The term "Mary Sue & Gary Stu" is a major pet peeve of mine TBH

[EternalSunset0]

(BTW: I am actually proud of myself that I have forgotten the name of Smartphone's protagonist. It's something I'd rather not remember. So, actually, please do not make me run a comparison between Rey and that guy. I will have to use mind bleach afterward just to remove the trauma of looking at that bastard again.)

I didn't realize Smartphone's protagonist was that notorious. The show seemed really forgettable. A little less than Death March at least. I mean, I still remember Elze and Linze compared to any of Death March's other characters.

 

[Jemini]

I didn't realize Smartphone's protagonist was that notorious. The show seemed really forgettable. A little less than Death March at least. I mean, I still remember Elze and Linze compared to any of Death March's other characters.

I think it might have to do with the fact that, in Death March, they at least had the decency to put one set of ankle weights on Sato in the form of him being unable to chant in order to create his own magic for the first 9 volumes or so. Incidentally, it was after he learned to chant that the series suddenly took a huge nose-dive in quality.

I would have considered Death March at least a somewhat passable harem power fantasy if the thing wrapped up after 10 or 12 volumes and him learning to chant was the final power push before they started taking it into the end-game, but no, it just went on and on afterward and I wound up dropping the series a little too late for my own tastes.

Smartphone was just completely unjustified OP BS from the beginning, and I wanted to bash my head against the wall when the MC was being given the hand of the princess in marriage just for healing the queen. (Or did I get who he was healing wrong? If I did, I will take it as another point of pride.) That's something that would get him a reward ranging from some money at the least to a position as the palace doctor at the most. The princess' hand in marriage is ridiculous and completely outside the range of a justifiable reward.

Again, it's the writing. At the very least, Death March had the politicians acting a little more like proper politicians accurate to the time. Yes, Sato also got marriage proposals left and right, but he already had a noble title at the time, as well as a far longer list of achievements, and the marriage proposals he got were only 2 ranks higher than his current noble rank at the most. It's justifiable as the parents seeing his potential for social climbing and wanting to rope him in and gain some benefits from his rising star, attaching some realistic motive to the act that would be accurate for the time. A peasant like the MC of Smartphone being given the princess' hand in marriage by comparison is completely ludicrous.

 

[MadmanRB]

Might have to ask yourself then if you dislike the argument or the source on this. I can do a comparison between SAO's Kirito and Rey or Deathmarch's Sato and Rey or the protagonist of "in another world with my smartphone" and Rey if you need me to prove my basis that this is about the presentation and not the gender.

(BTW: I am actually proud of myself that I have forgotten the name of Smartphone's protagonist. It's something I'd rather not remember. So, actually, please do not make me run a comparison between Rey and that guy. I will have to use mind bleach afterward just to remove the trauma of looking at that bastard again.)



2 things. 1, the ability Luke showed with the X-wing was actually kinda basic. He was not really put into position where he had to do any complex dogfighting and such. Nothing at all like Poe Dameron's single uninterrupted shot dogfight over that Mos-eyesly in the forest place in TFA. (The one that ended with the guy yelling "Woo! What a pilot!")

All Luke did was fly straight and get into the trench, and veer off when someone got on his tail as he tried to escape. We can probably safely presume he just got some rudimentary training on weapon systems and then mixed it with what he knew about piloting speeders to justify that. You have to keep in mind this was a bunch of rebels struggling for survival. Throwing a barely trained farmboy at the death star is exactly the kind of move they would pull in that situation.

This doesn't even compare to Rey piloting the falcon better than Han. It's all about points of comparison to judge skill scales. Rey shows way too much skill for the level of experience, training, and exposure she ought to have.

As for the force, the only thing he did before being sent to Degoba was try to force move his lightsaber stuck in the snow. Now, for the sake of being intellectually honest, I will grant you this one. He had never seen this as a potential possible move before he tried it. Obi-wan had never shown Luke force telekenisis. However, given the danger of his situation, we can excuse that one by assuming he was just desperately trying to reach his lightsaber in this urgent life-or-death situation and that triggered something. It can be seen as a clumsy move, and force telekenisis is a technique that is far more brute force compared to Jedi mind control.

Jedi mind control by comparison requires you to use the force while strongly implanting a hypnotic suggestion. A specific phrasing of words as you try to dominate the mind. That's something you actually have to know is possible before trying it, likely having seen someone else actually do it before.

I will still admit that we do not know the power or skill level necessary for each, so I am fine with setting the two techniques as equal on both skill and power level. However, the mind dominance skill is still something that requires you to actually know about it before trying it while telekenisis is something you can excuse as something you could accidentally use in a desperate enough situation. This being the case, we could just as easily chalk this one up to bad writing rather than anything else.

Bad writing is something rather consistent in the starwars sequel trilogy. The thing that is a lot less excusable is the part where the team is looking for her and they all basically go "there she is" as she has already rescued herself.

Basically, the entire point of that badly written scene was to demonstrate Rey using the force somehow, and they chose the worst force power to justify when they did it. Plot wise, it would have made just as much sense for her to get out of it by being rescued by the team. But, if you really don't like that, then a good alternative would be her being behind a forcefield and gets lucky because the guard is lazy and wanders off, figuring there's no problem because she's behind the forcefield. Then, she uses force telekenisis to flick the lever that controls the forcefield. That would have been quite a bit more acceptable.

Again, I am perfectly agreeable to chalking this one up to bad writing.



Rather than the argument of Rey being too skilled, I think the better argument here would be that Kylo is too conveniently unskilled compared to what he ought to be. I have actually done some traditional swordsmanship and am familiar with both Budo and HIMA. So, I can say that Darth Vader's technique is fairly spot on in Empire (Luke's is rather atrocious, but that kinda fits as well,) but ALL of the swordplay in the sequel trillogy is aweful, and it actually gets worse with each subsequent movie in the trilogy. It is barely passable in TFA, the throne room fightscene at the end of TLJ is the unholy love child between a **** show and a complete mess, and I can't speak on ROS because I never watched it.

(I do know she demonstrated force powers previously unseen in the Star Wars universe though, which is the single most unavoidably Mary Sue thing about her. Even that levitating while orbiting rocks around her thing in the trailers is way off the charts compared to previously established stuff.)

Anyway, I will give a little ground based on your justification, but at the end of the day it all boils down to this. You can justify Rey's victories all you want, but the real problem with her character is that she never really tastes failure. Nothing like what Luke got at the end of Empire. (Getting captured in TFA gets nullified by the fact she got out herself without assistance from anyone.)

At the very least, it's bad writing. The compounding of it all though adds up to this. She can do anything better than anybody and the one and only thing she is unable to do is fail. That makes her a Mary Sue.

I challenge you on this. Name one thing by the end of ROS that someone else can beat her at. Now, this was a rumor I heard, I will admit to that, but I heard that in ROS she demonstrates herself to be a better pilot than Poe. That one was the single last thing somebody else could have been better than her at. Even if it was down to just that one thing, in the sea of other things she was better than everyone else at she would have still qualified as a Mary Sue. The only thing taking away that one thing does is it removes the last shield defenders of Rey against the Mary Sue title could have hidden behind.



I mentioned James Bond in a previous comment. He is an MI6 agent. Being an agent implies training previous to him being on camera. Rey was a scavanger on a desert planet. That means there is no room for implied training, and all the training she might have had needs to be specifically called out, mentioned, and justified because her background does not imply anything for her.

As for Luke, I already covered that. He had no real noticable jump in power between ANH and ESB, and the only move he did perform before getting training can be excused by the situation. As for the mind trick, we know he got training on Degobah and he did see Obi-wan use the mind trick. That's enough establishment for it to justify him using it. Force choke, which he also used in ROTJ, is only really an application of telekenisis.

All I said is that you need to justify the power and skill set. Training is only 1 form of justification. It's the most straight forward justification, but there are others. Most others don't really apply here though, it's things like Kriptonian DNA justifying Superman's powers. There are also situational justifications like what you did on arguing on the Kylo VS. Rey fight in TFA, or Luke being able to pull the lightsaber from the snow in ESB. Those are only 1 time justifications for single specific situations though, and it feels cheap and too coincidental if you keep giving situational justifications too often. Luke gets his situational justification record wiped when he gets thoroughly defeated at the end of ESB, and driven down to his lowest point. Rey never had a situation where she had a failure significant enough to clear her situational victory record. (That's really more writing than anything else though, but it still relates to how the fans perceive the character.)

At the end of the day though, some form of training is the thing that justifies things most effectively and in the most situations. Training can also be implied, such as the case of James Bond. In order to have the training be implied though, you need to actually credibly imply it. MI6 agent is a position where you would have to be an idiot to assume he got there without training, and there for his status as an MI6 agent does more than imply training. It actually makes it so you would have to show proof and justification in order to argue he didn't have training, just from hearing his affiliation.

Training under a teacher is not really necessary either, all having a master does is justify the training (yes, that's the thing about training. The justification itself also needs a justification (justifiception!)) Without the master to teach, you need to show where they would have gotten exposure to that skill to justify the self-training. With Rey being a scavanger, we could justify some implied self-training in identifying valuable parts, how to ration food, how to negotiate, and how to deal with street scum. Those four skills are very easily justified through implied self-training, but you need a little more justification to demonstrate ship repair and how to combat skilled soldiers. For example, this is another flaw in the writing. They could have actually very easily justified her ability to repair the Falcon if they just changed 1 thing and said Rey was trying to buy the falcon off the current owner in order to use it to get off the planet and had been running maintenance on it in preparation. Just that one bit of backstory would justify everything, and it could have just been a slipped in line. But, they didn't, and thus it's an unjustified skill.

