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alias_sqbrI keep getting vaguely inspired to write a transmigration story but then the idea peters out before it goes anywhere. I was complaining about this to flamebyrd and she suggested I write down the kinds of things I'd want, so here I am!
A typical transmigration story: the main character, an ordinary person from our world, suddenly has their consciousness end up inside a fictional character inside a fictional story (often a cliched book they were reading). They have to work around being stuck as this character, who is often a villain or otherwise doomed. They make things better for the ill-fated character whose role they've been put into, and generally change the narrative to something more satisfying for both them and the reader.
Transmigration is a popular genre in China, Japan, and Korea (and maybe elsewhere?) and I've seen some fun takes on it. If you want to check the genre out, 'My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!' is a very funny light novel with good licensed manga and anime adaptations. It's about a Japanese girl who transmigrates into the villainess of an otome game (dating sim aimed at women), and gets into hijinks trying to avoid the villainess's doomed fate. 'Scum Villain's Self Saving System' and 'Beware of the Villainess' also do some interesting and enjoyable things.
A lot of transmigration stories are pure wish fulfilment self insert fantasies, where the main character uses their knowledge of the plot to become super powerful, save the day, have everyone fall in love with them, etc. Which is fine but not something I personally find very interesting in and of itself.
Most of the time when I start out pondering a transmigration idea I end up deciding it would work better as fanfic or original fiction. Like, if I want a doomed character to have a happier ending and supportive love interest, I'd just write a canon divergence where they got those things. If I just wanted a 'character tries to fix things with knowledge of the future' story I'd use time travel/a magical vision etc.
But there's a few unique things transmigration can do, especially when the story plays around with genre conventions. Some of these can also be done by "person ends up inside a story as themselves, without transmigrating" but I generally prefer transmigration.
For clarity: I'm going to refer to the main character of the story, who transmigrates, as 'the transmigrator'. I'm going to refer to the main character of the original canon that they're transmigrating into as 'The protagonist'.
So, some transmigration specific things I have seen and enjoyed:
I'm not personally super interested in exploring how the transmigration itself works, because it makes no sense and I am happier not thinking about it too hard. But it's apparently something some stories explore.
One thing stopping me from doing a typical 'transmigrated into an otome' etc type plot is that I've seen Western writers do subversive commentary on Asian genre conventions and it always ends up kinda unfortunate, and I really don't trust myself to do a better job. I'd especially want to avoid any very sharp criticism of otome, there is SO MUCH shitty self righteous otome 'subversion'.
Similarly, there's SO MANY crappy, sexist, bad faith 'subversions' of romance novels out there that have poisoned the well.
On the other hand, parodies and subversions by authors who aren't familiar with the base genre they're playing with are terrible, so I'd want it to be a genre I know pretty well. Also this creates more inspiration, since I'd have lots of "IF ONLY THEY WROTE IT THIS WAY" frustration!
So, putting that together, some ideas...
Lesbian transmigrates into PG rated yuri bait anime with ridiculous amounts of shippy fanservice between all the hot female characters, but everyone is ostensibly straight. She does increasingly gay things with her love interest, who insists on seeing them as Gals Being Pals despite how ridiculous this becomes. She eventually succeeds in being official girlfriends and changing the genre to Actual Yuri. Maybe it's a harem anime with a male protagonist but a lot of f/f fanservice, so the transmigrator has to deal with the Protagonist Halo and the dude's clueless entitledment.
Uptight historical purist transmigrates into incredibly inaccurate regency romance. Not sure what the actual plot would be though haha.
I feel like there's SOMETHING to be done with the idea of being, like, a doomed NPC in a grimdark story which just piles on the tragic fridging of other characters for the protagonist's (man)pain. It's not the protagonist's fault, and they could probably be recruited to help try to stop it. I'm thinking of something like Dragon Age 2 which has multiple ways the plot can go but the story always railroads certain Tragic Moments even when it doesn't entirely make sense.
I mean you could do literal Dragon Age 2 fanfic where the main character is just some doomed character from canon trapped in a time loop until they can figure out how not to die. But with a made up canon you could take the fridging up to the level of farce, and you could have fun with with the main character knowing genre conventions and judging the author etc.
And that's all I have for now!
flamebyrd and she suggested I write down the kinds of things I'd want, so here I am!A typical transmigration story: the main character, an ordinary person from our world, suddenly has their consciousness end up inside a fictional character inside a fictional story (often a cliched book they were reading). They have to work around being stuck as this character, who is often a villain or otherwise doomed. They make things better for the ill-fated character whose role they've been put into, and generally change the narrative to something more satisfying for both them and the reader.
Transmigration is a popular genre in China, Japan, and Korea (and maybe elsewhere?) and I've seen some fun takes on it. If you want to check the genre out, 'My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!' is a very funny light novel with good licensed manga and anime adaptations. It's about a Japanese girl who transmigrates into the villainess of an otome game (dating sim aimed at women), and gets into hijinks trying to avoid the villainess's doomed fate. 'Scum Villain's Self Saving System' and 'Beware of the Villainess' also do some interesting and enjoyable things.
