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A lot of fanfic writers start up because of their passion for a show. While any number of things can be the source of passion, a very common fixation is on one of the primary characters. So they start to write something because of their passion for this character, but they find something about the character that doesn't mesh well. Maybe they're the wrong gender or are otherwise not close enough to the author's expectations (Or they want to make the character really, really cool even if they like the character as he or she is.). Or, alternatively, the author wants to pair their favorite character up with somebody, but "nobody is good enough for them". In any case, rather than put them through the Possession Sue process, they just get a Clone-O-Matic™ and out pops a Copy Cat Sue.
The Copy Cat Sue is a distressingly common occurrence, marked by their uncanny resemblance to a canon character. This is usually most blatant when it involves traits that are supposed to be unique in The Verse, but pretty much anything where the Backstory and key character traits of the two characters are nearly interchangable counts. The canon character is the last of their kind? Well, so is this character! Abusive Parents? This character can sympathize! The canon character has a unique Transformation Trinket? It's not unique any more! They might even have another Team Pet of the exact same species, and they get along with the canon pet absolutely fine! Naturally, they are instantly accepted into the group and have to go on a mission where they kill the Big Bad, slay The Dragon and, provided they're sexually compatible (not like it stops them from trying, though), they'll inevitably pair off while flipping the bird to the Official Couple. Or die. That happens sometimes.
A fairly common storyline that lampshades this is where the Big Bad (or, perhaps, just a neutral Mad Scientist; it's almost unheard of for anybody with direct connection to the hero and his Nakama) makes an actual clone of the character ( usually of the opposite sex, but not always). They play themselves off as family members from out of state, or exchange students from Suetopia, but they have a mission to off the main character when they get the say so. Of course, since 99% of the Copy Cat Sues out there are synthesized to allow the author to imagine being both the canon character and friends/lovers with them, they'll betray their creator and join with the heroes (who, despite the character's connection with the bad guys, will rarely question them for very long), usually proceeding to kill the Big Bad, slay The Dragon, and become best friends/lovers until the end of time. Or die. That happens... a lot really.
A telltale sign of such a character is that any "fan art" of the character will actually just be recolored images of characters from the actual show and that may or may not explain why, say, Sailor Earth has a crescent moon on her forehead. Some get more creative and edit their source image a little in an attempt to make them look a little less like the character they copied. A precious few can be bothered to actually create real art, but nine times out of ten, even that art will simply be traced from a picture of the source character.
In either case, the character might be intended as a replacement for the canon character, but without whatever icky traits the author hates. They'll then rob the spotlight, prove the canon character to be unworthy of his/her position, and either relegate the character to obsolescence or, perhaps, even remove them entirely. Sometimes, this is done because the author likes the villain and wants them to be friends/lovers with the other character, but can't find any real reason that they wouldn't kill each other. Thus, to get the ending they want, they just make somebody that practically is the other character but without the key trait of wanting the villain dead. Yay, Fanfiction!
Compare Overused Copycat Character and Fountain Of Expies.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Half of Dragon Ball Z fanfics deal with another surviving Saiyan suddenly being found. This is usually a teenage girl, with sudden connections to characters for shipping purposes.
- Bonus points if the surviving Saiyan is a long lost member of the royal family.
- Ironically, years later, a canon royal really did come out of nowhere.
- Younger Sailor Earth creators in the Sailor Moon fandom have a tendency to copy a lot of traits from main character Usagi's appearance and backstory, sometimes, in worst cases, right down to being Mamoru's past-life lover. More often than not, said characters will also be Usagi's long-lost sister or cousin. More often, if the author does not want to bang Mamoru, Sailor Earth is Mamoru's sister from the Silver Millennium.
- For the rare, well done and likable version, read the Oh My Goddess fanfic Scordatura
 . You'll laugh your head off.
- The Pokémon fandom. It'd be fun to count, sometime, the number of trainers that start out late to get their Pokémon and get a non-standard starter. They'll likely be from Pallet Town as well, or even related to Ash with the writer's pairing of choice being the mother. Ash will, naturally, be a Pokémon master by then.
- You could say this has to do with the games... If most of the people who wrote these fanfics even played the games, or if the characters were even any of the protagonists. Though whenever Brendan appears in an anime fanfic this happens.
- The Yu Yu Hakusho fandom... dear Kami-sama, the Yu Yu Hakusho fandom. Most of the fics that aren't pairing Kurama with Hiei, have: Kurama paired with a plant-weilder, kitsune, demon trapped in a human body after "death", thief, past mate and/or partner of Youko Kurama's, or any combination thereof.
- Hiei is often paired with fire- or ice-wielders, hybrids of some kind (usually "forbidden" or "taboo"), working for Koenma/stuck in the human world, or possibly had a very rough childhood that made them very cynical and aggressive (any combination also applies). Not to mention that they are almost guaranteed to be at least a couple of inches shorter than him (no easy task, considering he is 4 foot 10 without the hair and they would have to be a legal midget).
- There are also numerous delinquents from broken homes who barely go to school, talk back to authority, start random fights to prove how tough they are (especially when someone accuses them of being feminine), and somehow end up working for Koenma. Surprisingly, these are not often paired with Yusuke.
- Many fanfics in the Fullmetal Alchemist series have Ed and Al finding a lost long sister or childhood friend who they somehow forgot about. She'll often be a State Alchemist with some state name that makes no sense, be able to perform alchemy without transmutation circles, and have an automail limb just like Ed.
- Two words: Dark Yagami.
