Not all Mary Sues are in fanfics. A lot of them are in original fiction works. They aren't even all published! I'm sure you could find some examples on here.

I have a fanfic oc. The only reason I don't think she's a Mary Sue is cuz I'm working so hard at preventing it without making the also very annoying "Anti-sue." You should make a Mary Sue litmus test. It would be helpful to fanfic writers.

What you have stated is so true, it's not even funny.
Good job! Every fanfiction writer should read this.

You have valid points here in your essay and I share you annoyance with Mary Sues. One thing I would like to point out is that the name of a Mary Sue is a bit tricky. A character with the same name as the author may be more at warning for a Mary Sue, but not always.

Essay is well-written, however.

Wow INU! That's is great. Your frustration really comes through. A rather lengthy piece, this was, but VERY worth reading. It made me choke on my apple juice. ^ ^

While it elucidates the negative sides of the annoying Mary Sues and rather ridicules them, you also confirm that people can learn from what others' feedback. Unlike most people that rant about something, you actually have a valid and solid solution to your problem.

-Helen

Good essay. There were a couple of typos but nothing too bad. I hate Mary-Sues too. Hopefully some time in the near future people will stop creating these annoying characters. Anyway, great job and keep up the good work.

Nice essay.

As much as you think Mary Sues have become a big taboo in fanfiction, people still don't seem to get the hint.

Some nice outlines which I think cover the basics.

Only thing I'd add is the ridiculous attention paid not only to clothing but to physical features. Oh, and the ridiculous names.

Such as: "Trinitee Stellestia Orion gazed at Studly with her crystal blue eyes. They were a deep sea blue when she was feeling passionate, but when she was angry they turned a slightly hazelly colour, a colour all the boys seemed to love, particularly the gold specks that sometimes appeared when she gets REALLY angry"

And such.

Good work. I'm glad you picked up on the self-projection thing.

dis storee wuz really kool!

Seriously though, I totally agree with the points you make here. I love fanfiction (not anime-fic, but there are some fandoms I enjoy), but I can't stand fanfics with characters like this. It's obvious that you see this a lot in anime fanfiction. I have also noticed it in fantasy fanfictions, specifically fics set in 'The Lord of the Rings' world and occasionally in 'Buffy' fics as well.

One point I would like to bring up, however, is that while Mary-Sues do generally suck as stories, many authors of original fiction put elements of themselves into their characters. I for one, am writing a fantasy story with eight main characters, at least four of which represent different aspects of myself. These characters are not by any means perfect, however, and one in particular represents an aspect of myself that I hate, and he is perhaps the least likable character in the story.

Anyway, I thought this was really well thought out and written well.

ZOMGBBQ, r u really 13??!?

So there's still hope after all. :P

Hey, Inu. Spiffy tutorial about the evils and wants and lusts and obssesions (hahahaha) of Mary Sues. I am so sorry that you had to be exposed to that kind of stuff. T_T

Yeah, flames suck. Like this piece. ;P Just kidding.

I think that you should also include the fact that ALL MARY-SUES are closet homoes. Just kidding. ;P

Really, though, Mary-Sues suck. They are all closet pathologically insane crazies. Search your feelings––you know it to be true. >;

This was really great. Although I don't agree with everything, nearly everything else is completely true (I should know. I'm guilty of nummerous counts pointed out in your essay). I was wondering if you've ever read Christine Feehan's "Dark" series. Man, you can't get much more Sue/ Stu than that. BUT, I still enjoy reading them. Why? Not because I'm obsessed with meeting some macho, impossibly hot, incredibly perfect and impossible guy, but just because I know that since the characters and the storyline are impossible, it's interesting and fun to see a "perfect" couple interact(and it allows my extreme romantic side to "::sigh::" ;) ). But yes, many of your points are still true. It's rather unfair to label ALL MarySue writers as you did; although I may be a typical MarySue writer (which I do deny but may be incorrect) although my character may be hopelessly, annoying MarySue, it's not fair to label the author as well. Feel free to email me back if what I have said is incorrect. I think would find that help and reviews from you would be very helpful (do I sound uptight and stalkerish or what? sorry. lol. )

Very nice essay. I was thinking of writing an essay like it...I however would have been far nastier. I'm just not a nice person, I guess. I was glancing at some of your reviews, and would like to point out that you are correct in your definition: A flame is not merely a negative review, a flame insults the author and the story without support of it's claims, and is generally full of poor grammar and spelling. You are right. They are wrong. They are dumb. (Again: Apparently I'm not very nice.) Lovely essay, though I do wish you would have touched more on Mary Sues in other fandoms besides anime, and pointed out that Mary Sues do not only appear in fanfic. Otherwise, well done. The spelling and grammar are good...if they weren't, then we would have trouble.

