What is it that makes a Mary Sue?
Is it her eye color? Her hair color? Her creamy complexion that seems ethereal in a city of filth and ashes? Is it her quick tongue and biting wit? Or is it the way that she can impersonate a newsboy well enough to be admitted into a lodging house, but still be stunningly beautiful once the cap is off and the golden waves of hair cascade down her back?
Perhaps these creatures do exist. Somewhere. Women who subsist to be beautiful and tragic. But it's common intent among many writers to make sure that wherever they do exist, it is not here. The Mary Sue has no accepted place in fanfiction, she is equally admired and despised.
But, as did Tommy in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, she took the good stuff and ran. No longer can an original character cut her hair, no longer can she fall in love, no longer can she sell papers, no longer can she be wicked and witty and wise, no, it is far too dangerous. The above actions cannot be plot points anymore, but traps in which authors almost willingly fall into. Which is a pity. Because they're entirely too much fun to ignore.
Often, I've placed the emphasis on the fact that Mary Sues are only Mary Sues if they are written so. It is the way they are portrayed, as opposed to what they do. I've stressed it many times, with the most conviction that a cynical sixteen year old writing from the safety of her own home could muster. And yet, beneath my fervor, I could not help feeling that I was missing out, somehow. I have never tried to write a Mary Sue.
This is not to say that I have never written a Mary Sue, far from it. The original story that this is based off of was one of the most excruciating things I have ever written, and I'm certain that if I still had the original copy of it, I'd fall upon my knees and beg to be smote for the good of fankind. Honest.
But as for picking a character that has all the traits, and the connect-the-dots Sue diagram laid down at her feet, and then changing her into something real that you can touch has never struck me as something I should do.
Until now, ladies and gentlemen, until now.
Working Girls of New York is a nice piece of nostalgia for me. It was the title of the very first piece I wrote, after I had seen the movie for maybe the fourth or fifth time. It was literally the fic that introduced me to fanfiction.net, and created both myself as an author and character. After a year or two of wrestling with myself, I have finally embarked upon rewriting it.
You better enjoy it. It's taken me three years to write.
-Misprint