9.8 KiB
Rational self insert fanfiction?
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Author: u/Ih8Otakus *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/8n00yp/rational_self_insert_fanfiction/
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Score: 23
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Created: 2018-05-29T15:34:35
Post:
It is hard for a self insert fanfiction to be rational. There are some but they are hard to find. Fundamentally a SI story is not meant to be rational and the focus is blatant wish fulfillment or “fix-it” fics that the SI easily solves the conflicts the canon characters failed to do through meta knowledge.
Worth the candle and with this ring are the knly rational self inserts I came across. Is there any else?
Comments:
u/buckykat [+15] (5 hours later)
Alternate take: all rational fanfiction is self insert.
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (6 days later)
A lot of it certainly is to a degree. I'm not gonna make an explicit list, but I can think of at least 5 stories where it is obvious/confirmed by the author that a main character is inspired by them.
u/buckykat [+12] (6 days later)
Not even that. The impetus for making a rational/rationalist fanfic is basically, "why are these characters being so dumb? This is what I'd do instead"
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (6 days later)
True.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+6] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (56 minutes later)
Look at the stuff posted by /u/DataPacRat they have a pretty good set of incomplete stories that are midway between the Bobbiverse (waking up uploaded) and Accelerando (future shock and dealing with it). The FAQ on Loadbear's instrument of precommitment a set of terms and conditions to instantiate an open-sourced upload is the only one I know is completed, but they are all good though some have NSFW elements.
Edit: fixed auto-incorrect from my phone added link to the Loadbear FAQ: it's a really interesting.
u/None [+3] (an hour later)
there's also Sleeping with the Girls (SFW).
u/Makin- [+15] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (2 hours later)
It's alright, but a rational fic it is not. More of a deconstruction than anything else.
u/TristanTheViking [+3] (3 days later)
There's a long greentext story (like actual novel length) called Stranded In Fantasy. Narrator gets stuck (with some strangers) in a D&D universe, has to try to survive. I read it forever ago, not sure if there's a lot of rational elements though.
u/None [+3] (5 hours later)
[deleted]
u/SkyTroupe [+1] (a day later)
Is this enjoyable if I havent seen Buffy?
u/None [+5] (a day later)
[deleted]
u/kaukamieli [+2] (5 days later)
Hahaha, yea, like when he remembers where all the good loot is and just grabs them. Science, amiright?
I liked it, though.
u/Noumero [+2] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (11 days later)
If I may, even though I'm late by almost two weeks...
Roll the Dice on Fate [72k words; extremely slow updates], a Naruto self-insert into a random clanless genin. Explicitly meant to be rational, and as far as I could remember it's satisfactory.
The Calculator [50k, likely abandoned], a DC self-insert into a neutral-evil villain/information broken with a talent for programming and artificial intelligences. It is rational and it isn't wish-fulfilment. It's also my favourite on this list.
Blood and Chaos [280k, likely abandoned], already mentioned by someone here. A Buffy self-insert, who immediately gets eaten by a vampire -> replaced by a demon with his memories. The author explicitly tried to make the story rational, though the protagonist's natural abuse of meta-knowledge ensured he has it relatively easy.
Technology Will Win the Day [63k, complete], a Worm CYOA self-insert. Worm CYOAs are characteristic of giving the protagonist overpowered abilities, and this is no exception — the protagonist is essentially an all-purpose tinker. It's rational, though.
Prison of Glass [110k, hiatus], another Worm CYOA self-insert, with a reality-warping power. This one has two notable features: it's told through viewpoints of other characters, never the self-insert; the self-insert was turned selectively sociopathic upon insertion, she cares only about likeable canon characters and disregards the of humanity. It's rational, in modelling other characters' behaviour^(1), and it's quite unique.
Ultimately, it comes down to what you want more: rationality (defined as "every character makes an honest effort towards achieving personal goals") or non-overpoweredness? My list above is ordered by how much power the self-insert starts with, from least to highest; I think The Calculator is the most rational of them, closely followed by Roll the Dice on Fate, followed by the rest.
^(1. Example: in many Worm self-inserts, it's expected of Slaughterhouse Nine to come after the self-insert and end up slaughtered after a morality lecture. Here, though, Jack Slash realizes that the self-insert is too powerful to engage with without major preparations, and avoids her.)
u/Ih8Otakus [+1] (11 days later)
thanks man. I read them all but the calculator. I will check it put much appreciated.
u/RMcD94 [+3] (an hour later)
Lots of stuff on alternatehistory.com, people like si into fiction and history
u/Hust91 [+5] (3 hours later)
Though it requires reading the free supervilain book Worm to not suffer from being spoiled on this absolutely fantastic superhumans-story that is subject to constantly escalating scale and the best anything I've read or watched to date, I would recommend the SI fanfic Security!.
It consists of a reader of the books who works as a security guard and writes fanfics in his spare time ending up in the Worm setting shortly before the main story begins, and doing his best from there to keep the characters he likes alive and to minimize the casualties of the plot, having no powers of his own save having read the story (which incidentally makes him one of the most powerful precogs in the setting, though only in the beginning before he sends all the butterflies flapping in every direction).
It's completely finished and one of the best reads I've had since Worm itself.
u/Flashbunny [+31] (5 hours later)
I feel obliged to post my disagreement here. It's exactly what the OP described most SI fics as being - a blatant wish fulfilment fix-it fic where the SI easily solves everything with his meta knowledge. It's also just not very high quality writing, with character leaping to improbable deductions without sufficient evidence that just so happens to be right. It's certainly not rational.
Still, people shouldn't be downvoting you for being wrong.
u/scruiser [+10] CYOA (5 hours later)
Still, people shouldn't be downvoting you for being wrong.
Even the people that liked Security should be able to admit that it is a fix-fic and thus not what OP asked for.
u/Hust91 [+9] (6 hours later)
My bad, misread and thought a well written fix-fic was precisely what OP asked for.
u/Hust91 [+7] (6 hours later)
My bad, misread and thought a well written fix-fic was precisely what OP asked for.
I personally think it well avoids the most blatant version of plot armor and strangely correct wild guess making - many situations are survived with some measure of luck, but as much as possible he seems to lean on preparation for known threats.
u/scruiser [+23] CYOA (5 hours later)
Going to have to derecc (unrecommend) Security. The SI has extreme plot armor. The SI carries out over complicated plans to help every character that somehow work despite dealing with several Thinkers (which should be able to work around him or subvert him) and the PRT (who have Master Stranger protocols that should slow things down) The SI gets Cauldron to work with them by promising information when Contessa could just PtV a way of getting the information out of the protagonist much faster. Their priorities are not very utilitarian, instead of prioritizing helping Cauldron deal with Scion they waste a lot of time helping individual characters. The characterizations are all twisted by fanon (woobie Panacea, sympathetic easily reformed Undersiders, etc.).
u/Hust91 [+5] (6 hours later)
My bad, misread and thought a well written fix-fic was precisely what OP asked for.
I personally think it avoids most pitfalls for fix-fics and takes a relatively reasonable route without absurd levels of plot armor or reliance on it.
The precog resistance seemed largely based on his meta knowledge, which makes sense since most precog works using known variables and being fictional is certainly not something the entities are aware of.
That the best PtV to get the best use out of his info would be to cooperate doesn't seem at all unfeasible to me - more extreme methods have the drawback that you lose out on being handed the most useful info first by a cooperative party.