Incredible talent is also a justification, but that only justifies quick learning or better results in self-training. They still need to have either exposure or be placed in a situation where you can say they would have picked up the skill out of necessity. If you are going the later route, you also need to either keep the skill to levels where it's believable given the situation or demonstrate other people were in that situation and responded to it in a similar way.

If you use the incredible talent justification, your character will be accused of being a Mary Sue unless you are extremely careful and put extra work into the justifications. Talent is one of those 1 step forward 2 steps back justifications where you actually need to try even harder as a writer to justify every single skill they pick up in order to avoid Mary Sue treatment for your character.

(An example of a character who pulled off the talent card right would be one of my absolute favorite characters. Rudeus Greyrat form Mushoku Tensei. He has talent, but every skill he has is justified through training that shows exactly step by step how he acquired it. Also, he fails constantly. Almost everything goes wrong for him in the short run, and he only just barely manages to keep everyone alive at the end of the day. He constantly tastes failure. And, he grows as a person for it. I would also like to add, I said Rudeus was my favorite character, not my favorite person. As a person, especially in the first half of the story, he's a disgusting pig. He's completely unlikeable. If he was a real person, I would want him nowhere near me. However, that is part of what makes him a good character. Being too perfect and without flaws that would turn you off of the person makes them inhuman, and also raises Mary Sue flags left and right. That's something to keep in mind about character flaws. If you are giving a character a flaw, it should not be something that makes them endearing. Endearing flaws are Mary Sue flaws. If you are going to give them a flaw, it should be something that would loose them friends in real life. Rudeus has a lot of those. Almost too many.)

Now that's a far better argument than I have seen from the troglodytes in the Star Wars fandom.
Still though I do have some minor contention points such as so what Rey knew how to operate the falcon?
I mean the falcon was her ticket off Jakku, and perhaps she did have some familiarity of ships of its class.
We know in universe the falcon was not fully one of a kind, and perhaps she read the manual off camera from data she scavenged on ships like it, that would be completely plausible.
Yes Han probably did make modifications but again maybe she recognized some of those modifications from her scavenging days.
As for the bad writing bits, well that's Star Wars in a nutshell as even the original trilogy had bad writing issues (yes I said it)
But I think we beat the Star Wars dead horse argument too much here, and I do want to tie this to my own characters and my attempts to "de sue" them.

Now since you did not yet see my topic on my series yet that I am writing here it is as this will need context:

Hello! New here but have a story I would like feedback on! | Scribble Hub Forum

Now yes it's a premise as an adult it is head tilting but keeping mind my age demographic of kids 10-14 it makes sense

So the story starts with two characters, Ralph Bunny and Sunny Rabbiera, both will become cyborg superheroes in the story.
Now character 1 Ralph Bunny:
As I mentioned in my topic he started as a self insert fan character for Sonic the hedgehog during the 90s when Sonic was still considered cool.
He shares my first name and his last is a pun on my last name IRL.
I mean hey I was still a teen, had no idea what a self insert was or a Mary Sue and since I created him in 96 the internet was in its infancy.
I only learned of terms like "Mary sue" long after my concept phase as I didn't have internet until I was 20 or so.
But even then I didn't make him the notorious type of self insert where the writer goes in and becomes god to the universe he likes.
Actually I kind of made him a villain, a villain I spun off into another villain later on.
And yes I had my self insert defeat the hero, hey my fanfiction my rules.
But I did have Sonic beat him and befriend him.
I always liked the idea of heroes reforming villains even if the villain was based on myself.
But fan character Ralph Bunny died in say 2000 or so when my interests shifted, but I kept my characters around and spun them off.
Now I did have my character be an unbeatable hero at first as I did not work out his weaknesses yet nor have the foundation of my universe fully formed that came later.
Now he has weaknesses and powers that make sense in my universe.
The first weakness is an obvious one, he's a cyborg so EMP will be a weakness
The second weakness is that he does have moments of self-doubt, it's not obvious in my first arc, but I somewhat foreshadow it by having him be reluctant to speak to his superiors when he suspects the villains are planning something, this is a weakness that returns in full later on when a villain gets the upper hand on him.
Those are the two big ones
As for his abilities I have two he shares with his partner:
Enhanced speed and strength
But one I added in recently: Mild psychic powers
Now yes I foreshadow this so that when it comes it's not such a big shock, and he gains three more powers from this:
The ability of foresight, the ability to sense objects and people, and a very limited form of telepathy.
But to counter any sue claims I do have weaknesses for this bonus power:
His foresight is very limited, he can only get glimpses of the future.
Also and while he can sense where people things are at in real-time its oftentimes vague, and he needs deep concentration to do this one
As for the telepathy it has the hardest cap of all, he can only do it with others with similar powers and cant do it with the average Joe or even his partner and friend.
So what sounds like on paper a major Mary Sue score point its countered by extreme caps.
Yes as the series goes on I may remove one of these caps, probably the second where he can sense people and objects as hey that's a handy superpower and Spider-Man would be cool with it as honestly the foresight ability is overused without some cap and the same goes for telepathy plus this power does need its restraint somewhere.
I mean yes the foresight ability does have its pluses, but I rather keep it vague, so I don't wind up spoiling entire plot points and will only use it for foreshadowing purposes, a bit trite but appropriate for my genre which is superhero themed science fiction.
As for telepathy it will only happen now and then when my hero foes off against those with this same ability, no plans to make this a power he has all the time and is better off capped.
I also have another major cap he can't overcome: all of these psychic abilities drain him, and he can't use all of them all at once.
Now I won't have the nosebleeds that Eleven has from stranger things, but these powers to weaken him when he uses them.

As for character 2: Sunny Rabbiera
She came in 1997 or so just before my series split off from the Sonic franchise.
Her history isn't as complex as to be frank she started as my main characters Smurfette, only later on I began modelling her on Vasquez from Aliens and has most of her traits such as a rough attitude, a bit aloof and sarcastic, and she served as a solider during a war.
Now one trait I did give her is that she comes from a rather rich family.
I did this to further contrast her to her partner who not only comes from a rather humble family, but Ralph is very friendly and far less abrasive.
But the two became very close friends and Sunny mostly rejects her upbringing, yes this is a bit of a cliché/trope but hey someone has to pay the bills for when they become superheroes and I didn't want their cybernetic powers to be the result of some company or military experiment so I made another choice that seemed in line, have her come from a rich family who funds the guy who transforms her into a cyborg superhero.
Plus the arc I have for her is slowly embracing her rich family heritage a little and her experiences outside her family mansion installing things like compassion and willingness to help those in need.
Plus I hate the spoiled brat rich kid archetype, I wanted to twist it into a character who may be wealthy but has a heart of gold and willing to fight for those weaker than her.
And no being rich isn't her superpower.
No her powers are the same base ones as her male counterpart super speed and strength, but the strength is where her powers go.
I intend to make her the team tank, the one who hits hard and clobbers almost anything she encounters.
Her key weakness is her temper, and how.
And while I have not made it cause her trouble, yet I have it come and bite her hard later on where she loses her temper in front of someone that she shouldn't and her actions cause severe repercussions not just for her but her teammates by proxy.

And yes all my heroes will get clobbered at some point one way or another either by their actions or the actions of those they fight.
They are not invincible and while yes I will have them defeat all the villains I set for them, it will not be an easy ride.

 

[Napelynn]

I didn't realize Smartphone's protagonist was that notorious. The show seemed really forgettable. A little less than Death March at least. I mean, I still remember Elze and Linze compared to any of Death March's other characters.

I read quite a bit of the light novel and still forgot his name so it is pretty forgettable. However I would consider it notorious instead of forgettable because of how horrible it was.

 

[LinXueLian]

I am getting sick of hearing the term "Mary Sue" being thrown around these days,

But its become too broad now any character who has even the slightest hint of having more than one friend, or has powers (especially females) or anything typically associated with the term becomes a Sue by default in modern pop culture.
Now it seems like the only way to pass the snuff test is to make your character a worthless friendless loser because that is "realism" or show the audience 10-hour training montages.

Mmm yeah, semantics aside, I can somewhat agree that the term "Mary Sue" has become a popular catchphrase nowadays, bandied around to describe a female character someone doesn't like. I mean, the term itself does still have meaning - but like a lot of catchy phrases, it's definitely being used in a very different way than originally intended.

In terms of characters like Rey... there's probably this thing that her creators were trying to do - they were probably trying to make a strong, attractive female character who's smart and can do everything whom young girls and women can look up to. Bear in mind that I've used the term, "look up to" instead of "relate to". Another two who come to mind are Netflix's version Sabrina and Captain Marvel. They were likely developed as role models for modern girls (to make people want to be like them), and less of a representation of one (how relatable they are to others).

I also recall Tauriel, an OC who was inserted into the Hobbit's live action adaptation to add a female to the sausagefest, taking a lot of heat and being called a Mary Sue. I think I read in an article somewhere that she, a strong and beautiful elf who could love a dwarf (meaning she didn't care about things like height), was written in for female fans to enjoy and aspire to be like.

Writing's really subjective though. I've seen people who complain about Mary Sues and about other people's characters write bland, forgettable and/or horrible characters themselves. There are people who call other people's writing awful who have really pretentious, awful writing too. Some don't even know it because they cannot take criticism despite being able to shell it - and everyone's far too polite to say anything. So I'd say you don't really have to worry too much and just do you, then figure out where you want to go from here.

It's hard to strike a balance between being a writer who's trying too hard and one who isn't trying at all, but it can't also be said that we can't try to aim for the middle. It's not a bad idea to take a critique now and then... but it's probably a better idea to be able to sift through it and see if it's applicable or not first before doing so. This applies to creating characters too; there's no one way of doing it.

