The Quintessential Mary-Sue is a trilogy of short stories published by Mr. GreyMan (also known under the pen name "Heather Taylor").
Mary-Sue always felt as if she was destined for greatness. She was CEO of the world's largest economy, living in the tallest building in New York City. Even so, with the eyes of the world on her, she needed more.
What begins as a simple Deconstruction of various elements found in Sue fics suddenly turns into a Cosmic Horror Story in the later two installments as Mary Sue rediscovered her true lineage.
The first chapter can be read here
, the second chapter, "The Three Sues", can be read here, and the final chapter, "Revelations", can be read here.
The Quintessential Mary-Sue provides examples of:
- 13 Is Unlucky: The Faceless One is mage number 13 of the Council of 14, and their actions directly lead to the Downer Ending.
- The Ageless: Mary-Sue can’t die of old age. She was magically altered this way so her parents’ empire wouldn’t collapse upon her death, but it also means once she becomes a tyrant she can’t be deposed.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Mary-Sue treats them so poorly that the readers read Chapter 3 and actually wind up feeling sorry for demons.
- Anticlimax: Mary-Sue even lampshades how the Faceless One is defeated this way, being killed by a flick of her wrists.
- Apocalypse Maiden: The Forever Peace is a euphemism for the destruction of all things. Once Mary-Sue is conceived, it is already too late.
- Artistic License – Economics: It should be impossible for Mary-Sue to become rich without providing meaningful goods or services, let alone earn more money than exists in the world. Of course, she is a Sue.
- Badass Adorable: Mary-Sue's original thirteen-year-old self is the only thing in existance that can stand up to her, and is also described as almost superhumanly cute.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Mary-Sue takes over all existence and becomes a god, ruling as an immortal tyrant.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Between Mary-Sue's original and current personalities. The original wins, but at the cost of their life, which doesn't matter since only the evil personality manages to come back to life.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Nothing can impair Mary-Sue's beauty, not even dirt or grime. In fact, her beauty is so innate that cosmetics can only cover it up.
- Brought Down to Badass: As absurdly strong as Mary-Sue is, she was even more so before the ritual, which intentionally suppressed her power in order to get her unconscious so as to do it safely. Which is what allowed it to be sabotaged in the first place. After getting her full power back, Mary-Sue is unstoppable even to superhumans.
- Brown Note: Anyone who hears Mary-Sue sing will waste away, having no desire to experience anything again other than her song, and will either kill themself or fall into a permanent coma. Despite the side effects, Mary-Sue holds concerts, though she did at least make it impossible to ever hear a recording of her voice on the Internet, presumably because if everyone wasted away, she would have no playthings anymore. The reveal of the nature of “The One True Song” is the first hint that Mary-Sue is a Humanoid Abomination, and that the setting is a Cosmic Horror Story.
- Casual Interstellar Travel: Both the Philosphites and Amazinines can travel throughout the entire universe, billions of times faster than light, with ease. The latter don't even need technology! The People of the Gem use magic to teleport anywhere instantly.
- Cessation of Existence: If Mary-Sue devours a soul, it ceases to exist. The entire Council of 14 was willing to let her absorb them during the original ritual on her thirteenth birthday, for no good reason, but the Faceless One took their power instead. Later, Mary-Sue does this to the whole Planet of the Gem, the entire population of Hell, and everyone who ever dies from then on.
- Character Shilling: Other characters shill Mary-Sue constantly. Though her original personality is definitely nowhere near as wicked as the one created after losing her memories, we still only hear about it secondhand and thus don't know whether Mary-Sue ever lived up to her reputation before she lost her memories and identity.
- Chekhov's Gun: Most of Mary-Sue's accomplishments from Chapter 1 serve only to make her seem creepy and awesome, but The One True Song is used again in Chapter 2 to kill her. It doesn't last. The Mary-Sues cookies are also mentioned once again in Chapter 3 in a throwaway gag.
- Child Prodigy: Mary-Sue was the greatest mage ever to live before turning 13, having created hundreds of new spells including some beyond the power of anyone but her to cast.
