66 replies to this topic

[Shadowspawn]

The Mary Sue is the perfect character. The smartest one, the one who is always right, who turns the dark into light, strongest of the strong, befriender of the lonely, the one who knows anything and everything.
In other words, the most annoying know-it-all ever to exist in fanfiction.

[Vespar]

^Yep. Shadowspawn outlined it perfectly. However, he/she still missed something...

Mary Sues are specifically under the labels as being Author Created Characters (ACC), Original Characters (AC) or most likely a Self-Insert (SI). Not just having the Shadowspawn's listed abilities, Mary-Sues also tend to get romantically involved with a main character(s) -usually Sasuke, Neji, Gaara or Kakashi and to a lesser extent; Naruto, Shikamaru or Iruka.

Oh and for the reverse, some people refer the male Mary-Sue equivalent as a Gary-something-or-rather. It slips my mind at the moment. ^^;

[Sakura Blossoms]

There is also the Ginny-Sue in Harry Potter.

In fact J. K Rowling (the supposed great writer herself) plays a huge part in that word being in existance now

Ginny went from a 'hardly-ever-saw-her-always-in-the-background' character...to a ZMOG! She is the funniest, wittiest, prettiest, and most popular witch in the whole entire school...and she can even kick all the boy's asses in Quidditch, datte-freaking-bayo!

[Angel]

wow Sakura, you sure outline it well.
I dint know what it was either till now ^^

[Nate River]

Most of the time they show up OC's who are related to a main character and/or fall in love with a main character. Oh, and don't forget the male equivalent: the Gary-Stu. I think the most common personality trait I've seen is the Kind-but-still-a-Badass type.

And Vespar's right, they are not limited to OC's or Self Inserts. Sometimes one of the main characters will be altered and will in essence becomes this. Powerful Naruto fics frequently have this problem. The most common premise is that Naruto leaves the village and is trained by Kyuubi/Jiraiya/Itachi etc. Also, I've come across a few powerful Sakura fics that have been quilty of this.

It's unfortunate that the problem is as widespead as it is (at least its perceived this way) because the taint of the Mary-Sue tends to spill over to authors who create well rounded OC's that are interesting to read about.

Speaking of Harry Potter Mary Sue's, check this out:

A Mary Sue Alphabet

One of the funniest parodies I've ever read.

[Sakura Blossoms]

Omg Shriner...that was hilarious!

N is for Naoko
In space she has dwelt
Her real name's Sailor
Asteroid Belt
A student by day
Vigilante by night
A short-skirted soldier
In crimson and white!

This perfectly describes all of those Sailor Moon stories where a Sailor Terra or Sailor I-Rock comes out of no where just in time to save the day :rolleyes:

wow Sakura, you sure outline it well.

Thanks Angel-kun

[TonyG]

God it's been years since my old days as fanfiction critic but lets see if I am not as rusty as I think I am...

mary sue, ahh yes how I hate em. The term mary sue came from an old 70's star trek fiction of Lieutenant Mary Sue ("the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet -- only fifteen and a half years old").

Now to keep this short she had a romantic relationship with the STcast, did a number of heoric fetures (if I recall I think she actually flew the enteprise by herself) and in the end died saving all of the crew in a heroic last stand.

MS are a fic flamers come true. The author will put himself as the "uber male or female ninja", he or she will end up in naruto's world by some weird and completly crazy reason (dream, old relic, or even a portal that will open from out of nowhere and suck them into that world). the fic will have horrible if not completly crappy grammar (kinda like mine, sorry ;P) will mispell or completly forget the use of common english, will use japanese terms he probably heard in every japanese serie ( dont get me wrong, I not against them, using them is fun to read sometimes, Im talking people the completly abuse of them). and finally will make comments of how people say his fic is bad and that it is not true and its "the best naruto fic ever, so good that even kishimito would be green of envy"

now how would the MS be in the naruto fics? Here are some examples of how to recognize an SM in the naruto fandom

the author will be a ninja boy of 13 who looks like a 18 year old (because he is taller, better build, and more "mature" than the rest of teh cast), even if he is not even remotly close to the real life him and completly sweeps up every female of the naruto cast, from the ramen girl to tsunade... each and every girl in the series will fall gaga for this kid and most of the times will end up having a wild night with him (and she will say it was the best sex she ever had").

