books that have an oc with a name, a background, a voice, and a faceclaim are not reader inserts! don't act like they are!!

one of my biggest pet peeves as a writer, and especially as a writer on wattpad, is the some readers will treat my books as self / reader inserts when they aren't.

my books are centered around my original characters. characters that i put time and effort into. characters i created from their background, to their trauma and even their future. they are MY CHARACTERS!

my characters are not you!

you are not my characters!

so when commenting, please don't refer to my characters as 'i' , 'me', or 'us' using 'we' is okay as in the proverbial we. i don't mind seeing 'we' i sometimes leave comments using it, but i'm never saying that me and the character are one in the same.

my characters are also gonna make decisions that you don't agree with, that's common knowledge especially considering most of the fandoms i write for involve teenagers and teenagers make dumb decisions because they're still kids just figuring themselves out.

and when a character makes a decision that you don't agree with please, please, please don't leave a comment like: 'i would never do that' that's kind of the point. the character is its own person, it's not you. ( it's also a fictional character, so... get over it )

i have a friend on here who had this amazing trilogy up ( it was a twilight fanfiction ) and her character made a choice that actually made sense for who the character was and what she stood for and what she cared about but the readers were absolutely brutal about it. they essentially bullied the author to the point that she took the books down because all she was getting was hate comments.

hate comments about a decision that the character made that actually came full circle by the end of the trilogy, like, it had a point. it wasn't just a throw away decision that didn't impact anything.

but the readers eviscerated the character and the book and even the author and complained endlessly, some even used the 'i wouldn't have done that', 'oh, so we're stupid' , and the occasional 'this character is so stupid.' ( these are paraphrased, but you get the idea )

the books are no longer up because the readers couldn't seem to separate themselves from the character and they didn't like a decision that was made by a fictional character in a fictional world.

and that really sucks, but it also proves just how much what people say actually affects us authors.

we're just humans, so please think before you comment.

i've also gotten my fair share of comments that don't agree with what my oc has said or done ( mostly having to do with the adore you series and the great emmett v.s. carter debate ) , and it is a little disheartening. but, again, not everyone is gonna agree with my oc and that's okay. just don't be rude about it.

anyways, back to my previous rant, if you wanna read a book where you can insert yourself into the character, there are plenty of self-inserts on here. just look for them. ( most with have ' × reader ' in the title or the description )

and when you read a book with an oc, try to remember that the oc isn't you. books with an oc are not self-inserts. the oc is a character all on its own. it's not always gonna look like you, act like you, or think like you and that's okay.

you're not always gonna agree with what a character says or does, i know i don't. sometimes i don't even agree with my own characters say or do but that's because i'm not my character and they aren't me.

all in all, just don't refer to an oc as if that character is you. it feels like your discrediting the character and all the work that has gone into creating them.