Title: Sleeping with the Girls, Vol I: Fictional Reality
Author: Admiral-Tigerclaw
Rating: Fiction T
Genre: Humor/Sci-Fi
Status: Complete
Fandom: Anime Crossovers - (Tenchi, Sailor Moon, Ranma, and more)
Pairings: None specified
Summary: Experimental Author Fantasy Corruption Scenario: What happens when the author plays the Self Insert role straight? Without embellished charisma, physical attributes, or abilities beyond their capability in real life? AKA: I'm normal. Let's find out!
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5792734/1/Sleeping-with-the-Girls-Vol-I-Fictional-Reality

Haven't seen this or its sequel posted anywhere on DLP and I figured they should pass muster.

It's a multi-crossover self-insert fic where the author is a total vanilla among titans like the Sailor Scouts, goddesses from Ah! Megami-sama!, and many villains from the various universes he visits.

I didn't notice any significant spelling/grammar issues, the protagonist is surprisingly likeable, and there's a good blend of "guys I have this covered" and "oh fuck we're all gonna die" to keep you on your toes. What I found unique about this one is that the protagonist is legitimately powerless and has no control over what happens to him until he starts figuring things out, but even after that stage he never actually gets to take complete control of the situation.

Furthermore, I liked the way the author/protagonist points out the peculiarities of anime universes and even tries to explain some of them while trying not to get crushed into a fine paste by a meteor punch that wouldn't even concuss the protagonist of that particular series.

I'm not the most stringent reviewer, in any case, so while I didn't find anything I truly disliked about this fic or its sequel, which is currently in progress, I'll give this one a 4.5/5.

What do you think?

 

No
/10char.

 

This story is amusing as a 'anime rules and real life don't mix' example. The author is very masochistic. The writing is solid and the premise is pulled off much better than most other ... attempts.

That said, I'd put this into almost recommendable. It's definitely polarizing.

 

Going to SpaceBattles' creative writing forum and seeing this or other Self-Insert fics was what convinced me - more than JoeHundredaire's presence, or the fact that the site actively stamps out criticism in all its forms and tries to be the world's biggest hugbox - that the site was not worth my time. I'm sure it's a fairly well written Multi-Crossover Self-Insert. It could be the best Multi-Crossover Self-Insert since Dante decided to invent Bible Fanfiction. Doesn't matter. Not touching this shit with a fifty foot pole.

 

Well, funny thing is, it is kinda good. Silly, lazy, and crazy, but interesting in some ways.

I'd rate it as high as 3/5 if it wasn't a self-insert*.

Then again, it is silly and a bit lazy, and even though the author goes out of his way in the author notes before the chapters that the character won't get overpowered or improved, he basically turns himself into a bolter-equivalent-wielding, powered armor equipped man with a very potent healing factor. And he has three antimatter shots.
Totally not overpowered.
Then again, he repeatedly gets exponentially increasing ass whooping.

An almost recommendable guilty pleasure fic for those who like chaos, knows most of the anime shows he is visiting, and likes a stray joke or two.

All in all, if you're offended by the mere idea of the self insert, just forget you ever heard about this. If you can stomach it, it is a comedy show with some shades of more serious actions and silly curve of raising power levels.

So, in the end, 2.25/5.

There were a few clever lines, though.
"Then, I'm going to LOVE and TOLERATE... the SHIT out of them"

Also, I predict the Self Insert will get paired with the cat from sailor moon in the end.
Or, just to be boring, with every female he meets at the same time, but that's not even vaguely as interesting.


*Refer to my rant on SI in that Lockhart story thread

 

I've seen two SIs fanfics done well. One of which also happens to be one of the few angst stories written well and I think that somewhat overrides the SI aspect, while the other one would work pretty much the same as an OC. I don't quite get why people think it's such a great genre, as it's not like there are any grand landmark SI fanfics to aspire to. Then again, it is Spacebattles we're talking about, which while it does have the occasional gem, has every topic devolve into what our Boy Who Lived topic became.

 

The thing is, most stories can be written exactly the same without it being a self-insert, it just becomes less obnoxious, less self-indulging, and less about reading someone else's fantasy.

 

Imagine it's not an SI, then. Think of the protagonist as an OC. It's not like he refers to unique details of his own life very frequently. Is "OC anime-phile gets thrown into some of his favorite anime universes with disastrous consequences" a more palatable summary?

