fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2535 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2535 ⌋

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

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I never really got the hate-on for shameless self-insert fics by adolescent girls where they fall in true love with their favourite male (or more rarely, female) character, so I'm glad to see the fandom has turned a "live and let live"/"stop policing fantasies" blind eye on it for the most part these days.

That said, I don't really... get it. The fantasy, I mean. When I was that age and I imagined myself in my favourite stories the last thing I'd be doing is spending the whole time mooning over some dude - I'd be exploring ancient temples, fighting monsters/aliens/what have you, using cool magic powers. Yet, time after time, when I scroll through the list of fics for my fandoms on the Pit (which are probably upwards of 50% "original female character with special abilities joins the main team and has (hot dude of her choice) fall in love with her" these days) that's all it is. Sometimes they'll pay some lip service to action and/or adventure, but 99% of it is just... ...romancing and banging some dude.

I get that that's normal and fine and all and I'm cool with it, but... did anyone else not go through that period? Ever? Did that just not show up on the radar?

When I was writing Mary-Sues in earnest, my fantasies all centred around becoming the central character in the narrative. Boys (or girls, or gender-variant individuals, usually from alien races) weren't even a consideration at the time.

I think a big part of it is the idea that fictional characters are 'safe': you can control their actions, they can't reject you or hurt you or turn against you or do anything that you don't immediately sanction, and so they're a safe and harmless way for a lot of people to explore sexual and romantic attraction for the first time without getting into complicated and messy relationships with real people.

I totally get the self-insert as power fantasy perspective - that's probably what I did as a kid - and while there's definitely some of that out there in fanfic, 90% of it is the romance/safety kind. I would have thought it would be more balanced, honestly.

ayrt

Well, my first crush was also on a manga character, so idk if I have any right to talk. :P

I never went through that period (probably because I turned out to be aromantic asexual, but still). Furthermore, I never went through a "Mary Sue" period. I don't get the appeal of self-insert. Like, I understand it logically, but emotionally it has always left me rather cold. Canon characters+setting+plot+small writing details are all I've ever cared about.

probably because I turned out to be aromantic asexual

See, that's the thing: I'm straight with a sky-high libido, and I was as an adolescent, too. You'd think I'd be ripe for this kind of fantasy.

...Instead I watched porn.

I don't think it's the fact that they exist that makes people hate them. It's the fact that they were all over the fucking place, in so many fanfics in so many fandoms, especially earlier on, that they have become an unforgivable cliche.

Yeaaaaahhhh that's certainly part of it. I mean, don't like don't read and all, and all I ever do is scroll on by because I'm certainly not in the market for someone else's romantic self-insert fantasy, but it has made me about a billion times less likely to read any fic that ever features an OC as main character.

The sheer proliferation of them also drives me away from sites like the Pit, too. Sure it has about 10 times more fic on it for my fandom than Ao3 but... I'm not kidding with the upwards of 50% of that being "Angel Nightshade Aurora becomes the first woman in (military organization). But she has a dark/tragic/terrible secret. Can (hot male character) save her from this pain?". Whereas that hasn't seemed to have leaked into AO3 so much, yet.

A "no OC" filter would be a magical thing.

Hi. My shitty teenage self-insert fics were all about my Mary Sue being the toughest, smartest, most ridiculously overpowered badass who could beat up anyone. Not a romance in sight.

Excellent! I am not alone!

When I was 13 my self-insert Sailor Scout was a master of all weapons and could beat up all the other Senshi in a fight ;p

I assume she died alone with six cats, though.

Yep. My Mary Sues were so ridiculously overpowered. I still make them up because they're still fun but I've gotten a bit more restrained. They're still adorable in their special snowflake-ness though.

Because a part of the fantasy is wanting to be loved by someone, and being loved for being the ultra-cool badass that you wish you could be. I did the whole Mary-Sue-hooks-up-with-hot-dude thing because A) I had a crush on him and B) was very lonely and wanted to be cherished by someone. When you think you're such a loser that no one could ever care, it's nice to think that some anime hunk would.

Once upon a time, I was 13, waiting for the 5th Harry Potter Book, and made a loooooooongfic based on the speculation going around by that time. And I did self-insert myself on it.

... I think I've always aimed low, though. Because all I wanted was to be included in the Main Trio (re: to have friends). And yes, my self-insert did have a crush on Harry, but never confessed or anything. It ended up as a Harry/Ginny with a side of "I want my beloved to be happy". The strong point of the fic was always the plot, in second place how much they all were friends with each others, and some fun scenes I wrote for the hell of it.

At least my character had a hand on defeating Voldemort at the climax (not as in FOREVER DEFEATING but "making him retreat") X'D I don't want to brag or anything, but some years ago if you googled "Daniela_Lynx"... well, it was kind of a Well Known Fic in Spanish fandom. It sucks it's the longest thing I've ever written, lol.

Edited (... Reading it again, in retrospective that sounds really sad. I WAS A LONELY KID OK. Augh /)_-) 2013-12-12 07:59 (UTC)

Mine weren't centered around romance either, rather being rich and famous. Any dude that a self-insert of mine dated was someone I made up (rather than being someone famous or from fiction) and I.... Don't think i ever made them a main focus anyway.

I never understood the appeal of Mary-Sues at all. I read to escape reality, and most of the time, that included myself (sorry that this probably sounds overdramatic). So I never saw the point of writing something that featured me, no matter how powerful, pretty or whatever I made myself.
(I did identify with certain characters and wrote fanfic about them, but of course, that didn't turn them into Mary-Sues, probably just made them slightly OOC...)

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