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Or "Marty Stu" if you're afraid that the girl will rub off and force him to wear a dress if he's called by a girl name.

Now, I think that Tony dodges that one pretty well, since the entire series establishes a learning arc. He isn't instantly good at everything, and struggles to become more in the whole thing. He also doesn't always get the win...

Except that he does.

The question then is one of definition. Is a Mary Sue any character that succeeds when it is unexpected to you, or is that only a near magical creature that is incredible in all ways?

Lt. Mary Sue could out logic Spock, out fight Kirk and was the youngest Lt. in Star fleet history... All in what I think was a thousand word story or so.

Now, I think that I moved past that one fairly well, but there is a school of thought that will say any character that wins is in danger of being a Mary Sue.

So... Thoughts on this?

Well, Tony did seem to enjoy drag.

No, not a Mary Sue.

A Mary or Marty Stu is someone that doesn't have to fight for it, or struggle. Clearly Tony struggled. Anyone that says he's a Marty Stu doesn't understand the meaning of the term. Either that, or the meaning has drifted and I haven't caught up.

Winning isn't the issue, it's winning without EFFORT and occasionally falling short that defines it, at least in my opinion. In that case Tony definitely doesn't meet the criteria.

I have to admit that I agree with that. Some characters that I've written come closer, such as Eve Benson (The bestest Vampire eva!!!1!!) Though I tried to keep most of them in check.

The big issue here is the age. My understanding is that young characters tend to be looked at with a harsher lens than the adult ones.

When you, yourself ask the question it may come up in someone else's mind. If Ichiro had bloodied Tony a bit more, I don't think any one could have named him a Mary Sue/Stu. You had set it up well, with Tony having studied Saka's style and weaknesses. I think we needed to see Tony suffer a bit more than you described in the fight scene. Not that he probably didn't, just we didn't get to see it.

Eve comes close in some respects, but taken as a whole I still say not even close.

She suffers through pain and ignores it.

She went through the pain of the sun, the pain of speed, the thirst. Being stuck in a coffin for six months. She got her ass handed to her and had to regrow her legs.

Sure, she's good at everything she does, but then the things she did wasn't all that hard with the right focus and the training from her GD friends. Anyone could do them, if they were willing to put in the work and suffer through the pain.

She also clearly had a crappy life before she gained any power, Mary Sue's generally don't have a bad past, and don't have to work hard. They just get ultimate power, kick everyone's butt, everyone loves them, and they don't have to work for it. All Eve did was work, she had a solid, almost workaholic attitude and never stopped.

Anyway, that's how I see Eve. She kicks a$$ and is one of my fav characters. Considering Cinnamon is another favorite, I have to ask myself what I like so much about crazy females...

Then again, now that I think on it, I kind of like all of them. So maybe it's just your writing.

The difference there? Eve wouldn't drink your blood nearly as easily.

I have to say that I hold to a fairly strict version of what a Mary Sue (Or Marty Stu) would be compared to some. I ALSO don't think that it's automatically wrong to use that kind of character. They just have to fit the story well.

If I had to pick one of your characters for a nomination, it would be Keeley. Except for strength, all the magic and other stuff came to her fairly easily. She got a little messed up in a fight or two, but she's pretty much unchallenged even by her own kind, as long as she sees them coming.

That said, she's hands down my favorite character. I couldn't tell you why that is, except maybe it was the first two books I read that you wrote. Then I got into YA, dead end, and Infected, and pretty much read them as they came out after that.

Her story is pretty much done I suppose, but I wouldn't mind another book if you could swing it.

That might be possible after a while. Either near the end of the grand arc or after that. The thing with most of the characters is that they have managed to grow in power levels. That might not be Mary Sue territory, but unless I can import evil Superman to fight them...

Though, there are other ways to write stories, so even that might work, eventually.

I see that my bait to get people engaged on this story didn't work so well! (Tony obviously isn't a Mary Sue, though I'm glad that everyone can see that bit!)

I was worried, due to the age portion of things.

Not even remotely a mary sue. Even if he had been, a mary sue can still be part of an entertaining story.

Take 'Vaz by Laurence Dahners' for example. Vaz is a Mary Sue in almost every way but one (the character is far over to one side on the Asperger spectrum), The point where he hacks the President, the NSA.....not too long after winning in an MMA tournament...well..yeah. Mary Sue.

Even with all that, it's still pretty entertaining as a story.

Laurence Dahner tends to write nothing but Mary Sue character stories (his 'Ell Donsaii' series is similar, a mathematical genius who is *also* a olympic athlete...oh and she is working on an Quantum mechanical theory as a hobby), still has 13 books in the series and sells decently well.

Stories have to be entertaining, Mary Sue can still be entertaining. Tony just isn't one.

There are only two things that anyone can say in regard to your characters. The main character almost always has crippling self esteem and self evaluation issues, and the main characters all almost always have a similar verbal pattern (which other characters occasionally have as well). The second issue has been significantly reduced in later books (later books have far more than just the one 'voice pattern').

Since I think both of these things are basically non issues for me since it can be marked as simply a style choice (or in the case of many of the main characters in the multiverse, as an important plot point!), I think the haters just be hating man!

I was thinking more of people deciding that tropes are forbidden. When they aren't meant to disparage the idea used, simply explain what's happening.