[ SECRET POST #2074 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2074 ⌋

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

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[Sam Winchester, Young Hercules]


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[La Pucelle: Tactics]


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Notes:

Important: I'm really sorry about this, but I accidentally misclicked and deleted the submission post from last week instead of saving it. Managed to save the first page (25) of secrets, but the rest (about 100 or so) are gone.

If you submitted something last week (Aug 26-Sept 1), please resubmit it here.

The submissions post for next week is below as usual.

Secrets Left to Post: ?? pages, ??? secrets from Secret Submission Post #296.
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

[kittybeard]

There's...a lot of problems in this comment, and I'm really struggling with wording it. It's not that they're "only good because they're officially published" (there are plenty of flat-out terrible published characters, lol), is because a large amount of people have been given access to these characters and their stories and are able to talk about them, ship them, etc everyone has some sort of understanding. When you walk into a fandom with your own OC, it's personal to you. It doesn't matter that the original story started from an OC, you're still sort of walking in on something people already love and trying to make them care about a character that they have no investment in.

[(Anonymous)]

And I repeat, when canon does this by introducing new characters later on in the work, nobody seems to care. Nobody screams "MARY SUE" every time canon comes up with a new cast member, strictly because it's canon doing it. It's a bias that I find fucking hilarious/nonsensical is all.

[(Anonymous)]

Most people are just not interested in the characters you create for the sake of your own mental masturbation. Get over it.

[(Anonymous)]

Assuming all OCs are created for "mental masturbation" (whatever the hell that is) is also nonsensical/hilarious. As well as assuming I'm bitter about it. I'm not. I just think it's a funny observation about fandom.

[(Anonymous)]

That's funny. You sound bitter. I will just continue to assume that you are. Now go write another OC fic where you get to fuck your favorite character. I'm sure it will make you feel all better.

[(Anonymous)]

0/10

*yawn*

[(Anonymous)]

Very convincing.

[(Anonymous)]

0/10

[(Anonymous)]

Still not fooling anyone.

[(Anonymous)]

0/10

[(Anonymous)]

I have no idea what canons you're thinking of, but I've seen plenty of instances where people react negatively to new characters when they're introduced. Sometimes people eventually warm up to them if the character is given a good story and background and sometimes they don't. Take Nikki and Paolo from LOST, for example. When they first showed up fandom was pretty much like "WTF? Who are these people and why on earth should we care about them?"

[(Anonymous)]

Star Wars Expanded Universe, for starters (which is technically professional fanfiction, I might add). Farscape. Discworld. Sailor Moon. Every Gundam series ever. Bleach. Dragonball. One Piece. I'd be here all day listing them. These are huge series with shitloads of new characters introduced nearly every season without anyone calling bullshit, except when fans do it. Because fans aren't published, you know.

[(Anonymous)]

Your problem here is your idea of causation. Sometimes people do scream about new characters in canon, but when they don't it's normally for two related reasons: first, you don't assume going in that the new character will be a badly-done self-insert intended as romantic interests for one of the leads (which is a fair assumption in fanfic), and second, there's a level of competence in most (not all, but most) pro work that helps ensure the new character will be interesting and well integrated into the canon. (Where those two things aren't true, there's plenty of howling from fans.)

Take Farscape. There are two big love stories in its overall arc. Both of them run from Season 1 through to the very end. Nobody pops up to be the person who is Aeryn's true soulmate, so much better for her than that human guy. No new character, someone truly worthy of him and so much better than Chiana, arrives to replace her in D'Argo's affections. John's family members are there for solid plot-related reasons, and none of them take any of the focus away from the main cast. The new villains come in at logical points in the story line. So do the new outcasts on Moya. Of course no one complains; there's nothing to complain about.

When OCs are handled this way in fanfic, I've never seen anything but praise for them. The problem isn't that people revile in fic what they love in canon. It's that what shows up in fic so often isn't at all the same thing as what we love in canon. And when what we hate in fic does appear in canon, we hate it there, too.

[(Anonymous)]

first, you don't assume going in that the new character will be a badly-done self-insert intended as romantic interests for one of the leads (which is a fair assumption in fanfic), and second, there's a level of competence in most (not all, but most) pro work that helps ensure the new character will be interesting and well integrated into the canon.

So again, it's the attitude that published equals good.

When OCs are handled this way in fanfic, I've never seen anything but praise for them.

Then we're in different sections of fandom entirely. Because more often than not, I'll see commenters call Mary Sue on even excellent OCs, and it's obvious by the comment they didn't even read the fic they're reviewing; they just saw "OC" in the tags and assumed.