 

[Napelynn]

Now that's a far better argument than I have seen from the troglodytes in the Star Wars fandom.
Still though I do have some minor contention points such as so what Rey knew how to operate the falcon?
I mean the falcon was her ticket off Jakku, and perhaps she did have some familiarity of ships of its class.
We know in universe the falcon was not fully one of a kind, and perhaps she read the manual off camera from data she scavenged on ships like it, that would be completely plausible.
Yes Han probably did make modifications but again maybe she recognized some of those modifications from her scavenging days.
As for the bad writing bits, well that's Star Wars in a nutshell as even the original trilogy had bad writing issues (yes I said it)
But I think we beat the Star Wars dead horse argument too much here, and I do want to tie this to my own characters and my attempts to "de sue" them.

Now since you did not yet see my topic on my series yet that I am writing here it is as this will need context:

Hello! New here but have a story I would like feedback on! | Scribble Hub Forum

Now yes it's a premise as an adult it is head tilting but keeping mind my age demographic of kids 10-14 it makes sense

So the story starts with two characters, Ralph Bunny and Sunny Rabbiera, both will become cyborg superheroes in the story.
Now character 1 Ralph Bunny:
As I mentioned in my topic he started as a self insert fan character for Sonic the hedgehog during the 90s when Sonic was still considered cool.
He shares my first name and his last is a pun on my last name IRL.
I mean hey I was still a teen, had no idea what a self insert was or a Mary Sue and since I created him in 96 the internet was in its infancy.
I only learned of terms like "Mary sue" long after my concept phase as I didn't have internet until I was 20 or so.
But even then I didn't make him the notorious type of self insert where the writer goes in and becomes god to the universe he likes.
Actually I kind of made him a villain, a villain I spun off into another villain later on.
And yes I had my self insert defeat the hero, hey my fanfiction my rules.
But I did have Sonic beat him and befriend him.
I always liked the idea of heroes reforming villains even if the villain was based on myself.
But fan character Ralph Bunny died in say 2000 or so when my interests shifted, but I kept my characters around and spun them off.
Now I did have my character be an unbeatable hero at first as I did not work out his weaknesses yet nor have the foundation of my universe fully formed that came later.
Now he has weaknesses and powers that make sense in my universe.
The first weakness is an obvious one, he's a cyborg so EMP will be a weakness
The second weakness is that he does have moments of self-doubt, it's not obvious in my first arc, but I somewhat foreshadow it by having him be reluctant to speak to his superiors when he suspects the villains are planning something, this is a weakness that returns in full later on when a villain gets the upper hand on him.
Those are the two big ones
As for his abilities I have two he shares with his partner:
Enhanced speed and strength
But one I added in recently: Mild psychic powers
Now yes I foreshadow this so that when it comes it's not such a big shock, and he gains three more powers from this:
The ability of foresight, the ability to sense objects and people, and a very limited form of telepathy.
But to counter any sue claims I do have weaknesses for this bonus power:
His foresight is very limited, he can only get glimpses of the future.
Also and while he can sense where people things are at in real-time its oftentimes vague, and he needs deep concentration to do this one
As for the telepathy it has the hardest cap of all, he can only do it with others with similar powers and cant do it with the average Joe or even his partner and friend.
So what sounds like on paper a major Mary Sue score point its countered by extreme caps.
Yes as the series goes on I may remove one of these caps, probably the second where he can sense people and objects as hey that's a handy superpower and Spider-Man would be cool with it as honestly the foresight ability is overused without some cap and the same goes for telepathy plus this power does need its restraint somewhere.
I mean yes the foresight ability does have its pluses, but I rather keep it vague, so I don't wind up spoiling entire plot points and will only use it for foreshadowing purposes, a bit trite but appropriate for my genre which is superhero themed science fiction.
As for telepathy it will only happen now and then when my hero foes off against those with this same ability, no plans to make this a power he has all the time and is better off capped.
I also have another major cap he can't overcome: all of these psychic abilities drain him, and he can't use all of them all at once.
Now I won't have the nosebleeds that Eleven has from stranger things, but these powers to weaken him when he uses them.

As for character 2: Sunny Rabbiera
She came in 1997 or so just before my series split off from the Sonic franchise.
Her history isn't as complex as to be frank she started as my main characters Smurfette, only later on I began modelling her on Vasquez from Aliens and has most of her traits such as a rough attitude, a bit aloof and sarcastic, and she served as a solider during a war.
Now one trait I did give her is that she comes from a rather rich family.
I did this to further contrast her to her partner who not only comes from a rather humble family, but Ralph is very friendly and far less abrasive.
But the two became very close friends and Sunny mostly rejects her upbringing, yes this is a bit of a cliché/trope but hey someone has to pay the bills for when they become superheroes and I didn't want their cybernetic powers to be the result of some company or military experiment so I made another choice that seemed in line, have her come from a rich family who funds the guy who transforms her into a cyborg superhero.
Plus the arc I have for her is slowly embracing her rich family heritage a little and her experiences outside her family mansion installing things like compassion and willingness to help those in need.
Plus I hate the spoiled brat rich kid archetype, I wanted to twist it into a character who may be wealthy but has a heart of gold and willing to fight for those weaker than her.
And no being rich isn't her superpower.
No her powers are the same base ones as her male counterpart super speed and strength, but the strength is where her powers go.
I intend to make her the team tank, the one who hits hard and clobbers almost anything she encounters.
Her key weakness is her temper, and how.
And while I have not made it cause her trouble, yet I have it come and bite her hard later on where she loses her temper in front of someone that she shouldn't and her actions cause severe repercussions not just for her but her teammates by proxy.

And yes all my heroes will get clobbered at some point one way or another either by their actions or the actions of those they fight.
They are not invincible and while yes I will have them defeat all the villains I set for them, it will not be an easy ride.

I don’t understand the telepathy cap. How similar do the abilities have to be. For example are super strength and a short term strength boost similar enough? The character has four abilities, does the character he is trying to telepathically communicate with need four similar abilities or just one?

Also, how powerful is his super strength and how fast is his super speed?

(Keep in mind I haven’t read your story) The problem I have with Ralph right now is the amount of abilities he has and how diverse they are. I care less about the limits of his abilities and more that he can do so many different things. He can get to places quickly and dodge attacks. He can deal powerful blows on his opponent and lift heavy objects. He can communicate from long distances and without revealing the contents of the conversation. He can even see into the future.

When you write flaws or limits, they should have justifications, they should be a part of the ability or character instead of just being tacked on so that your character doesn’t get called a Mary Sue. Some things like a nasty temper get a pass from me because personalities aren’t always explainable. On the other hand why does telepathy work only on people with similar powers? Why does using his mind powers weaken him? If it’s something like stressing his mind too much, why don’t other characters experience it as well?

Let’s take a look at My Hero Academia characters (because of lot of their powers have flaws). Deku breaks his bones when he uses his powers because his body can’t handle the strength. Bakugo breaks his bones when he uses too much of his power because his body can’t handle the strength. Mineta bleeds from his head when he rips off too many bouncy balls probably because his head can’t handle having hair ripped off over and over again. Todoroki Shoto can give himself frostbite or burn himself because his body can’t handle the heat/cold. It’s slightly repetitive, but at least it makes sense.

Characters like Kirishima don’t reallly have drawbacks too their powers because their abilities aren’t that strong in the first place. A lot of power level stuff has to do with comparing characters to other characters.

So does everyone in your story have many abilities like Ralph does? Apparently Ralph has superiors, he’s in some kind of group or organization? If so, is that group necessary or could Ralph leave it and still do pretty well as a hero? Having trouble talking to superiors doesn’t matter if you can get rid of the superiors. Along with being justified flaws should have an impact on the story besides showing that your character has flaws.

 

[MadmanRB]

Napelynn, good questions!​

Let me go down your list:

I don’t understand the telepathy cap. How similar do the abilities have to be. For example are super strength and a short term strength boost similar enough? The character has four abilities, does the character he is trying to telepathically communicate with need four similar abilities or just one?

They have to be close in power for it to work, this was a creative choice so that he could still have this ability without him seeming like he could read the minds of everyone.
Honestly I found it more interesting to do this as typically telepaths can read the minds of everyone and I don't want a Deanna Troi here.

Also, how powerful is his super strength, and how fast is his super speed?

I say he could now as a cyborg lift say a car, his partner on the other hand can probably lift a bus.
This is because I made my male lead not as physically strong on purpose and made him my teams brain.
Yes when normal he had some weight training, but I implied once or twice his partner works out regularly while he doesn't, not to say he's out of shape or anything as his job beforehand was my universes version of a street cop who is fairly active just not as much so as his partner.
He's more into reading and studying thus why when he meets the scientist who turns him into a cyborg he knows who he is and why he's good at strategic thinking as I imagine him being into such things to help him in his job.
I mean we are not talking about your doughnut eating beat cop here, yes that is part of his job but not the whole as his other job is to help take down a gang of super criminals, so it's not a big leap on why he may want to brush up on planning strategies.
As for his speed, as a cyborg faster than the average human and probably could outrun Usain Bolt if he wanted to but still slower than my teams speedster who I made clock at 200MPH.
But did I make my speedster a boxer before he became a superhero, boxers can actually run pretty fast IRL as most are trained to run at high speed for endurance, I mean that's why Rocky can run up those stairs as Stallone did his homework on boxers exorcise routines.

The problem I have with Ralph right now is the amount of abilities he has and how diverse they are. I care less about the limits of his abilities and more that he can do so many different things. He can get to places quickly and dodge attacks. He can deal powerful blows on his opponent and lift heavy objects. He can communicate from long distances and without revealing the contents of the conversation. He can even see into the future.

