Defining Gary Stu · 2:16am Sep 25th, 2014
I have written articles like this in the past (Mary Sue DeVille, and why she must die too, written for the X-Men fandom, and the more fandom-generic Make Up Your Mind: What Is A Mary Sue?), but this fandom has some unique characteristics I'd like to discuss. Because I'm writing a story that features the Gary Stu archetype, this has been on my mind a good bit lately.
There are a number of competing definitions of Gary Stu (and his rule 63 progenitor, Mary Sue), some of which have useful elements and some of which are completely useless. Among them:
- A self insert (so if the character is based on you, even if they have a one paragraph cameo, they are Stu; if they are not based on you, then they can be an unironic red and black alicorn named Eclipse who is the older brother of the royal sisters and twice as powerful, but because they're not based on you, they're not a Stu. As you can see this makes the "self insert" definition somewhat less than useful.)
- Any original male character (so if Rainbow Dash walks into a bar and has a brief conversation with the bartender before going off to mack on Applejack, the bartender is Gary Stu. Again not very useful)
- Any original male character who is extraordinarily skilled and talented, or related to the main cast, or both (so a story about the heroism of Celestia and Luna's grandfather, ten thousand years before they were born, would be a Gary Stu)
- Any male Human in Equestria who is not a character from a crossover
- Any original male character whose presence in the story distorts the universe, so that he displaces the main cast as a hero.
The last definition is the only useful one.
You can write a story that doesn't have the main cast at all, or where they briefly appear, without committing a Gary Stu. When I say "displace" I mean literally, remove them from their important status within universe. If you're writing about the adventures of an Earth pony and his griffin best friend on a quest to find an amulet that will keep the griffin's father's feathers from falling out, you are not taking over the position of the Mane 6 or the Princesses within the universe, even though your story does not feature them as heroes of the story. However, if that same Earth pony and griffin single-handedly defeat Tirek, you are verging on Stu territory.
A typical Gary Stu makes the whole fictional universe about him. Characters that his author likes love him. Characters that his author dislikes hate him, but they're shown to be awful ponies who deserve to be treated like crap. He resolves threats that, in canon, the Mane 6 either resolved for themselves, or showed the ability to resolve something similar for themselves. Fundamentally, he reduces the main characters, so they are not as important or special within universe. He's more powerful than they are at the things they are specifically good at, or he renders the things they are specifically good at to be unimportant.
If he is a relative of a cast member, he displaces that cast member's relationships with others -- for instance, long-lost brothers of Celestia and Luna do not have to be Gary Stu, even though they are almost certainly original alicorns, but the bond between Celestia and Luna, and their position as the diarchs of Equestria, is important to the series, so if the long-lost brother of Celestia and Luna overshadows their relationship with each other, and takes over their position as a ruler of Equestria, he's probably a Stu. Often, the relative, if he's a Stu, is more powerful than his canon sibling (so the long lost brother of Rainbow Dash can do a Triple Rainboom, the long lost brother of Twilight Sparkle is an even more powerful magic user, the long lost brother of Discord is a more powerful, more chaotic draconequus... et cetera.)
If he is a love interest, his relationship with the character he loves is not well established and well built up. It comes more or less out of nowhere. One day we're strangers, the next day we're each other's One True Love. A feature of Gary Stu that is common which is much more rare for Mary Sue is that he will suddenly become the love interest of multiple main characters. Characters who are in love with him may behave in highly implausible ways (such as heroic female characters attempting to rape him).
If he is a Human in Equestria, he is rarely someone who actually has skills that are reasonable for a human to have acquired at his age and in his time period, which are then of value in Equestria. He is usually either someone who has totally unreasonable skills (an 18 year old soldier who's a high ranking officer and Master Strategist/Ultimate Soldier, coming from our Earth where there is no such thing as a genetically engineered supersoldier), or someone who has no skills in particular (a brony college student who is mostly good at surfing the Internet). The fellow with no skills usually turns out to have great magical powers or a destiny or be super special in some way, and he acquires new skills with such ease, we may not even see him training. He masters his magical powers rapidly, he becomes a swordmaster, something like that. Whichever way he got these implausible skills, he then uses them to completely overshadow the main cast, solving problems they cannot, despite the fact that in canon they solved similar problems.
