[ SECRET POST #5442 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5442 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 29 secrets from Secret Submission Post #779.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. https://i.imgur.com/Gk8xgoE.png

[(Anonymous)]

Different genres are more popular in different fandoms for whatever reason. I do think that (just based on anecdote) M!fictional character/F!reader has become more popular across a lot of TV fandoms but I think mostly it's just this is what people in Mandalorian fandom happen to be into. (And correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like there's also not a lot of natural canon ships for the character?)

[(Anonymous)]

>And correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like there's also not a lot of natural canon ships for the character?

Season 1 had a potential canon ship but it was M/F. Fandom is rarely as rabid about a M/F ship as they would be a M/M. Season 2 had several potential M/M ships with Mando (one of which basically exploded overnight).

[(Anonymous)]

Rude.

[(Anonymous)]

It's always been huge (under different names, every generation reinvents it), but the part of fandom that founded AO3 was not particularly friendly to it, so it was massively under-represented there until the last few years when AO3 started picking up more people who had never been in that part of fandom culture.

[(Anonymous)]

You're kidding, right? AO3 loved that sort of trash. Don't go claiming AO3 as having any kind of high ground here.

[(Anonymous)]

That's weird, because I've never really noticed this genre until a few years back, and I've been in fandom since 1997.

Are you referring to OC Mary Sues or this exactly?

[(Anonymous)]

Self Insert fic has always been a cancer in fandoms and the younger the readership skews, the more invasive the cancer is.

The only decent SI fics are ones that skewer the concept by deliberately having the insert act like they are the greatest thing but immediately find themselves out of their depth and pretty much the buttmonkey of the fic. There are not enough nerds with that level of self awareness, though.

[(Anonymous)]

There's literally nothing wrong with self insert fic

[(Anonymous)]

...did a self-insert hurt you in some way, nonnie? That's a whole lot of anger you're harbouring for something so harmless.

[(Anonymous)]

Did you literally just time-travel here from the Protectors of the Plot Continuum comm around 2004? Both the level of vitriol and the use of "buttmonkey" feel extremely mid-00s to me.

[(Anonymous)]

"Stories to end all stories on a given topic, don't."

-- Larry Niven, science fiction author.

[(Anonymous)]

No, Mandalorian just has a ton of /reader fic. I think a ton of it has to do with the fact there was no one to really ship Mando with in the first season except Omera. Once a fandom/character becomes popular with a /reader ship, it will stay fairly popular. It helps that the character is a "tough guy with a heart of gold" trying to raise a kid. I expect a ton of writers want to be the person who will change his life.

[(Anonymous)]

I wish that a certain demographic of fans were capable of looking at fanfic writing without feeling like they were obligated to ship. You don't have to do shipping to be a fanfic writer. I think the loss of big fanhubs have contributed to that though. There is nowhere really to gether and bounce ideas around, nor anyone organizing fan writing contests, so it all just spirals inwards.

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen self-insert fic ever since I first started poking around fandoms about 20 years ago, but I think 2 factors go into it 1. young fans simply being attached to a character and 2. no one to really ship the focus-character with.

I've not watched the show but the impression I get is that there isn't really anyone to ship The lead with? So it doesn't surprise me that this fandom has a lot of OC/Mando fic, I'd expect that looking from the outside-in.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel you, OP. I pretty much quit The Mandalorian as a fic-reading fandom for that same reason.

[kaijinscendre]

I check fics for The Mandalorian like once a week or so, but I also have all these excluded. And I still see some reader fics. :/

[meadowphoenix]

I honestly think that it's because the Mandolarian feels like a show in search of secondary main, so that encourages people to make who want a romance to make it self-insert.

But there are more character/reader fics everywhere

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a younger person on this comm (that's the impression I get, anyway), and yeah, the rise in self-insert fic is true of fandom in general. Self-shipping Tumblr is huge right now (has been for a few years, actually). People call the characters they have a crush on "fictional others," or F/Os, and have entire blogs dedicated to them filled with imagines, relationship headcanons, etc. I wrote a Character/Reader once by accident (I didn't set out to write what I did, I just decided that second-person perspective would be interesting for the fic) and it's the most popular piece of writing I have on my AO3, much to my amusement.

From what I've observed, self-shippers are kind of neighbours with the fictionkin side of Tumblr and more or less developed alongside them on the site. Honestly, it really took off in the last year and a half, which makes me think that loneliness from the pandemic has something to do with it, even if it's not why it exists in the first place.

[(Anonymous)]

Goddammit, Tumblr, could you try just not being utter flaming garbage just for once.

[(Anonymous)]

These kinds of fics are incredibly popular in the "Criminal Minds" fandom, too - they've been increasing in popularity there over recent years, as more and more people discover the show via streaming and whatnot.

I don't care for those kinds of fics, either, no - I get why they appeal to some, but I just can't get into them. But to each their own, and all that good stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm with you, OP.
I HATE reader/character fics and always running across them in fandom. I find them intensely creepy and bizarre. And also kinda narcissistic. As in 'here's my sexual fantasy of banging Mando. Maybe you can get off too.'

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I’ve been tempted to make a secret about this myself. I’ve been seeing SI/reader fic pop up a lot more over the last couple of years, but The Mandalorian was the first time I’d ever read in a fandom where it was the most popular pairing (and several of the other top 10 pairings included some variation of reader/OC). Probably why I haven’t read much in that fandom recently.

I think if they (the fic writers) would stick to a standard tag, I wouldn’t care, but I do get annoyed when I’m adding yet another variation of the tag to my filter for the latest new and prolific writer. 😕

[(Anonymous)]

Not particularly a fan of writing/reading self inserts (though 1. I think it gets thrown around too often and 2. I have read some that were pretty good), but if it gets people writing, let them be and move on to the next fic.

[arcanetrivia]

Not sure whether secret maker really means to complain about reader-insert ("character/reader"), or self-insert, i.e. author-insert. Those are not the same to me. Self-insert can be a little embarrassing, not to say I am free of sin and have never written it (although only once have I posted it for public consumption, and then it was with my serial numbers filed off); but I don't really get the concept behind reader-insert. Self-insert is the author's fantasy, be it good bad or ugly. Reader-insert is pretending to know another's fantasy, and tends to describe "me" acting in ways that always make me like... what... no... I am out of character here, this is weird, nope nope nope.