He will also have incredible ninja skills that will make kakashi look like a noobles idiot, because he will probably challange kakashi to a fight and kakashi will be ager to accept (you can see In character kakashi commiting seppuku by now) and the boy beats him in 6 seconds or less.

He will have a blood limit that makes all the other blood limits hide in shame (most common used "the bloodline that copies all bloodlines" or an uber variation of the sharingan). and he will probably use it without any sideefects of it like getting tired.

He will have a cool sword (masamune, destroyer of worlds, hakkari blades, you name it. the kid will have the cooles weapon from some other game he plays in his free time...) that he would use better than any other sword wielder, if the MS is placed in the first season series he will fight zabuza and hakku at the same time and beat in the blink of an eye and make them repent for their sins or kill them on the spot.

he will have a demon inside him that has 10 or more tails and make the nine tailed demon fox look like a small puppy. and he will have full control over the demon and have special one of a kind uncopiable jutsus from the demon

finally (and this is what really cracks me up about MS) will have some sort of "weakness" and make him "weak" for lets say a chapter or 2 the he comes up and wins in the last minute thanks to "the power of friendship or love". Making every male of the naruto cast feel proud to have him as a friend and ever girl drool and want to have his babies.

the optional part in the ending is that he will die after defeating every single enemy of the naruto series and every enemy the autor created and return to his "real world life" or just get back to his world in a weird way like he came in

Of course MS is not resticted to male authors only, you also have the female author that will have all the "abilities" I just said of the male MS only that she will 13 but have the body of any supermodel you can think of and take every member of the male cast to bed.

finally we have the bisexual MS those are like a mix of the 2 they will have a romantic situation with all of the naruto cast, but that is just weird over the limit for me.


Now Im more or less new in the fanfic naruto world. but I have a good experience in Eva fic fandom... you wanna see how bad MS can get... read Hellstorm evangelion from Issai, people if you can survive reading that without you head spinning I salute you... but here Ill be nice this time Ill give you guys the link to an MST ersion of it so you can have some humor instead of looking for the nearest pencil to pluck your eyes out. MY EYES!

Now this is completly rare and also improbably to happen more than once, there is actually a slim chance of a good SI ( self Insertion ) fic to apear, but needs work and good writting skills and most important of all the author has to make sure he is not making himself look cooler and be the center of attention all the time.


well that is all I have on MS... sorry for the long post... been so long I talked about fics I got a bit carried away :devil:

[Sakura Blossoms]

Making every male of the naruto cast feel proud to have him as a friend and ever girl drool and want to have his babies.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Absolutely hilarious!

[TonyG]

Making every male of the naruto cast feel proud to have him as a friend and ever girl drool and want to have his babies.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Absolutely hilarious!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

an sadly true...

I remember an old eva fic where the main character was the son of Mulder from teh X-files and Lara Croft from tomb raider... the kid was 14 -16 had this incredible "aura of smooth" (imagine the coolness of James bond only 1000 stonger) I dunno if he actually made it all the way to the bed with the female eva cast but I do remember he having a sort of relation with all of them at some point of the story

it was well written but poorly executed in my opinon that fic.

but then again nothing is worse than "sailor pokengelion 1/2 Z" man that was bad, good for me it does no longer exists in the net

[Angel]

wow......just plain wow lol Nice job TonyG

[ABrokenRomeo]

Mary Sue's are the bane of the existence of every fan fic writer that wants to try and make a character that is supposed to be paired with a main character of a story - for instance, My character Dallas in the story Teen Titans: Dark Love has a few mary sue traits, but I was much younger when I wrote it. He for one falls in love with Raven, and she with him - their relationship blooms from understanding of pain brought on by loss - Raven her family in Asteroth, and Dallas his entire demonic clan. Allot of people consider him a mary-sue, which is fine by me. One of the reasons is Trigon is the one that whiped out his clan - another mary - suish thing is that I added to the prophecy that invovled raven - I added "If light should cause darkness to turn back - then fire and shadow shall once again dance, and destroy the weilder of night once and for all" or something like that, I forget I havn't read my fan fic in like...forever...

