I have a lot of people ask me if James is supposed to be an author insertion of myself, and to that I say “kind of”. When I first came up with “Oh Goodie!” the cast was based off all my friends when I was seventeen, so James is kind of me permanently frozen at seventeen. The thing is all the characters took on a life of their own to the point I view them as completely separate entities from the people they were based on, James included. So while a lot of myself, my views, and the things that happen to me inform the story and what happens to him, I consider him and myself separate and I’ve been trying to make that separation more distinct recently.
I suppose in some ways he could be considered a Mary Sue, but remember a Mary Sue is supposed to be an uber-idealized insertion of the author where everybody loves them and everything goes their way. James is, frankly, a neurotic little bitch (like his creator) and I actively try to make things go bad for him because, again frankly, it’s funnier. No laughs ever came from somebody succeeding.
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