Looking forward to seeing a scummy Canadian small businessman in the early 20th century ruminating over your hook in the next installment of your ongoing project.
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Alternate History General Discussion
- Thread starter Elektronaut
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Looking forward to seeing a scummy Canadian small businessman in the early 20th century ruminating over your hook in the next installment of your ongoing project.
Masteroftheuniverse
Well-known member
I hate to just dismiss an entire genre but the very concept of a self-insert story strikes me as deeply narcissistic.There is, I guess, a time and place for those scenes in a "Self-Insert" story where the self-insert's adversaries think about how awesome and dangerous and mysterious the self-insert is.
But the vast majority of them really just seem like fan service.
I hate to just dismiss an entire genre but the very concept of a self-insert story strikes me as deeply narcissistic.
There's been an uncomfortable trend in fanfic where SIs went from something you knew you weren't supposed to do and disguised (however ineffectually) to something openly embraced.
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I mean, proper literature is absolutely chock full of white male literature professors who young women inexplicitly find hot as main characters. Self inserts have always been in.
I mean, proper literature is absolutely chock full of white male literature professors who young women inexplicitly find hot as main characters. Self inserts have always been in.
I'm reminded of the Joe Haldeman quote about how there are so many novels about aging professors contemplating adultery...
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Proof of the adage "write what you know."I'm reminded of the Joe Haldeman quote about how there are so many novels about aging professors contemplating adultery...
ChrisNuttall
Well-known member
There's been an uncomfortable trend in fanfic where SIs went from something you knew you weren't supposed to do and disguised (however ineffectually) to something openly embraced.
It depends on the universe. There've been quite a few 'what would I do if I were Harry Potter' stories that were pretty good, partly because Harry never does much in the way of actual thinking and it gets frustrating after a while. And then there are the more disturbing ones, about which the less said the better.
Major Major
Member
There was a period on soc.history.what-if where there were so many of certain types of timelines that I wanted to write one on the basis of "You wake up as <leader of a political unit> that has been cast back in the Sea of Time and is about to be struck by giant meteors." It seemed like every new time line was one of those three topics.
Soft AH plot bunny involving an unconventional Fuldapocalypse I have to get down before it slips out of my head
In the 1950s/60s semi-OTL, the Cold War turns nuclear hot. However, several supernatural portals have opened to redirect many of the nuclear bombers/missiles to locations in another alternate Axis victory world. We'd see the reactions of a transported Soviet crew who thinks the West Germans were using WWII surplus planes, others who are totally baffled, and others who don't even notice.
It turns out that the portals were part of an SS Supernatural Gimmick, because their "foreign legions" based outside of the European core were basically untouched by the target sets, and they proceed to invade and try and take over the shattered Reich. I might even introduce a sorceress who's also behind it...
Of course the execution and number of characters would have to be thought out, but it just came in and I feel it's too good not to share/put down
It turns out that the portals were part of an SS Supernatural Gimmick, because their "foreign legions" based outside of the European core were basically untouched by the target sets, and they proceed to invade and try and take over the shattered Reich. I might even introduce a sorceress who's also behind it...
Of course the execution and number of characters would have to be thought out, but it just came in and I feel it's too good not to share/put down
I mean, proper literature is absolutely chock full of white male literature professors who young women inexplicitly find hot as main characters.
Though that's now generally seen as laughable loser stuff at the same time fanfiction is now embracing self-inserts
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Though that's now generally seen as laughable loser stuff at the same time fanfiction is now embracing self-inserts
You say that, but like Da Vinci code is one of the best selling books of all time and Dan Brown is pretty open about Robert Langdon being an idealised version of himself.
I think there's interesting dynamics with self inserts in amateur fiction but like ultimately mary sue the new ensign on the enterprise is always going to be far less respectable than a Tom Hanks blockbuster.
Though I don't think I've seen people say that about Langdon as much as the spectre of adulterous literary characters, so the pendulum seems to have swung on it being okay if X does it to being okay if Y does it.
