Last night I wrote a rough bio/about for my pet Chuuni on her profile and I was wondering what people thought of her character: link

I tried to make her a well-rounded person with good points and flaws, skills and weaknesses, etc but did I end up tipping too far one way? Is she a plausible kind of person? Does she come off as generally okay or dislikable and irritating? Should I give her a few more good points? My worst fear is her coming across as a Mary Sue, so I made sure to give her some weaknesses, but maybe I went overboard there and made her into an Anti-Sue.

One note: she exists within the Batman: The Animated Series 'verse, so I tried to make everything plausible within the show's timelessly ambiguous sometime-in-the-1900s setting. I mean, they have computers, mind control chips and I think one character's driving licence is mentioned to expire in 1995, but also they also have old-fashioned cars and police blimps so who knows when the damn show is set. Although the BTAS version of America seems a lot less sexist and racist than in real life is even nowadays...

Hi Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to see your pet bio for Chunni, I only see the Urban Dictionary definition. Could you point me to it, or paste it here? :)

The bar labeled 'Vital Statistics' is a spoiler; click on it and the text shows up.

SPOILER (click to toggle)

Like this, but I changed the words using [spoiler=Vital Statistics][/spoiler] but without the asterisks.

Cheers :) I learnt something new on Subeta today.

After reading the profile I have decided I quite like Michiko. She seems like an interesting character and there are certainly not enough super heroes in that have a black and diverse heritage. Overall I think you have avoided a Mary Sue, however there may be a couple of elements to Michiko that you may wish to be aware of. Michiko is definitely not an anti-sue in my opinion.

Firstly, traumatic family experiences are incredible common in super hero stories, as well as parent deaths. This doesn't you mean you need to rewrite this, but it may be helpful to be aware that this can contribute to the cliché.

Michiko has an incredible amount of intelligence despite being so young which can also be seen as partly Mary-Sue. Perhaps you can emphasis her sheer determination and will power to achieve such a high comprehension of the sciences? Did her father inspire her? Or her maternal grandmother? Maybe as she was bullied she decided to focus hugely on her studies instead of socialising, or perhaps she wanted a better life for herself and understood that she could do that through intense studying in science? Also, why and when did she have time to learn ASL? While it is a fantastic skill to have, fluency involves many years of intense practice and engagement with the Deaf community. Michiko would need to have gone to several classes, studied and have been heavily involved in meeting many Deaf people.

Thirdly, Michiko seems to have two major disabilities. Firstly, her physical disability. Some would say that her physical issue with her walking being 'fixed' by her suit is a cliché. However, considering your setting, I think you can get away with this. If you use Michiko for a story you may wish to emphasise that it took her some time to get used to her suit, etc. I like how the use of Technopathy can link in to why she has adapted to her suit so well and so quickly.

However one thing I am concerned about is her mental health. Mental health, like physical health is a severe issue. Without experiencing it, it can be very difficult to write about in a sensitive manner to audiences who may have a more personal understanding. Without extensive research, I would recommend removing some of her mental health issues. Also, if you have a very large and personal connection with Michiko's mental health, I also highly suggest you change it. While it is clear that anyone with Michiko's backstory would dearly suffer, you could remove such health conditions such as OCPD and panic attacks. I also wonder whether Batman or someone else would have recognised Michiko's condition and have counselled her, recommended she see someone? Batman being as rich and powerful as his, having taken Michiko in under her wing, might have insisted she get professional help in order to become a hero. Perhaps that's a potential idea for character development later on? What do you think? (Although having an older person, especially of the opposite gender [or be someone that Michiko has a crush on] nursing a character to become magically 'mentally well' again is a terrible, terrible cliché.)

I hope this helps :S

This is a small exploration of potential Mary-Sue moments in Michiko, but I'd like to emphasis this again - I really like this character and I hope whether it's through roleplay or writing fanfiction, that she's becomes an active part of your creativity. She's cool.

What I put down in her bio is basically the start of her story, a sort of 'how we got here' if you like. A lot like the history section of an RP character form. I do have more that I could have put down vis a vis her past, personal relationships, etc but I thought that it was becoming a monster wall of text already and left it out.

To address your points one by one:

I'm not exactly that keen to her backstory, tbh. I keep changing it and fiddling with it; I think this is backstory 3/7 or something silly like that. I might remove the murder bit and just make her mother be emotionally abusive and mentally ill and have her father be too busy to look after her, hence the moving to her grandma's. Or just plain having her grandma go "Look, you're not treating this girl right and it's obvious you don't love her. So give her to me and I'll love her for you".

As for her age, well... I'm 22 so I'm not quite out of that 'oh man, 30 is so ooooold!' mindset yet. ;P I tried to make her old enough to achieve her qualifications, with maybe an internship at WayneTech, then be employed by WayneTech for let's say two years before she takes up superheroing. I think Batman: Year One said Bruce was 25 when he became Batman but then again I don't think he doesn't have a Master's. Though I think he did travel the world and trained with ninjas. Either way, I could easily bump up her age a little to maybe 30-32.

