beccaelizabeth: my Watcher tattoo in blue, plus Be in red Buffy style font (Default)
[personal profile] beccaelizabeth
I'm trying to think of a plot, rather than just a bunny
but I put the me-alike in this story so basically they want to go around being brilliant and making everyone adore them
and that's fine as personal goals go, it's a dash of Prove To Them All and a whole heaping helping of ... like romance, but a lot of those are about deciding who to choose, and this is more like trying to be chosen, which is difficult because I am the author and everyone will sleep with anyone if I say so but then there is not drama and tension so I'd have to have like obstacles in the way but I want everyone to like me.

... so, this is why self insert fic goes poorly.

But okay, prove to them all plus looking for love, probably trying to bower bird this stuff, wants to build the good place, those are goals.

but now I've got to decide on things like flaws and obstacles and why this character wouldn't cooperate immediately and it's all just very personal.

so then I take the me alike out of the story again and go do fanfic ideas
but then there continues to be nobody like me in stories.

boo.



also there's the thing where if I do write a relationship for them it'll feel inherently unrealistic because, well, me. there's been only me so far. that is what feels realistic at this point.



buuuuuut I want to write a story where someone walks into the fictional worlds and says the things I would and does the things I want to, and nobody on tv does that, they all have a very different idea of what is obvious, let alone ethical, and everyone in canon would demonstrably not do as I would. So then whoever I send to be my mouthpiece is the mealike no matter what else they are. and we're back to personal and awkward.



Maybe they can be oblivious and assume nobody wants to date them and then gather declarations of love that are just such a surprise
and then I wouldn't have to figure out how anyone courts anyone.



... *sigh*



ALSO also, if someone walks in the story being all I Am Awesome, then the second thing that happens is they get knocked down hard because they were not in fact awesome at that thing right there. I mean that's how you make drama and tension, the first plan doesn't work because Reasons, or it has Unforseen Consequences.

But I want to be awesome. And have it work. All the time.


Maybe if they walk in, have all these brilliant ideas, thoroughly impress the man they want to impress, and only then realise he's a demon.

I mean, that would achieve all desired goals but set up something of an awkward quandry.

If you start off dedicating yourself to making his goals work, but his goal turns out to be tearing open a new hellmouth, that would be a thing.

Maybe the bit in the middle of the story is getting everything you wanted only to find out why you shouldn't have wanted it.



But then the end of the story would be what, exactly? Like, he's a demon, are you now looking for a supernatural divorce, or a really ambitious redemption arc?


You know, honestly, I'd want to get the guy to actually listen to me. Like, always on tv they're making ethical choices I disagree with, but they never listen to me because they are fictional and also there is no microphone on this end. So my big goal would be finding out the secretly evil scheme and then getting the guy to listen to me and stop being a jerk.

So, redemption arc it is.



Maybe wondering if they shouldn't just leave the jerk is a good excise to collect extra partners?

... no, be poly, no excuse needed.

the other partners could all have like one aspect of the very complex problem that is primary relationship with demon, and then figuring how to talk them into a better way of doing things would add up to an actual plan for demon dude.



Also there can be a lot of running around to figure out what even it means that he's a demon. Like if it means he's an embodiment of evil and has no free will because he is pure error, well, there's really only exorcism. So he'd have to be something else more complicated. Like patriarchy and capitalism and being a jerk have all worked for him and he thinks that's as good as it gets so now we got to show him a better way.



If the mealike's flaw is not noticing he's a demon then that's kind of awkward. Like, what else didn't they notice? How wrong are they in general?

Don't want to be wrong. Still need a drama so have to be in error. Deciding how to chase them up a tree and set fire to it kind of gets easier if they are not in fact perfect.

But if the error is not noticing someone is not in fact on their side... that leads to a everyone betrays/abandons them as the worst bit. Or, possibly, everyone also feels betrayed and abandoned, because of being in vast error about who they actually are and what their goals actually are.

Ugh, do not want.

But then patching it back together would involve listening to the right people and making friends that are not demons.

Possibly mealike keeps focusing on characters they fancy and screws that up a lot and then characters they neglected because they weren't courting them turn out to be much more steadfaast and true?

but the romance novel reaction to that is marrying them instead.

I mean if mealike keeps dating the bad guys because trying to fix them, that's a diagnosable flaw, but then if the end result is in fact fixing them, that seems... less good. Like, their flaw wasn't a flaw, they just weren't very good at it yet.

Or maybe they wanted to be the one to fix them but the solution unlocks when they see how everyone would be better off with each other. But I don't want that version, however logical, because I want to be the center of the universe.

... I can see how that is a problem.