Well that's why I took the care to make my other characters have similar power levels
You see the base idea of my concept is that all of my main characters start with the same base powers:
Enhanced speed and enhanced strength.
But as the series goes on we start seeing different powers for each character, so they can feel more unique but still remain similar in power levels.
But each character only has one such extra power than the others:
With Ralph I want him to the teams brain, he is already intelligent with a mind for strategy and tactics (something I do make a point of even in my first episode) and yes I do make sure that not all of his strategies work as he can't foresee everything even when he gets that power.
When he becomes a cyborg his latent power starts to awaken, he begins to foresee small things then starts to sense people and objects before hitting the final mental power the telepathy.
With Sunny, she will become the teams tank with the heaviest firepower and armor.
Like her partner she starts off with the same base powers but finds that she is far stronger than her partner and as she becomes the teams tank her speed diminishes greatly, but she chose this as the other members are not as physically strong as her and elects to be the damage sponge now and then.
Now there is that boxer character I mentioned, well won't spoil him other than what his profession is and his superpower will be, but I will give him a big weakness in the fact that he's the fastest but not the strongest or smartest in my group.
And I plan on a fourth main character to round them out, but I won't spoil them too much either but let's say she is a former secret agent/spy with an invisibility cloak ability.
Yes all are stock superpowers but divided among four separate characters, again at base they still have the same base power level, but each hero has a different attribute that makes them stand out.
Yes when you isolate my Ralph Bunny on his own he rings Gary Stu but put him together with others in his team he becomes less so.

When you write flaws or limits, they should have justifications, they should be a part of the ability or character instead of just being tacked on so that your character doesn’t get called a Mary Sue. Some things like a nasty temper get a pass from me because personalities aren’t always explainable. On the other hand why doesn’t telepathy work only on people with similar powers? Why does using his mind powers weaken him? If it’s something like stressing his mind too much, why don’t other characters experience it as well?

Well my justification on why my character has his limits is because he wasn't born like this, he's his psychic abilities are there but not unlocked until he gets his superpowers.
A core concept of the series to make it stand out more is that the Cybernizer the device that turns my heroes into cyborgs can unlock latent abilities or tap into abilities already there and enhance them.
To make it less like magic it doesn't give my characters all the exact same abilities, instead it's more like a side effect and one that at first seems beneficial.
And note when I say cyborg I mean full body cyborgs here nearly head to toe in cybernetics like Iron Man and not one or two robotic parts.

I hope that covers it but if it doesn't I can clarify more if you wish :D

So does everyone in your story have many abilities like Ralph does? Apparently Ralph has superiors, he’s in some kind of group or organization? If so, is that group necessary or could Ralph leave it and still do pretty well as a hero? Having trouble talking to superiors doesn’t matter if you can get rid of the superiors. Along with being justified flaws should have an impact on the story besides showing that your character has flaws.

No not everyone, only my main heroes and some of my more nasty villains.
He's also the de facto leader of my superhero group.
And what I meant by him having trouble talking to his superiors well that is an initial personality quirk, but he does seemingly overcome it by the time the series starts as I have to move on with the plot.
Now that isn't to say this quirk has no meaning or is to give him a quirk for the sake of it.
No, it's a bit of foreshadowing of his issues later on when he starts doubting himself and questioning his own leadership skills.
Yes in this basic form of me summarizing it the issues seemingly have nothing to do with each other and are unrelated.
But trust me they have the same root problem, and it will make complete sense in the story.
I got this covered, it only doesn't make sense as I am trying not to give spoilers here on how I am going to tie these issues together, but I assure you I have a way to do it.

But if you want a non spoiler version of what I will do here well I have a good non story related explanation of my thought process ready and in its most basic form to boot :D

Okay so here it goes:
One man buys a gallon of milk
One woman buys a block of cheese
The man dies horribly after drinking his milk
The woman dies horribly after eating the cheese.
But how?
After all even though both had dairy products, but they are not from the same brand and both were pasteurized and didnt seem poisoned or anything.
Turns out both the cheese and the milk came from the same cow who had swallowed something radioactive and the farmer died from milking it. Oh, the cow died too BTW.

Okay a bit unlikely but kind of summarized my thought process here :D

 

[Jemini]

Now that's a far better argument than I have seen from the troglodytes in the Star Wars fandom.
Still though I do have some minor contention points such as so what Rey knew how to operate the falcon?
I mean the falcon was her ticket off Jakku, and perhaps she did have some familiarity of ships of its class.
We know in universe the falcon was not fully one of a kind, and perhaps she read the manual off camera from data she scavenged on ships like it, that would be completely plausible.
Yes Han probably did make modifications but again maybe she recognized some of those modifications from her scavenging days.
As for the bad writing bits, well that's Star Wars in a nutshell as even the original trilogy had bad writing issues (yes I said it)
But I think we beat the Star Wars dead horse argument too much here, and I do want to tie this to my own characters and my attempts to "de sue" them.

Now since you did not yet see my topic on my series yet that I am writing here it is as this will need context:

Hello! New here but have a story I would like feedback on! | Scribble Hub Forum

Now yes it's a premise as an adult it is head tilting but keeping mind my age demographic of kids 10-14 it makes sense

So the story starts with two characters, Ralph Bunny and Sunny Rabbiera, both will become cyborg superheroes in the story.
Now character 1 Ralph Bunny:
As I mentioned in my topic he started as a self insert fan character for Sonic the hedgehog during the 90s when Sonic was still considered cool.
He shares my first name and his last is a pun on my last name IRL.
I mean hey I was still a teen, had no idea what a self insert was or a Mary Sue and since I created him in 96 the internet was in its infancy.
I only learned of terms like "Mary sue" long after my concept phase as I didn't have internet until I was 20 or so.
But even then I didn't make him the notorious type of self insert where the writer goes in and becomes god to the universe he likes.
Actually I kind of made him a villain, a villain I spun off into another villain later on.
And yes I had my self insert defeat the hero, hey my fanfiction my rules.
But I did have Sonic beat him and befriend him.
I always liked the idea of heroes reforming villains even if the villain was based on myself.
But fan character Ralph Bunny died in say 2000 or so when my interests shifted, but I kept my characters around and spun them off.
Now I did have my character be an unbeatable hero at first as I did not work out his weaknesses yet nor have the foundation of my universe fully formed that came later.
Now he has weaknesses and powers that make sense in my universe.
The first weakness is an obvious one, he's a cyborg so EMP will be a weakness
The second weakness is that he does have moments of self-doubt, it's not obvious in my first arc, but I somewhat foreshadow it by having him be reluctant to speak to his superiors when he suspects the villains are planning something, this is a weakness that returns in full later on when a villain gets the upper hand on him.
Those are the two big ones
As for his abilities I have two he shares with his partner:
Enhanced speed and strength
But one I added in recently: Mild psychic powers
Now yes I foreshadow this so that when it comes it's not such a big shock, and he gains three more powers from this:
The ability of foresight, the ability to sense objects and people, and a very limited form of telepathy.
But to counter any sue claims I do have weaknesses for this bonus power:
His foresight is very limited, he can only get glimpses of the future.
Also and while he can sense where people things are at in real-time its oftentimes vague, and he needs deep concentration to do this one
As for the telepathy it has the hardest cap of all, he can only do it with others with similar powers and cant do it with the average Joe or even his partner and friend.
So what sounds like on paper a major Mary Sue score point its countered by extreme caps.
Yes as the series goes on I may remove one of these caps, probably the second where he can sense people and objects as hey that's a handy superpower and Spider-Man would be cool with it as honestly the foresight ability is overused without some cap and the same goes for telepathy plus this power does need its restraint somewhere.
I mean yes the foresight ability does have its pluses, but I rather keep it vague, so I don't wind up spoiling entire plot points and will only use it for foreshadowing purposes, a bit trite but appropriate for my genre which is superhero themed science fiction.
As for telepathy it will only happen now and then when my hero foes off against those with this same ability, no plans to make this a power he has all the time and is better off capped.
I also have another major cap he can't overcome: all of these psychic abilities drain him, and he can't use all of them all at once.
Now I won't have the nosebleeds that Eleven has from stranger things, but these powers to weaken him when he uses them.

As for character 2: Sunny Rabbiera
She came in 1997 or so just before my series split off from the Sonic franchise.
Her history isn't as complex as to be frank she started as my main characters Smurfette, only later on I began modelling her on Vasquez from Aliens and has most of her traits such as a rough attitude, a bit aloof and sarcastic, and she served as a solider during a war.
Now one trait I did give her is that she comes from a rather rich family.
I did this to further contrast her to her partner who not only comes from a rather humble family, but Ralph is very friendly and far less abrasive.
But the two became very close friends and Sunny mostly rejects her upbringing, yes this is a bit of a cliché/trope but hey someone has to pay the bills for when they become superheroes and I didn't want their cybernetic powers to be the result of some company or military experiment so I made another choice that seemed in line, have her come from a rich family who funds the guy who transforms her into a cyborg superhero.
Plus the arc I have for her is slowly embracing her rich family heritage a little and her experiences outside her family mansion installing things like compassion and willingness to help those in need.
Plus I hate the spoiled brat rich kid archetype, I wanted to twist it into a character who may be wealthy but has a heart of gold and willing to fight for those weaker than her.
And no being rich isn't her superpower.
No her powers are the same base ones as her male counterpart super speed and strength, but the strength is where her powers go.
I intend to make her the team tank, the one who hits hard and clobbers almost anything she encounters.
Her key weakness is her temper, and how.
And while I have not made it cause her trouble, yet I have it come and bite her hard later on where she loses her temper in front of someone that she shouldn't and her actions cause severe repercussions not just for her but her teammates by proxy.

And yes all my heroes will get clobbered at some point one way or another either by their actions or the actions of those they fight.
They are not invincible and while yes I will have them defeat all the villains I set for them, it will not be an easy ride.

Well, if you are asking for help and guidance to avoid having a Mary Sue character, there are a few simple recommendations I could give without even reading through about your characters.

I am starting to develop a wall of text again, so I will break this up into sections. First, the things that are general tips not even specific to your characters.