A lot of transmigration stories are pure wish fulfilment self insert fantasies, where the main character uses their knowledge of the plot to become super powerful, save the day, have everyone fall in love with them, etc. Which is fine but not something I personally find very interesting in and of itself.
Most of the time when I start out pondering a transmigration idea I end up deciding it would work better as fanfic or original fiction. Like, if I want a doomed character to have a happier ending and supportive love interest, I'd just write a canon divergence where they got those things. If I just wanted a 'character tries to fix things with knowledge of the future' story I'd use time travel/a magical vision etc.
But there's a few unique things transmigration can do, especially when the story plays around with genre conventions. Some of these can also be done by "person ends up inside a story as themselves, without transmigrating" but I generally prefer transmigration.
For clarity: I'm going to refer to the main character of the story, who transmigrates, as 'the transmigrator'. I'm going to refer to the main character of the original canon that they're transmigrating into as 'The protagonist'.
So, some transmigration specific things I have seen and enjoyed:
- the transmigrator notices the cliches/tropes/plotholes etc, and complains about them
- the transmigrator has to go from relating to the other characters as fictional characters to relating to them as real people
- the transmigrator paid close attention to parts of canon, but skimmed through other parts, and this bites them in the foot.
- the author transmigrated as well, and is complained at by the main character transmigrator. The author has to cope with the world they created being much worse to live in than to write, as well as having forgotten half the details.
- if the transmigrator wanders into/pokes at parts of the story that the original writer didn't flesh out, weird stuff happens.
- knowing the upcoming plot is as much depressing/scary as helpful. Attempting to change things has unexpected effects.
- Seeing the whole world instead of just the parts shown by the original canon changes the transmigrator's perspective on things
- the canon narrative has a way it wants to go, and twists and turns to keep to that path even when the transmigrator tries to change things. There's also narrative causality in terms of tropes.
- there isn't a single canon narrative, but multiple routes, or multiple drafts etc. This makes 'the canon narrative' kinda fluid.
- if enough changes happen, the genre/narrative etc of the story can suddenly shift
- the protagonist has certain advantages due to being the protagonist (often referred to as 'the protagonist halo'). Eg they can't randomly die, everyone falls in love with them, etc.
- the protagonist's personality has been warped by having this halo, and if it vanishes they don't know how to cope eg in Miss Not-So Sidekick the protagonist just has to be vaguely nice to people and they love her, and anyone who's mean to her is horribly punished by the narrative. Despite her superficially nice personality, she believes she deserves to be favoured this way, and can't cope with not getting her own way.
- the protagonist is a woman aware of being trapped in a romance with crappy dudes, and hates it, but the narrative itself is yet another controlling figure she can't escape until the transmigrator rescues her and gives her agency and respect
- humour from the transmigrator reacting to cliches in a way that breaks the cliche, like the transmigrator in Scum Villain's Self Saving System's weary irritation every time he stumbles into a porn setup (which only sometimes ends with him irritably having sex), or the lesbian transmigrator protagonist of "I Favour the Villainess" reacting to the villainess's bullying by swooning and hitting on her.
- 'canon' events fire but the transmigrator's changes have altered the context. A common one is "Why did that key moment in the protagonist's romance happen with me?"
- there is a sentient 'system' telling the transmigrator what they 'should' do, assigning points, punishing being 'out of character', offering deus ex machina solutions, etc
- the transmigrator has very different personality to the 'character' they're playing, noone quite knows what to do with them now
- the transmigrator's attempts to change the plot inadvertently make the protagonist fall in love with them, but they're so focussed on their other goals they don't notice, especially since they just assume the canon romance will happen
- the transmigrator is not familiar with the plot/genre, misunderstands the tropes in play, and makes massive errors of judgement which send things off on a whole other path. For example, in some book I didn't end up liking, the system tells the transmigrator to rescue the Woobie Protagonist but he instead rescues the Doomed Victim, not realising that the cynically traumatised Doomed Victim isn't sweet natured and innocent enough to be the protagonist of this genre of fiction.
I'm not personally super interested in exploring how the transmigration itself works, because it makes no sense and I am happier not thinking about it too hard. But it's apparently something some stories explore.
One thing stopping me from doing a typical 'transmigrated into an otome' etc type plot is that I've seen Western writers do subversive commentary on Asian genre conventions and it always ends up kinda unfortunate, and I really don't trust myself to do a better job. I'd especially want to avoid any very sharp criticism of otome, there is SO MUCH shitty self righteous otome 'subversion'.
Similarly, there's SO MANY crappy, sexist, bad faith 'subversions' of romance novels out there that have poisoned the well.
On the other hand, parodies and subversions by authors who aren't familiar with the base genre they're playing with are terrible, so I'd want it to be a genre I know pretty well. Also this creates more inspiration, since I'd have lots of "IF ONLY THEY WROTE IT THIS WAY" frustration!
