Line #12 FanFic/ATrekkiesTale


1	A ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fanfic from TheSeventies by Paula Smith and the {{Trope Namer\|s}} for MarySue. The fic is a [[TheParody Parody]] of a SelfInsertFic in which Lt. MarySue, a [[ImprobableAge fifteen-year-old]] [[HalfHumanHybrid half]]-[[ThereIsAnother Vulcan]], single-handedly saves the ''Enterprise'' before dying a tragic death. The full text can be found [[http://web.archive.org/web/20100830041159/http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/dark/1000/marysue.htm here]].
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3	In the early '70s, fan fiction was emerging, much of it based on ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' and ''Series/TheManFromUNCLE''. In those days, fan fiction was published in fan-made magazines called "fanzines" and distributed at fan conventions. Paula Smith was a fan who happened to notice that many of the bad ''Star Trek'' stories had [[FandomSpecificPlot the same plot]]. They always centered on a female OriginalCharacter, who is the youngest whatever in Starfleet. Everyone falls in love with her and they go on adventures with her, typically ending with her meeting [[PuritySue a tragic death to be mourned by all.]] After seeing a particularly JustForFun/{{egregious}} example of this storyline, Paula Smith wrote a parody, which was published in the second issue of the fanzine ''Menagerie'', which she edited with her friend Sharon Ferraro.
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5	''A Trekkie's Tale'' and Mary Sue could have easily been forgotten after that issue ran, but Paula Smith later started doing letters of comment and reviews for other zines. She and Sharon Ferraro started using the term "Lt. Mary Sue story" as a shorthand to refer to further instances of that plot and the term spread. Regarding the increasingly widespread use of the term "Mary Sue", Paula Smith says that "I simply named a bug, I found a new fern. I identified a piece of humanity and put a name to it, but that's all I did. Everything I know about Mary Sue I was told by somebody else."
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7	!!This fanfic provides examples of:
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9	* BeigeProse: This story is only four paragraphs long, all fairly short and straightforward.
10	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: "...her beautiful youth and youthful beauty..." is used to describe Mary Sue.
11	* {{Ephebophile}}: Kirk immediately wants to have sex with fifteen-year-old Mary Sue, but changes his mind when she says "I'm not that kind of girl!"
12	* ExternalRetcon: [[http://memory-gamma.wikia.com/wiki/Mary_Sue_Smith This]] Memory Gamma article gives the original Mary Sue a sensible history and {{Hand Wave}}s most of her more egregious Sueness. It also {{Ret Con}}s her into being OnlyMostlyDead so that she could live to the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]'' era.
13	* FlashFiction: The story has only four paragraphs.
14	* HalfHumanHybrid: Mary Sue is half-Human, half-Vulcan.
15	* NumberedHomeworld: Parodied: "Rigel XXXVII".
16	* OutOfCharacter: [[ParodySue Parodied]], like everything else in the fic. Spock "weeping unashamedly".
17	* OverrankedSoldier: The "youngest lieutenant in the fleet" at "fifteen-and-a-half years old".
18	* ParodySue: Lt. Sue parodies the [[MarySueClassic overly-perfect original character with an overly-perfect life]] who [[invoked]][[BlackHoleSue gets outsized attention from the narrative for no good reason]] which Smith had been seeing a lot of in fanfic lately.
19	* SoapOperaDisease: The jumping cold robbies are a mysterious alien disease that disables much of the Senior Staff so Mary Sue can run the ship herself. While Sue's case is less severe, going untreated is what leads to her death.
20	* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: All of the Enterprise weeps at the loss of her because of her general niceness.
21	* UnbuiltTrope: Of a sort. Mary Sue herself is ironically somewhat lacking in CommonMarySueTraits, especially the ones which would be played up in most modern-day Mary Sue parodies. Her name is ordinary, her appearance is not described in any specifics beyond "beautiful youth and youthful beauty", and it's simply never mentioned what clothing or accessories she wears. In other words, her Sueness is based entirely on her being the center of attention and stealing the spotlight from the canon heroes. If this were written now, it would be a DoubleSubversion of the ParodySue trope.

Context FanFic / ATrekkiesTale