A/N: Dedicated to Lady Lolabert.

Welcome! This is the idiot's crash course to writing a POTC Mary Sue.

Things you Should Know About Mary Sue Fics:

The art of Mary Sue is a very ancient one, and has been used by countless authors throughout the ages. According to Mary-Sue-Master Len Qing Wang, "To make a Mary Sue is to become one with the story. Your qi (also spelled: chee, chi) must be in balance, and if it is not you must remedy it with the old medicine; you must wear one shoe that is taller than the other; eventually your qi will balance out and you will be able to compose a Mary Sue. This is the art of Mary Sue."

May the Mary Sue-dom Begin

1) Introduce your original character, she will be strikingly beautiful, but
generally ditsy and only capable of giggling and saying, "Oh Jack, what's to
become of us?" later on in the story.

2) Use clichés to describe her appearance, especially the eyes. Some good
(cough bad) clichés for eyes are: they shine like the starlight, they're
dark and stormy or they contain a heat so fierce that few dared to look into
them.

3) Have your character on a random beach in Tortuga, looking beautiful until
met by a "mysterious stranger." Said mysterious stranger will give your Mary
Sue a job at a bar in tortuga where your character will eventually
conveniently run into a certain captain Jack sparrow...

4) Have Jack and his crew conveniently land in Tortuga to get drunk and
eventually conveniently fall in love with Mary Sue (Jack that is, not the
entire crew).

5) Have some divine power or a seer or an oracle or whatever tell Mary Sue
that she has to find a treasure... but the only one who has the map to said
treasure is a certain pirate... guess who?

6) Oops, as usual, you, the author, forget to fill in the gaping plot hole
as to how you will open the locked treasure. So, give her a medallion with
all haste and say that it's the key to the treasure.

7) Make it so that Mary Sue is working in the bar one night... where her job
is... remember? What?? You forgot she had a job!?!? What a crappy author
you are. Ahem. Anyway, Mary Sue, who has never had a drop of alcohol in her
sheltered, ditsy life, decides to try it and gets hopelessly drunk.

8) Since said original character is hopelessly drunk, when she tries to
stand to go home, she falls, and who is there to catch her?? Guess who? A
certain Captain Jack Sparrow!! How convenient.

9) Make Jack notice the key around her neck (and how beautiful she is) and
make them realize that they are the two people needed to get the treasure.

10) This would be where the hopelessly drunk Mary Sue passes out.

11) Make sure Mary Sue awakes in Jack's room and says something like, "did
we?" and make sure that Jack provides bad innuendos galore. Also, make sure
to describe the terrible hangover that Mary Sue has, despite the fact that
any reader with half a brain would realize that if she got so rip-roaringly
drunk, she will obviously have a hangover!

12) Make Jack be uncharacteristically compassionate to Mary Sue. (hangover
cure etc.)

13) Make them just happen to be on the black pearl! Whaddya know?

14) Give a lovely cough cough random cough description of how lovely and
stirring the ocean is to Mary Sue. Now Jack rambles on about freedom and the
black pearl (basically his drunken speech to Elizabeth only he's not drunk
and it's to a ditsy Mary Sue who responds by nodding and staring blankly
into space)

15) Later that night—through your wonderful authoress powers, let the
readers see Mary Sue's nightmare, which will be her reliving the scene of
her family dying, but her surviving (of course, her parents are dead)

16) Jack comes out and talks to Mary Sue about how late it is, and somehow
they almost kiss... key word 'almost,' but are interrupted. Jack leaves and
the all-powerful author gives the readers a look into Mary Sue's thoughts,
which are basically, "omg, Jack's hot and he almost kissed me. like, totally!"

17) Suddenly there's a "RANDOM BATTLE"
Said "RANDOM BATTLE" is for no real reason, and is more of a plot filler.
Have a lot of pirate-y nonsense. Somewhere in the middle have Mary Sue say,
"Oh Jack, what's to become of us?"

18) Oh no!! Mary Sue gets wounded!! But Jack wins the battle and carries the
wounded Mary Sue into his room. She's cold, and possibly feverish...
actually that's not true. I mistook her awful giggling for a fever.
Whatever.

19) Jack holds her to keep her warm. Aww how cute. (gags) and is getting
closer, closer, closer and then... Jack leaves. Again, the readers see
Mary Sue's thoughts, which are basically "drat! why won't he kiss me
already?"

20) Oh no!! Mary Sue's medallion thingymajigger is gone!! Mary Sue panics,
then blames Jack!! But it's storming!! And Jack puts Mary Sue in his room
(again... getting suggestive??) and whaddya know, they end up kissing!

21) Prepare yourself for another "RANDOM BATTLE" only this time, you try to
get the medallion key thingymajigger. And Mary Sue succeeds!! Hallelujah!
But first she says (again) to Jack: "oh Jack, what's to become of us?"

22) Mary Sue and Jack sail off into the horizon to find the treasure!!

23) You, the author, are too lacking in creativity to actually write out
them finding the treasure, so instead you leave cryptic hints that allude to
the writing of a sequel.

And tada! You have your very own (except for the fact that they're all the
same) Mary Sue fic.

"DEFINITION OF A MARY SUE: Often loosely described as an 'original character',
these evil Mary Sues prowl the realm of fanfiction, plaguing all movies,
books, tv shows, etc with their perfect hair and 'remarkable' eyes. They are
most usually the 'perfected' version of the author, lacking personality,
depth and character. They exist for the sole purpose of falling in love with
the man. Bad plot devices and gaping plotholes usually surround these
creatures," (Lolabert, page number not known).

A/N: Definition taken from the author Lady Lolabert, the master of Counter-Mary-Sue-Fics. She gets the credit. Notice that there is an in-text citation. This guide is inspired by her fic, "Mary Sue of the Caribbean." If you haven't read it, you should. I know that this isn't really a fic, but I decided to post it anyway before I take a hiatus from writing. So if any of you are reading my stories, there it is, I've said it. I'm giving up writing temporarily so that I don't flunk all of my classes. Apologies.

I own nothing, by the way.

And if you've taken offense to this please know that I did not mean to ruffle feathers; I only meant to teasingly poke fun. If you are offended please contact me and I will apologize profusely. Please review!