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noperopesaredope · 7 months

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My Voltron Self-Insert OC

Recently, I've been choosing to embrace my inner "cringe" and start creating/reviving my more self-indulgent and goofy fan OCs. Specifically, ones that I'd typically feel "embarrassed" for making. I haven't made too many self-insert OCs over the years, however, I have made one or two, and did have a special "can travel between worlds OC" (who turned into a psychosis-induced coping mechanism for depression). Recently, I remembered one of these self-insert OCs of mine, and decided to bring her back to life.

She holds such a special place in my heart, and I can't bring myself to hate her, especially since she was created during a time when I was still discovering a lot of myself. She is actually an early sign of my gender fluidity, as she has a very masculine name with a very feminine appearance and pronouns. But even then, she’ll fuck around with gender. It doesn't matter to her. She was how I first realized that maybe I’m not cis, and I love her for that.

Plus, I lowkey kinda like her as a character? She was just really fun for me to work with. She was also both very similar to me at the time and very different. For example, she used she/her pronouns, as I was still figuring out my pronouns and gender identity at the time, and I prefer making female characters.

Her personality and the way she presents herself is also very different from both how I was then and how I am now. She honestly seems like a completely different person from me, but I still think of her as a self-insert, because that was the intent at the time. She is pretty cringy in some areas and a little bit OP, but even at the time, I tried to tone her down a bit.

So, without further ado, here is my old Voltron self-insert (warning: this is gonna be long):

Daniel Nathaniel!!!

Daniel is the "Orange Paladin". She is a bit complicated in backstory and stuff, so get ready guys, because this is gonna get a bit wild. There were a lot of intentional "holes" in the backstory with a few twists here and there, so I decided to write what I remembered and fill in the blanks with what I thought would be cool and fit.

Plotline:

Daniel Nathaniel was introduced in Season 2 in an episode titled “The Orange Paladin”. It starts where Voltron is battling a fleet of Galra, and is beginning to get overwhelmed. They aren’t completely losing by any means, but in order to win, they just need a tiny bit of backup. Suddenly, out of nowhere, what appears to be another Voltron lion (but a bit smaller and orange) bursts in and starts assisting them. Everyone is shocked, but they continue fighting, and they win the battle. They then manage to contact the person piloting the strange new lion, and tell them to meet up with them on a nearby planet.

The person agrees, and when they all step outside and watch the new lion land, the entrance to the lion opens, and out steps Daniel. She introduces herself and says that she has a lot of explaining to do. They invite her inside the castle, and once they all sit down, Daniel begins telling her “backstory.”

She was once a cadet at the Garrison, and when she heard about the missing cadets, she decided to do some investigating. She ended up discovering the cave where the Blue Lion was originally hidden, and found a few clues related to Voltron. She managed to do some digging on the little bits and pieces of history that gave clues to what the lions even were. This led her to a different remote location where she discovered a secret "arch" type thing that turned out to be a portal to a different planet.

There, she stumbled across the “Orange Lion”, and was able to connect with it. Due to the link between lions and their paladins and the fact that the Orange Lion has more telepathic abilities, Daniel was able to learn more about what exactly Voltron was and what the deal was with the Orange Lion. Allegedly, the Orange Lion was not one of the original lions, but one that was made later as a sort of “power up.”

It didn’t need to be present to form Voltron, it would just be able to attach itself to it and give it extra strength. It was made much later than the others, as a new comet was found around the time Zarkon was beginning to act up. Altean scientists turned it into a small, extra “upgrade” lion that could attach to Voltron, a failsafe for backup due to the escalating conflict. Due to it being finished right near the end of the war, there was no time to find a paladin for it, and it was hidden even further away than the other lions.

Allura and Coran are confused, as they don’t remember any of this. Daniel says that her lion said that Haggar probably messed with everyone’s memories of the Orange Lion so that, in case they managed to get Voltron back together, nobody remembers to look for the Orange Lion. Allura and Coran vaguely recall the Orange Lion, but the memories feel fuzzy and off. However, they don’t question it much.

(Important sidenote: Daniel is lying)

Daniel becomes a member of the team and fights as backup in battle. She also becomes close to the others quite quickly. There are hints here and there of Daniel knowing more than she says, and being in on secrets that she shouldn’t know, but it is continuously brushed off. There are also a lot of holes in her story, especially when she talks about her life before Voltron. In general, there is something incredibly suspicious about her, but it’s just subtle enough for the characters not to question it. However, the show draws just enough attention to these inconsistencies for it to be clear that the viewer is supposed to notice that something is wrong here.

She is wary of Lotor and believes that he is lying, and she says that something feels off about Shiro during Seasons 3-6. There are generally a lot of moments where she appears to know more about people than she lets on.