- Cosmic Horror Reveal: What starts as just mocking overpowered Jerk Sue characters slowly and steadily gets more creepy and horrifying, culminating in Chapter 3, where it's revealed that Mary-Sue's destiny is to end the world, no one has any free will or any ability to stop this, and Mary-Sue devours countless souls in order to gain the power to wrest control of existence from God.
- Crack Pairing: In-universe, the People of the Gem manipulated the Emperor of the Philosphites and Queen of the Amazinines to fall in love, despite them being at war and never actually meeting before, and then the People of the Gem used magic to let them conceive Mary-Sue despite total biological incompatibility. It is very clear that the two had no chemistry but were forced into it.
- Crapsack Only by Comparison: Earth compared to the rest of the universe, to a ludicrous degree. Mary-Sue's private 100-story mansion is a mere hovel to extraterrestrials.
- Crapsack World: All of existence, once Mary-Sue overthrows God. And the world sucked pretty bad even before then, with only Mary-Sue really benefiting.
- Cruel to Be Kind: The Faceless One, after their death, tells Mary-Sue that they only stole her identity and memories and replaced them with worse ones in order to grant Mary-Sue's wish of freedom from the immense burden she was made to bear. They straight up say they helped her by hurting her. It's impossible to determine whether this is true or not.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Mary-Sue beats the Faceless One and their goons in a matter of seconds, expending no effort whatsoever. Even reviving them just to kill them again is meaninglessly easy.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Mary-Sue believes this.
- Demon of Human Origin: She may not be human, but she is mortal. Mary-Sue goes to Hell and becomes its Succubus Queen. Then she takes over Earth and turns Heaven into Hell.
- Despotism Justifies the Means: Done on behalf of another for once. The Faceless One set things up so that Mary-Sue would become a tyrant, but genuinely believed this was for the best, since it freed Mary-Sue from her responsibilities (that she probably could have handled anyway) and because they think that under a tyrant there is still peace.
- Defiant to the End: The Faceless One gives Mary-Sue a "The Reason You Suck" Speech after being killed and revived only to serve her.
- Devil, but No God: Mary-Sue becomes the Succubus Queen of the Damned, with unquestioned power in Hell. But even though St. Peter exists, we never see God. This is the sole reason that the ending is ambiguous.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Displease Mary-Sue at your peril. Express a political opinion she doesn't hold? Get berated in front of 100 people and be blackballed from holding gainful employment ever again. (She also gave her Muggle Foster Parents this fate.) And her childhood bullies, who aren't described as doing much worse than teasing (and who never actually did anything at all) are psychologically broken and made into her slaves.
- Embodiment of Vice: After dying and going to Hell, Mary-Sue becomes the very embodiment of lust. In both its sexual and nonsexual meanings.
- The Ending Changes Everything:
- Chapter 3 reveals that several seemingly Flat Characters were actually three-dimensional, and the writer finally drops the pretense that the previous chapters were any good.
- The final line makes Mary-Sue go from just "really powerful" to "literally omnipotent" with no explanation:All heard the Omnipotent words of Mary-Sue and knew they were now Truth.
- Entitled Bastard: Mary-Sue wants everything just by merit of her birth. She fully expects everyone else to read her mind and know her desires without her asking, so is shocked that she actually has to ask questions of Mr. Exposition.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Everyone on Earth wants to have sex with Mary-Sue, regardless of sex or orientation. She does indeed have sex with 50 women and 50 men — off-page of course — in a single night.
- Executive Excess: Mary-Sue lives a ludicrously opulent lifestyle of Conspicuous Consumption, mansions, parties, mistreating servants, and hedonism, because she is the world's richest individual. As the Empress of the Universe Made Whole, this is taken up to eleven, with consumption making her Earthly lifestyle seem indigent.
- Extreme Libido: Even 100 partners in one night is not enough to satisfy Mary-Sue. Her original personality from her suppressed memories calls her a whore for this.
