wish fullfilment is good!

#1
the term of wish fullfilment has started being thrown a lot in the last few years after the massive amounts of LN being translated from japan, nowadays it is something with a very negative connotation. i just revisited my favorite piece of media ever today, a work that made my cry the first time i vieweed it just because of how strongly it resonated with me and i browsed a bit through the author's other works today, while his other stories and drawings had the same style to them and same outlandish stories they didn't resonate with me nearly as much. and that is when it clicked for me, every content creator at the start at least begins with the premise of having fun and doing something they think is cool but later when they become ''professional'' start looking more and more at their contemporaries for how they should do things and it becomes less about creating a piece of media you would enjoy and more about putting dinner at the table. 1 of the 10 that continue with their main goal being making something THEY would enjoy make it big and become the status quo that other authors style themselves after the other 9 however either ''adpat'' or become controversial figures in niche circles.

what i am trying to say is self indulgent writers create the most unique stories that becomes people's all time favorites most of the time but they also have a high tendency to be really hated by others because of how foreign they may seem for those who can't connect with the work.

but i don't think this is why wish-fullfilment became a phrase with such a negative connotation i think it i s becuase wish fullfilment stories (the majority of them) just tend to be bad stories. as in they are written in a bad way which just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. ironically they suffer from the author not making their desires clear enough the story wavers between different themes, in most cases with no themes at all because the creator has a clear image of what they want but they just can't make it come unto the paper. in worse case scenario the creator know they are making their goals unclear but don't put in any minimal effort to clearify what they want to do with the story at all and start being defensive at the first sign of any constructive feedback by well meaning fans.


argh basically what i am saying is people expressing their desires and visions through their works and being adventurous with new and ''out-there'' ideas that may not appeal to many people is a very good thing but it ends up being bad when they don't try to express it clearly enough. its one thing for a story to be hated for what it is, it is another thing for a story to be hated because of what is not, one you can chalk up to differing opinions and vision the other is inability to clarify ones work.

RE: wish fullfilment is good!

#2
no need tp apologize friend the reason i posted this was so i can get other people's opinions on this topic and make it so more people become more adventerous with their stories and not feels ashamed or guilty over basically writing for themselves and that 1 out of ever 3 readers that the story resonates with.

now i just wish to clarify in relation to your post even though you mention it too wishfullfilment does not equal self-insert, its a common misconeption people seem to have. not that there is anything wrong with self insert but combined with wishfullfilment it most cases it doesn't end well. no one wishes for their self-inserts to suffer and it leads to a curbstomb like you mention as the world bends to the character.

RE: wish fullfilment is good!

#3
I reckon the reason why wish fulfilment has negative connotations is because it prevents people from thinking about their work. If they associate their novel, which should have very concrete boundaries and intentions, with their own wishes, which are vague and their perception of which can often change by the day, they soon start to stray from what they initially intended.

When the goal of the universe isn't to be reasonable or interesting, but make the self-insert wish fulfilment character map to a poorly defined wish which is different to what it was two chapters ago, then you start to see how wish fulfilment can ruin a story.

That doesn't mean that wish fulfilment is bad though - quite the opposite. Much fiction is wish fulfilment to an extent - it lets people dream about things that they wouldn't be able to see or achieve in everyday life. Historical, science fiction, drama or fantasy. However, it's when this gets overboard that it becomes a negative.
My (Science) Fiction - Desolate Stars.
And historical - Out of the Motherland.
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RE: wish fullfilment is good!

#4
The main reason, I think, of why Wish fulfillment is considered bad is because like what the title stated, its a wish. Which means that the writer is writing about something he doesn't have which could also extend to something he knows nothing about, so much that it drips on every word written in the work.

Like, in Japanese works for example. You have these sexually repressed hikkikomoris and neets that never did have a girlfriend, and even so never got laid, had a fulfilling relationship (I'm assuming here. I know its 2017 and I cant assume anything but I will do whatever I want and anyone wanting to tell me otherwise would have to tell it to my face and see what happens.) read about these Wish fulfillment works and think its great while people who did get laid and had relationships would think of it as shit. I mean, why would these hot ladies follow around this loser around? Because he's special?, HA Fuck no! Its because these readers like to think that hot women would simply fall in their laps by simply being themselves. These are the people who read these types of stories and love them. They would buy the books, the merchandise, that body sized pillow with their waifu painted on the side of it. And if you happen to make a wish fulfillment that somehow hit the rights spots of the majority of audiences, then OH BOY! You hit the Jackpot and could easily stretch it out for years!

ie. Sword art online.

And yes, some wish fulfillment stories could be considered to be good, like mushokou tensei, in my opinion since I read that thing when I was younger and was looking for some wish fulfillment works myself but I can say that I have grown out of it. But the demand, the Japanese market's demand, had pushed all these quick, inferior, works out, like ford mass produced the model T, and saturated the market and that is what people usually see. Thereby attaching that connotation that wish fulfillment is usually bad, which is usually true.

But then I guess I could summarize all this rambling to some simple (hopefully funny) short sentences. People flock to Wish fullfillment works to find the main reason they are there, to find some self insert wish fulfillment. If it happened to have a good story attached to it, then good, if not, then at least I get to have that hot bimbo follow me around that I don't get to fuck, or read about getting fucked.
They said the world is ending.
They are wrong. Its only changing.
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RE: wish fullfilment is good!

#5
I always consider wish fulfillment as a good thing in a story. In my experience, it is only the readers who have read a hundred or more stories and now can see the pattern in the stories who started to talk about wish fulfillment in such a derogatory term, and forgetting that it is the same reason why they were drawn to LitRPG, isekai and wuxia stories in the first place.

Come to think of it, most stories and not just in fantasy stories, whether they are in a romance, action, crime, sci-fi, or young adults are ALL, one way or another, a wish fulfillment story anyway.

People dream, and whether they pursue it or not, is all good to me.
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"Invincible"
"Gamer of the Dead"
And the newest  "Slam No Basuke"

RE: wish fullfilment is good!

#6
Wait, I thought 'wish fulfillment' meant stories which are written to fulfill personal(or market) greed and desire like desire to be love, respected, to punish jerks and be hero, to be OP and praised, have a dream harem of girls, elf girls, cat girls, dog girls, traps and stuff.

It is not just 'what I wish to write' or just to express ideas and dreams. I thought 'wish fulfillment' novels meant those that take power/sexual/etc fantasies way too far like writing wet dreams.