The real question is if the character should have knowledge about future events or not?

 

Yeah, but isn't the point of a self insert for us to read about a guy who realizes he's living inside the universe of his favorite fandom? If he has no knowledge of canon then he's just an OC and not a self insert.

You could always just place yourself in an AU where your canon knowledge is worthless.

 

Well the future knowledge could be limited. For example, while he has read all books, he remembers only one of them.

 

Or he could only have read one book. Or all the books haven't been published yet in this OC's world.

 

That's true.

In fact, how about he has read only Philosopher's Stone, but he begins his first year when Harry begins his second? That way, while he has some knowledge about the world, he has no future knowledge.

 

Or, even better, he could have completely avoided the 'stupid', 'facile' and 'childish' Harry Potter books, going so far as to regard them with contempt. Basically, a Potter-hater with only the barest understanding of the story, perhaps they remember some hooha about Dumbledore dying, but really couldn't have cared less.

Basically, kinda like if I was to wake up in the Twilight-verse.

 

Maybe that's just me, but I find that boring. I don't want to hear the Insert angsting for eleven years when they finally get their Hogwarts letter, that's just boring. The point of an insert, imo (other then showing off) is to show an out of context character in a setting you like while making fun of them both. Not have him angst alone, with OCs, really young canon characters or one or two canon characters and OCs. Less roleplay, more interaction.

This idea sounds like a quest from spacebattles.

 

Pfft, no idea why you're all thinking about the war and so on. Clearly the priority is how many minor characters you can bang.

 

I felt that I had to include such statements because a lot of people would be emotional about such events.

Please not that I mentioned myself as probably being the second coming of Voldemort. Consider what this actually means.

I'm sorry, but I'll have to lay down the law now:

"FIRST you get the money, then you get the power, THEN you get the women.

And you can fall me Harry Scarface, snorting mountains of Floo Powder."

 

So basically this:

Inserted - based on Xandrel's 'DLP should collaborate on an SI fic' thread

It's 2008. A mid-twenties guy working as an IS support/net admin uses his bonus for participating in a successful deployment to travel to London. He would have brought his girlfirend but she broke up with him over all the 18-hour days he'd worked at the peak of the project. Bitch.

He's a fan of the Harry Potter novels, in fact he grew up on them, which was part of the reason he chose London for a holiday. While crossing the street in a cluttered shopping district, he heard a sudden honking and barely jumped out of the way of a triple-decker bus barreling down the road.

Dusting himself off (and marveling at why a bus driver would be going so fast in such a large bus down this crowded street) he catches sight of a faded wooden sign posted between a record store and a used book shop- one of a witch stirring a cauldron with a crack in it. Hung below the placard is a second sign naming the establishment: the Leaky Cauldron.

"No fucking way."

He enters, reacts to the people, explores Diagon and then reluctantly leaves to go back to his hotel room and consider what he's seen.

The hotel room won't open using his passcard. In fact, it no longer has a slot for a passcard; it just has a keyed lock. Returning to the front desk, he inquires about his room and is told that they don't recognize him nor do they have him registered to stay. He notes the stack of Daily News sitting on the counter and reading the top page prompts him to stumble back on his ass.

The date says '15th March, 1995', as does every other calendar, telly programme and watch that he checks. Even the cars are all older- he hadn't noticed at first because he's not from London and expected them to be using different model cars than the ones at home. Besides, they weren't that unfamiliar.

His credit card won't work, so all the money he has is what's in his wallet, and hopefully most of the banknotes can be passed without anyone noticing the date. (The series E notes were replaced by Series E-revised in early 2000's, so most would be suspect, actually. His bimetallic two-pound coins would be rejected as well, as they were first produced in 1997)

He has no record of existing, aside from (conjecturally) his pre-teen self currently attending classes and being rejected by girls for being a spotty, clueless geek. The prospect of finding his way home in order to contact his adolescent self is more of a threat than a comfort. What if he doesn't exist here? What if he does?

So the only thing he has going for him is access to what appears to be the magical world of the Harry Potter books. Specifically, it's midway through Goblet of Fire, a few weeks after the second task. That he can see the entrance means he's magical, but he hasn't a clue how to get a wand nor how to use one if he had it. He's effectively a squib. Or 25-year-old firstie.

Story note: I would give him one special 'power'- his mind isn't affected by spells. No Legilimency, Obliviation, Compulsion or other decision-affecting spell works on him, including the Imperius. He has to convince people to trust his recommendations solely on his limited knowledge of the books, and his resistance to these magics doesn't help with the trust thing. The reason why? So that no one can rip all the secrets from his head, invalidating his role in the story. The other reason? In case this is all happening in his head after being hit by a bus and put in coma.

 

A squib? This is brilliant.

 

Ehhhhh. Prefer it to be less... wankish. And if you are gonna write a "self"-insert, you may as well go all the way and go the reincarnation route.

My notes on this idea, are few, but simple.

Character is reborn in the HP world, but doesn't actually get all their memories back fully, and the memories they do get are fuzzy.

They are reborn into the pureblood Selwyn family (my notes actually call her Rowan Sewlyn, born 1977).