- Extremely Short Time Span: Before the Time Skip the story takes place over just two days, during which Mary-Sue goes from thinking she's human to learning her heritage, regaining her power and memories, killing the entire People of the Gem, fighting against her past self, and dying and going to Hell. The Time Skip lasts less than a week, and the story lasts an unspecified time after that, possibly less than a day. Time has very little meaning once Mary-Sue defeats Heaven.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Mary-Sue throws a cup of tea on the ground, makes her servant clean up the mess, and yells at her to never give her cold tea again. The tea has steam coming out of it. The servant used to bully Mary-Sue when younger (according to her Fake Memories, that is), so Mary-Sue doesn't give a crap and just wants to see her suffer.
- Fake Memories: The Faceless One removed Mary-Sue's memories of her life as a super intelligent and powerful alien princess, and replaced them with memories of a — shudder — ordinary life on Earth! Despite this completely negating Mary-Sue's bad childhood, she still uses it to justify her actions and deny having ever done anything wrong.
- Faux Horrific: Mary-Sue being slightly inconvenienced is treated this way by other characters. Even her experiencing all the luxury Earth can provide is not enough because it sucks compared to other planets.
- Fiction 500: Mary-Sue is a multitrillionaire, having more money than actually exists in the world, and made her fortune in just two years, running a company that provides no goods or services, but just markets herself.
- A Fool for a Client: Unless you are Mary-Sue, who represented herself at her emancipation hearing.
- Foreshadowing:
- Mary-Sue constantly feeling like she is missing something in her life in Chapter 1 is because she is a soulless parody of her original personality, due to lacking her real memories.
- Also, the narration always says "Mary-Sue remembered" when describing her past. What she remembers is not what really happened.
- Early on, characters practically treat Mary-Sue like a god. She overthrows God and takes His place in Chapter 3, and the similarities to religious apologetics become even more obvious.
- Freudian Excuse: The tendency for Jerk Sues to have these is parodied: the entire world thinks that Mary-Sue's Disproportionate Retribution on hapless people is justified because of her horrible childhood, despite how she is making them suffer much more than she ever did.
- Gentleman Snarker: One of the few characters to have an actual personality is St. Peter, who is one of the best characters in the whole trilogy because he tells Mary-Sue exactly where to stick it. Sadly, she kills him later.
- Giant Woman: Mary-Sue rises out of the Hell-mouth 100 stories tall, utterly consuming her mansion in the process.
- Grade-School C.E.O.: Mary-Sue went into business at age 16, and within two years became the richest person on Earth.
- Green-Eyed Monster: The Faceless One envied Mary-Sue so much that they erased her memories and impersonated her identity, while leaving her to live as a human on Earth. Mary-Sue is so impossibly far above every other being that this is a totally understandable reaction, but Mary-Sue shows no forgiveness. The only bad thing the Faceless One really did was inadvertently cause Mary-Sue's evil personality to form (which is implied to be a result of Mary-Sue's own character weakness, not the Faceless One's sabotage) allowing her to usurp God and turn the world into Hell. Yet later on they claim all this was a lie and that they were truly acting out of love, not envy.
- Hanlon's Razor: Mary-Sue assumes the worst of everyone, but demands that everyone think perfectly of her. She assumes that the seer disparaging her living conditions is an insult, when it's actually because Earth is a shithole compared to Mary-Sue's previous life. Even though she assumes the Seer from the Planet of the Gem is insane, and knows that he truly believes his claims, she still would have tortured him for disrespect if he hadn't proved his claims.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Somehow, Mary-Sue can drink an entire keg of ale in one go, then continue to drink dozens of men under the table while her drink is more than twice as potent, and even though she's buzzed, suffers no ill effects. Even considering she's not human, this is ridiculous.
- Hell Has New Management: Mary-Sue overthrows The Legions of Hell less than a week after dying.
- Hell of a Heaven: Mary-Sue never does set foot in Heaven, even after destroying St. Peter and seizing the key to the Pearly Gates. Instead, she just declares that Heaven is now Hell, in a fit of spiteful pique in response to her previous banishment. However, we never actually learn of the souls in Heaven's fate.
- Human Aliens: The People of the Gem look just like humans, meaning that Mary-Sue does not immediately realize their representative is an alien when they meet.