but Ya Mary Sues = Bad

[TonyG]

yeah MS == BAD BAD KILL IT WITH FIRE BAD! is true however there is a difference with SI and ACC. ACC and SI are not alway == BAD BAD KWF BAD! but people generaly make the connecton because 99.95% of those fics are like that.

however there are the few very few rare gems of fanfiction that do shine because of the well execution of their work

the rules are very simple to follow

when you create an ACC you need to remember that like every story a uber character is like a sore pimp on someone ass, you jsut want to get rid of it as fast as possible.

if you are going to make a relationship with one of the cannon characters remember this "if the character has already a romantic relationship with another canon character, beware!". You will need to develop some serious writting skills to come up with a plot where the cannon couple breaks a part and still make a story of how the romantic other starts to relate with your ACC or SI. and even then people be ready for some serious flames of the fans of the paring, say for example you want in your story for your character to be romantically related to starfire in teen titans, even if you manage to pull the stunt of making starfire leave robin or viceversa, star/rob fans will try to chew you up for it... they are the bad side of the fan force... they have the mental capacity of a gold fish and only know one way of respond when attack.... flame you till you are no less than a ball of ashes. but if your story is well executed the flames will subside and people will start getting interested in this new plotline

another rule is to prevent your character from developing the "aura of smooth". Do not make you character look cool by using corny lines you heard on movies, have a huge fortune, know every martial arts know to man and alien, have his own mecha or costum evangelion, gundam, etc. MAKE HIM/HER NORMAL! unless its a super hero kind of fic then give him superpowers but not godlike ones please or say you character does need a godlike power well then remember like with terra or naruto right now, to much power can be hard to control and hard to understand to many cuasing fear.

next rule would be... stay away from the "tenchi effect" for the love of god stay away from the "tenchi effect" on your character, hard to execute. So unless you are ready for some serious brain cracking experience do not use the"tenchi effect" on your ACC SI


oh? you dont know what the tenchi effect is right.. well its 1 man and 5 girls going on a full scale war to get the man, you get the idea all the girls want the bos and they will do what it is needed to get him

there are many rules on SI, MS, ACC... I can keep going for days.. but I guess this is good for now

[MBKon]

*big eyes* WTF! nooooo!!! It can't be... My char is a mary-sue? damn, i have to give him some weaknesses... they have a rather small aura of smooth, cuz i put them as Gamatoshi's. Ya know, Jiraiya's relatives. They are around 18 and are brothers. they are rather flirty but that is in blood with the gamatoshi's... and its a SIShizune and SI2Ayame. NaruSaku, SasuAir(yea, he's alone)

the fic goes a bit like this. Jiraiya's nephews, Maruko and Ryushi come from the snow country to konoha because quote: the dango and women in konoha are said to be the most dellicious than anywhere else in the world.

Tsunade steals the money Jiraiya wanted to use to buy them an apartment. When they arrive they see Naruto being rejected by Sakura again....

i hope this isnt a regular mary sue. Or im doomed!

ive wrote a marysue before but luckily i didnt upload it...

[TonyG]

*big eyes* WTF! nooooo!!! It can't be... My char is a mary-sue? damn, i have to give him some weaknesses... they have a rather small aura of smooth, cuz i put them as Gamatoshi's. Ya know, Jiraiya's relatives. They are around 18 and are brothers. they are rather flirty but that is in blood with the gamatoshi's... and its a SIShizune and SI2Ayame. NaruSaku, SasuAir(yea, he's alone)

the fic goes a bit like this. Jiraiya's nephews, Maruko and Ryushi come from the snow country to konoha because quote: the dango and women in konoha are said to be the most dellicious than anywhere else in the world.

Tsunade steals the money Jiraiya wanted to use to buy them an apartment. When they arrive they see Naruto being rejected by Sakura again....

i hope this isnt a regular mary sue. Or im doomed!

ive wrote a marysue before but luckily i didnt upload it...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

*Tony goes all the far side of his room and opens an old very dusty chest and takes out hils old fanfic flamethrower*

been so long eh old friend?....