All of this, really. She was a loner from childhood; all she did was sit inside all day and read, study, and watch TV - including a lot of science documentaries. That's why her social skills are all sorts of rubbish. The energy and brainspace used to learn how to get on with people was used up on learning facts and figures for school. Michiko also watched a lot of super robot shows in this time, becoming inspired by the way the pilots only had to sit while the machine did the fighting for them, which drew her towards robotics and then mechanics as a career. I'm not sure what her father did as a job, but I think he owned a lot of car factories - that probably helped.

Hm, good point. I'll change 'fluent in' to 'has basic knowledge of'. She does work closely with a lot of hearing impaired people when developing devices designed for them and the deaf, including less bulky, more accurate hearing aids, and learnt sign both out of politeness and for convenience's sake. It's easier to her to converse with them directly that rely on an interpreter, and her knowing a few signs puts them in a better mood - and so more co-operative.

I wouldn't say she was 'fixed' so much as using the world's best wheelchair, one so good it doesn't even have wheels. It's a high-tech mobility aid; when she's out of it, Michiko is just as disabled as before she got the suit. And yeah, her technopathy basically allows her to 'synch' with the suit and control it as if it were part of her own body; she and it are basically drift compatible. I think it helps that she could walk a bit beforehand, even if it was just pottering to the kitchen and back, so didn't have to relearn that.

And I didn't tell you about how many times she fell over her own feet, stubbed her toes, or leapt into the air, missed her target by a mile, and landed straight into a dumpster. ;)

Haha, me too.

I do have some knowledge of mental health issues and I wasn't sure whether giving her just generic problems(?) with no clear 'cause' - problems like just being anxious a lot, having nightmares, being very into her cleanliness - that could be chalked down to 'general trauma-related behaviours' or actually giving her concrete, real disorders was the best way forwards. But she can still be way too into her hygiene and use too much bleach without having OCPD, right? I think she has PTSD, though, to a certain extent.

As for seeing a professional, her friend Alice has recommended therapy in the past, especially after what is now referred to as 'the Jervis incident'. Michiko has always replied with an emphatic 'No, I'm fine. Really. Look at how well I'm coping. I've got a job and everything!' and Alice doesn't press the issue because that conversation would only end in tears. Michiko's tears, to be exact. Mental health isn't exactly a topic handled well in Japan, from what I've heard, which left Michiko with the idea that her suffering is a source of shame and getting help a sign of weakness. And she's heard stories about Arkham and what happens in there, so there's no way she's even approaching anyone and basically admitting that she might be mad.

Batman would be more forceful than Alice on the subject, probably highlighting how a lot of the Rogues would gladly use any mental issues she had against her - the Scarecrow and the Joker, mostly, but also possibly the Riddler. Of course, there's the issue of finding a competent and trustworthy therapist in Gotham, one that won't run the risk of discovering that she's the White Rabbit. He probably teaches her a few tips and tricks that he picked up over the years, just to tide her over until he finds someone he feels he can trust. Michiko trusts Batman and sees him as her sensei, so she'd be more likely to do as he says and work with a therapist that he selected for her.

And her mental well-being would probably improve a lot if/when she discovers that hearing machines talking to her was a superpower rather than a hallucination. That would certainly give her something else to boast about as well as everything else - "I'm one of the only four metas in Gotham, so nur nur na nur nur!".

Thanks for your comment, you've given me a lot to think about vis a vis her character and how it could be developed. If I tweak it, I'll probably write it in the daytime and not in the middle of the night like I did the first version. >_>

Thanks for your response. I would be happy to read anything else or review changes if it can be helpful to you, just give me a shout. I'm hoping to engage with the Subeta community as much as I can.

If that's the case, I wonder if you have considered if the mother needs to have a mental illness? As you are aware, being mentally unwell and self-destructive doesn't link with the amount of love for a child the parent has. Or perhaps the mother needed respite care in a specialist hospital, where she later became a permanent resident. A positive spin could be that the mother has changed her life around, but is not able to or doesn't wish to live independently.

Haha, I'm 22 too! In my opinion I think 25 may be a more reasonable age.

Ah, that makes much more sense now as many audiologists do tend to know some of the local sign language to assist with communication. As a medical staff member the interpreter should always be booked either way, but it would certainly impress and comfort a D/deaf patient to have a work with staff that know basic sign language.

Gosh, I love this explanation so much. Yes, you've totally convinced me. Keep this!

Yeah, she can be way into hygiene and use too much bleach without having OCPD. I can imagine, if the mother remains mentally unwell, her finding all of her maths books misplaced and moved around, a lot of the dishes being untidy and left to grow, it would have probably deeply unsettled her. It's up to you!

True.

Very reasonable. And hey, it gives room for character development!

Haha, love it. Especially the speech.

I hope you don't mind the ping, but I completely revamped Chuuni and her backstory. It still needs a bit of work (like her relationship with Batman, the police, etc) but I like it a lot better now. Alice is still gonna be in there. Somewhere. I need to add another small paragraph to the end of her history and it's done.

And she's got a friend an enemy in the Red Queen, a teenage runaway with a literally fiery temper.

EDIT: Added more to Chuuni's bio.

Sometimes I wonder 'Hey, wouldn't it be neat if she had prosthetics and was a cyborg? That would be cool.'. Turns out that writing someone who can't walk is hard.