Some variants of Gary Stu:
Canon Stu. Canon Stu is an existing male character who is blown out of proportion so that he becomes better than the main cast at basically everything. There are numerous stories where this happens to Spike. Now Spike becoming a giant badass dragon is entirely reasonable for a story about Spike's future, so that is not Canon Stu. Spike becoming a giant badass dragon who can shapechange into a smaller bipedal form about as tall as Celestia... well, we've never seen Equestrian dragons do this, but many mythological dragons have similar abilities, so not Canon Stu. Spike's bipedal form is a ninja, who also has insane magical skills that rival Twilight's... now we are in Canon Stu territory.
Crossover Stu: A crossover character who is really, really good at what he does, and is better than the Mane 6 in some domain or activity they are not connected to, is not a Crossover Stu. A crossover character who is better than the Mane 6 at everything and solves all their problems for them is a Crossover Stu even if he is being accurately written for the fandom he comes from, because his existence is still distorting the MLP universe. If the only way you can realistically write this particular crossover character in the MLP universe is to have him be better than all of them and solve all their problems for them, then don't write that crossover.
Villain Stu (aka Gary Stu DeVille): There's two variants of the Villain Stu:
- Unbeatable Villain: This version of the Villain Stu (seen a lot in LoHAV fics), often treated as a protagonist, is so much more powerful and generally better than the main cast that he defeats all of them, with ease, and then might magnanimously allow them some of their freedoms back because he's just that cool. The Unbeatable Villain is unbelievably irritating because you're expected to sympathize with him and not with the characters you already know and like; at least a regular Gary Stu doesn't hurt and humiliate your favorite characters, except the self-humiliation of them fawning all over him. However, there's a fine line; the Almost Unbeatable Villain is a challenge that will push the heroes to their limits and can be an excellent antagonist. The difference between the Unbeatable Villain and the Almost Unbeatable Villain is generally that the story's sympathy obviously lies with the Unbeatable Villain. A villain shown to be an unpleasant person as well as unbeatable isn't a Gary Stu, he's usually the villain of a tragic darkfic where the heroes try bravely and lose. And you can, in fact, write from the perspective of the Almost Unbeatable Villain and still have it not be a Stu. It all depends on whether the story seems to justify and condone the villain's behavior or not.
Also, a genuine protagonist "villain" who isn't really a villain at all isn't necessarily a Stu, if his existence does not require that you demonize the existing cast. "I was a confused idiot with superpowers I didn't understand, so Celestia and Luna turned me to stone because there was no other way to stop me from accidentally turning ponies into grapefruit" is not necessarily a Gary Stu; "I was an awesome hero doing great things for everypony, but Celestia and Luna were racists against humans, so they turned me to stone to solidify their own power base" almost certainly is a Gary Stu. The key here is whether the story has sympathy for the main "heroic" cast even though they are the antagonists in the story.
- Replacement Villain: The Replacement Villain is to a canon villain what Gary Stu is to the main cast. He replaces a canon villain by being better at that villain's specific brand of villainy. Personally, because I am a Discord fan, I see this most often with some new, much more powerful, dangerous and competent avatar of chaos replacing Discord, but I could easily see it being done with Chrysalis or Sombra as well, or some much more powerful entity of nightmares pwning Nightmare Moon. The problem with the Replacement Villain isn't that he's a better villain than the character he's replacing, it's that he generally nerfs the villain he's replacing, displacing them entirely and not even giving them the opportunity to pull an Enemy Mine and fight alongside the good guys to defeat him. If the original villain does get to fight back against their replacement, the Replacement Villain isn't nearly so awful and in fact might make an excellent villain; it's the sense that the author is trying to overwrite the existence of the canon villain with their own Much Superior version that makes this a Stu.