I did this backwards. I read the reviews before I read the story. I do that a lot. I find out what kind of readers you have and what they think of your story/essay. That's why I went on to read this. The reviews were entertainging and meaningful. I figured the essay would be the same way.Great job on this. I'm wondering if you could do me a favor; could you read my newest creation, Two Chapters of Nothing in Particular and tell me if my character is Sue-ish? I need all the advice I can get, and you seem like an informed writer. Please?Thanks for being an informant. Keep writing.

Hm, several problems I spotted here. The idea is an excellent one, though - too bad you can't post it to ffn!

"Ever since the dawn of fanfictions, there have been Mary-Sues."

Fanfiction, in this case; no real need for a plural < /nitpick >

Actually, I'd go so far as to argue that Mary-Sues are just as common in original fiction, if not more so, as in fanfiction. In general, at least. I recall going through a "Mary Sue stage" myself when I was around 12 or 13, for instance, and about half of the Sues (at least!) that I created were for original fiction stories, not fanfiction. So really, ever since mankind invented storytelling, there have been self-inserts and Mary-Sues... it's just gotten worse since the internet got involved. ;)

" It was inevitable, I suppose; open up writing to everyone and you’re bound to get some of the inept."

You're right in that! This bit I wasn't criticizing, I just felt the need to compliment you on that. I once saw a professional editor link to fanfiction.net after being asked "What's it feel like to go through the slush pile?", and say simply: "Read through THAT for four hours. That's exactly what it's like."

"The Fanfiction site..."

"The" fanfiction site? The most popular, certainly, if we're speaking of ffn. But it's not the only one. There's iRefinery dot net, there's nFiction, affn... and those are just off of the top of my head.

"An original fiction requires at least two characters and a setting."

One person complained that technically, they've seen "stories with only one character". This was in reference to a ROMANCE, however, so... wording was odd, but in context it's OK. You may want to add the word "romance" in this case for clarifiction, though, as I believe you were specifically referring to the hypthetical romances you're going into detail on.

" The characters need personalities and must develop quickly. It is very difficult to warm the heart of someone introduced to the romance of two strangers that lasts about a thousand words."

This is pretty spot-on... except - a minor nitpick, here, but I felt the need to mention this - a thousand words is approximately 2-4 pages (depending on whether or not you double-space it). Even if we're talking one-shots here, I've had one-shot stories that were over ten pages long, single-spaced. Isaac Asimov had an excellent short story, called "Profession", that was about 30 pages long. Not all one-shots are "a thousand words" long. Again, a tiny nitpick, but I figured I'd throw it out there.

"Then along came Mary-Sue, bringing with her disease, starvation, and death."

OK, I know I said something about point out flaws, but I just had to compliment you on this line. Very funny.

"A Mary-Sue is a perfect character made up by the author that usually represents herself (I’m saying her because the majority of Mary-Sues and Mary-Sue writers and female.)"

A "perfect character"? I'm not sure that that's the best description. A good writer might consider the phrase "a perfect character" to merely mean "a character that is well-developed". "A character who is perfect in too many ways", or something similar to that, might work a bit better.

"-Young. Most are teenagers, even though someone their age couldn’t possibly work in the story, because they are the author’s age and the author likes it that way."

Not quite. I've seen my Suethors write characters who are the age they WISH they were (read: older than them), or ones who were immortal and several centuries old. I only picked at this point because you said Mary Sues WILL have these traits. They only USUALLY do, and not even that, depending on which of the traits we're looking at.

"-Talented..."

I would have said "overly talented" or "insanely talented", but your later parenthetical note is pretty good at pointing out your meaning here.

"-She has a relationship with a main character..."

Believe it or not, not always. Sometimes they don't actually pair off with a canon character, they pair off with another Sue or "Stu" (male Sue of course). The worst part about these is they often barely even use the universe they're supposedly writing fanfic for. Meaning that it might as well be original fiction.

"If they are her age, they may be her boyfriend."

Or girlfriend. There are Stus, and there are a surprising number of lesbian Sues, especially in anime fandoms. They may also randomly be a bother or sister. I've seen that done more than once, I believe. Especially in Harry Potter - long-lost twins and other crap like that.

"If the character is much older than the Sue, they may be her father or uncle."

Or not. I've seen Giles from the Buffy fandom paired with Sues, if I recall. YOUNG Sues. Kind of creepy, actually...

As per your refernce of Mary Sue clothing descriptions... oh if only "a red tank top, a black miniskirt, and tall white boots" WERE the limit. But no, we must know exactly what logos and slogons she has, where she bought them, her cup size, her measurements, her stockings, her exact brand of shoes, her exact shade of lipstick and mascara and eyeshadow...