Spoiler

1. Read a series that contains an anti-sue character. That is, a series in which the author wrote a character specifically in such a way that there is no possible way this character can be accused of being a Mary Sue. Either this character is genuinely weaker than all the other characters around them with nothing that would allow them to ever stand toe to toe with the rest such as compensating with wisdom and skill or something of the sort. They are just plain weaker and less capable, straight up and no excuses, they just cannot measure up. (Subaru from Re:Zero) Or, they have huge character flaws that would genuinely make you detest the person as a human being (Rudeus from Mushoku Tensei.) Furthermore, on top of possessing one or both of those serious weaknesses, they also REALLY suffer critical failures and handle the failures with self-reflection that helps them to improve.

Both the characters and series I named off there are considered among the best written webnovels in existence, so learning a thing or two from them would not be a bad way to start. However, I would caution you that if your goal is to write toward a 7-14 audience, this might not be the best advice for you to follow. Both of these series are also very solidly in the young adult department and the age group you are trying to target is one that actually would not be allowed to read these series. So, being influenced too much by them could be a bad thing. However, the MCs of both stories are excellent examples of anti-sues. (Among the very few in the webnovel community, and likely the only ones to make it to any top 10 lists. (In fact, both of them hit top 5 lists, and MT was sitting pretty at the #1 spot on the largest Japanese webnovel site for several years running.))

2. Be conscious of how you justify the power set, as I laid out in my argument. However, as I covered with Batman in my 1st post in this thread (around the bottom of page 1,) there is a point where successfully justifying the power set is not enough to dodge the Mary Sue label. Unjustified powers and skills are the biggest potential contributor to a Mary Sue label just like a knife to the chest has the highest chance of killing a person, but there is a point where the justification is just not satisfactory enough. Also as covered in my argument, not tasting failure is another sure way to get a Mary Sue label. This one is more insidious but just as deadly, the equivalent of a heart attack. (I think that's a good comparison considering it's the result of repeated writing choices over the long course of the story just like a heart attack is the result of a long history of lifestyle choices.)

For the point where a justification is unsatisfactory, there is a reason I said Batman ought to be considered a Mary Sue. He goes well past that line due to his justification for his combat skills being that he went on a training journey when he was a teen. This fails to be satisfactory because he's too good for that to be an adequate explanation and it took place 100% off screen. Also, because money. Money buys his powers. Well, being rich is not a satisfactory justification because being rich actually IS something that is considered a potential Mary Sue trait on it's own. The only reason Batman is not considered a Mary Sue is because he fits right into a very particular niche that allows him to get a pass. I have some inkling as to what this perfect little pocket is, but once again, it would take a long time to explain it and teaching you how to make a Mary Sue character that gets a pass is not the objective here. It's how to avoid making a Mary Sue all together.

For the point on failures, you also have to make the failures count. I mentioned Rey rescuing herself after getting captured being the thing that wiped that from her failure record. Well, what I said there was inaccurate. That one didn't count toward her failure record, but it wasn't because of the reason I said. It just helped.

The thing that determines whether a failure counts or not is whether or not it affects the character and causes them to reflect. Every time Subaru or Rudeus suffer even a minor failure such as getting rejected by a girl, they go into a period of reflection where they evaluate themselves and their actions up till that point, and they alter the way they go about things. Their failures actually change them, and they actually feel their failures. Rey being captured didn't count as a failure because it didn't really change her. Or rather, the way it changed her is "she can use force powers now, she has the right to become more arrogant." It was not a humbling experience for her. If the failure is not humbling, then it doesn't count.

So, when you have your characters fail, you need to do something to make sure the failure is humbling. This has a lot more to do with the reaction of the characters themselves rather than any particular aspect of the failure. The severity and consequences of the failure do not matter so long as it's enough for the protagonist to feel it and to be humbled by it. (Although, severity and consequences do serve to set the stakes of your story, which is another matter all together and also important to consider for the sake of your writing. The failure being humbling may be the most important point of avoiding the Mary Sue label, but the severity and consequences of the failure should still be proportionate to the scale of the plot you are dealing with or else it will be noticed if your protagonist only fails at the small things.)

Now, the things that are more specific to your characters.

Ralph Bunny first.

Spoiler

For your first character, Ralph Bunny, that telepathy ability is kinda thin-ice territory. It really depends on how well it's handled.

I don't know exactly how you are going to handle it, but I actually think having him develop telepathy later in the story is a mistake. With a risky power like that, it actually feels cheaper if it is developed later. It is easier to handle if the character has the power from the beginning and that's just part of who they are. (Moves it more toward Superman's Kriptonian pass.) If you do that, you can establish him as a character who has learned to deal with having this ability and readers are more likely to just accept it without complaint if this is something that's been part of the character since the beginning.

Also, I think the specific limitations you gave his telepathy are bad. It makes it a little too obvious you just wanted him to have telepathy and are powering it down just to avoid a Mary Sue label. Instead of that, a far better limitation would be social limitations. It could be his power is always on and he's always broadcasting this thoughts and needs to learn to control that. It could be he has social difficulties because of his telepathy power. Find ways for him to actually fail with this power and for it to be every bit as much a detriment as it is a benefit.

Have people react to him in realistic ways. Maybe people don't want to get too close to the telepathic kid because they are really afraid of their private inner thoughts being exposed. Therefore, he has trouble making friends.

This is a far more effective way to deal with a power that sounds as desirable as telepathy. Show why it's really not all that desirable after all. The part about it creating social problems is especially good because it also gives him something the readership can identify with. This is especially true for your intended target age range. That specific age range really can relate to social ostracization.

BTW: The ways to get a "Batman Pass" are complicated to explain, but ultimately they boil down to 2 things. 1. They have something that makes the audience really relate to them, and/or 2. They have something that makes the audience really attached to them (being super cute (baby yoda) or super cool (batman)). The social ostricization stuff would score relatable points. So, that's one of the two things that will get a pass, and these relatable points actually come from the flaw attached to the power that could get him accused of being a Sue in the first place. So, that combination of 2 factors actually makes using this flaw a far more effective de-suing of the character than the limitations you proposed there.

(Best part, even if he has learned to properly control his power, people who know he has it will treat him like that anyway. The social ostracization can also justify him taking on an attitude of rarely ever using this power except where it's absolutely necessary, likely as a way of assuring his few friends that he's not invading their privacy. He might also be really hesitant to use this power due to how beaten down he is about the social situation.)

And Sunny Rabbiera

Spoiler

She's difficult for a very different reason. You have given her a conflicting backstory, being from a wealthy family but also serving as a soldier during a war. The difficulty with her is that you could easily go 2 routes with her. One of these routes will 100% get her categorized as a Mary Sue. The other route will set her up as almost a fully realized and perfectly balanced character from the start, and thus make forming some kind of character arc for her very difficult.

The explanation of your intentions with this character tell me that you are planning on going the 1st route. That being, she's a bit of a spoiled rich kid. The issue is, this clashes with the part about her being a soldier. Soldiers are not spoiled. They have that crap beaten out of them.

The other route is that she already decided to cast off her wealthy connections in order to serve as a soldier. Again, the main issue with this is that it closes the main character arc you were thinking about for her. It also sets her up as being fairly grounded, which means she's likely to be a voice of reason even through all her sarcastic attitude. She becomes more of a mentor character. This means that any character arcs she has will not be so concerned with growth as they will be about helping others around her or resolving problems at home. These are rather viable character arcs, but they tend to be the type for an older audience.

So, while the second route is a plenty viable way to make her no longer considered a Sue, I feel like the angle you want to go will have it be better to work with the 1st route a little in order to de-sue the spoiled brat version of her. It could be that at home she really was a bigtime spoiled brat, and the reason she became a soldier was because her parents were concerned about her attitude and wanted to break her of it. So, they forced her to join up as a soldier and get all the battiness beaten out of her.

This would establish a believable point of conflict in her story, and also more importantly it would cut her off from easy access to money. If her parents are the type who would help her with the cybernetic transformation (likely as a result of some near-death injury as a soldier) then it means they do care for her. If they sent her to the military to cure her of being a brat though, it means they are tough parents who will not tolerate her being frivolous.

So, the parents would be likely to help her out, but only if she really justified that their financial aid is necessary and she's not just trying to fall back into her old bad habits. Once again, this feels like a rather appropriate theme for the age group you are targeting.

Best of all, unlike with Ralph, this completely replaces the thing that was threatening to have her labeled a sue with something interesting to characterize her and still leave the door open for any and all character arcs you want to do with her. It's a fairly simple solution compared to Ralph's as well, it's actually rather easy to handle the writing in a way that would deal with this and turn her form a possible Sue into an actual interesting character. It is just a matter of you as the author being conscious of it and the possible pitfalls if you do it wrong.

I should note, the specific solutions I offer here are just my opinions. That is why I go through far more effort than I would need to thoroughly explain my reasoning for the solution I offer. Even if you don't use my solution, there might be enough information in my reasoning which I provided for you to come up with something else on your own.

It is also VERY likely that my assessment of the situation missed the mark due to me acting without full information on the characters and me making some potentially incorrect assumptions. Even if that is the case, using the same rationale I stated above, I hope there is at least something in my reasoning that allows you to pull out something useful from the mess.

 

[MadmanRB]

Jemini​

Here is my take:

Read a series that contains an anti-sue character. That is, a series in which the author wrote a character specifically in such a way that there is no possible way this character can be accused of being a Mary Sue. Either this character is genuinely weaker than all the other characters around them (Subaru from Re:Zero) or has huge character flaws that would genuinely make you detest the person as a human being (Rudeus from Mushoku Tensei) and on top of those serious weaknesses also REALLY suffers critical failure and handles the failure with self-reflection that helps them to improve.

