The Modern Assumption That Characters Are Self-Inserts

...which turns into a bit of a rant

I posted a tweet last week that said this:

Many people these days assume that a main character in fiction is a self-insert. While this is true in many modern cases, I never just assume that. However, I also think it's obvious when it is. My characters are all different parts of me but also still very much their own thing.

After tweeting that, I wanted to expand on it. Although, I had a rough week last week with a busy work schedule and dealing with the death of my company’s CFO.

Anyway, moving on!

After reading Dan the Destructor, the first installment of the Barbarians of the Storm series, several of my friends just assumed that I was one of the main characters, pushed into the story. I then had them explain what they saw as similarities before laying out all the things that are obviously very different.

The truth is, there are parts of me in just about every core character in the book series. None of them are total self-inserts, however. It all comes down to writing what you know and for many writers, exploring parts of themselves through various characters can just kind of happen. We connect to different characters in different ways as readers and as writers. Or, at least, we should.

The thing is, we live in a time where a lot of people, especially those working in comic books (or writing for Disney), don’t have the level of talent of the writers from previous generations, who used to be deeply invested in and loved the more nerdy shit. I think many people today are also just self-absorbed and shallow.

To make up for lack of talent and because they don’t know any better, they can only write about themselves and their own shallow power fantasies. Sadly, most of them are very boring people that live their lives trying to meet all the strange requirements modern entertainment corporations want in their “creatives”.

With that, most of them don’t even like the characters they’re given to write and they don’t do their homework because why should they? They probably have the attention span and reading comprehension of a scone. Instead, they just project themselves onto everything and it’s blatantly fucking obvious.

This is why these once massive franchises are dying slow, pathetic deaths. Being that it’s effecting these massive franchises, though, is why it is now becoming apparent to many people that love nerdy shit. To some, this still only exists on a subconscious level, as they haven’t completely come to the realization that all this shit sucks now and it’s because it doesn’t reflect what it once was in quality or respect for its lore.

Many know that something is wrong but they don’t yet know why. The best way I can describe it though, is that the original Star Wars trilogy was Coca-Cola and the stuff put out by Disney, now, is flat, store brand, diet cola.

While I’ve gotten off the specific topic, it’s important to see how shallow, self-insert writing has wrecked franchises that were once handled with great care and made with the best of intentions while trying to entertain everyone.

Too many creatives project themselves onto their work and have thus, ruined the things they were hired to bring into the hearts and minds of a new generation.

For instance, Marvel’s current New Mutants writer gives all the characters the same voice, same personality, and since she isn’t a man, makes all of her male characters effeminate. The men are also pushed to the background for female-centric storylines.

As a lifelong New Mutants fan, I couldn’t give less of a shit about the series anymore. But how dare I, as this writer is not allowed to be criticized. But this is the same person that said that no “cis dudes” should apply for an associate editor position at Marvel. Don’t worry, none of us want to work for a dying company that’s creatively bankrupt and full of talentless activists that will end up eating their own while they make sub-poverty rates working for a massive corporation.

All that being said, we live in a terrible era for art and it’s because people are more concerned with projecting themselves onto everything over telling a good story and being true to the characters and franchises they’ve been entrusted with. Granted, the owners of the IPs are the bigger problem.

So when good art does comes along, it now gets put under this unfair magnifying glass because when every major IP is woke, it’s easy to assume that every piece of art is. When your brain becomes wired to see entertainment a certain way, it’s sometimes hard to come into something new without thinking, “Alright, where’s the lecture? Where’s the curveball? Where’s the guilt trip coming in? When is the white dude going to do the evil thing? How many of these people are gay?”

When I write, as well as many others who don’t work for billion dollar IP farms, I just want to tell stories that are there to entertain as many people as possible. I’m seeing that the response to creating such work has become really weird because even those who know me in the real world, were expecting some sort of social or political shit to creep in, as if I would project my own personal views onto every character.

You see, good writers (and I’m not saying I am one) are able to show various points-of-view. In fact, that’s what I personally like about writing. Characters, like human beings, aren’t simply black and white, good and evil. Humans exist on several different spectrums and mostly good characters may do some bad things, and vice versa.

The reason I started the Barbarians of the Storm book series was because I missed good stories and I needed to fill a void for myself. If I couldn’t find what I needed anymore, I figured that it’d be best to create it. A lot of my friends have been bothered by this void, as well, and have wanted something like they used to love. However, I am writing a post all about this in the very near future.

I guess what I’m trying to point out, is that if you do come across something new that you enjoy, try to understand why. Look at the characters, and possibly how unique they are from one another. If they all have the same voice, or are just good and evil caricatures… or worse yet, get fixated on modern issues in a place where that doesn’t make any fucking sense, maybe move on to something that doesn’t lecture you and insult your intelligence. Because frankly, a bunch of do-nothing hacks that can’t even do the jobs they were hired to do, telling you how to be, is pretty fucking laughable. Especially, when they have to launch GoFundMe campaigns every time the rent is due or they need a new work computer.