Or I'm overthinking it, and it's because one SI does two-fisted action/meets Kirk etc and the other is (or seen as) being dull
Or I'm overthinking it, and it's because one SI does two-fisted action/meets Kirk etc and the other is (or seen as) being dull
Though I don't think I've seen people say that about Langdon as much as the spectre of adulterous literary characters, so the pendulum seems to have swung on it being okay if X does it to being okay if Y does it.
I think it's because of different standards. Dan Brown is not exactly high literature and you know he's not high literature. Likewise, I don't really have a problem with obvious Mary Sue action heroes from different authors as long as the rest of the book is good. But having what's supposed to be "literary" and "important" be just another kind of wish fulfillment is something else.
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This is somewhat off topic, but the motives behind the pendulum swing in fandom spaces were largely political and don't really apply to AH self inserts (of the someone just like me gets sent back into time into the body of historical figure 1 type) in the same degree.
When I started reading fanfiction, mary sues were hated. 16 year old girls writing stories in which a 16 year old girl joined the supernatural cast and had graphic and poorly written sex with dean and sam was the worst thing about fanfiction, in the eyes of those who wanted to take it seriously. If you were a published author (which a not unreasonable number of fanfiction writers were in their real jobs) and you wanted to write a incisive exploration on the grief of tv characters that they never got to show in the original show then it annoyed you that what everyone thought fanfic was, was the other stuff.
So Sues were despised and there were numerous huge communities devoted to finding sue stories and laughing at them (sporking was the term) and writing parody fics where sues were killed and there was an extensive hostility to the very idea of writing female original characters.
The pushback began not on literary terms (most mary sue fiction is shit) but on social justice ones. Namely a) that teenage girls should be allowed to have fun without older adult women policing and bullying them and it's better for them to just write really shit fiction and then learn from it then to be conditioned into viewing female characters what makes that fiction bad rather than their own lack of skill and b) sues existed because those teenage girls wanted their own power fantasys characters and the original tv shows weren't supplying them. Teenage boys could just imagine being robin but teenage girls had to invent their own girl wonder to emphasise with. So instead of trying to be canon compliant, maybe its fine to try and improve on canon by adding more women, maybe that's an impulse you don't want to discourage.
Self insert characters in Alternate History, don't really have that political angle. It's a culture clash thing wherein you want to explore how someone from modern day europe/usa would cope with being in some past civilisation, but politically that's adding another person from the dominant culture and whose experiences are well explored in fiction.
And well in literary terms, it's just as shit as fandom mary sue stuff normally was. The joy of an everyman protagonist in a strange situation is that they are a window on a world they know nothing about but a self insert written by a wannabe historian is always well read about that area and so isn't that. The result is you just have a guy who knows everything and understands a culture he isn't a part of better than the people who live there. And that's very dull because there's no tension or sense of jeopardy, he just wins and keeps winning.
When I started reading fanfiction, mary sues were hated. 16 year old girls writing stories in which a 16 year old girl joined the supernatural cast and had graphic and poorly written sex with dean and sam was the worst thing about fanfiction, in the eyes of those who wanted to take it seriously. If you were a published author (which a not unreasonable number of fanfiction writers were in their real jobs) and you wanted to write a incisive exploration on the grief of tv characters that they never got to show in the original show then it annoyed you that what everyone thought fanfic was, was the other stuff.
So Sues were despised and there were numerous huge communities devoted to finding sue stories and laughing at them (sporking was the term) and writing parody fics where sues were killed and there was an extensive hostility to the very idea of writing female original characters.
The pushback began not on literary terms (most mary sue fiction is shit) but on social justice ones. Namely a) that teenage girls should be allowed to have fun without older adult women policing and bullying them and it's better for them to just write really shit fiction and then learn from it then to be conditioned into viewing female characters what makes that fiction bad rather than their own lack of skill and b) sues existed because those teenage girls wanted their own power fantasys characters and the original tv shows weren't supplying them. Teenage boys could just imagine being robin but teenage girls had to invent their own girl wonder to emphasise with. So instead of trying to be canon compliant, maybe its fine to try and improve on canon by adding more women, maybe that's an impulse you don't want to discourage.
Self insert characters in Alternate History, don't really have that political angle. It's a culture clash thing wherein you want to explore how someone from modern day europe/usa would cope with being in some past civilisation, but politically that's adding another person from the dominant culture and whose experiences are well explored in fiction.