They have read the Harry Potter books, but it was years ago, say they died in their late twenties, read the books when they were a teenager, and it's been five plus years since they were reborn.

They have no knowledge of fanon, or fanfiction ect.

I have a bunch of info on the Selwyn family, not actually canon, but I haven't much about the character pre-rebirth.

 

Xandrel, awesome thread! I guess I enjoy the few decent self-inserts there are and really like this idea.

My pov is self-inserts are not really "self-inserts" but an amalgam of characteristics that the writers wishes they had or in some way wants to explore.

Just as most stand-ins for writers are a better (sometimes even very different) version of themselves. So a self-insert could be very close to an OC character because you're already taking the step to break the fourth wall.

The difference is that some details in the imagining are real or perhaps the "this is what I'd do if I was a little more [adjective]"; part is realish. Idk if that makes sense or I'm just high.

Taure in the HP universe would cause people to self-destruct.

Like, just imagine:

"Voldemort, do you really think that was a logical and grammatically correct plan?"

Or, "Albus, is that the best you can do? Your titles mean nothing in the face of your ineptitude."

"No, Harry. You don't mount a broom like that. Or a woman."

"You can't AK me from this angle, the principles of spatial...."

 

All in favour of someone actually writing a Fic where Taure gets sent to the HP Universe?

 

Nailed it:

- - - -o

Dusk fell over Hogwarts, and the end was nigh.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore reclined in his plush chair, drumming his fingers on his desk and idly enjoying the last lemon drop in his bowl. Oh but what starts bitter ends sweet, and what starts sweet ends bitter. Lemon drops and the story of a most promising student at his school both. After Tom, Albus had always been looking out, making sure there weren't any more Voldemorts in the making, but this endbringer, once a bright student, had just snapped one day. Snapped and then systematically pulled apart the wizarding world at the seams, every logical step taken and with such a thorough foreknowledge of every inner working that a wizard of his knowledge would've had quite a promising career ahead of them.

He could still come back from it, Albus reasoned. Europe was ash, Australia sat at the bottom of the ocean, America torn apart by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The region of Argentina, Chile and Brazil had survived, strangely enough, a curious thing. Sentiment? Saving it for last? Albus didn't know. But it was enough to make Albus think that maybe, just maybe, the endbringer could be reasoned with. Talked off the ledge. Work with Albus and those holed up in Hogwarts to rebuild the world. It was never too late.

A shiver ran down his spine. Ahh, the security charms by the doors. They'd been breached. He was coming.

"Fawkes my friend, I believe you have a new charge to get to," he said calmly, smiling at his faithful companion on its perch beside the desk. The phoenix only blinked at him, trilled a pleasant note, and shook its head. Albus felt a rush of affection. "Mr Potter will have to wait. Then so be it. You shall be my second in this, perhaps my final duel."

The most curious thing of this whole grave situation was that this endbringer, this Dark Supreme, this skeletal shadow, feared the legend of Albus Dumbledore just as much as Tom Riddle had. To leave Hogwarts for last, to make it very clear that he was avoiding the place... For the life of him, Albus couldn't figure out why this was so; it was but another piece in the riddle that was the endbringer. But even if he had succeeded in many places where Tom had not, history need not repeat in searching for forgiveness. Albus had brought Gellert back from the brink and he had agreed to his imprisonment, but failed Tom Riddle. Even odds so far.

"Ah," Albus felt himself say, posture straightening. "I did not even feel you enter the room."

Albus Dumbledore didn't raise his wand off the desk as a shimmer of air warped into a figure before him. A skeletal shadow, they'd called him, and the named suited his look. He was tall and pale, but his features hadn't been warped like Tom's had; the Dark Supreme had kept his nose, his hair, his eyes. It was perhaps a tragedy that Tom had been more handsome to start off, but Albus's shallow observations had no part to play here.

Keith TLDRson stepped forward. "Professor Dumbledore."

"I do profess to not doing more teaching lately, Mr TLDRson."

The Dark Supreme twirled his wand between bony fingers. "I'd like to think we're on a first name basis, but for the sake of extending conversation as much as possible, as is my wont sometimes, I will continue to call you Professor Dumbledore."

"Oh I do love a long conversation, Keith," Albus said easily. "We used to have them all the time when you began in Hogwarts. The former headmasters who once occupied the empty portraits above me were scandalised that a student would demand my attention so much. But you were no ordinary student."

"No I was not, this much is true."

"If you'll allow me to take on a teaching role once more, allow me to grade you. You misapplied your talents, my boy." No smile on Albus's face now; he was as grave as there were no graves for the billions left dead in TLDRson's wake. "The full extent of what you have done -"

"- had to be done."

"- was needless, destructive. So many innocents -"

"Spare me the lecture, Professor Dumbledore," Keith snapped. "This isn't the time. We don't get to have this long talk you want. I... Have a question for you. The only question. I tore apart a world to ask it this question, peered into a million minds and souls to find the truth, but my findings were all inconclusive. But... I knew you'd know how to fix iy. You're the greatest wizard that ever lived. You are not infallible, but your knowledge is unparalleled -"

"Oh I imagine you yourself have picked up a thing or two along the way."

