This has led fandom to ask whether the use of “Mary Sue” is self-policingly sexist; after all, mainstream genre stories regularly feature special teenage boys who save the world.

About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad very low in the water, almost, to my brother's perception, like a water-logged ship. This was the ram Thunder Child.

to bore one's way through a crowd

Otherwise, our beautiful tree might become a definite nuisance on any Hub world to which it is introduced.