A note about projecting:

It’s no secret that, with fictional characters, writers and readers alike project themselves onto their problems. Whether this is the “sensible” thing to do is up for debate, but it is a fact of society right now. Especially for those who feel down about IRL situations and use fiction as an escape.

Both the writer and the consumer, under this scenario, hand each other a piece of themselves. The writer trusts the reader not to mock their work, the reader trusts the writer not to mess up their character.

The question is, should they be trusted?

Can we rely on writers to handle the viewer’s emotions with care? Or will they take advantage of the connection to actively wound the viewer?

Or will they just… not notice?

Edit: To clarify, I do not think that authors will always be able to predict the negative reactions people have to their work or the ways they connect to it, and consideration should be taken for this when criticising their stories. However this is about the core emotion of these connections rather than the responsibility.

Perhaps I’ll talk more about author projection some day soon, maybe when I have more experience of my own. For now, let’s focus on viewer projection.

When viewers and readers project themselves onto a character, they are usually absorbed into the reality of that character’s world. They accept them as a person with emotional needs, someone whose problems are relatable, and may possibly share elements of their interpreted end goal.

This can be whether the character is smart, “dumb”,a complete asshole with some elements of good, or - most commonly - tragic in some way. Dealing with grief, abuse, mental health, being seen as too “weak” or too “aggressive”, maybe even the realm of sexuality such as with gay couples.

Thus they use fiction to cope with or even decipher the reality of their situation. But the fate of the character is not in their hands.

Now, the author may or may not be aware of the relationship these viewers have with their characters, the intricate ways they project sensitive issues onto them and possibly see characters as representations of themselves.

Some authors, like the Steven Universe crew, take plenty of care to handle this as friendily as possible. They show the characters and their struggles, and always make sure that things work out for them in some way. Characters like Lapis, who have been tortured for ages, eventually get a second chance. Steven goes through bad situations and is relatable in that sense, but never loses his carefree core. Pearl fought with the idea she was too weak, and realised that she is a better contributor when being herself. It is safe to find these characters relatable, except for possibly Jasper for reasons that were always obvious, relate at your own risk.



Other authors, such as the writers for Game of Thrones or The 100, take pride in completely shattering viewer trust. It is in their reputation. Who are they going to kill off next? But while they may think their reputation means they cannot actually wound the audience, who shouldnt be so “stupid” as to expect anyone is invulnerable, they are dead wrong; for starters, as with the “bury your gays” and “dead girlfriend” tropes, the continued existence of dead girls and gays in media is just tearing open a wound to an already injured demographic. Secondly, they also like to “tease” people into the possibility of characters surviving, such as with The 100 where they CONSTANTLY reassured viewers Lexa wasn’t going to die, then went “haha fooled you” when she did - 70 seconds after a lesbian sex scene.

The trend of authors “fooling” their audience has created a twisted sort of relationship between them and the viewers; it makes them aware that they could be labelled as “stupid” for relating to someone too much if that character is going to get killed or have a terrible ending later. This generates conflict between the fandom members, and a paranoia about what the author is thinking.

The emotional consequences a shaft-death has on the viewer can be devastating; it is a double whammy of someone never solving the problems that you projected your own on, and being told that you were stupid for believing they were ever going to. Not only is the reader’s confidence in their own judgement shattered, but also their escapism from their problems.

If this is with a character with a particularly tragic emotional state, then, well, you could literally cause your fans to hurt themselves.

Examples: The 100, where Clexa fans were so hopelessly despondent the creators had to step in; the depressing Mass Effect 3 ending; and Homestuck, which is a complicated case to be continued below.

Some media is a mixed bag on whether there is a harming of viewer projection or not. Maybe they are good with some characters, and complete their storylines to a decent resolution, whilst treating other characters like jokes who deserved to be shafted. Maybe the attitude of the writer has changed over time, where they have either become more pessimistic about their work, or they have had a change of heart and decided their story needs to be less volatile.

This can be very confusing for the fandom; they become unsure whether it is “safe” to project onto the characters or not. Whilst in a series like Game of Thrones it can safely be said the writer is awful and trusting him at all is only going to get you burnt, in a mixed bag series you might be more prone to projecting onto characters who are eventually trashed by the author, or preventing yourself and others from getting attached to characters who will actually decent stories.

The consequences are, some characters get much more hate than they are deserved, and a shafting of a “safe” character can have a far more harmful impact than in a “killem all” show.

Adventure Time may have toyed in this after Season 4 grew pessimistic, but the most interesting case study for this IMO is Homestuck. In particular, Dave, Gamzee, Terezi, and Davepeta. There are others too but these are the ones I think stood out from the rest. This next section is quite long.

Let’s set some background, very quickly. Homestuck is a comic about 4 kids who play a game to make a new universe and they meet up with a bunch of aliens (trolls). The author was well-reknowned for fucking with his viewers even though his story had an air of innocence with the child characters. While the humans were clearly always “safe” to relate to, fans of the other characters - particularly the trolls - were often mocked by the author, especially Nepeta and Gamzee. Nepeta is a very sweet character who was killed off jokingly during Murderstuck and became a butt of bad jokes ever since. Gamzee started off as a friendly stoner, and became a psychotic murderer possibly under the influence of an evil doll containing the soul of the person whose religion he worshipped. The author voiced contempt about them both and punished the bitter viewers by making the “bad” characters not have any dialogue and constantly get shat on in poor jokes.