How do you avoid writing a Gary Stu?
Characterization is key. A good writer can make any kind of character believable and interesting. A bad writer can make a well-known character, doing nothing but what they'd do in canon, come across as Sue or Stu like.
- Don't displace canon events with your character saving the day. It is fine to add your character to the mix, but having them be the hero that saves the day when in canon, the canon heroes did it, displaces the canon heroes.
- Pay attention to how your character behaves when you describe them. If your character is supposed to be calm and smart, but you're writing them as a hyper idiot, odds are you're in Stu territory.
- Consider how other characters would rationally react to your character's actions. Consider what they have the right to do. If someone did those things to you, would you be upset?
- Do *not* make your character be a love interest for everyone unless it is a comedy or unless some spell is involved. A love interest for one or two is fine, but build to it. The canon characters should never fall in love with your character right out of the gate.
You can write a character who is a self insert brony in Equestria and still make a great story out of it if you are careful, do not allow anyone to fall out of character, do not let your character overshadow the main cast, and build up to any emotional connections you create. A pure wish fulfillment fantasy, however, where your character is the big hero who solves everything, is just like masturbation. Sure, it's fun for you, but believe me, the rest of us don't want to see it. :-)
This is a very helpful article here. Thanks for writing and sharing it.
And I've got one question concerning "Villain Sues" if you would be so kind. You said you'd read my fic My Little Balladeer, right? If you remember enough of the villain Rowley Thorne from it, would you say he was a Sue or not? I thought he worked great at the time, and I suppose I still do. I was reading and re-reading the Wellman stories he appeared in as I wrote it, and he was about as dangerous in them as in my fic. But I've wondered at times whether I made him too good, even though he loses his fights a few times during the story.
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He loses in the end. He's not a Villain Stu.
The hallmarks of the Villain Stu are either that they win (Unbeatable Villain) or that they are trying to replace a canon villain (Replacement Villain). No villain who actually loses in the end is a Villain Stu.
The great thing about villains is that it's actually much harder to Stuify them than it is heroes, because villains are supposed to be more powerful than the heroes; that forces the heroes to use teamwork or brains or their maximum level of ability. An awesomely powerful villain who gets defeated in the end is a good villain. An awesomely powerful villain who doesn't get defeated, but is shown to be thoroughly evil, is a badass villain from a tragedy where the heroes don't win. An awesomely powerful villain who wins while refuting the heroes' entire ideology and making them look like whiny little idiots is a Gary Stu DeVille.
This is a great and detailed list. It does make me wonder though: Can you write a Gary Stu if you put him in a part of the setting where he wouldn't run into any canon characters, nor would they have plausible reason to be there?
Example: I write a story about Self Insert the minotaur, a super strong martial arts master in the underground fighting rings of Baltimare. Is he an overpowered Self Insert? Yes.
BUT IS HE A GARY STU?
Or, to walk the line more finely, lets say I had a half-dragon hybrid show up in Ponyville on the week when the Mane 6 were in Rainbow Falls. While he's in Ponyville, the green dragon from the Everfree forest attacks, and the hybrid casually kicks his ass immediately, long before anyone outside Ponyville would have a chance to hear about it. Gary Stu? (assume for purposes of this story Discord and his thinking tree are far away).
I'm honestly not sure what the answer is to those two scenarios, so I would love your opinion.
2481591 What about an awesomely powerful villain who spends 90% of the movie curb-stomping the heroes, only to lose because he picks up the idiot ball at the end (I've seen this a lot of times).
2481583 Rowley was certainly not written to be likable, and honestly he didn't come off as super smart compared to the natives, just cunning enough to take advantage of a one-off opportunity to abuse the trust they extend new people. A well written villain, definitely not a Sue. Honestly, writing a Faust-style villain like Rowley as a Sue would be almost impossible.