"-Non-human lineage. This depends of the circumstance."

This line being something most reviewers seem to have ignored.

" My character ends up being a fairy, per say, or has a small amount of fairy blood, and it is likely fine, but it is when we get to partial cats, wolves,"

"Part wolf" describes werewolves. I have seen a number of fantasy writers, both professional and not, refer occasionally to the "lupine instincts", or the "wolf side", etc. But they aren't really part-wolf in most cases, they have a disease that forces some strange transformation into a wolflike form or (as in the book Blood and Chocolate) they're technically a different species to begin with that happens to have both a lupine form and a human-like form.

Some fandoms also have cat-people in them (such as Tokyo Mew Mew, or Tenchi Muyo). Many of these aren't actually human/cat hybrids (well, Toyko Mew Mew's are; Tenchi's aren't), but a seperate, anthropromorphic species. In fantasy and SF in general, I mean. Lord knows what some Suethors are thinking with sticking catgirls in Lord of the Rings. But in some fandoms, it's not so odd.

"angels, or demons that we get a problem."

Again, depends on the fandom. In Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Gundam Wing, those are sort of ridiculous. But there are some anime that DO have part-demons or part-angel characters, and yes, they are often still pretty. That works for some fandoms. Not for a lot of them, but for some. Part-demons in Buffy, for instance. They can be ugly as sin, or attractive as all get-out, depending on what kind of demon contributed DNA.

"If I have a half-cat character (and I better have a good explanation for that) and if they have large whiskers, a cat nose, knees that bend backwards, and fur all over their body, then they may be fine. Most Sues only have cat ears and a tail, though. This is likely inspired by the manga series Tokyo Mew Mew."

Actually, Tokyo Mew Mew first off, also includes fangs in the basic character design, and the characters can transform further if they're not careful (sprouting a fin or turning into an actual full-fledged cat). So TMM is not exactly a good place to blame for this. Additionally, TMM's Ichigo is a ripoff of a VERY standard character design that has been around for absolutely years, and many an anime or manga before TMM had it. And I've seen catgirl Sues dating back to the '90s, which is pre-TMM. Again, I wouldn't lay the blame squarely on TMM, as it's only a potential contributing factor, not the only source for all of the catgirls running around.

"It isn’t reasonable and it is incredibly irksome."

Unless they're aliens or something, and it's normal. Again, depends on the fandom.

" Where can you become half-cat from?"

According to TMM, a special shot of... stuff.

(Actually, certain kinds of virus can actually go into a cell and change the DNA, I seem to recall. I think they sometimes use them in vaccines and such. I can only assume that that's what it is in TMM. Then again, TMM is chock full of questionable science)

I have a story I'm working on - an original fantasy - where felinanthropy is a genetic disorder. A quirk in a person's DNA, as it were. You're either born a "cat person", or you're not, and the disorder has a bunch of crappy sideeffects (like being unable to drink alochol or eat chocolate). Believe it or not, I've read of research that indicates that we're not as genetically dissimilar to our fellow mammals as we might think. You still get humans born with a tail sometimes, or that grow extra hair, or have pointier ears. It really depends on how well the person handles it.

"You can not change your DNA to get cute furry ears and a tail. No."

See above. It's actually theoretically possible. Not saying it's likely, or will ever be common, but it is theoretically possible, at least if done within the womb (switching certain genes on or off). Also, keep in mind, some fandoms have aliens that are humonoid with with other features, or they might have magic in them. For instance, in Harry Potter book 2, the trio tries to pass themselves off as Slytherins using the Polyjuice Potion; Hermione accidentally takes feline hair instead of human hair, and temporarily ends up part-cat (though the change is obviously superficial... and she grows a bunch of fur, I think, so it's not as cutesy or anything as merely a tail and ears). Once again, the VIABILITY of it depends on the fandom.

I would complain more about the ludicriousness of having those features there when they have no bearing on the story, and thus seem to be there only to emphasize the "uniqueness" of the character.

"-Angelic, and I mean literally. Angels are in religion, and are divine beings."

...somebody has never seen Evangelion. ;) "Angel" is a codeword for the attacking beings in Eva, and there at least, are genetically very, very close to humans. It' concievable that they could mix...

Though that would in all likelyhood be a Sue if it wasn't a villain.

I realize you're talking about actual Godly angels here, but the thing is... some fandoms DO have characters like that. I know, it scareligious or something, but it's true. Admittedly, many OCs with these traits are still Sues, but it's not like every fandom will, through canon alone, say it's not possible.

