-so!" or "Only these kinds of powers/weapons exist in this world!", or even "This character is a certain sexuality, so they can't have this kind of love interest!” and so on and so forth with any other possible concept that you can think of.

It's easy to fail on the conceptual standpoint without a full or even moderate understanding of the source material.

If the writer ignores the concepts in favor of "doing what they wanted to do" rather than what they "can" do based on the concepts of the universe, then the character fails on this standpoint.

However, there are ways to get around this. To ignore/break a concept, you must replace it with another concept, such as your own personal headcanons. There are some concepts that can't be worked around, but most are possible.

The reason why a character can fail on a conceptual standpoint and not be a sue is because if the character development is very strong and can explain why and how the concepts are broken, then the failure can be overlooked. HOWEVER, it is extremely rare that a character fails on a Conceptual standpoint and NOT also fails on the Character Development standpoint.

  Those are two basic qualities that contribute to a Sue: the failure to develop the character and the failure to utilize canon concepts.

Other minor standpoints include:

*The Aesthetic Standpoint: This standpoint is based on Appearances & Qualities that don't contribute to the character's Character Development. As mentioned before, a character can be popular based entirely on aesthetics, however to fail on this standpoint the character must use what would be a a major part of Character Development (such as a mental disorder) as an aesthetic trait.

NOTE: Even if the character is offensive aesthetically, this doesn't necessarily mean that they've failed on this standpoint or are a sue. They're just an offensive character.

*The Logic Standpoint: This standpoint limits how far the Conceptual Standpoint can be stretched without being broken. It doesn't matter if the new concept is explained, if it still doesn't make sense logically, then the character fails on the Logical AND Conceptual Standpoint.

*The Self-Appeal Standpoint: This standpoint is a sub-point of the Conceptual standpoint and is based on the wish-fulfilling aspect of a character. If the wish fulfilling qualities out rank the conceptual and development qualities and making the character fail on both standpoints, then the character fails on the Self Appeal Standpoint.

  In conclusion, that pretty much covers my definition of a Mary Sue. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to let me know.