But sometime in 2013, he started to change his tune; the kids’ stories started to get more emotional and personal, and it eventually became a character-driven story. The absolute finesse and care he handled them, particularly Dave Strider - an abused human child who came to terms with what he’d been through and his sexuality after living with his friends for 3 years, then made amends with the uncorrupted, depressed child version of his abusive guardian.

Long-dead characters start to get stories again, and most people’s trust rebuilds, though the Retcon sure fucked up some, the Retcon being when a bunch of arcs were converted or dropped. (I like the retcon but i can see why this would upset people)

Dave got the most satisfying and sensitive storyline in Homestuck, this is an objective fact. And I’m very happy with that story, it was incredible.

But people who related to other characters were disappointed at their apparent lack of storylines. Human-wise, it was Jane and Jake who didn’t get much importance. This made fans sad that they never got onscreen resolution, especially after Jakesaid he wanted to be friendless, but at least they seemed to be OK in the reunion.

Gamzee and Terezi, on the other hand, the dropping of their stories had a completely devastating effect on the fans who projected ont them.

With Gamzee fans it was a long time coming. As we remember he was shafted way back in 2011. They still clung onto hope though,relating to his sensitiveside from before and his mental health problems. ButGamzee became an abusive boyfriend to Terezi, kicked her ass that one time. Then, after the Retcon, he was condemned to a fridge by another much-hated character, then sucked into a black hole then… died?? It was very unclear.

now for a more sympathetic character. If you know anything about me, or about Terezi, you can probably figure this one out; a friendly but slightly “”crazy”” (and “disabled”) character who killed her best friend, was unable to deal with the grief, developed mental health problems, fell into an abusive relationship, saw her friends die,was beaten to death, became self-conscious about whether she was a good hero and decided that she will never feel whole and have good friends because she is too Broken… homestuck, this could have had a brilliant closure with the remem8er flash… why did you not do any follow-up? why was she not shown hanging out with other humans after collide or in the epilogue? does she have no friends now? did she tell nobody how she felt? where is the catharsis?

Ok so the impact these two characters’ crap endings had on their very-much-projecting fans was:

1. a sense that the author just lost all shits

2. the question of whether he had any to begin with or if we were just stupid for trusting him

3. a horrible sense of grief, that the viewer will never get over their own problems, that the characters never made any progress and neither will they, that the characters deserved to have no friends because of their bitter personalities and so do they

i mean, i was in denial about it being the “end” (theres an epilogue coming but still wtf literally ANYTHING would have helped), then i cried about it for like a week because. i felt like a fucking idiot. and forced into confronting some shit about myself. and nearly started harming again, but thought, oh my god im not going to hurt myself over a stupid comic. then i realised, my friends felt the same way!!!!! they felt gutted in a very real way. i mention gamzee fans too despite hating them most of the time, because they felt the same!!! the air of betrayal may seem ridiculous, but it was real.was it the author losing shits, or was it a sloppy writing accident, or is it supposed to be “resolved” in the epologue that may or may not happen at god knows when?? who knows?

anyway back on topic, this is a recent example of an author having a much bigger impact on an audience’s mental state than they could be trusted with, either purposefully or accidentally. dave’s storyline was still the best in homestuck and still helped a lot of people, terezi’s could have been the same but a miserable ending after 5 years of fans eagerly projecting their pain made it really fucked up.

But then there’s Davepeta. A fusion of a “joke” character, and a much-projected-on fan favourite!

This is the reason Davepeta’s reception was so negative.The fans thought that fusing Davesprite with Nepeta turned Davesprite into a joke character, that the author was fucking with their love for DS and going “haha hes not a goodcharacter after all”.

But Davepeta,for a while, proved the audience wrong… they turned out to have the best lines, the most heartfelt personality, in the back end of the comic!

People still think Davepeta ruined Davesprite though because they could never let goof the notion of ”joke characters”.

And once again, Davepeta’s utterly ambiguous ending + potential demise after “Collide” further drove this idea home.

Anyway, to conclude this essay, it is difficult to conclude what makes projecting onto a character ”safe” or not. Can you trust the author with your feelings, or will they hurt you?

It is better to look at their current work if you want signs of burning, rather than just trusting past work, because some shows (Adventure Time) can suddenly get very pessimistic with their characters.

But… like… this is why Steven Universe and Miraculous does so well. It is safe to relate to the characters!!! People don’tcare if it’s “tropey happy ending,” everyone is so well written and it makes them feel happy about themselves! Not to mention - there is still room for emotional conflict, but the expectation it will have a satisfying conclusion.

Shows that constantly end on a tragic note are terrible for this and it is dangerous to project yourselves. I wouldn’t recommend watching these at all unless you like seeing politics and suffering.

Stories that are mixed,should be trusted but with a grain of salt… Itis beter to appreciate these from a distance, or wait until they are actually over and you can tell right there who got a good story and who didn’t.

There is the option of not projecting at all, but this is difficult when you are using fiction as escapism from a miserable or dull environment.