So, putting that together, some ideas...
Lesbian transmigrates into PG rated yuri bait anime with ridiculous amounts of shippy fanservice between all the hot female characters, but everyone is ostensibly straight. She does increasingly gay things with her love interest, who insists on seeing them as Gals Being Pals despite how ridiculous this becomes. She eventually succeeds in being official girlfriends and changing the genre to Actual Yuri. Maybe it's a harem anime with a male protagonist but a lot of f/f fanservice, so the transmigrator has to deal with the Protagonist Halo and the dude's clueless entitledment.
Uptight historical purist transmigrates into incredibly inaccurate regency romance. Not sure what the actual plot would be though haha.
I feel like there's SOMETHING to be done with the idea of being, like, a doomed NPC in a grimdark story which just piles on the tragic fridging of other characters for the protagonist's (man)pain. It's not the protagonist's fault, and they could probably be recruited to help try to stop it. I'm thinking of something like Dragon Age 2 which has multiple ways the plot can go but the story always railroads certain Tragic Moments even when it doesn't entirely make sense.
I mean you could do literal Dragon Age 2 fanfic where the main character is just some doomed character from canon trapped in a time loop until they can figure out how not to die. But with a made up canon you could take the fridging up to the level of farce, and you could have fun with with the main character knowing genre conventions and judging the author etc.
And that's all I have for now!
no subject
Date: 2021-10-22 10:58 am (UTC)The uptight historical purist idea sounds hilarious just from the premise. Those pesky plots, though... I suppose you could always combine it with the first idea somehow.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-22 11:11 am (UTC)Omg you're a genius. Some terrible historical setting full of women in anachronistically revealing outfits.
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Date: 2021-10-22 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-22 06:48 pm (UTC)But with a made up canon you could take the fridging up to the level of farce, and you could have fun with with the main character knowing genre conventions and judging the author etc.
This sounds VERY fun.
Like, if I want a doomed character to have a happier ending and supportive love interest, I'd just write a canon divergence where they got those things.
+100. for some reason, it doesn't hit the fixit part of my brain to have an OC/self-insert go fix the character's lives. Maybe it's too much work for OC self-insert, and I'm too lazy for this? Maybe because it implies that things couldn't be fixed on their own?
I feel like my favorite transmigration tropes deal with the transmigrator's past, which is rare but always makes me happy -- whether it's them wanting to return to their word (not just as a token "I want to return to my world!" but actually dealing with what it means), or them having trauma in their past and mapping it onto the present. Or, on the less serious note, something that brings in their experience as a reader (thinking Scum Villain here!)
Also, I love the "oh no, the people here are actually _real_, and I can't just play with their feelings or sit on the sidelines" trope that appears. Every time I go :D, when it's accompanied by the tension of someone trying to treat it like a game up until now.
On the m/f webtoon side, increasingly I see the transmigration side as a "quick one chapter set up, and then it's never mentioned again because the transmigration only exists to give the heroine knowledge at the right moment". Also sometimes setting up a situation in which a character has to deal with the consequences of having done bad things in the past, without actually having to take responsibility for them.
Which is less interesting to me
but I still devour every single one of those webtoons for the romances :p!(ETA: Also, transmigration stories are popular elsewhere, too! There's LitRPG, which is a genre of "isekaid into a game world" power fantasies. I see a lot of Kindle self-published books for those.)
no subject
Date: 2021-11-01 01:37 pm (UTC)Yes, I wish the transmigrator's past came into it more, a lot of the time it might as well be a time loop/vision of the future etc.
Good point about LitRPG, I'd forgotten about it!
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Date: 2021-10-24 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-01 01:19 pm (UTC)Ooh, good point! HMM.
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Date: 2021-10-28 07:27 pm (UTC)Transmigration stories have *enormous* "writing fanfic for a nonexistent canon" energy and I'm here for it. I've personally had at least half a dozen different ideas for tmg stories, but like you, I'm concerned about stomping around in someone else's sandbox. I can't reasonably write a Japanese or Korean protag, and I would feel equally awkward trying to shoehorn a Western protag into this type of story. The ideas continue to tempt me, but I keep them relegated to daydreams and bedtime stories.
A lot of the stories involve either multiple transmigrators, or multiple versions of the same canon. For example, two fans get tmged into the same world, one of them read the light novels and one of them played the otome, and neither of them realizes that their characters are on a romance route with each other. Another one has a brother and sister who get turned around, the sister falls into her brother's combat RPG and opens a potion shop slash matchmaker, meanwhile her brother becomes the heroine of an otome and tries to wrangle the love interests into an RPG campaign. And the most tempting idea by far is "I reincarnated into an unfinished fanfic" lol.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-01 11:57 am (UTC)Yeah, I've written plenty of fic for Japanese/Korean/Chinese canons, but it feels different to write someone who is defined by being A Normal Person reacting to cultural differences etc. I feel like I could write a, like, Chinese Australian reasonably? Maybe? But idk.
Those ideas all sound really interesting!