How to Avoid a Mary Sue/Gary Stu

Sarcasm and humor are found from here on out. This was written by me for a vampire role play site that I was co-admining and I don't think that I want to change it. It is from the point of view of Preston Randall, a vampire clan leader.

Who is Mary Sue, you ask? Pull up a chair, I’ll tell you.

Mary Sue is the name given to people who are annoyingly perfect. Her male counterpart is often called Gary Stu. Both Mary and Gary are incredibly annoying. Role players can pick them out easily. Fan fiction and Role play Mary are different in many ways. Obviously one can’t write themselves into every RP character’s plot and solve all of their problems. At this moment, I’m picturing a fourteen year old girl somewhere who is sighing and clutching her laptop to her chest after she finishes writing a vampire fan fic where she’s the most beloved of all the vampires and everyone wants her. She’s so beautiful that no one can look away and she can take on anyone in her path. Insert dramatic sigh ---> here. Yeah.

Signs of a Sue

Mary and Gary are boring to read, one dimensional characters that usually are perfect in every way. • Shyness is not a flaw. It may seem cute and coy, but it’s not. • Temper is not a flaw. Being feisty is just being bitchy. It doesn’t make the character appear tough. It just makes them look like a bitch and let’s face it – that’s Lilith’s job. • Dark and tragic past? Oh come on. Everyone has a hard past. It’s called life. Or the undead. A lot of characters on Vampire sites will have hard lives. Living 200 years and not facing anything isn’t going to happen. • Most Mary and Gary characters are based incredibly closely to the real life and even name of the person playing them. The author pours everything he or she wishes that he or she was into the character, making them annoyingly perfect people who have never had a blemish or farted in public. Or never fart at all. (imagines bodily explosion from pent up gas. BOOM!) • Perfect singing voice or musical skill with little or no practice ever? Be still my beating heart. Oh wait. Too late. • Unnatural hair or eye color from birth – no it’s my natural hair/eye color. I don’t use dye on it… WTF! Rp going to the fucking store and buying that dye! • Rapunzel hair – never been cut, never breaks, usually blond but not always. The real part of the story, God told me the other day. Rapunzel never got rescued because her hair crushed Prince Charming when she threw it down. Thought I’d pass that along. • Built like a brick shi- er…. Perfect body. Model tall and waif-er thin? Breasts that defy gravity yet they’re very large? If height and cup size are given, expect it to defy the laws of gravity. Enormous knockers are never a burden to this Mary Sue. • Copy Cat Sue – The exact replica of a canon character from a fandom with a different name. • She’s a fulfiller of a prophecy or is destined for something specific and random • She’s a Princess or He’s a Prince – or other nobility. This isn’t quite so bad if it’s explained and totally fictional, but if you’re a descendent of Elizabeth Bathory or some living royalty, consider coming up with a fictional family in the vampire world. People now days do have titles like Duke, Earl, Baron and other things. Bonus Sue points given if she/he didn’t know it till they were in their teens or just before they were changed or right after and it makes them reel with the surprise. • Beautiful/Handsome – more so than anyone else. No one is going to pick an ugly character. No one wants to be ugly. And well, let’s face it, Hollywood isn’t known for faces that will make dogs run into the fire hydrant. • Has an unusual name – Faery, Jennifyr, Viquetoria or a superbly strange name. This one isn't so out there in the Vampire world as people sometimes change their names over time. But given names for a vampire born in 1787 are not going to be all that damn cool or unusual. • Eyes change color with mood – Yeah, because mine are green and purple right now because I’m happy because Lilith just licked my balls. • Person is sexually desirable more than anyone else in the whole wide world – where’s the spoon? It’s gag me time! • Angst! Oh the ANGST! – She/he spends all their time crying over something dark and tragic in their past. Every thread this person is full of tears and woe. Everyone on here has a dark past. It’s just going to happen. Almost everyone is immortal. [Note that we all have things in our pasts that are dark and tragic and if we were to write out our life stories in text and pass it off as a story, it might be labeled Mary Sue as well. Some tragedies are realistic. Some are not.] • Is stronger than anyone and everyone, regardless of age or build. No one can take on everyone. No one is so strong that they can defeat everyone. Be realistic. • Their Daddy/Mummy/Uncle/Auntie/Grandma/Long lost fourth cousin thrice removed’s sire… taught them to be more powerful than Lilith ever was as soon as they were changed. • Japanese names for people not Japanese in anyway. • Japanese names for Japanese people with the over use of otaku, kawaii, or any other word found a lot in Anime • Large amounts of time devoted to physical description of clothing/makeup/appearance. Everyone needs to know what we’re wearing from time to time but if each article gets more than one sentence… just STFU and walk into the sun already. • Everyone hates her because she’s: Beautiful, smarter than everyone else, the best person in his or her clan. How can you avoid being a Mary Sue/Gary Stu? Make your characters human well… formerly so! We all have emotions, embarrassments, do something stupid from time to time. If your character never walks into a wall or trips up a step, then they’re not human or undead. We are not Twilight, Vampire Diaries, or any other person’s work. We are not Anne Rice characters. We are not Lestat! We are each one individuals with our own thoughts and feelings just like the people behind the words. Give your character personality, likes and dislikes, things they absolutely hate. Things they love. Hobbies. Some of us will have the same story lines in some ways. That’s just the way it is. There will be a lot of obsession with a member of the opposite sex. A lot will be stalked. Especially by creatures of the night. Vampires and werewolves are animalistic.