*turns on the flamethrower does a few flame test shots*

still working, eh oh... yes the fic *puts flamethrowe down*

ok points in faver of what I have seen so far Tsunade and Ayame even if the are part of the female cast of naruto they do not have any serious sentimental relationship with anyone cannon related so you pretty much have to just make it a real "how they started to fell for each other" move, once you do that the rest is easy

aura of smooth is not bad, sometimes makes the character interesting... what you should never do is over abuse the aura. justdont make him perfect

what really makes my trigger finger twitch on my flametrower is the fact that tsunade steals jiraya to give them money to buy a house... now that looks to me like one of the errors I forgot to mention, MS have a lot "they have the entire cast be their slaves" aura. meaning that all the cast will do whatever they can do keep the MS happy and even in some cases wealthy and happy (as in "here take this mansion and live in it dont worry about the rent")...

besides that go ahead man I dont see any trouble at all...

[Vespar]

Don't you worry MBKon. You just have to practise and read enough to gain experience into knowing how to handle such matters.

Don't give them weaknesses.
Give them personalities.

When you think of them, don't EVER think along the lines as 'as smart as Shikamaru' or 'not as youthful as Lee', since that just means they're just another take on someone else.

My best example, would be to read Elizabeth Culmer's 'The Way of the Apartment Manager'. Hers are a perfect example of an ACC/OC, but being flawed and fleshed out enough that it doesn't fit the Mary-Sue mold. (Errr... It's not shounen-ai... really.)

I'm not the best person to be giving advice on AC's though. My first fic was a trainwreck of SI in Evangelion. Luckily, that was years ago and now, I like to think that I'm a little better and a little wiser.

[Morgri]

Psssh, you forgot the part about the MS having had both parents killed, and struggled as a kid but somehow turned out to be the greatest of the greatest ever.

[TonyG]

Psssh, you forgot the part about the MS having had both parents killed, and struggled as a kid but somehow turned out to be the greatest of the greatest ever.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

""finally (and this is what really cracks me up about MS) will have some sort of "weakness" and make him "weak" for lets say a chapter or 2 the he comes up and wins in the last minute thanks to "the power of friendship or love". Making every male of the naruto cast feel proud to have him as a friend and ever girl drool and want to have his babies.""

That is from a previous post, thats what I meant about a weakness, soething that should completly destroyed someone yet he acts like nothing happened


but here is the thing.... they almost never use the "parents where killed flag" on MS for a reason... they are themselfs in the naruto (or any other anime) world so their parents or family are safe at the "real world", unless of course the MS is a mix of ACC and MS, the typical "he has my name it is me but was born in a village that was destroyed by the akatsuki because they feared our uber leet skills and bloodlines which I have memorized and copy to use for the good of the world". Bus most of the time they usually use it with ACC (author created characters) that has some cool name in japanese that means blackshadow blade or something like that...

[MBKon]

Well then, phew, they aren't too ms-ish... i do have personalities for them, manipulative, wicked, bad and flirty. and helpfull. i meant that Jiraiya stole Naruto's money so he could buy his nephews an apartment. Then Tsunade stole that money and gambled it away. the rest is known.

[TonyG]

Well then, phew, they aren't too ms-ish... i do have personalities for them, manipulative, wicked, bad and flirty. and helpfull. i meant that Jiraiya stole Naruto's money so he could buy his nephews an apartment. Then Tsunade stole that money and gambled it away. the rest is known.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

ok just be careful not to make them with so many flaws they will loose some character, that is also a common error with writers



well going to put my flamethrower back in my memories box, oh the stories this baby could tell you, I think I easily revied 10 to 20 fics a day.... from good :thumbs: to OMGWTF?! fics


ohh yes people I have gone to the deepest darkest pits of fanfic hell and came back... and trust me the mental scars will stay with me forever, but if you want to really be good at reviewing fics and giving good feedback. you have to face the beast and spit on it first.

good luck and may you never find "sailor pokengelion 1/2 Z!" if you do may god have mercy on your sanity