Basic Trope: An Author's pet character created by bad writing, who bends the universe of the story around him or her.
- Straight: In a "Bob The Strong" fanfic, Bob rescues Princess Mary Sue from the Dragon in the first chapter. The sparkly maiden refuses to go back to her castle and follows him instead. In chapter 2, she all of a sudden becomes a strong and powerful character without any reason. All the good characters love her and the evil characters hate her. Even though she's a total bitch the narrator tells us she's pure. Within a month of meeting her, Bob dumps Alice to be with his one true love (guess who?)
- Exaggerated: Mary Sue is a perfectly beautiful girl with long, perfect, exotically-colored hair and eyes of constantly-changing color(s). She has a perfectly busty and hourglass-shaped figure. At school she has perfect grades in all subjects and is a star athlete in every sport she tries from the instant she starts playing. She can play any instrument from the moment she picks it up as if she was an expert with it. She is also a perfect artist and singer. Everywhere she goes people bow down before her beauty, skill, perfection, and all around awesomeness. Those few who manage to get her in bed all claim it was absolutely completely divine mind-blowing sex. The canon heroes all treat her as if she was the second coming of Christ. When ever any enemies attack the heroes are usually rendered completely helpless and Mary Sue comes in with her Blade of the Dragon God and eliminates the enemies with out breaking a sweat. She then proceeds to head to the lair of Emperor Evulz and destroy his minions with her all powerful magic and then strike down the Emperor in a curb stomp battle. After which she proceeds to slaughter all the prisoners and slaves in the emperors castle then massacre everyone in the castle town on the justification that they MIGHT have sided with him. The canon heroes never call her out on this and instead worship her for this saying it was the right thing to do. The one character who doesn't is looked down upon by the others until they, eventually comes around and worship Mary Sue like everyone else. She then takes control of the empire and uses it to found Mary Sue Topia and rule it as a goddess forever. See also: Thirty Sue Pileup
- Inverted: A character with few-to-no positive traits, intended to be as unlikable and as much of a failure as possible, who nobody likes.
- Marietta appears in the fan fic intended as comic relief, including her infatuation with Bob the Strong. All the readers find her funny, charming, and intelligent and think that without author manipulation there's no way that Bob would not have seen that she's much better for him than the vain and lazy Alice — but the author does not perturb the canon pairing, even though Bob has no reason not to prefer the better woman.
- Subverted: As Bob travels to rescue Sue, he gets informed that she's ravishingly gorgeous, and perfect in every way. When he saves her, he sees her as no different than any other girl.
- Double Subverted: ... but she is an Anti-Sue.
- Parodied: Parody Sue
- Deconstructed: Mary Sue uses her powers to take over the world and ruins the story as it was intended to play out.
- Reconstructed: The character is fun for the audience, see Escapist Character.
- Zig Zagged: A character's Mary Sue traits (or lack therof) vary greatly between different parts of the storie(s).
- Averted: All the characters have significant flaws and undesirable traits, and any focus on a particular character does not interfere with the advancement of the overall plot.
- Enforced: The writer's a beginner who believes that having a likable Badass OC would make her story interesting.
- Lampshaded: "OMG IM SO PERFECT!!"
- Invoked: Alice thought it was a great idea to be a Mary Sue, so she did what was necessary to turn into one.
- Defied: The plot is to make Mary Sue into a normal character.
- Discussed: "Have you noticed that ever since Mary Sue arrived, all our conversations revolve around her one way or another?
- Conversed: "Blatant Mary Sues are generally a sign of a beginner fanfic writer."
Mary Sue so lucky to be looked back upon!!
