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Authors of such characters are sometimes referred to as 'Suethors'. Male 'Sues' may be called 'Marty Stus', 'Murray Stus', 'Harry Stus', and/or 'Gary Stus', although the original term is often considered unisex.

Mary Sues are usually original to the author, but some (' canon Sues') are created by adapting pre-existing characters. Conversely, original characters, or even self-insertion characters, are not necessarily Mary Sues. Peter Jairus Frigate, for instance, is deliberately based on his author but rarely the focus of the story.

1 Typical Sues

The Mary Sue character is either tougher, smarter, and cooler than the established characters but wins their admiration, or nicer, sweeter, and more charming than the established characters and wins their love. She also sometimes appears tortured with a tragic past, winning first pity then love. Either way, the setting's protagonists are upstaged by a perfect character. If the new character dies in the story, there is extensive grieving.

Although unintentional Sues remain common, some authors now write Mary Sues deliberately as a form of parody.

Common traits of Mary Sues:

• Has only sympathetic flaws; Mary Sues may be paraplegic, or dangerously naive, but are very rarely selfish or petty-minded
• Unique abilities
• Distinctive physical features (odd-coloured eyes, birthmarks, scars etc)
• Unusual pet (especially, 'one only she could tame')
• Deliberately exotic name
• Name based on that of her author
• Cultural/racial background very different from her peers (often adopted out of her culture)
• 21st-century attitudes in a setting where these are unheard-of
• Close relationship with a major canonical character (long-lost brother, etc)
• Centrally involved in every part of the story
• Invokes powers impossible in the canon

None of these traits in themselves make a Mary Sue; rather, Sue-dom can be thought of as an author's reliance on such gimmicks to make a character unique and appealing.

2 Notable Sue facts

Pat Pflieger's essay "Too Good to be True: 150 Years of Mary Sue" trace the Mary Sue archetype to the idealized young heroines of stories written by the female subscribers to mid- 19th century magazines.

Television shows that have generated large bodies of fan fiction have included episodes that draw on the Mary Sue clichés, including the episode "Hollow Pursuits" and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Superstar".

Some fans have suggested that Wesley Crusher was Eugene Wesley Roddenberry's Mary Sue character, although author surrogate would be a better term. Other canon characters that have Mary Sue-like traits include Willow Rosenberg of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Kitty Pryde of the X-MenThe X-Men are a group of comic book superheroes featured in Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, they first appeared in X-Men #1 ( September 1963). The teams original incarnation failed to find a large audience. However, after a 1975 reforma.

The term Mary Sue is often said to have originated from a Star Trek fanfiction bearing the first original Mary Sue (with that same name). The story, however, while the first to use the name, was actually a parody lampooning previous Mary Sues: "A Trekkie's Tale," written by Paula Smith and published in the fanzine Menagerie #2 in 1974.