To be honest I find the vast majority of Anti Sues to be worse than Sues as most are written in such a way that they take all those sue traits and reverse them in the wrong ways creating characters who are nothing but fat slobs who are hated by everyone and can't do anything for themselves.
At least a Mary sue can be fun in their own right as opposed to some depressing loser who can't do anything right.
I mean I am trying to write escapist action/sci-fi here not some depressing story about someone who can't get off the couch and do something with their lives.
Honestly if we had any of the Sue rules before the days of the Internet we would never have characters like Superman in the first place, instead he would be on the couch drinking beers instead of defeating Lex Luthor and saving Lois Lane because his character failed a Mary sue test somewhere.

2. Be conscious of how you justify the power set, as I laid out in my argument. However, as I covered with Batman in my 1st post in this thread (around the bottom of page 1,) there is a point where successfully justifying the power set is not enough to dodge the Mary Sue label. Unjustified powers and skills are the biggest potential contributor to a Mary Sue label just like a knife to the chest has the highest chance of killing a person, but there is a point where the justification is just not satisfactory enough. Also as covered in my argument, not tasting failure is another sure way to get a Mary Sue label. This one is more insidious but just as deadly, the equivalent of a heart. (I think that's a good comparison considering it's the result of repeated writing choices over the long course of the story just like a heart attack is the result of a long history of lifestyle choices.)

Well I am conscious of my justification of my power set, and my justification is this is escapist action/sci fi and honestly that's all the justification I need.
Mind you I have no delusions that this story will change the way we see or understand our universe or anything all I am trying to do is write a fun superhero themed story.
Now yes I do have a rule set and limitations to their powers so that they don't seem overpowered.
I mean yes I still give each character their own unique powers or ability but in the end each character is on the same power level curb and I do try to make each power justified to a certain point and I also make sure it makes sense in my universe.
Trust me I got most of this part covered sans a few slip ups now and then as I do throw in new ideas into my characters and see if they stick, but that's the creative process for you.
But again I do try to keep things like power caps and the like in mind and make sure my characters don't break their universe.

For the point on failures, you also have to make the failures count. I mentioned Rey rescuing herself after getting captured being the thing that wiped that from her failure record. Well, what I said there was inaccurate. That one didn't count toward her failure record, but it wasn't because of the reason I said. It just helped.

The thing that determines whether a failure counts or not is whether or not it affects the character and causes them to reflect. Every time Subaru or Rudeus suffer even a minor failure such as getting rejected by a girl, they go into a period of reflection where they evaluate themselves and their actions up till that point, and they alter the way they go about things. Their failures actually change them, and they actually feel their failures. Rey being captured didn't count as a failure because it didn't really change her. Or rather, the way it changed her is "she can use force powers now, she has the right to become more arrogant." It was not a humbling experience for her. If the failure is not humbling, then it doesn't count.

So, when you have your characters fail, you need to do something to make sure the failure is humbling. This has a lot more to do with the reaction of the characters themselves rather than any particular aspect of the failure. The severity and consequences of the failure do not matter so long as it's enough for the protagonist to feel it and to be humbled by it. (Although, severity and consequences do serve to set the stakes of your story, which is another matter all together and also important to consider for the sake of your writing. The failure being humbling may be the most important point of avoiding the Mary Sue label, but the severity and consequences of the failure should still be proportionate to the scale of the plot you are dealing with or else it will be noticed if your protagonist only fails at the small things.)

Oh, I got this one covered don't worry.
My characters will fail and fail hard and while it doesn't happen in the opening arcs to my story it will surely happen later on.
To go back to the Star Wars reference well my first story is a new hope, but I will go full on empire strikes back on them next arc trust me.
I mean yes I do kick my heroes around a bit, and they still have failures now and then, but this is a superhero themed story they still beat the villain at the end, I mean considering my target demographic that is a reasonable thing to do, but I do my best not to make it too easy.
Again there is so much I can do by summarizing base plot points here as I would be here all day so let's move on shall we?

For your first character, Ralph Bunny, that telepathy ability is kinda thin-ice territory. It really depends on how well it's handled.

I don't know exactly how you are going to handle it, but I actually think having him develop telepathy later in the story is a mistake. With a risky power like that, it actually feels cheaper if it is developed later. It is easier to handle if the character has the power from the beginning and that's just part of who they are. (Moves it more toward Superman's Kriptonian pass.) If you do that, you can establish him as a character who has learned to deal with having this ability and readers are more likely to just accept it without complaint if this is something that's been part of the character since the beginning.

Also, I think the specific limitations you gave his telepathy are bad. It makes it a little too obvious you just wanted him to have telepathy and are powering it down just to avoid a Mary Sue label. Instead of that, a far better limitation would be social limitations. It could be his power is always on and he's always broadcasting this thoughts and needs to learn to control that. It could be he has social difficulties because of his telepathy power. Find ways for him to actually fail with this power and for it to be every bit as much a detriment as it is a benefit.

Have people react to him in realistic ways. Maybe people don't want to get too close to the telepathic kid because they are really afraid of their private inner thoughts being exposed. Therefore, he has trouble making friends.

This is a far more effective way to deal with a power that sounds as desirable as telepathy. Show why it's really not all that desirable after all. The part about it creating social problems is especially good because it also gives him something the readership can identify with. This is especially true for your intended target age range. That specific age range really can relate to social ostracization.

BTW: The ways to get a "Batman Pass" are complicated to explain, but ultimately they boil down to 2 things. 1. They have something that makes the audience really relate to them, and/or 2. They have something that makes the audience really attached to them (being super cute (baby yoda) or super cool (batman)). The social ostricization stuff would score relatable points. So, that's one of the two things that will get a pass, and these relatable points actually come from the flaw attached to the power that could get him accused of being a Sue in the first place. So, that combination of 2 factors actually makes using this flaw a far more effective de-suing of the character than the limitations you proposed there.

(Best part, even if he has learned to properly control his power, people who know he has it will treat him like that anyway. The social ostracization can also justify him taking on an attitude of rarely ever using this power except where it's absolutely necessary, likely as a way of assuring his few friends that he's not invading their privacy. He might also be really hesitant to use this power due to how beaten down he is about the social situation.)

Well actually I made the telepathy come as an accident on his part.
I already established he can sense other people to a point, and he was trying to sense where his villain was at the time, he tried to focus his senses but accidentally grabs the attention of another villain he will face later.
Now yes I could have foreshadowed this ability more in story I admit, but I had a story to tell and a plot to move forward.
The thing is do I really have to delve into stuff like "he had this power as a kid and is now a social outcast" to make this work?
After all my target demographic is for kids 10-14, and they are not going to ask big bold questions like this they just want to see superheroes beat the bad guy.
I mean after all in the Hobbit do we know how Gandalf became a wizard?
Or in A new Hope do we know how Obi Wan became a Jedi?
Those are questions an adult will ask not a kid.
Sometimes you pick a power and take a gamble on it, and sometimes you don't know how it works.
Outside Midi-chlorians we have no reason why the force exists in Star Wars and a big complaint about George Lucas creating them is that they took the mystery out of the force.
Again I do try to put a cap on this ability at the very least so that when it comes up it's not as jarring, and I will attempt to make sense of it later on, one idea I have is perhaps he's not the telepath but the villain or that he only has limited control of it.
Again I am only summarizing here if anything is vague it is partially intentional on my part after all I want people to actually read my story :D

She's difficult for a very different reason. You have given her a conflicting backstory, being from a wealthy family but also serving as a soldier during a war. The difficulty with her is that you could easily go 2 routes with her. One of these routes will 100% get her categorized as a Mary Sue. The other route will set her up as almost a fully realized and perfectly balanced character from the start, and thus make forming some kind of character arc for her very difficult.

Its only conflicting because I boiled her character down for simplicity’s sake as I already said so much about my first character and did not want to bog down with my secondary one.

But if you want to ask me about her, I will cover her next, for now I will let you digest this bit first as again I am a bit long-winded here so breaking this up for each character is a good idea.
Of course if you have more questions about Ralph I will do my best to answer them without spoiling my concepts too much,

 

[Napelynn]

After all my target demographic is for kids 10-14, and they are not going to ask big bold questions like this they just want to see superheroes beat the bad guy.

10-14 year olds are much more mature than you think.

 

[MadmanRB]

10-14 year olds are much more mature than you think.

Oh for sure I'm just saying that I think they would be more into the action and the characters and may be far more forgiving than an adult would.
They would be into comic heroes so it would probably get a pass

 

[Napelynn]

Oh for sure I'm just saying that I think they would be more into the action and the characters and may be far more forgiving than an adult would.
They would be into comic heroes so it would probably get a pass

Kids can be really, really harsh. They are much more honest than adults and while they wouldn’t be as focused as an adult they do quite a bit of literary analysis in school so they would probably pick up on bad writing.

 

[MadmanRB]

Kids can be really, really harsh. They are much more honest than adults and while they wouldn’t be as focused as an adult they do quite a bit of literary analysis in school so they would probably pick up on bad writing.

True but they still don't typically ask how the force works or how superman can fly

Also, if the latter is true why did twilight get so popular? :p

 

[Napelynn]

True but they still don't ask how the force works or how superman can fly

But it’s fiction, they don’t need to ask that. The answer will always be something like, authors have the creative license to do things like that. Or even just, magic. How the powers work doesn’t matter as much as how the powers are gained, which is something I think a lot of children can pick up on, since it’s usually in really obvious.

Also, if the latter is true why did twilight get so popular? :p

I haven’t seen twilight so I don’t know.

 

[MadmanRB]

But it’s fiction, they don’t need to ask that. The answer will always be something like, authors have the creative license to do things like that. Or even just, magic. How the powers work doesn’t matter as much as how the powers are gained, which is something I think a lot of children can pick up on, since it’s usually in really obvious.