" They have no flaws. You cannot make a character an angel because wings look nice. Just stay away from here."

No flaws? Then Lucifer didn't have any flaws? ;) They do sometimes have flaws.

I agree that being part-angel just for hte hell of it is silly. But again, not all fandoms - or even cultures! - have a religiously accurate view of the Christian angel.

"-Unique name. This name is often Japanese and is inspired by the writer’s nickname. For example, Inu means dog, so my friends call me that. I create a character named Inu."

You're forgetting the "way too many middle names" cliche! ;)

"Time to bring up a somewhat-related subject: flames. A flame is an offensive review insulting the story and writer with no constructive criticism and no evidence as to why it is so horrible."

I wish your reviewers had taken the time to take in ALL of that sentence. Not a "negative review". A "negative review" simply doesn't focus on the positive very much. An all-out flame has no constructive criticism (an attempt to actually help the writer improve). You absolutly hit the nail on the head with that. I only wish your reviewers had ALL listened, instead of redefining it inaccurately for each other.

" The Sue writer needs to look at her reviews and realize that many positive comments doesn’t make her all that and a bag of chips."

THANK YOU. I only wish more Suethors would realize this. :/

" Give some physical and character flaws. By physical flaws, I don’t mean that she needs to be twenty pounds overweight, have a face full of acne, or have buckteeth. For her not to be a stunning beauty is enough."

Actually, I can't remember the last time I read a story about a pimply teen. This is suddenly saddening to me.

"(End Note: Lack of intelligence is not a character flaw, nor is clumsiness. "

Lack of intelligence isn't? You mean, outright stupidity isn't a flaw? Of course it is. Lack of book smarts, sure that's not a flaw. Ditziness can be a flaw only if written right. But general "lack of intelligence"? Yes, it's a flaw. And clumsiness if it's not portrayed as "cute", but annoying, or if they're clumsy because, say, they're alway jittery because they drink to much coffee, then it's not a flaw. Or say their clumsiness kills somebody (like they manage to drop a loaded gun that goes off and shoots somebody). It's not "cute", it's "deadly", and therefore a rather frightening flaw.

I can, however, see where you get that kind of stuff, since you mentioned Tohru Honda. However, clumsiness and lack of intelligence can work as flaws if the author treats them as such, instead of treating them as cute widdle idiosyncrasies. Same with childishness. It can be protrayed as "cute", but in real life, RARELY is, and such therefore not usually be portrayed as such.

"Take Tohru Honda, the heroine of popular manga Fruits Basket. She is kind, understanding, loving, and helps everyone’s problems, causing even the harshest characters to like her. Her only “flaw” is the fact that she is a total ditz. This is an example of a published Mary-Sue."

I know. I get so irritated sometimes, because the manga is otherwise prety decent. But more and more, she screams SUEE to me. >.< I wish tehy'd focus more on the other characters and leave Tohru's effects on them to a bare minimum, really. Good thing I've been borrowing them or reading them in the store instead of buying them...

Anyway. Overall, a good essay. There were just some bits here and there that could maybe use a little tweaking.

Now I must go to bed. ;) I hope this review was helpful!

-Runa27

Good explanaton of Mary Sues. A bit rambling, though.

'An original fiction requires at least two characters and a setting. '

No it doesn't. I've read a few stories which have only one character.

'smitten with her at first site.'Just a nitpick, but that should be 'sight'.

Many of your criticisms just come down to your personal taste.Re. non human lineage, I can't see any problem with that. It's just poetic licence.

'Where can you become half-cat from? You can not change your DNA to get cute furry ears and a tail. No.'

Duh, it's fiction. Maybe in the world the author's made up, you can change your DNA, or use magic, or whatever.

'Angelic, and I mean literally. Angels are in religion, and are divine beings. They have no flaws. You cannot make a character an angel because wings look nice. Just stay away from here.'

Actually, you can if you want to. I take it you mean that writers *shouldn't*. Well, in your story it's up to you, in their story it's up to them.

'Lack of intelligence is not a character flaw, nor is clumsiness. 'Yes they are.

I really liked your essay you've pointed out something that has been slightly erking me as of late when looking for something decent to read. I admit I may be guilty of this on one occasion although technically mine does have a flaw of being naive but seeing as the story is not finished its understandable that the character is mistaken as being a Mary Sue. But I digress, I thought you made a very good point which applies to both fanfic and fictionpress. However I must admit however that the stories are fiction and fiction always allows for the possibility of perfection, fiction does not always have to be a lifelike dramtization of the real world but can also be a fantasy world where the main character is the essesence of perfection and a place where peoples wildest dreams can come true. I think the real issue is creativity and careful thought into editing work and creating something more than a superficial character.