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Nope.
Self Insert the Minotaur is definitely not a Gary Stu, unless every female pony he encounters in the story falls in love with him, Princess Celestia calls on him to be her personal bodyguard, and the changelings are so impressed with him they invite him to come to the hive, overthrow Chrysalis and be their new leader, but he declines because he's too modest and gentle to want to be a king. Simply being the most badass minotaur wrestler ever does not make him a Gary Stu; he has to be implausible. If he doesn't interact with the main cast any, then his implausibility has to be more egregious.
The hybrid dragon who saves Ponyville is also not a Gary Stu unless, upon their return from Rainbow Falls, the Mane 6 find out about him, search everywhere to find him to demonstrate their gratitude, and it turns out he's Spike older half brother and Spike runs off with him to learn the ways of dragon royalty, because he's also a dragon prince.
Basically, being an awesome hero does not make you a Gary Stu. Being a more awesome hero than the main cast, or more awesome than anyone in MLP ever plausibly is, or more awesome than any character could ever plausibly be (everyone falls in love with them is a trait that is never plausible unless it's held by someone who that's their superpower), makes you a Gary Stu.
2481622 Ok, so what you are saying is that it's possible to be a Gary Stu without interacting with canon characters, it's just extremely difficult.
That makes a lot of sense, writing a story without canon characters, even in a pre-existing setting, is probably much more challenging without familiar characters to act as a touchpole, and the type of writers who attempt this are much less likely to write a Sue.
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Villain Stu never picks up the idiot ball, generally speaking. But, if the only reason he loses is that he has a sudden revelation that the way he's been going about this is wrong and he's violated his own morals, so he nobly allows himself to be defeated to atone for having become a villain in the first place, after spending 90% of the story curbstomping the heroes, he might be a Villain Stu. (He might not be. This is almost exactly the plot of X-Men #150, the story that made Magneto an awesome character. The main difference is that Magneto was winning but by no means curbstomping the heroes; they had intelligent strategies, they were using teamwork, and they did quite well against him. He was very smart and very powerful, so it was a good match and a good challenge for the X-Men, not a Villain Stu. Villain Stus curbstomp.)
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The essence of Gary Stu is that he warps plausibility so he looks better.
If he's interacting with the canon cast, he can easily warp plausibility by making them OOC. If he's not, but he's a fanfic character, he has to warp the setting because there are no characters there with established identities to be OOC. If he's an original character in an original work, he has to warp common sense because there's no established setting to warp.
So the more the story is your own original material, the harder you would have to suck to have your character be a Stu. :-)
2481630 Yeah, I think that story reminds me of Oberon in Gargoyles, nearly defeating Xanatos and the Gargoyles only to have a sudden change of heart at the end. But he wasn't curbstomping, and he had genuine emotional stakes to force a plausible reversal (seeing someone hold your grandchild in their arms is a pretty good reason to reconsider your life choices.)
2481640 I hope there's a list somewhere (already checked TVtropes) of canon characters who most resemble Mary/Gary Stus. So many times I have read a story or seen a movie or tv show and thought "if this was fanfiction, this character would be laughed off the metaphorical stage by the audience."
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Again the line between a great villain story and a Villain Stu is fine. Good villains should be hard to beat. Good villains should be three-dimensional enough that it's plausible that under the right circumstances, maybe they might choose to stop fighting. Good villains should have a point to make that seems like a valid point of view.
But if their point of view is obviously totally superior to the hero's point of view, and they are allowed to get in all the good zingers and get to have the last word in every debate; if they are actually impossible to defeat, so the heroes fail against them, but that's okay because they are actually awesome wonderful guys and everything's better now that the heroes lost; if they are three-dimensional, but the heroes are cardboard cutouts... then they're a Villain Stu.
2481620 2481591 Thanks for the answer and more, for explaining why Thorne wasn't a Villain Stu.