- Humanoid Aliens: The Philosphites and Amazinines are not described much, but do not appear remotely humanoid or pretty by human standards, yet the only known hybrid is Mary-Sue, the World's Most Beautiful Woman. The only reason she is here and not under Human Aliens is because she originally had wings, like her mother.
- Hypocrite: Mary-Sue demands everyone devote their lives to her, yet she herself refuses to tolerate anyone interrupting her absolute privacy on the weekends.
- Impossibly Delicious Food: Mary-Sues, the cookie Mary-Sue created. People would rather starve if they can't obtain it. Once she dies, wars break out over the stuff since she never shared the recipe.
- Improbable Age: Everything about Mary-Sue. She became a pro football player at 15, retired at 16 to become a multi-trillionaire, and achieved three doctorates (plus various other professional qualifications) before turning 17.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Mary-Sue busts out the priceless liquor upon hearing what she thinks is the seer's insane ramblings. Even though she is already wasted.
- Infernal Paradise: Once in Hell, all the demons bend over backward to serve Mary-Sue. But for everyone else, Hell becomes even worse than it was before.
- Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Earth is a backwater planet populated by primitives and not even worthy of being conquered by the cosmic expansionist empires.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: No one knows the Faceless One's gender or identity, but for daring to inconvenience Mary-Sue, they are constantly mocked, dehumanized, and called "it".
- Lack of Empathy: Mary-Sue is never nice. To anyone. She intentionally breaks expensive china in front of her maid just to punish her, blackmails the world into making her rich, ruins the life and breaks the spirit of a friend who voices a political opinion she doesn't share, and threatens to play a Brown Note if her friends do anything but glorify her constantly or even let her be slightly bored. This gets so much worse once she becomes the Succubus Queen of the Damned.
- Living Mood Ring: Mary-Sue's eyes changed color depending on her emotions. For example, her eyes are a stormy gray whenever she's in a neutral mood, but her eyes turn golden yellow when she is surprised. Hilariously, she is genuinely surprised that the seer of the Gem can look at her eye color to determine her mood.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: As to truly show off her femininity, Mary-Sue's hair is pink and flows down to her feet. Keep in mind that she is almost seven feet tall.
- Made a Slave: Mary-Sue took revenge on the kids who (supposedly) bullied her by breaking their spirits to the point where they allowed her to make them her servants forever. They willingly accept any punishment she gives them, even when she is determined to find fault with them no matter what they do.
- Motor Mouth: The seer of the People of the Gem can talk much faster than any human. Mary-Sue can still understand him perfectly even though his words are too fast for a human to parse.
- Mr. Exposition: The Seer from the Planet of the Gem comes to Mary-Sue's mansion in "The Three Sues" solely to give her the information about her true lineage as the child of two different alien species.
- Muggle Foster Parents: Mary-Sue had the abusive variety, who tried to steal her money. Of course, there is no evidence other than Mary-Sue's own testimony that they actually wanted the money for themselves, which might explain why she really did live with them and that is not a fake memory.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: Mary-Sue used to be a football player, yet she looks completely womanly and feminine. Strangely, her maternal line are incredibly muscled all-female aliens.
- Nominal Importance: Only Mary-Sue deserves a name. No one else gets one. Except for St. Peter and God, before she takes over Heaven.
- Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: Mary-Sue may look human, but she is actually half-Philosphite and half-Amazinine. Apparently the hybridization of the two races cancels out their nonhuman traits except for wings, which she loses anyway, letting her pass for human.
- Omniglot: Mary-Sue could speak 27 languages fluently when she was born, let alone later.
- Overly Long Name: Mary-Sue's true name is Merry-Melody-Solemnity-Twilight-Resplendence-Theresa-Sumptuous-Suzanne. Her true, original personality goes by this gladly, but amusingly, Mary-Sue thinks this name is stupid and doesn't want to be called by it.
- Painting the Medium: St. Peter mocks Mary-Sue by asking her what the aliens look like, and what the other characters look like, and what their names are. Mary-Sue can't answer, despite knowing the answer, because it was never given, since that would detract from her awesomeness.
- Parody Sue: Mary-Sue herself. She was written to get a high score on the Mary Sue Litmus Test, according to Word of God.