"But not the answer!" Keith's eyes were wild now, darting back and forth. He seemed to become even more skeletal by the moment, stuck in a quantum state of wasting away.

"What answer, Keith?" Albus asked carefully. "What question do you have to ask of me? I confess to having a curiosity about what's been driving you this whole time."

Keith took a moment before replying. "This world is flawed. It doesn't make sense. The fundamentals didn't match up, it didn't... It failed me. So I have to destroy it."

"Of course the world doesn't make sense, the universal laws are governed by chaos as much as they are order, and -"

"Shut up! Just... Not the universe. Not the... Okay, some of the universe. This universe. This life. Of magic and wonder and mystery." He was crying now, his shoulders shaking. "I had it all before me. But then I dug deeper and discovered it was a lie." His eyes met Albus's; there was such pain behind them, a betrayal the likes of which Albus had never witnessed. "My question for you is if you can make it... not so. If you can fix this, use your knowledge to change things on a fundamental level."

Albus sat back in his chair again, and steepled his fingers. "Keith. What is it you want changed?"

"The reason for magic," said Keith TLDRson. "Magical cores. They really existed."

Albus blinked. This was not as big of a bombshell revelation as was expected. It was fairly common knowledge, in fact. "Yes of course magical cores exist, my boy."

"They weren't supposed to!" Keith cried hysterically. "It was all going so well, and then I discover that... I was so wrong! I had to destroy the world because I was obviously in the wrong one! All my dreams had led me to a fake, a lie. This isn't the world of Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore. This is the world of magical cores. Ugh. I feel dirty just admitting it outloud."

"Everything you have done is... because magical cores exist?" Albus felt a headache coming on.

Fawkes chirped a note that seemed to say, "What the utter fuck?"

Keith buried his head in his hands. "It's all a lie. I have to find the right universe. The logical one. Magical cores do not have a place in that universe. This one is expendable. If you cannot help me undo magical cores -"

"I... do not believe it is possible, Keith," said Albus kindly.

"Don't call me that anymore." The Dark Supreme raised his head. "I have to take your world apart with my power, then find the right one. Until I do, while I search, I must take on another mantle. I will be..." He waved his wand in the air, letters appearing and forming into one word.

TAURE.

Albus read them. "Is that pronounced... Tore-ray?"

"Too-ray."

"Too-rawr?"

"Too-ray."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Ahh."

Night now fell on Hogwarts, and the end was still nigh, not only for Albus Dumbledore and for his so-called illogical universe, but for any other that the Dark Supreme, the end bringer, the artist formerly known as TLDRson, would lay asunder. To find his nirvana, the promised universe, the one that made sense to him. Magical cores had no place in that universe, of course, and Taure would find it. Taure would live happily ever after there.

Well until he found out that universe only had a few chapters written and would never be finished. Served him right, dammit.

THE END.

- - - -o

I expect someone to read this at Taure's funeral one day.

 

A true marvel

On-topic: It might be a good idea to list all the options we have and then decide on something, rather then simply throwing around ideas. For example:

1. What is the character's gender?
2. How does the character and up in the Potterverse? (Reincarnation? wordhammer's idea?)
3. If the character has memories of a previous life, is his or her gender consistent between lives?
4. Where do we want our story to start? Birth? Hogwarts? Somewhere in between or further forwards?
5. Do we make the character the same age as Harry? Older? Younger?

These are very basic question that can help us shape an early draft of the plot. I like wordhammer's post but honestly have no idea how to continue it.

 

The problem with SI's is that they are always so good at magic. Knowledge of the plot and every character's personality never seems to be enough, they also have to be the best at magic(or sometimes second best to Hermoine) and learn magic years above their grade. They also tend to assume magical theory is unimportant and can be skipped in favor of waving around the wand precisely. That is the difference between an SI fic and a peggy sue fic, in a peggy sue fic the character should have both. I firmly believe it is possible to write a good SI fic, just as I have read good peggy sue fics, it jsut hasn't been done because all the good writers know it's a stupid idea, and prefer to spend their writing talents on something better.

 

Mattsilver, that is just pure genius. I don't know what else to say.

Also, I still pronounce it "Tar"

 

Wow, that was freaking awesome. I seriously want to know what Taure (is that how you really pronounce it?) thought of it.

You know, if we are really going to do this, we really should establish ground rules. There are so many ways you can take such a story, each and every one of them perfectly acceptable and possible to write well.

For example, let's take the body the person finds themselves in. Just the body, before anyone has a chance to do anything.

What gender is the body? Does it match the character's previous body? Is he/she a baby, a new Hogwarts student, or adult? Is it a Canon character or a completely made-up one? Do he/she get some help like records and money, or is the character just dropped somewhere in the Universe? Is the character a wealthy Pureblood, a poor Muggleborn, or something in between?

And remember, that is just the body. That doesn't even touch what the person is like.

 

I really don't think anyone is going to do this seriously.

At least I hope not.