Or would you simply prefer that the protagonist be an existing character from another anime? I get the feeling that it's the protagonist who is bugging people, rather than the premise of world-hopping or how the author executes that premise.

What kind of person would fantasize about the events that occur in this story? I'd understand if the author was a total masochist but I don't really get the vibe you're describing from this story.

 

Look,
this is exactly the reason why SI suck. Why do you have to write that it's a self insert if you can simply have an OC? In terms of writing, claiming that an original character, as it naturally is so, is you is simply bad form. Rowling never named Hermione as Joanne, Mayers never named Bella Stephenie, and that is for a good reason. People don't like to read about you wanking off. They like to read about some character they can empathize with, someone they can root for, someone they can trick themselves into being in their place (in some cases). When the OC has a label of SI hanging above, you can't do that. Cause it's not a story about an awesome character, but it's a kid in the playground telling you how awesome he is and how much you should like to see him using the swings. I'm sorry, but when is my turn?
Introducing a connection like this is lazy and bad. You could write the very same story, just without the self bit and it would get better. Your character can even have similar occupations, same friends and the same training and powerlessness. Who cares - untill you spoil everything.


As for the last part of your post, humans are interesting beings. When playing a game of RPG (note that characters are not players, even though many prefer to say 'I go check the room for loot') when something bad happens to the character, a player usually doesn't care - it's not like his arm was just broken. It was some characters. When a character gets a moment of glory, the player is happy - it's his character, almost like he himself had saved the princess in place of Mario.
The same is here with the SI fetish - when SI gets hit, broken and mauled, is sleep deprived and cranky - the writer... let's change the word to wanker to be more specific... So, the wanker doesn't care if his other self is hurt. He's safe, behind a keyboard and a screen from all the imagined dangers of the world. But every second of awesomeness, every moment of the supposed glory, the wanker is happy - because now, the screen and keyboard are not a barrier, but a connection, because the wanker himself believes he is in the world he is writing about.


You might still argue that we/I haven't TRIED to read the story as if it's about an OC. Well, here's some news for you - I can only enjoy the story when I forget about the SI bit, and always twitch whenever the author reminds something in the author's note.
I pretend this is the case of Karl Mayer writing about Old Shatterhand, and dropping hints that the same awesome character came back to Germany and wrote the books. But Karl isn't writing about himself in the Wild west, he's writing about another Karl who is a more awesome version of Karl, and, most importantly, the one who does all the stuff. It's a really close case, cause there are hints that reek of SI way's but at least at first there are no hints that it's the case and there is the distance. And distance is good.

And I believe, if Jim had written his books about Jim Copperfield Butcher, Wizard, it might have been very crazy idea, but after a few pages we would realize -the real Jim can't cast for shit, same like Karl cannot shoot into Grizzly's eye from two hundred meters. And that is why we would forgive Jim before getting angry.
And that's why all SI are self important wankers.

 

I take a very different stance on this from Nauro and Anarchy. For me, if this were an OC, it would still be unbearable trash, I would still refer to it as a self-insert, and the response would be exactly as negative. If it were an already extant character being twisted into what is effectively an OC and a Self-Insert, it'd still be trash and would be a guilty pleasure at best and my response would be just as negative. Those parts of Harry Dresden that are clearly just Jim Butcher inserting himself into the character? Yeah, those are the parts that I hate the most and will bring up as terrible at every occasion.

Sometimes it can work. This is never in fanfiction or genre pulp, however. There's a very big difference between David Foster Wallace writing a book that is - among many other things - about a teenage tennis player who is a prodigy at english composition and Jim Butcher writing about a Wizard who is inexplicably a massive nerd and showing signs of age - despite fucking up technology with his presence and being effectively immortal. Hell, there's a pretty fundamental difference between Hermione Granger and Bella Swan, for that matter.

Call it an OC, call it a canon character of one universe or another, Self-Insert is Self-Insert and fundamentally masturbatory and bad regardless of whatever masks it wears.

 

No, she just named her Her-mi-one, as in "She and I are the same person". I thought it was actually a somewhat clever disguise on Rowling's part.

I've never had a problem with self-insert. I've read quite a number of really well written SIs before. Sure, most of them are wank-fests, but frankly, I can't help but think that pretty much all literature is self-insert to one degree or another, just less explicitly stated.