User blog comment:Bluebutterflychan/Opinion Article: No such thing as "Mary Sue"/@comment-4598697-20161205025222

I do feel like the term "Mary Sue" is less applicable to EAH than it is to the majority of fandoms. Fandoms aren't a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. Different fictional universes have different rules and different standards. What might be a Mary Sue in one fandom could be a really great OC in another.

I think that there's a huge double standard regarding the term, since Mary Sue is constantly thrown around to dismiss any female character who isn't a Plain Jane, but the term Gary Stu isn't thrown around nearly as much for male characters who do the same thing. People like the Protectors of the Plot Continuum have overused the term to bully novice fanfic writers (going as far as to write "fanfics" where they murder other people's OCs), since they frequently assume all OCs are like the ridiculously over-the-top ones they "murder" in their "missions".

However, we can't discard the term Mary Sue completely since it's relevant to other fandoms (such as Pokemon, LOTR, Harry Potter, etc.) and it's basically part of fanlore. I do agree that it;s not applicable to EAH, but the term's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Here is a guide that tells how to avoid Sue-screamers.