Okay, but, if they want to be the one that fixes them, and keep going around trying to fix one person at a time, and it doesn't work, and then they get people together in new combinations and groups and that does help, and they figure that means they should just slink off and feel bad about their choices, but then everyone chooses them back and they end up... um, prom queen, basically? I don't know.

Or they slink off back to their demon dude because they figure he's the best they're getting, and then all these people who actually like them turn up and start fixing him as a group.

... I mean the basic problem is if you're dating a wrongun you should run away and lock them up, but, the attractive fantasy of wanting to redeem someone is at maximum zing if they're maximum bad, so, upon discovery husband is a demon, stupidity ensues. And then the sensible and the desired does not line up.

Boo.

Okay, but, first running away because he is Bad. Then finding all these other people and how they can be Good. Then going home with a team.

Enlightenment is for everyone.

... doesn't mean should stay married to them after though?

... but what if pretty?



Heh, story problems, politics not matching zing.




All this is personal stuff though. It is surely easier to have the sort of plot where they need to punch the thing and then they punch it so good everyone likes them. Or yet another story that is basically about miscommunication and low self esteem and as soon as someone asks someone out they win.


... instead I want to enlighten all the bad guys. *sigh*





I have a bunch of potential story parts but if I take it apart to see what the attractive fantasy is I then feel silly and like probably they should just date a good person in the first place. Like, fixing people is not a good thing, because hello problematic definitions.

... but the bad guys would frequently be so hot if they stopped randomly killing people to fix their feelings.
... or, you know, are hot, leaving the attracted to feel bad unless they can better version them.




Okay, but, if the demon isn't a demon demon but instead is, like, Magneto for demonkind? Like he's trying to better the lot of his people, his people are just kind of screwed because they're possessing entities from a plane of raging energies that make it hard to hold intelligence together so it was shut away from the material, except some intelligences developed there or maybe developed after they got let in here, so they know it sucks there and rocks here. So he's trying to bring his people home, out of chaos into form. He has a useful and constructive and understandable goal. That would probably destroy human life as we know it. So then he has a problem and we can help think of a solution, but he might get in his own way because of being bitter and resentful and wanting revenge and stuff, so he needs to be a better person before this will work. But it could work. He'd just need to talk his people into being tok'ra instead of goa'uld. And then they wouldn't have to invade, they'd just have to explain how symbiosis is clearly a better idea.

Which leads to sexy persuading that letting someone in is a good thing.

But held still have a backlog of being angry and kind of a dick so he might screw up and drive his friends away sometimes and then have to be a better person and earn his way back.

like if everyone abandons and betrays, and he has an opportunity to use it to get revenge, but instead he turns up and is helpful.

I mean if the opportunity is to help his people and he chooses romance instead then that's a different level of problem not an actual solution. maybe he can do that and be a different kind of selfish by over correcting and his partner can demonstrate how right for him they are by being the one to actually help more of his people?

then I get to be most awesome. I like that part.



except obviously as author I'm also the characters screwing up a lot. I never like that part.




story is difficult.

Date: 2016-12-12 03:48 am (UTC)
baronjanus: I was searching for the answer, it turns out it's rock and roll. Hugh Dillon Works Well With Others (feed me and tell me I'm pretty)
From: [personal profile] baronjanus
I think if I ever managed to write a self insert* it would be largely about wanting to be left alone

*has failed spectacularly so far

---

Do you want a relationship for Selfinsertius the Hero? or do you just feel like you kinda have to for it to be a happy ending

no dirty pun intended

---

Actually way waaaahhhhaaaay too much fiction is about someone walking in and saying they're awesome and then being awesome despite being really quite annoying, and never getting smacked as they should *cough*House*cough*

but maybe* you can be awesome and save all the other poor fucked up hot messes?

*idk like I said I fail at this

---

Aw don't make the guy a demon that needs to be saved. Hey you know what, you can make him an asshole that saves himself from assholism by learning, not by being saved by the Heroine. Because it's not her job to save assholes.

Oh hey you reached that very same conclusion

Maybe all the assholes figure out and do a support group and become better. So the world improves a little. Sigh. Maybe I'm just sad about rl

---

Maybe Selfinsertius is awesome but needs to be saved themselves from some badness that despite being awesome they cannot help, such as debilitating fear or being locked up in a cave or something else, something that even being awesome can't just fix

Maybe I need to stop pouring my personal stuff in a small pile next to your pile of personal stuff, that might be rude. Let me know.

---

Maybe Selfinsertius is dating a Good Guy but good guy has Unfortunate Crush on Bad Guy, and Selfinsertius has to help Good Guy with his Issues

Dunno about you but I do like a Goodguy/Badguy unhealthy attraction without having to be the diagnosable idiot myself ;)



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beccaelizabeth: my Watcher tattoo in blue, plus Be in red Buffy style font (Default)
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