- A Party, Also Known as an Orgy: Once Mary-Sue gets bored on her night out, she makes all her guests sleep with her. She invited 100 guests.
- Perfection Is Addictive: People who hear The One True Song feel as if nothing else can come close in comparison, that all color has left the world, and that they felt true happiness only once and can never feel it again. Those who commit suicide because of this are the lucky ones.
- Plot Hole: It's never explained how Mary-Sue becomes so powerful as to literally usurp God in the end. Sure, she was warping reality ever since her return to Earth, but there is an uncrossable gulf between "vast but finite" power and infinite power.
- Prophecy Twist: The seer foresaw that the only way to prevent the war between the Philosphites and Amazinines from destroying the universe was to ensure the birth of Mary-Sue, who was fated to inaugurate the Forever Peace. He assumed that this was just by her ruling benevolently, but it actually happens by her evil alternate personality overthrowing God and becoming a permanent Orwellian dictator. St. Peter straight up says that the vision the seer saw was of the Apocalypse, and he misinterpreted it.
- Puny Earthlings: Earth humans are so primitive and weak compared to intergalactic society that they are considered little more than animals, with characters being shocked and horrified that Mary-Sue was forced to live among them and believes herself to be one of them. When she questions how it's possible for her to have been superior to any human instantly at birth, her interlocutor is shocked that she even considers the possibility that she wasn't. Moreover, humans are apparently so dull that Mary-Sue has grown bored of them, and only listens to the seer of the Gem because she can somehow tell that he is not human, and therefore interesting.
- Purple Prose: Mary-Sue is described like this in Chapter 3 after absorbing vigintillions of souls and becoming the embodiment of lust.
- Rationalizing the Overkill: Mary-Sue rationalizes her bad behavior (including ruining people's lives and making them serve her forever) on the grounds that they deserve it for bullying her as a child. When really her childhood was perfect and she was given falsified memories of it sucking, and it wasn't much worse than schoolyard taunts and distant foster parents even if it were real. Even after she knows the truth, she still uses this excuse, suggesting that she thinks being subjected to any hardship for any reason justifies her making everyone else's lives a literal hell.
- Reality Warper: After she dies, Mary-Sue slowly starts to usurp reality itself. Note that this happens after she absorbs the power of a billion mages.
- Really Gets Around: Mary-Sue fucks 100 people in a single night. She would condemn anyone else even a fraction as promiscuous.
- Really Royalty Reveal: Mary-Sue always believed her parents were impoverished nobodies. But those are Fake Memories. Her real parents were the Emperor of the Philosphites and the Queen of the Amazinines. Since both are dead, she is the rightful Empress of the Universe.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: The author relies on spellchecker too much, since he utterly fails to notice when the wrong homophone is used. This may be a deliberate parody of other fanfics with this issue.
- Snicket Warning Label: The author's note at the end of Chapter 2 tells readers not to proceed to the last chapter if they are the type of person who likes justice, instead inviting them to pretend that Mary-Sue was defeated upon her death, because Chapter 3 will create a world where the innocent are punished for the crimes of the guilty and the weak carry the strong.
- Space-Filling Empire: Before Mary-Sue was born, the entire universe was divided into four polities: the empire of the Philosphites, a nigh-omniscient Proud Scholar Race with pronounced physical frailty; the empire of the Amazinines, near-omnipotent Proud Warrior Race barbarians with such super strength they don't need technology but have very little intelligence; the Planet of the Gem, the only planet in the universe with magic, which allowed it alone to maintain its independence from the two expansionist empires; and Earth, which is so primitive the rest of the world ignored it. The first two joined in personal union so that Mary-Sue could be born, and this was masterminded by the People of the Gem. So only Earth is cut off from the rest of the universe. Mary-Sue conquers all four, as well as Heaven and Hell.
- Statuesque Stunner: At the age of 18, Mary Sue is 6'11". Her collection of high heels makes her even taller, at 7'6" when on her feet.