- Ouran High School Host Club O Cs have a habit of being girls who, for whatever contrived reason, pose as boys and join the Host Club just like Haruhi. For bonus points, they may even be a missing Hitachiin sibling who acts remarkably like the twins.
- Several Soul Eater related fanfics/fanart feature a female Grim Reaper-esque character that has OCD, black hair, assymetrical bangs and...Yeah, its's a Copy Cat Sue of Death The Kid. Bonus points if said Sue and Kidd fall in love.
- You cannot count the number of fanfics that have Ryoma's Long Lost Sibling (always female), who looks exactly like him, plays the same tennis (better than him and his father even) and joins the BOYS tennis team because she is just that "awesome". Granted he has an adopted brother he barely remembered until recently but that doesn't give an excuse for the Echizen's sister fics running around.
Comics
- The Flash Comics feature a canon example of a Copy Cat Sue (sort of). Barry Allen seemingly returned from the dead in 1993, but it turned out it was Eobard Thawne before he became Professor Zoom. Eobard Thawne was such a fan of Barry Allen, he memorized Barry's biography, spent years and his fortune to aquire the same powers, and had himself surgically altered to look exactly like Barry (using futuristic plastic surgery.) But he ended up arriving years after Barry's death and, addled from time travel, and the revelation that he would become Professor Zoom, snapped and started thinking he was Barry Allen. One can only imagine how well Barry would have reacted to the arrival of an obsessive Fan Boy who looks and dresses exactly like him and has his powers. If only DC did actual "What ifs".
Films — Live Action
- There are, I am not making this up, Copy Cat Sue kaiju that basically rip-off Godzilla. If you thought the CANON giant rampaging dinosaurs/reptiles that attack a major city — i.e. Yonggary, Gorgo, Gappa, Gamera (though, he's actually rather good) — were bad enough....
- Star Wars fanfics often give Han Solo a sister (or brother?) who falls in love with Luke. A variant is to have Obi-Wan take a padawan on Tatooine, who then falls in love with Luke. These characters are very much Copycat Sues, usually a Distaff Counterpart of their relative, or a clone if male.
- Lately on Deviant Art, there's been a massive Na'vi invasion going on. Doesn't really help that they all look nearly the same on first glance, and that tribal outfits are similar...
Literature
- In Harry Potter fanfiction, Harry often gets a twin brother who is in fact the "Boy Who Lived". That, or he gets sent to a dimension with a Rose Potter as the "Girl Who Lived".
Video Games
- Kingdom Hearts has quite a number of Sues which claim to be Sora's sister, given a mysterious-but-very-Keyblade-like magical weapon (usually when Sora receives the real Keyblade) and journey along with their "brother." Usually, they get shipped with Riku. Then 358/2 Days came out, which introduced Xion, who fit quite a few of these traits—spitting image of Kairi, fourteenth member of Organization XIII, a Keyblade user, and ends up being close friends of Roxas and Axel to boot. However, this ends up being deconstructed when it is revealed that she is an imperfect Replica of Sora created by Organization XIII to absorb memories from Roxas and eventually absorb him completely in case the real Sora was useless to their plans. She knows none of this, but when she does find out, the results are...unpleasant as she frantically tries to become a "whole" being instead of a mere Opposite Sex Clone, while desperately trying to avoid having this goal hurt her friends in any way (this fails... miserably).
- Spyro the Dragon has a lot of this, regardless of whether it's the originals or legends that are involved. Seems like most dragon characters that get made almost always resemble Spyro, Flame, Ember, Cynder, Malefor, or Red. Of course, the throw on of manes, extra spikes, wings, and tails really doesn't help out much, and recolor never seems to work. Of course, you'd figure that that with the whole 1 in 10 generations of purple dragons thing that Sierra did with the legends would prevent an over-flow of purple dragon characters with legendary status... well, guess how often a purple dragon who comes along that can outdo Spryo?
- Generally speaking, it seems that anybody who makes a dragon character (especially female) uses Spyro & Cynder's design.
- And if that wasn't enough, some of these characters break up the romance between characters. A lot. Did I also mention that most of the creators also pass them off as OriginalCharacters as well, in which they have their own universe and storyline, but still look an awful lot like a Spyro or Cynder recolor. They even use The Legend of in their titles to add to the confusion!
- Christian Weston Chandler's Sonichu is, predictably, a combination of Sonic the Hedgehog and Pikachu with super-speed and electricity attacks. Then Christian copycatted his copycat by powering up Chris-chan, his Author Avatar, by allowing him to transform into an "electric hedgehog pokemon" with all the powers of Sonichu (and then some). Poor Sonichu has since been all but forgotten, even though the comic still bears his name.
- Sonic the Hedgehog fandom (well at least part of it) is notorious for this. Recolours and sprite edits make up most of the fancharacters, and the availability of character creators and paper doll programs to facilitate this have worsened the issue. Seems to be a fully Discredited Trope at this point, not that it's gonna stop a lot of people.
- The number of Distaff Counterparts to Link popping up in The Legend of Zelda Fanfictions is... immense...
- A few exist for the Star Fox series. A lot of them are VERY similar to the main hero, Fox McCloud, have a similar level of skill as a pilot, or as an added option can be Distaff Counterparts to Krystal, who prove to be even better love interests for her than Fox is (because y'know, Fox totally sucks).
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance intentionally invokes this trope with Llednar Twem, Mewt's totally badass Marty Stu Dragon/friend, who bears a
suspicious obvious resemblance to Marche. While Marche is fighting to destroy the fantasy world Mewt created, Llednar is there to oppose him.
Western Animation
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