Well I do have a logical explanation why my characters have their powers, it all came from the experiment that turned them into cyborg superheroes.
And I am thinking maybe stuff like the telepathy is an unintentional side effect as this technology is still new in my universe.
Yes its creator tested it on a smaller scale before (and I made mention of this) but my heroes are the pioneers of the next phase of his technology.
Again I do make sure I cover myself here for my potential adult readers and while I can't think of everything I do make as many powers I can tie into the experiment.

I haven’t seen twilight so I don’t know.

Lucky you :D

Honestly for what I plopped down here Twilight is way worse in its writing, its characters are flat and the world building is downright head scratching.

 

[Jemini]

Well, I'm going to cut the quotes down to single key lines. We are not very opposed now and I do not want to tell you how to write your story, I was only giving my opinion and suggestions based on the fact you seemed to be coming forward for help.

As such, I really don't have to respond to the whole thing if you are hard set on where you are going, so I will only respond to the single lines that sound like a question or like you are looking for more here. (Or lines that sound like you are misunderstanding something.)

To be honest I find the vast majority of Anti Sues to be worse than Sues as most are written in such a way that they take all those sue traits and reverse them in the wrong ways creating characters who are nothing but fat slobs who are hated by everyone and can't do anything for themselves.
At least a Mary sue can be fun in their own right as opposed to some depressing loser who can't do anything right.
I mean I am trying to write escapist action/sci-fi here not some depressing story about someone who can't get off the couch and do something with their lives.
Honestly if we had any of the Sue rules before the days of the Internet we would never have characters like Superman in the first place, instead he would be on the couch drinking beers instead of defeating Lex Luthor and saving Lois Lane because his character failed a Mary sue test somewhere.

Well, I guess that can be a fair take on the anti-sue character type in general, but this is why I specifically called out and recommended the 2 highest rated webnovels ever written that contain anti-sue characters. Neither one of those stories or characters have that problem you brought up. What you are describing is a badly implemented anti-sue character. They have both even received anime adaptations, so you can check them out on a fairly shallow view to see what you think. However, I do recommend the webnovels if you seriously want to use them as research material to improve your writing.

Watching the animes is just enough to get you entertained and to help you make your judgement about how things are handled in this series. You do need to immerse yourself deeper and get all the details of how the writer operates though if you want to actually learn from the series and improve your own writing.

Once again though, the reason this might not be the right route for you is because Re:Zero is intended for a 13+ audience and Mushoku Tensei is intended for a 15+ audience and pushes the upper limit of what the 15+ category allows for, bumping right up against the 18+ line without quite crossing it.

(Also, again, Superman is not a Mary-Sue. He's just a character who is too OP for the writers to make a good story out of. (In other words, the DC writers could have stood to learn a thing or two from One. (The writer of "One Punch Man" and "Mob Psycho 100." Both stories with extremely OP characters but they have excellent writing anyway.))

Well I am conscious of my justification of my power set, and my justification is this is escapist action/sci fi and honestly that's all the justification I need.

Ok, ok, no. That's just not how it works. Honestly, this comment does make me almost want to throw up my hands and not talk to you anymore because this way of thinking usually indicates a pretty hopeless case that can only learn from failure, but you seem like you've been a pretty reasonable person so far and the rest of what you had originally said after this frankly rather idiotic comment tells me that you actually do have some things under control and in consideration.

But, no, you can't just ignore the rules because you are writing an escapist story. The rules still apply. These are rules of the universe, the universe will find you, always.

Oh, I got this one covered don't worry.
My characters will fail and fail hard and while it doesn't happen in the opening arcs to my story it will surely happen later on.
To go back to the Star Wars reference well my first story is a new hope, but I will go full on empire strikes back on them next arc trust me.
I mean yes I do kick my heroes around a bit, and they still have failures now and then, but this is a superhero themed story they still beat the villain at the end, I mean considering my target demographic that is a reasonable thing to do, but I do my best not to make it too easy.
Again there is so much I can do by summarizing base plot points here as I would be here all day so let's move on shall we?

Well, Ok, but I am going to re-emphisise the one point you didn't mention here. It's not about the fact that they failed, it is about the failure being humbling. This is about how the characters react after it happened. They can't just get up afterward and be like "Ok, ready to fight again!" or be fired up and enraged by it. The experience has to really strike home for them.

More importantly though, they have to reflect over their failures. This is the part I actually would recommend Re:Zero or Mushoku Tensei on. Those two series really know how to make their characters reflect and learn from their failures. They fail constantly, but every single failure causes them to think about why it happened and become a better person as a result. You hate these characters at the start of their respective series, but by the mid-point you have grown to really admire them over how they keep becoming a more and more put together human being due to the lessons they have learned in response to their failures.

This is where they are not just an anti-sue. The weaknesses and flaws they have at the beginning of the series are gradually worked out over the long course of the series. By the final chapter of their respective stories, they have both become incredibly capable able to stand toe-to-toe with the greatest threats the world can offer. However, their competence they show all feels incredibly earned by this point because you have been watching the character grow from a waste of a human being into an admirable superhero. This is a result of them always learning from their failures and improving themself.

That is the quality of a failure that really makes it resonate with the reader/viewer. What did the character learn from it?

The thing is do I really have to delve into stuff like "he had this power as a kid and is now a social outcast" to make this work?

I don't actually know quite enough about your story to give a yes or no answer to this. All I can say is that what I offered is a 100% sure fix to the issue you seem to be nervous about. It will turn your character from what sounded to me like it was in dangerous territory depending on how you handle it (I don't completely know how you are handling it, so I can't say for sure) into something that nobody should have any grounds for complaint on.

This is the area where I went out of generalities and into specifics on your characters though, so I had already accepted when I was saying it that I might not know what I'm actually talking about. Only take my advice there if you feel it fits and is appropriate. Instead, as I said before, you sould be more concerned with the lengthy work I put into my justifications and see if you caught something in that which resonated with an issue you feel you might have. If it does, you still don't need to take my solution. It is enough that it helped you to see where you might have a problem and then you can find your own way to fix it.

Its only conflicting because I boiled her character down for simplicity’s sake as I already said so much about my first character and did not want to bog down with my secondary one.

But if you want to ask me about her, I will cover her next, for now I will let you digest this bit first as again I am a bit long-winded here so breaking this up for each character is a good idea.

Well, I do feel that I haven't got the whole picture on her, but if I was off in my evaluation and the concerns I raised don't really apply then I don't think there is a lot to worry about anyway. Or, if the concerns I raised to apply, then I have already said enough for you to make the corrections necessary. I don't really see a need to go more into it.

Of course if you have more questions about Ralph I will do my best to answer them without spoiling my concepts too much,

Same as above. I think I don't really have the full picture, but I think I have seen and said enough on the subject that it's in your hands now. I've offered my impressions and advice, take it or leave it. Maybe I'm off in terms of my advice and evaluations, but hopefully I wasn't TOO far off and there's something in there you can use.

Oh for sure I'm just saying that I think they would be more into the action and the characters and may be far more forgiving than an adult would.
They would be into comic heroes so it would probably get a pass

My response to this, Avitar the Last Airbender. That's a show geared toward almost exactly the audience you are targeting. The writers, however, did not cut corners figuring a young audience would be forgiving. They kept their writing as spot-on and high-level as possible, obeying all the rules. As a result, Avitar TLA was one of the most highly praised and acclaimed shows still beloved by fans to this day.

It doesn't matter what your target audience is, good writing is good writing, bad writing is bad writing, and people notice and it matters.

 

[MadmanRB]

Jemini​

Again lets go over your points:

Well, I guess that can be a fair take on the anti-sue character type in general, but this is why I specifically called out and recommended the 2 highest rated webnovels ever written that contain anti-sue characters. Neither one of those stories or characters have that problem you brought up. What you are describing is a badly implemented anti-sue character. They have both even received anime adaptations, so you can check them out on a fairly shallow view to see what you think. However, I do recommend the webnovels if you seriously want to use them as research material to improve your writing.

Watching the animes is just enough to get you entertained and to help you make your judgement about how things are handled in this series. You do need to immerse yourself deeper and get all the details of how the writer operates though if you want to actually learn from the series and improve your own writing.

Once again though, the reason this might not be the right route for you is because Re:Zero is intended for a 13+ audience and Mushoku Tensei is intended for a 15+ audience and pushes the upper limit of what the 15+ category allows for, bumping right up against the 18+ line without quite crossing it.

Well truth be told I am not into anime, or at least not as much as I used to.
Yes I like the occasional one here and there like Attack on titan, Fullmetal Alchemist or Mobile Suit Gundam so seeking these out is not on the top of my priorities, sorry.

Ok, ok, no. That's just not how it works. Honestly, this comment does make me almost want to throw up my hands and not talk to you anymore because this way of thinking usually indicates a pretty hopeless case that can only learn from failure, but you seem like you've been a pretty reasonable person so far and the rest of what you had originally said after this frankly rather idiotic comment tells me that you actually do have some things under control and in consideration.

But, no, you can't just ignore the rules because you are writing an escapist story. The rules still apply. These are rules of the universe, the universe will find you, always.