- Strong Flesh, Weak Steel: The Emperor of the Philosphites has a brain more powerful than any supercomputer. The Queen of the Amazinines can travel billions of times faster than light through her body's own locomotion and is invulnerable to anything short of a hypernova. And their child, Mary-Sue, is a Physical God.
- Super-Senses: Mary-Sue can hear what people are whispering from across a crowded room filled with loud music and other conversations. She inherited this from her Superior Species parents.
- Teen Genius: Mary-Sue is an Instant Expert at anything she tries, including getting many advanced degrees before turning 18. Then again, she is half-Philosphite…
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: It isn't very long, but after regaining her childhood memories, the original, superficially nicer Mary-Sue calls out her amnesiac self about all her flaws, and how she is as immature as a five-year-old, and that she tortured and killed people for no good reason. She also gets a much longer one from St. Peter at the Pearly Gates that sums up everything wrong with the story up to that point.
- To the Pain: Mary-Sue, who had already gone sailing past the
Moral Event Horizon, happily threatens the Faceless One with torture if they resist doing her bidding. - Turn in Your Badge: Mary-Sue's kicking out one of her 100 so-called Best Friends plays out like this, the friend being publicly humiliated and forced to hand over her "Best Friend Bracelet"… for speaking favorably of a politician Mary-Sue doesn't like.
- Ultimate Life Form: There are two alien species which developed to have the ultimate physical or mental strength, but each are the very weakest in the other specialty. Mary-Sue is a hybrid of both, with all the strengths and none of the weaknesses, and she was magically altered before birth to have even more powers. She is very nearly a god even before she literally becomes God.
- Uniqueness Value: Mary-Sue is the only being of her caliber to exist in her universe or any other possible universe. Because her birth will end the world.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
- The seer of the Planet of the Gem truly thought that by forcing the prophecy of Mary-Sue's birth to come true, he would save the universe from destruction. But according to St. Peter, he did nothing but cause the universe to continue beyond its natural end, like a cancer, allowing Mary-Sue to become all-powerful and ruin everything.
- Even more so is the Faceless One, who posthumously claims to have corrupted Mary-Sue out of love, not envy. According to them, Mary-Sue really was as nice as her reputation suggests, but she was plagued with self-doubt, and so the Faceless One concluded, perhaps falsely, that Mary-Sue's empathy was a curse, and removed it for her in the belief that it was what she wanted. Had they not done this, the Downer Ending might not have come to pass, though St. Peter implies that nobody in this universe actually has the free will to choose otherwise.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: The Council of 14 used horribly unethical means to end a universe-destroying war, including forcing people to fall in love against their will and taking over two empires in a silent coup. It backfires horribly and the world becomes a worse place.
- Villain Protagonist: Mary-Sue is the protagonist, but absolutely the Big Bad. Despite claiming to be compassionate, the only being she cares about is herself. None of her enemies are anywhere near as bad as she, and she does nothing in the whole story but make the universe a worse place. For everyone in it.
- Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: When Mary-Sue pours her visitor a drink, he effuses her with praise of her magnanimity, even though she has only contempt for him and did so only to shut him up. Of course, her being treated this way her whole life turned her into the ultimate Spoiled Brat.
- Winged Humanoid: Mary-Sue originally had wings, lost them as well as her memories in a ritual gone wrong, and gets them back in Chapter 2 along with her full power. Just touching the wings gives her power back; it's not explained at all.
- With Friends Like These...: Mary-Sue is the worst friend ever. She sees her friends as status symbols, and makes them change everything about themselves to be worthy of her. All their personalities are drained away like Abercrombie & Fitch models. Even then, she emotionally abuses them constantly, refuses to engage any of their interests in any way, and will not hesitate to ruin their lives or even inflict a Fate Worse than Death on all of them. She's already done it twice.
- Wonder Child: Mary-Sue is this, being conceived through magic because her parents are of incompatible species.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: Mary-Sue, of course. Her beauty is paramount even without cosmetics, which fail to enhance it at all. Naturally, her physical description doesn't jibe with this.
- Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide": Mary-Sue absorbs the lives of an entire planet of mages to increase her power, despite already having enough power to defeat her enemies before killing anyone. Their lives mean nothing to her.
