Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for April 21, 2020

I’ll admit, I’m not really a fan of when comic strips throw in modern slang. Will we still be using terms like “Mary Sue” and “OC” decades from now?

Does that apply to video games with character customization?

If you want some examples of what an OC is go to DeviantArt, they have tons of it.

my, this conversation sure is getting somewhere between the unicorn and the girl

An O.C is a way of saying you want in on the fun.

Just because the character is based on you does not automatically make said character a Mary Sue.I remember hearing that Dana based Pheobe’s mother on herself, but nobody is crying out that she’s a mary Sue.

Mary = mari? She’s an Americorn.

Mari is pure gold and she knows it.

On the other hand, I do like to watch the evolution of language; seeing what has longevity, what doesn’t, but I like your moxie for saying so.

I thought a Mary Sue was a character who was written as always being right. Or something. Quickly checks tvtropes. I guess the term is gasp evolving?

A “Mary Sue” isn’t necessarily based on the person who created it, but can be. It is typically a character created for an existing Universe who is perfect with no flaws and typically romances the main character over any other existing prior relationships.

I’d argue that a self-insert isn’t always a Mary Sue, but given Marigold…yeah, it’d totally be a Mary Sue. (I made a mockery of Mary Sues in Transformers fandom called Marrisoo back in 2007. She turned into a unicorn.)

Technically, a character that’s simply based on yourself is an author-insert.

A Mary Sue is what happens when a character is presented with zero detrimental attributes and is fawned over by every other character in the setting – even though they’ve done nothing to earn such adoration.

A Mary Sue is a negative term. It means someone who exists only to drive the plot or win. A Mary Sue can do anything despite lack of training or knowledge They win just because they are the Hero. Mary Sues are also hated for being pointless or existing just to make a point.

A self-insert is definitely not the same thing as a Mary Sue. Here is a very good example of how to define a Mary Sue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN8Qm5o0oSY

What’s more is that shipping despite arguably becoming a more well known term for fictional character pairings also like Mary Sue originated in the Star Trek fanzine community.

But despite being an early 80s kid for the record, I discovered the term from the Pokémon fandom. Ash/Misty and Jessie/James here.

The term Mary Sue originated among the players of early RPGs, and have been around since the 80s, so I suspect it will be around for a long time.

I like the pun, but a self-insert doesn’t automatically equal Mary Sue/Gary Stu (just like an OC and/or a character whom someone doesn’t like =/= Mary Sue/Gary Stu).