And Howard035, you're right about Thorne's intelligence. He was smart, but certainly not on Twilight's level. I think he might be seen as a more powerful and MUCH more malicious version of Trixie, an egotist with real power but taking too much delight in tricking deceiving people to ever be more than a cheat.
Well said.
Thank you for the guide. I hope this will be helpful for many people.
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Thorne actually defeats himself, though he never realizes it. He behaves so hostilely that he rather quickly unites everypony who has any capability to oppose him against him. And he suffers a really major Villainous Breakdown when he starts to lose. He also attacked without fully grasping how powerful was Celestia; and he was setting himself up to be betrayed and destroyed by Discord if he won.
What's neat is that you pulled that off while still making him very, very dangerous. He came frighteningly close to winning -- though it would have been a Pyrrhic victory for the reasons I mentioned. He came even closer to causing irreparable damage -- he nearly corrupted Twilight and killed Rarity, for instance.
He was very powerful, very malign and very petty in his vindictiveness -- and the last-named attribute was his downfall, because he wasted too much time and effort, and squandered his initially-decent reputation, in childishly pushing the Ponies around.
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This may be one of the best definitions of a Gary Stu/ Mary Sue I have seen.
My trouble in the past has been finding a definition that catches the worst examples but doesn't cover media characters that have Sue like traits. For example, Superman. Lone survivor of his planet, faster, stronger and more invulnerable than anyone, loved by nearly everyone, all these are used sometimes as Sue warnings. But in the hands of a talented writer he is a dynamic, interesting character.
My operating definition in the past has been 'Achieves their goals and overcomes obstacles without real struggle.' While I won't be abandoning my definition, yours catches the heart of why these characters so badly distort the worlds they are in.
Was Cheese Sandwich a Gary Stu?
I would argue not, for one big reason. Yes, he was better than Pinkie Pie in the one narrow area of her magic of THROWING PARTIES. But his own talent was sparked by hers, and we have no reason to assume that he can do everything she can, as well or better than she can.
Also, while I do think that she fell for him a little in "Pinkie Pride," his character was such that the attraction was plausible, and I don't think that the episode implies that they fell instantly in love, only that an attraction was kindled which might lead to something more in the future. Other ponies liked him, but because he actually did likeable things, not because of his ineffable wonderfulness.
Yay. By your guide I'm not writing myself as a Gary Stu in my fic.
Rarity is actually one of my least favourites of the Mane Six, but in my story she's my best friend. On the flip side, Fluttershy is my favourite, but we rarely interact in the story. "I" also, for season one at least, do "my" best not to interfere with established events.
I realized that what happened to Trixie was unfair, so "I" sought to keep her from unwarranted social abuse. Then, after having lived together for a month or so, "I" discovered that she had feelings for me. I don't find the pony form attractive, so "I" let her down gently, then immediately commission research into a humanization spell (which is stated in-story to take one to three years) so "I" can give her a chance at least.
My skills are primarily with stories, so "I" use them in conjunction with Twilight's magic (which "I" pay her for) to write books from Earth to sell to pony-and-other-species audiences. And while "I" did almost master swordplay, it was based off a skill I actually have, and "I" wind up giving up the sword after a traumatic event.
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Cheese has almost no characteristics of being a Gary Stu. The most fundamental part of it is, is this character totally implausible?
A guy who throws bigger, louder, more expansive parties than Pinkie is not implausible, given that he is not a hero who has repeatedly saved Equestria, he is not on a first name basis with everyone in town, he cannot throw as many parties as Pinkie does because travel time, he does not have an Element of anything, and, as you pointed out, he based his shtick on hers.
One way you can tell that Cheese and Maud are not Stu/Sue characters is that they are genuinely well liked and well received by the audience. This isn't proof of anything in the other direction -- Sunset Shimmer is not well liked, but is not a Sue even though she is an older villainous version of Twilight, because she's disliked due to being in Equestria Girls, generally not a well received storyline. But because the hallmark of a Sue/Stu is that they are a poorly written character who upstages the main characters in a way that is unpleasant for most readers/viewers, a well liked new character really can't be a Sue/Stu.