And well in literary terms, it's just as shit as fandom mary sue stuff normally was. The joy of an everyman protagonist in a strange situation is that they are a window on a world they know nothing about but a self insert written by a wannabe historian is always well read about that area and so isn't that. The result is you just have a guy who knows everything and understands a culture he isn't a part of better than the people who live there. And that's very dull because there's no tension or sense of jeopardy, he just wins and keeps winning.
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I'm always fond of the Poul Anderson story in which a modern person goes back to a Viking era, and they make social blunders, at least one of which is potentially lethal, precisely because they have a modern mindset and don't understand the culture they are in. For the life of me, I can't recall the title.
I do remember that he gets into a fight, kills the opponent, then runs from the scene.
Ooops.
"The Man Who Came Early", yes its very good. Though, I think it's a story you don't really need to write twice.
And well in literary terms, it's just as shit as fandom mary sue stuff normally was. The joy of an everyman protagonist in a strange situation is that they are a window on a world they know nothing about but a self insert written by a wannabe historian is always well read about that area and so isn't that. The result is you just have a guy who knows everything and understands a culture he isn't a part of better than the people who live there. And that's very dull because there's no tension or sense of jeopardy, he just wins and keeps winning.
I love Kirov's Volkov because he's basically an unintentional subversion of that. He'd be a good villain anyway as an evil time traveler who's a cartoonish puppy kicking supervillain (in a good Raul Julia's Bison/Langella's Skeletor way), but because he relies entirely on his future tech and foreknowledge instead of any actual political skill, it doesn't go very well for him but great for the reader. His first thought of solving a problem is to drop a nuclear bomb on it, and he comes across as credibly dangerous not because of how intelligent and super-competent he is, but because of how crude and destructive he is.
What if I wrote a new time travel fanfic called “The Man Who Came Too Late” where my 21st century attitudes piss off Captain Picard so much he orders Worf to kill me after I ruin the string quartet recital for asking too many pro-Colonel Green questions?"The Man Who Came Early", yes its very good. Though, I think it's a story you don't really need to write twice.
ChrisNuttall
Well-known member
What if I wrote a new time travel fanfic called “The Man Who Came Too Late” where my 21st century attitudes piss off Captain Picard so much he orders Worf to kill me after I ruin the string quartet recital for asking too many pro-Colonel Green questions?
|Might be funny <grin>
Chris
ChrisNuttall
Well-known member
Self insert characters in Alternate History, don't really have that political angle. It's a culture clash thing wherein you want to explore how someone from modern day europe/usa would cope with being in some past civilisation, but politically that's adding another person from the dominant culture and whose experiences are well explored in fiction.
And well in literary terms, it's just as shit as fandom mary sue stuff normally was. The joy of an everyman protagonist in a strange situation is that they are a window on a world they know nothing about but a self insert written by a wannabe historian is always well read about that area and so isn't that. The result is you just have a guy who knows everything and understands a culture he isn't a part of better than the people who live there. And that's very dull because there's no tension or sense of jeopardy, he just wins and keeps winning.
There was a story I read - I forgot the title - which started out that way (the traveler was an expert in his host country), but subverted it by the time traveller's expertise being purely theoretical. Sure, he knew a lot about the way things were MEANT to work, but he didn't really understand the politics or personalities involved and the results were pretty bad for him, at least until he wised up a little.
I mean, you go back in time and give Scarlet O'Hara's beau a stern lecture on the evils of slavery. You'd be right - slavery was evil, no doubt about it. But slavery was also an essential part of the pre-ACW South's economy. They're not going to quit keeping slaves because of your superior morality. They'd be cutting their own throats. Even a convincing economic argument would be difficult to ram down their throats.
Chris
One semi-frivolous sports AH that's always entered my mind: If modern free agency had existed earlier, what stars would have left their OTL teams?
(The baseball example I think is best would be Walter Johnson, an amazing pitcher who played on a lot of terrible Washington teams).
(The baseball example I think is best would be Walter Johnson, an amazing pitcher who played on a lot of terrible Washington teams).