If you've found this page via the
Mary Sue Society webring, you probably don't need another definition
of Mary Sue. However, you'll have to sit through it anyways for the sake of
people who have stumbled in here by other means.
In brief, 'Mary Sue' is the name given to a fanfiction character whose primary reason
for existence is to project the author's fantasy self into a story or
universe. Sometimes the term 'avatar' is used for author self-insertion (SI) in general,
while Mary Sue is used either as a derogatory term or for the most blatant
and idealised kind of self-projection character (she's beautiful, strong, smart, brave, has no flaws whatsoever,
and usually has a tragic past to boot).
Many authors are taking matters into their own hands and proudly identifying
their own characters as Mary Sues. The idea here is that there's nothing inherently
wrong with SI, even when it's done for the most self-serving reasons (such as getting into
bed with Captain Kirk). Some authors unwittingly create Mary Sues when they are
angst-filled teenagers discovering the joys of writing, and grow out of it
eventually; others deliberately create characters that they can identify with, since
none of the fictional heroes that pop culture offers are good enough. A Mary Sue
(or a Gary Stu, for guys) is your own custom-made hero who is as much or as little like you
as you want her to be.
On that note, my own characters are created for precisely that reason.
My method of creating SI characters is to imagine someone creating me as a fictional character,
and mapping out strong and weak points in the character from there (but don't think about this too
hard or it'll do strange things to your religious viewpoint). I have had
two short-lived characters in the
Redwall MUCK, and my latest creation is based on the Doctor Who
universe.
If you aren't familiar with the show, a better description than anything I could come up
with has been written by Paul Gadzikowski, and you can find it
here. My Mary Sue is a future incarnation of the Doctor, and started out as nothing more than my
IRC nick for a channel called #drwhochat.
There are two things that are not entirely canonical about this character. First of all, the IRC nick that started it all was
The_42nd_Doctor, and according to the series, a Time Lord can't regenerate more than twelve times. Secondly,
this Doctor happens to be female (like myself), and outside of a BBC comedy sketch, no Time Lord has officially
changed genders upon regenerating. But I'm already stepping outside the boundaries of respectable fan fiction
by creating a Mary Sue in the first place, so I'm going to give the official canon a run for its money
while I'm at it. The Doctor as she appears in my imagination can be seen on the upper right-hand side of this page.
Currently, she doesn't appear anywhere but in my own imagination. I have bits and pieces of fanfiction in mind which haven't yet
come together to make any coherent stories, and I also have piles of scrap paper with drawings of her and her companions. She is, however, becoming a
well-developed character while she incubates in my brain, and I hope I'll be able to do her justice when I start actively writing stories. She is
solemn, introspective, and sometimes downright gloomy, but she has a mercurial temperament and is prone to occasional fits of optimism and cheerfulness.
Her companions are a former space pirate named Ryll, and a little girl named Trinka (both of whom will eventually make hastily doodled appearances on this page
at some time in the future). I'd like to say that the stories will start being written very shortly, but
I know that if I say that I'll never get it done...
In the meantime, follow the webring around and meet other people's avatars and read their stories, and check back here every so often (that is, if this sounds
more than remotely interesting).
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