Self-Inserts · 8:24pm May 13th, 2019
You either love 'em, hate'em, or just indifferent to them. Or, in many understandable cases, like to pretend they don't exist.
I myself aren't too fond of them, even if my main story uses that exact cliche, tiresome element (to which people still read for some reason, as gratified as I am), for various reasons. They often detract from the main story to conduct some shallow, destiny quest in borderline mary/gary-stu territory.
Harems.
Beating the ultimate villains by themselves.
Becoming Gods.
Domesticating beautifully written characters into common housewives.
One trope I especially despise, however, is the self-insert going through the main events of a timeline, and barely doing anything but adding a bit more dialogue to a scene that changes nothing. It's especially worse when the other characters behave as though the OC didn't say a thing.
But, again having written one myself a few times, I DO understand the appeal. People fantasize to be the heroes - to be with their fictional crushes and make themselves important in a way - and there's nothing wrong with that in itself. No one should feel discouraged for how they wish to express themselves. It's fun to write a tale of you being the brave, knight in shining armour with some kind of ham-fisted TRAGIC backstory in an attempt to make it not seem you're entirely a walking Deus Ex Machima.
But when you're showing that kind of story legitimately - be it a fic or to write a book - you are treading on thin ice from the get-go. You will be hounded, you will be downvoted, openly criticized and scorned, regardless how you write the self-insert tale. To others, it feels like a self-glory, self-dickriding pitiful attempt of bringing some hopeful joy to your life.
This is just a warning for the unweary, be you new or experienced at writing. If you're lucky enough to get some supporters for that trope of a fic, good on you! But do expect a lot of eye-rolling and snark, worse if you proceed to go too far with your self-fantasized ambitions.
It's when you can put yourself into a story but still make an interesting character out of yourself that you should be commended. All the characters in A Rather Large Adventure are partially myself, in my head, packed away in some cardboard box. When it's time for me to write for them, I unpack them and fondle them for a little before putting them back unharmed.
Amen to that.
I like Inserts, more importantly, yours, but I do dislike when they just...go with the flow of the original and never change anything of significant value. Best example if the wedding, every God-damn time this part is brought up, the Self-Insert does some things to mess with the original cast, bait Queen Mephiles (I can't spell her name so Sonic 06 will do), and overall this leads to changing absolutely NOTHING. I just had to share the main reason I can be 'Meh' about Self-Inserts, actually, the only one I really like since it does a better job at enhancing the original story is yours, Stardust.
That is all