To be a Sue/Stu created by the canon writers, you have to be really egregious. This is my favorite example: picture a story where you have a hero who's a leader. He's smart, he's compassionate, he's a good fighter, he's a clever trickster, and his followers like him. Now, insert next to him a character who is smarter than he is, stronger than he is, has a longer life span, has telepathic powers, has exotic martial arts skills that make him an even better fighter even when you disregard his strength, has a healing technique that allows him to survive blows that would kill another man, is the son of a really important man, and had what is effectively the prime minister of his home nation preside at his wedding. Is he a Gary Stu? No, because his name is Spock, there is a reasonably plausible in-universe explanation for all of that shit, and he is a crap leader and not well-loved by everyone, so the traits that make Kirk Kirk are not traits Spock outdoes him in. If you can have all that and still not be a Stu... well, that's a tough bar to reach. Sue/Stus created by canon have to warp plausibility for the universe they were created in, but part of the definition of plausibility for canon is what are the capabilities of the characters created in it. So creating a canonical Stu (as opposed to Canon Stu, when fanfic writers take a canon character and give him so many abilities and traits he doesn't have in canon that he becomes blown out of proportion) is hard.
What a great essay! One of my least favorite things is the way the term is applied to ANY character, canonical or non, that the critic doesn't like. Flash Sentry, for example, doesn't seem much like a Stu to me. He may be kind of cardboard cutout--Bland, With Guitar Prop--but he's not better at anything than the main cast, and his usefulness is minor at best. Yet I've heard him described as a Gary Stu AND as a "self-insert." Bwhuh? And I'm really disappointed to hear Twilight described as a Mary Sue.
I hope more people read this essay. I'm sick of those Mary Sue Litmus Tests. Back when I wrote for Sims 2 legacy fandom, people were taking it and concluding in despair that they had created Mary Sues, when some of the questions didn't even work because of the nature of the video game and the challenge rules. Are they related to the most important people in town? Duh, yes, because it's a legacy. Of course they're the most important people in town. Are they immensely wealthy? Yes, because once you get your Sims off of the poverty line with Five Top Level Businesses, which the challenge makes you do, the cash keeps rolling in and doesn't go anywhere and the main house has a zillion Simoleans. I say that if the questions make no sense for that fandom, they just don't apply.
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Jordan kind of asked my question for me. I just finished writing a novel length EG CheesePie fic, and you have no idea how hard I worked at making Cheese NOT a Canon Stu. There were all kinds of potential pitfalls there, and I avoided them as best as I could. I admit that I gave him crappy parents, but they weren't physically abusive, and it's true that he became friends with the group, largely because they're a package deal that hangs together at lunch and almost any other time they can. But I worked at not making him friends with every one of them to an equal extent, and they all had a chance to shine at their own thing (and even some stuff you wouldn't expect: who knew Fluttershy would be such a badass getaway driver?). As for everyone falling in love with him--well, I'm dying to quote it, but it's from Chapter Three, and the very idea of Cheese creating "romantic havoc" makes both him and Rainbow Dash laugh until they cry and have to blow their noses in some extra napkins. In short, no, they don't.
But I've seen so much Canon Stu Spike that I wanted to be wary, and moving things to the EG-verse struck me as a real potential danger zone. And I've seen--not so much Canon Stu Cheese, but way OOC Cheese, where he was an extrovert who was handsome and dashing and could have any mare he wanted, but somehow had never fallen in love before, yet could not deny his feelings for Fluttershy. It was kind of odd. (The fic's no longer up.) I'm guessing that the author identified with Fluttershy and wanted Cheese, and in the process, poor Cheese became an Edward Cullen who did not actually sparkle, but next thing to it.
