Escapism Crippled by Escapism

Otomes are plagued by bland heroines—it’s sort of a given for this gaming niche. Most people blame this blandness on the MC’s lack of personality and move on. I’m curious about how exactly MC personalities come about in the context of otomes.

I realize that blandness does have a purpose; after all, the reader needs some skin to step into so she can fully immerse herself into a fiction. That’s why first person is so popular to the genre, why most CG’s often don’t give the MC a face. Part of me wonders if this isn’t some cultural crutch borrowed from Japan, where young women living as popstars can be barred from having relationships in order to appear single and appealing to the fans they work to please. 

Because the second an MC has a life of her own or something to be passionate about, she apparently becomes less relatable. In so many ways, commercial fiction is built to treat us like completely average joes who need to escape from our mind-numbingly boring lives. And it sells because we think that, too.

I’m not going to argue that everyone is a special snowflake who simply has to tap into their inner awesomeness to be satisfied. I’m also not going to argue that immersive fiction doesn’t have psychological benefits. As a lover of fiction, I understand very well how great it feels just to relax for a moment and forget the world around me.

What I’m arguing is that lazy otome writing goes too far. The MC often starts off with amnesia, and if not amnesia, some excuse or crisis to rip her out of the world she knows and dump her into a completely new one in which she knows no one and understands nothing. She will spend her time in the game not pursuing her own interests or hobbies, but having each love interest explain everything directly to her and drag her along for the plot because heaven forbid she should initiate romance on her own terms or figure out what’s going on without having a guy explain it all (usually right after saving her).

What great talents and force of personality will she use to survive in her new climate? Housework. Because what else would a flavorless amnesiac know how to do? Stripped of any specific skills or passions (or simply not given any opportunity to use what she knows), the lazily written MC will do little more than react and be acted upon until her quiet support combined with various conveniences outside of her control ultimately end up teaching a guy how to love her.

MC’s don’t have to be feminist write-ins to achieve some sense of personality—those already exist and they’re honestly just as bad in many of the same ways. The crux of the issue doesn’t come down to sassiness, it comes through characterization. An MC with no abilities, no drive, no power over her own personal choices will inevitably end up so vague and powerless as to be completely unrelatable.

A girl can be a musician and express her passion for it in meaningful, immersive ways. A girl can be a warrior with riveting action scenes that drives the plot forward on her own terms. A girl can be whatever she wants, and so long as she is true to herself she will have a story worth telling. Flaws, strengths, hopes, and dreams all surround what a character chooses to do in her free time as much as her working hours, and if that free time is spent doing nothing but daydreaming, it’s hard to believe any of her heart-throb love interests ever finding her worth the time of day.

In short, immersive otome narratives benefit by embracing the MC as a character in and of herself. It’s time to drop the overbearing love interests and personality-less MC’s in favor of MC’s that actually grow, change, and bring readers along for the ride rather than being mere observers of their own stories.

Justifying Fanfiction

In the wake of finishing my fan project, I’ve finally had time to reflect on some of the struggles I had while writing the project.

This isn’t a matter of copyright—I respect the original works of writers everywhere and would never justify any kind of plagiarism or extortion under the pretense of fanfiction. Respecting the wishes of an original author is a given in the vast majority of fanfiction archives.

What I’m talking about is that feeling you get when you’ve put in all this time and effort into a fandom you love and then go to explain it to someone outside of said fandom. “I’m really happy with this piece,” you might say, “but it’s only fanfiction/fanart, so...”

I get it; we didn’t produce an original work. And there are plenty of legal cases between creative fans and original creators that have formed an understandably, almost universally negative view of what fanfiction is. Anyone trying to display pride over a piece based on another author’s work will forever stand in the shadow of that author.

What I find amusing is just how different the business world is when it comes to originality. In Adam Grant’s TED talk about what he calls ‘originals,’ he describes how success and innovation are related not to generating completely new businesses, but creating businesses that improve upon services and products that already exist. If a writer can build up and improve upon a fiction, then both the fanbase and the author can benefit from the result.

Not that this has always proven to be the case. At its worst, fanfictions are little more than self-fulfilling fantasies replete with awful writing. Most people are content to leave their view of fanfiction at that.

But fanfiction can be something more. Many great authors through history found themselves and their work improved through correspondence and collaboration with other authors. If a fanfiction dedicates itself to quality and a sincere love of its original story, it can enrich the fanbase and the original content it came from. Generating new ideas, new characters, new stories—how is that a bad thing? No one should be ashamed of writing something true to themselves; that’s how the narratives of our culture are preserved long after we’re gone.

So the idea I’d like to put out there for fanfiction writers everywhere is this: be proud of your work! Never give up on improving it. And of course, remember to always give the same respect to the original authors who inspire you.

Sweet Sweet Fairytale is Here!

I finished the first version of the game! It’s undergone a fair amount of playtesting, but feel free to drop a line if you notice a bug!

Download & Play the Game on Itch!

Sneak Peek of the UI!

Sweet, Sweet Fairytale

It started as an entry for Dicesuki’s writing contest and is ending as a 30k+ word route. The challenge? Creating an interactive story that lives up to the single CG for it, an illustration done by Dicesuki producer Kooriko herself. Stay tuned for updates as I invoke some NaNoRenMo spirit to finish this fan project by the end of March!