Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related A Mary Sue Alphabet

D's for Diana
Her story's a wreck!
With no sign of grammar
Or any spell-check
The readers sent email
To justly complain
But all of their efforts
Turned out to be vain
The author replied with:
"Who cares how it's written?
"It's only a fanfic!
"You're mean, and kick kittens!"

But her parents don't worry
To any degree
Because just like their daughter
They're both OOC

Mary Sue is any original or deeply altered character who represents a slice of his/her creator's own ego; s/he is treasured by his/her creator but only rarely by anyone else. More negatively, a Mary Sue is a primadonna (usually but not always badly-written) who saps life and realism out of every other character around, taking over the plot and bending canon to serve his/her selfish purposes.

You already know Mary Sue. Mary Sue is the perky, bright, helpful sixteen-year-old ensign who beams about the ship. Everyone on the ship likes Mary Sue, because Mary Sue is good at everything. Mary Sue is an engineer, a doctor in training, a good leader, an excellent cook, and is usually a beautiful singer. Mary Sue often has mental powers that may manifest themselves as telepathy, precognition, or magic. Her past is tragic, more so than any other character on the series. (Many Mary Sues have a backstory that reads like a V.C. Andrews novel. This is a clue.) If Mary Sue is very young, she is often the offspring of one or two already established characters. If she's a little older, she will probably end up sleeping with the author's favorite character. Sometimes, she fills both roles. Her name is often the author's name, be it a net.name, a favored nickname, or the author's middle name (this is seen in the most famous Mary Sue of all time, Wesley Crusher, who was named after Trek creator Eugene Wesley Roddenbery). By the end of the story, Mary Sue will be in bed with the desired character, will have beamed away amid cheers from all the regulars, or will be dead, usually accompanied by heavy mourning from the cast. The reader, on the other hand, will be celebrating.

Clark stared with astonishment at the beautiful young woman before him. True, she was gorgeous enough to stun anybody, but that was not the reason for his current state of stupefaction. Some four inches shorter than his own height of six feet, she was actually standing eye-to-eye with him -- because her dainty, pink-varnished toes were hovering four inches off the ground.

She could fly! She had super-powers like his!

"How...?" he stammered. "I don't -- who are you?"

She smiled softly, her perfect white teeth flashing in the starlight. "I am your twin sister," she said, her musical voice piercing through his veins with an uneasy thrill.

"My twin sister?" Clark repeated. He found that he could not take his eyes off her -- her lovely blond curls that cascaded over her slim shoulders, her cerulean blue eyes that sparkled like the most pristine of seas, the ruby lips curved in a smile that cast an enchantment over any male that ever saw her. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Even though Lois told him that he was okay-looking -- well, maybe a little more than okay-looking -- how could he possibly be the twin of the vision of perfection that stood before him? His stomach squirmed uncomfortably as he realized that his adoration for her was not even remotely brotherly.

"Yes," she affirmed. Her long, silky eyelashes fluttered momentarily, and Clark watched, entranced, as a single tear, the shape and sheen of a perfect diamond, slowly slid down the alabaster skin of her cheek. "It grieves me, Kal-El, that we have never met before."

"Why?" he asked, anguished. "Why was I never permitted to see you? And how did you arrive here on Earth?"

She lowered her eyelids for a moment, wondering what to say. She knew it would be too difficult to explain that she was really his twin sister from an alternate universe, where Lara had died in her teens and Jor-El had come to earth and married Bruce Wayne's twin sister, who had given birth to a girl rather than a boy. She understood that this strange truth was the cause of Clark's feelings of unbridled passion towards her; after all, they were not really brother and sister at all. Yet she, knowing that she was Clark's counterpart from another universe, realized how wrong it would be to requite his love. No, it would be better if he remained ignorant of the warped reality of their existence and continue to believe they were sister and brother.

"The story would be too long to tell," she demurred, her voice lowering to an octave that sent shivers down Clark's spine. "But I have come to help you in your battle for truth, justice, and better fashion sense. "

She paused for a moment, wondering if she ought to mention her amazing spiritual powers, powers that only a female Kryptonian could possess. But with her typical modesty, she decided to remain silent. Why make Clark feel insecure? She would only demonstrate her awesome abilities, so far beyond Clark's own, if circumstances demanded a deus ex machina on her part. The opportunity would most likely arise some time in the very near future, anyway.

"I will be honored to have you on my side," Clark said, humbly and huskily. "But tell me, please -- what is your name?"

"I?" Her smile once again flashed in the starlight. "I am Haz-El."

"I will be honored to have you on my side," Clark said, humbly and huskily. "But tell me, please -- what is your name?"

"I?" Her smile once again flashed in the starlight. "I am Haz-El."

The real litmus test for Mary Sue, I think, boils down to this: if the author's OC (that's original character) trumps the regular characters at every turn, and if the regular characters are either OOC (out of character) to make the OC look good or simply stupid for the same reason, you've got yourself a Mary Sue.

E is for Elwen
An elf in her glory!
Who seems unware
That she's in the wrong story
Like all of her people
She's comely and wise
The hardest heart melts
At her come-hither eyes
But how did she get here?
There aren't any clues
And the author won't tell
'Til she gets more reviews

O for Ophelia
The evil guy's daughter
Her life is so awful
Her tears flow like water
Her husband's been chosen
By father and mother
But her heart already
Belongs to another
Oh woe! And oh angst!
Yeah, it's piled on thick
And most of the readers
Are gonna be sick