But even if I failed and he sucked sour linguine, he would still not hold a candle to your Anon, Element of Protection. And Discord's POV on him is brilliant.
Hm. Interesting to consider, and insightful indeed. Thank you most kindly, dear madam. I suspect it will be quite helpful.
Keeping this in mind while trying to write a hyperintelligent eldritch abomination from beyond the stars with the ability to predict the future and an ego so big it can blot out the sun will certainly be interesting. Yay?
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In fact he has the opposite dramatic problem -- the show hasn't convinced us that he's worthy of Twilight Sparkle. This is going to be a problem with any of the Mane Six really -- these are very special young mares/women, very non-standard personalities, and equipping any of them with a Mark One Standard Love Interest (that sounds like something one would buy in one of those stores we were discussing!) just isn't plausible.
I'm not a Flash Sentry hater, even though I chose to go with another ship in my main Shadow Wars continuity, and I actually hope that if they decide to pair up Twilght and Flash for real (which won't be easy since they have the exact same problem as Celestia and Good Sombra), that they show he's worthy of her. This means either character development, or chjaracter revelation.
A Flash who was worthy of her wouldn't be inconsistent with what we've seen before. We know that he is a good and caring young man with moral courage; he actually displayed those traits in the first movie. This is a good basis to show, or reveal, that he has other, believable good attributes such that we could really see Twilight Sparkle loving him. Not merely "Ooh, you're male and friendly and kind of cute and does this Humanoid body ever go OUT of sexual arousal?" but "Hey, you're the sort of guy with whom I could be happy spending my life." Love, as opposed to merely mild lust or superficial infatuation.
Because the Twilight Sparkle they've shown us in the series is highly intelligent, ethically idealistic, has strong morals, and very good self-control. She's unlikely to act on mild lust or superficial infatuation: they might fluster her, but she's not going to fall in love on those bases. She's also a nationally-admired heroine who probably gets tons of proposals, marital and otherwise, every month (mostly by mail, I'd imagine) -- playing her as just another shy geeky girl who can't get a date and thus is overwhelmed when "A guy really likes me!" so her brain shuts down due to overload would be very, very wrong.
Flash needs some screen time saying or doing something likable or heroic in order to establish his credibility as a match for Twilight, while if he were Gary Stu it would be more like
"Wow! Cthulhu attacked the school and you beat him up with just your guitar!" gushed Twilight. She had never in her lifetime ever seen a male so impossibly brave and heroic. He made Shining Armor look like a wussy little colt who hid under the bed when a tree-branch hit the house.
"Well, that's what I do," said Flash. "But now I have a problem." He looked deeply into Twilight's eyes. "A problem I don't know how to handle myself."
Oh wow oh wow oh wow he's going to tell me he likes me! thought Twilight. A squee that would have made Sweetie Belle look mature by comparison built from deep inside her, awaiting release.
"I broke a guitar string. See, this is a tough guitar -- I use it for all my kaiju-vanquishing needs -- but I think I hit Cthulhu extra hard when I tore the fabric of the Universe and created a point-singularity into which he fell."
One of the things Twilight loved about him was that he was even smarter than she was. That and that he was the newly discovered Element of Ginchiness, which could make the Elements of Harmony even more powerful because he was so truly amazing!
"It's a magic guitar,"Flash continued. "It must be strung with the hair of a pure maiden who deeply loves the wielder." He scratched his head. "But where am I going to get that?'
"Um, by 'pure' do you mean in body and mind?" asked Twilight.
"Just body," replied Flash. "Why?"
"Oh, nothing." Inwardly Twilight was sighing with relief. She'd been having some really interesting daydreams ...
Now that, I think, is a Gary Stu!
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Given that description, aren't you technically writing two of them, except one of them's canon? :-)
I know I'm late to this party -- I just got a link to this essay from an acquaintance -- but I just want to point out that this is all very well said. (And I'm told that I really need to read the tagged story; it's been recommended to me a number of times by Scoots2.)