random memory of the day:

…somewhere between 1999 and 2004, online Star Trek TOS fandom.

reading an article (blog post? news story? unsure)

about Star Trek fanfiction but specifically the Mary Sue trope

which, at the time, pretty much exclusively referred to original self-insert characters in fanfic

and the article was listing several common parts of the trope

like: the Mary Sue is a beautiful, mysterious, fascinating woman that the ship encounters

often has supernatural powers or is a crown princess or something

at least one main character (usually the one that the fangirls find most attractive, like Spock) has a brief and passionate love-affair with her. he’s absolutely smitten, ready to give up everything to be with her because she’s so awesome

but in the end she is tragically ripped away from their lives, usually by dying in some heroic act of self-sacrifice

and I clearly remember thinking:

these are just… the tropes for female characters in canon

you know perfectly well where the fanfic writers got all this. they watched the source material

smh