Well please understand I am not doing this professionally and writing is more of a hobby for me.
And I understand why my comment took you off guard.
Its just that sometimes I write just for the hell of it or because I am bored, currently it's the latter now I am working from home.
For me the need for justification is more of a hardcore writer's thing, done by folks who are deep into it.
But I am more doing this out of fun rather than professionally, I mean yes it would be nice if I could get it to click with somewhere, so maybe I can be less casual and more serious, but again I have no delusions of grandeur here.
But with that said that doesn't mean I don't have rules for my universe, I do as I placed many limitations on what my characters can and can't do.
Again have no worries about this bit, I made sure my powers fit into the setting of my story and nothing will break it.
Even with the powers I gave my characters all hard limitations, I'm not stupid here.
I have my rules and none of my characters break them, and they are not random rules either as here some of the powers they don't have:
Power of flight (at least without rocket packs or something)
Heat vision
Elemental powers
Ability to control plants or animals
I could make a mile long list here, but I won't do that as I have to tackle your other points, I would be here all day listing the powers they don't have TBH and it's far easier to list the powers they do.
But in short all the powers I plan make sense in my universe and I make sure to at least foreshadow at least one or two.
I can't foreshadow every power as that would make things super long and complicated and sometimes shortcuts are a necessary evil when you are more focussed on the story than its power set.
But with that said lets move on shall we? Again I am sorry if I may have upset you, but my needs as a writer are not the same as many, when you are doing it as a hobby sometimes you don't take into account for every scenario.

Well, Ok, but I am going to re-emphisise the one point you didn't mention here. It's not about the fact that they failed, it is about the failure being humbling. This is about how the characters react after it happened. They can't just get up afterward and be like "Ok, ready to fight again!" or be fired up and enraged by it. The experience has to really strike home for them. More importantly though, they have to reflect over their failures.

No worries here actually, I do have plans to do this later just not in their initial arc.

My response to this, Avitar the Last Airbender. That's a show geared toward almost exactly the audience you are targeting. The writers, however, did not cut corners figuring a young audience would be forgiving. They kept their writing as spot-on and high-level as possible, obeying all the rules. As a result, Avitar TLA was one of the most highly praised and acclaimed shows still beloved by fans to this day.

It doesn't matter what your target audience is, good writing is good writing, bad writing is bad writing, and people notice and it matters.

Actually I am borrowing a lot of from this series no need to tell me to watch this one, loved avatar!
Yes I was outside its demographic when it aired (in my 20's) but dang was it awesome!

 

[Napelynn]

Again have no worries about this bit, I made sure my powers fit into the setting of my story and nothing will break it.
Even with the powers I gave my characters all hard limitations, I'm not stupid here.
I have my rules and none of my characters break them, and they are not random rules either as here some of the powers they don't have:
Power of flight
Heat vision
Elemental powers
Ability to control plants or animals
I could make a mile long list here, but I won't do that as I have to tackle your other points, I would be here all day listing the powers they don't have TBH.

Let’s say I have amazing super strength. I can destroy mountains with a flick. Let’s also say that you have the power of flight. You can move at supreme speeds with extreme precision as well. However I can’t fly and you don’t have super strength.

Does the fact that we don’t have all the power in the world make us weak? Does the fact that we don’t have all the power in the world make the abilities I’ve given us reasonable? No and no.

I might have just misunderstood you. But it looks like you are trying to justify your characters abilities by pointing out the powers they don’t have, which is just illogical because not having something doesn’t make the character any weaker.

 

[Jemini]

Ok, mostly done here, but I am commenting again because you said something here that looked a little strange to me. I will have to quote myself first to put the entire exchange in context.

Ok, ok, no. That's just not how it works. Honestly, this comment does make me almost want to throw up my hands and not talk to you anymore because this way of thinking usually indicates a pretty hopeless case that can only learn from failure, but you seem like you've been a pretty reasonable person so far and the rest of what you had originally said after this frankly rather idiotic comment tells me that you actually do have some things under control and in consideration.

But, no, you can't just ignore the rules because you are writing an escapist story. The rules still apply. These are rules of the universe, the universe will find you, always.

But with that said that doesn't mean I don't have rules for my universe, I do as I placed many limitations on what my characters can and can't do.
Again have no worries about this bit, I made sure my powers fit into the setting of my story and nothing will break it.
Even with the powers I gave my characters all hard limitations, I'm not stupid here.

I am not sure, but it is sorta looking like you might have misunderstood my meaning of "rules of the universe?" If not, then it's fine. When I said "rules of the universe," I was talking about OUR universe, meaning these rules are not something that someone arbitrarily made up and persuading your way through it is not going to help you. It's one of those rules like gravity. There's nothing you can do to defy it. If someone seems to be defying one of the rules, they are actually not. They are just exploiting a secret piece of knowledge or using a special approach you may not know about. (Like magna rails seeming like they are defying gravity, but they really are still obeying the laws of physics.)

So, in order to seemingly break the rules, what's really going on there is the writer just knows what the rules are WAY better than you and is exploiting some form of advanced technique.

I am going to bring up the "Batman Pass" for the Mary Sue rule again here, because after discovering this myself it has become my new favorite thing.

Anyway, if you don't at least have a general idea about how you might intentionally create a batman pass, the advice I would give is becoming more aware of what the rules are before you play with fire.

Of course, I may be telling you nothing but things you already know here and this was all completely unnecessary. I just saw a strange wording, it could all just be my misinterpretation.

(Oops, auto-merged posts. I meant everything below this line to be in a separate post because it's a completely unrelated topic.)

On a completely unrelated note, if anyone wants to see the epetome of what a "Mary sue / Guy Stu" character is by definition even when the writing is otherwise good, look up Star Treck The Next Generation. The Mary Sue character in question is Wesley Crusher, Dr. Crusher's teenage son. (Supposed to be around 16-17 in cannon.)

He's not the character who the term was coined off of, that was literally a character named "Mary Sue." However, Wesley was the character who both made it known that this is not an issue that only plagues female characters since Wesley is a boy (and I do say boy because he's a kid) and also was the first among these badly written characters to be featured in a really big name popular television media. Hardly anybody in the millenial or gen Z generation has read Mary Sue mysteries, but almost everyone in the millenial generation and a large portion of gen Z knows about Star Treck TNG.

And, for the most part, when you really get to thinking about it Wesley is just annoying because he's way too perfect, has way to high a position for a teenage kid who has never even been to star fleet accademy (why the F does he get to sit on the bridge of the Enterprise? Seriously! Are the brains of the Enterprise command crew rotten here or something?) and, infuriatingly, every single thing he does always works and if he does something when the Enterprise is in crisis mode then his solution is the one that saves the day. Once or twice is fine, but when the pattern develops like that it just becomes strange. And, when you start to analyze it, you just ask "why?" And it starts to really stand out.

That said, I think even though the decisions with Wesley are obviously strange and very out of place when you start to look at them seriously, it is not that disruptive on an episode to episode basis and you hardly notice in the moment. It is only when you really start to analyze it that it starts to really look strange. People like to point out Wesley as the titular Guy Stu character, but still I think the hate he gets is probably a little overblown by posers trying to signal their anti-sue creds by ragging on Wesley. There are far worse Stus out there, most of them being in wish-fulfillment webnovels (some of which somehow actually got anime adaptations.) He just gets the hate because he's popular and he was the first to fit this definition.

 

[Localforeigner]

I am unsure if this kind of topic is appropriate or not but here it goes:

I am getting sick of hearing the term "Mary Sue" being thrown around these days, yes "Gary Stu" is used too but not so much as the former.
Really it's impossible to make any character these days without this term being flaunted about especially when a female character is involved.
Rey from Star Wars comes to mind here, yet James Bond or Goku get a free pass.
Its infuriating especially when people forget about the original Mary sue and why she was created in the first place as a parody of a Star Trek fan character archetype who got the entire crew to fall in love with her.
But its become too broad now any character who has even the slightest hint of having more than one friend, or has powers (especially females) or anything typically associated with the term becomes a Sue by default in modern pop culture.
Now it seems like the only way to pass the snuff test is to make your character a worthless friendless loser because that is "realism" or show the audience 10-hour training montages.
And look I personally do my best as a writer to hone my characters in to the best of my abilities and do give them caps to their powers, so I don't get the "Sue" accusation but still I am bound to be called out by some idiot with a bone to pick complaining about my characters not being realistic despite my story having its strong rules and caps.
Still the term has become too much of a catch-all and translates to "I hate this character they must be a Sue!"

You are absolutely correct, the Mary Sue term has taken on some serious sexist connotations. I think it was a legitimate criticism originally, but nowadays, it gets thrown at any female character who is capable or pulls off the same power fantasies that male characters can freely get away with.

I wish there were a more general way to talk about such characters without all the sexist baggage. But yeah, people shit on Rey for example, ignoring that her story more or less mirrors Luke's, neither of which hold up to the difficult training regimine that was portrayed in the prequels. So neither of their stories make sense, but Luke's is beloved and Rey's is mocked. I will admit that I feel Rey needed more mentoring, but at the same time, the two characters are not so different in their inexplicable rise to power. Luke, a moisture farmer, can not only speak astromech with R2-D2, but can fly a military spacecraft, fight stormtroopers in a gunfight without losing his head or even freaking out, and do all manner of 'action hero' stuff with no build up or explanation of how or why. Yes, he used to bulls-eye womprats, but that's nothing compared to hitting a small target while flying a top of the line military spacecraft while people are trying to murder you.

Yes, he gets a smattering of training by Obi-Wan. Yes, he gets a bit of training by Yoda. But none of this justifies his ability to take on Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi. From the world building, we know these are supposed to be skills mastered over years of training. Yet Luke masters them in a few years. This is partially due to terrible and inconsistent world-building by Lucas, but no one complains about Luke being able to do it.

Yes, Rey demonstrates skills she wasn't trained in, when she uses the mind trick and saber fighting. But you know who else uses abilities they weren't taught? Luke. Obi Wan never taught him how to hit small targets using the force. Neither Obi Wan nor Yoda ever taught him Saber Fighting. No one taught him how to communicate telepathically with Leia. And yet...he gets a free pass.

Ultimately, I think Mary Sues need to be remembered for what they are, self-inserts that are beloved by all, better than all those around them, and able to solve all the problems with improbable skill. You can certainly argue that many DC characters fit that description, but I think they are more reasonably described as power fantasies, which are closely related but not entirely the same because MS's were a specific parody of a specific trope.