Pondering the strange tendencies of fanfiction
I was surfing around Quizilla today, looking for DG fics, and I noticed a strange trend in the OC stories. I'm sure you've all come across it. It's the 'you' fic, written in second person to make the reader feel that the OC is their story avatar - or at least, that's the aim.
What confuses me about this is that the OCs always have a definite persona. They have a personality (generally two dimensional, but they'll be generic spunky or generic bitchy or generic shy), a fixed appearance (possibly the weirdest; if you want the OC to be an avatar, why include a physical description at all? That'd throw me right off), a fixed set of powers. It seems to me like a waste of effort. Why not just write the thing in third or first person? How can anyone identify with the OC when the author generally makes it clear that they behave in a particular way? Not everyone is going to react like that. (I'm lost, in some cases, as to what kind of person would want to behave some of the ways these OCs behave.)
Just some thoughts.
What confuses me about this is that the OCs always have a definite persona. They have a personality (generally two dimensional, but they'll be generic spunky or generic bitchy or generic shy), a fixed appearance (possibly the weirdest; if you want the OC to be an avatar, why include a physical description at all? That'd throw me right off), a fixed set of powers. It seems to me like a waste of effort. Why not just write the thing in third or first person? How can anyone identify with the OC when the author generally makes it clear that they behave in a particular way? Not everyone is going to react like that. (I'm lost, in some cases, as to what kind of person would want to behave some of the ways these OCs behave.)
Just some thoughts.