When everyone learns that Shiro is a clone, they all clearly seem to feel betrayed and want the real Shiro back. But Daniel cautiously argues in favor of the clone, saying that he is currently being mind controlled, and that even if he was kinda being the worst, they still spent a while getting to know Clone Shiro.

For all they know, he himself might not know that he isn’t the real Shiro. Maybe he himself wasn’t real, but the memories were, and she “knows in her heart” that he wasn’t pretending. Every battle they fought together, every memory they made together, every moment of friendship, all of it was genuine. This speech is written to be emotional, but slightly suspicious, as though Daniel is hiding some things.

The other characters begin to suspect that something is up, and it seems like she is speaking for more than just Clone Shiro. They question her a bit, but eventually decide to just leave it be for now. Small side note about the Clone Shiro plotline: we at some point have a scene in the special realm (can’t remember what it’s called) where the souls of OG Shiro and Clone Shiro get to interact. OG Shiro reveals to Clone Shiro that he was a clone. Clone Shiro is clearly distraught by this, and starts having an existential crisis. He understands that OG deserves to come back, but Clone also doesn’t want to disappear.

OG realizes that despite not being the best, Clone still clearly cares about the team, and he is still his own person. OG ends up giving him an offer. They both want to be Shiro. And right now, their team wants OG back, but OG understands that Clone doesn’t deserve to be left behind or erased. So the best solution would be to merge their souls together and become one person. That way, they can both exist and have the best of both worlds. Clone is hesitant at first, but realizes the advantages to this, and he agrees.

They shake hands, and when Shiro wakes up, he reveals to the team that they (evenly, so it isn’t like there is a dominant personality) merged together into one, and he might be a bit different now, but he’s still Shiro. I believe that this allows everything to be mostly the same, but feels less cruel to Clone Shiro and is more sweet. I remember watching it for the first time and being upset by the whole thing, since Clone Shiro clearly wasn’t trying to betray anyone, and he still formed those bonds with the others. So I decided to fix it a bit by explaining it a little further.

Anyways, back to Daniel. During the latter half of the series, it is revealed that Daniel has been lying about everything this whole time. And when I say everything, I mean everything. I might make this occur during the Season 6 finale, soon after Clone Shiro is revealed, making it a bit of a double hit. Partway through the battle at the end of Season 6, during a big and important moment, Daniel is dramatically injured in front of everyone in the fighting.

An important thing to note here is that, despite fighting multiple harsh battles throughout the series, Daniel has never really gotten hurt before, even minor injuries. Things that have hurt the rest of the team don’t hurt her, or she is consistently the quickest to recover, with no notable damage. It’s almost unusual, and may actually be subtly pointed out at some point. It’s often played off as a coincidence, but astute viewers will notice that something is wrong here.

But when Daniel finally gets injured, it’s significant, as she straight up loses an ear, causing her to bleed in excess. It isn’t overly gorey, with her covering that area with her hand, and the injury isn’t focused on, but the blood is clearly there. But instead of red blood, she is bleeding green. She stands there in shock as the other characters present look at the ground to the detached ear, which has turned into what looks like a blue, bat-ear-shaped ear. Daniel looks at the ear, then the others as different areas of her body begin to shift and change into something different, but in a held back way. She is trying to hold it back.

Pidge (who is likely the one standing closest to her, asks “who are you?” Daniel quickly says that she is still Daniel, and that she isn’t a fake version. Pidge then says “well, you clearly aren’t who you pretend you are.” And finally, Daniel admits that the Orange Paladin never really existed, that it was all a lie, and almost everything they knew about her was made up. There is no Fake Daniel, because Daniel was always fake.

She then passes out due to blood loss, and they manage to patch her up while trying to figure out their next steps. When she eventually wakes up, Daniel decides to tell everyone the truth.

She is what’s known as a Mutivesstallus, a member of a species which was nearly wiped out by Zarkon and the Galra. Mutivessallum (the plural for Mutivesstallus) have two primary abilities: shapeshifting and extreme mind powers. They are able to read minds, peer into others’ memories, slightly alter existing memories (though this is harder, and once someone realizes that the memory was false, they will remember the original memory), and generally scan people’s psychies. They can often figure out more about a person than the person knows about themselves. Mutivessallum are often hyper-empathic and very understanding, and have the unfortunate flaw of constantly giving others the benefit of the doubt and being overly forgiving.

Mutivessallum’s shapeshifting is only limited to organic and living species, and they have a harder time shifting into beings that are larger than them. However, with time and practice, a Mutivessallus is able to shift into a large variety of things. Daniel, having lived for a long while (she’s still somewhat young for her species, but has existed for quite a while due to longer lifespans), is relatively experienced enough to shapeshift into something like a human, which is about her size. However, due to me not wanting her to get too OP, she has a harder time shifting into bigger creatures, or can only shift into a select few due to practicing shifting into specific ones with similar biology to her kind.

After many of the Mutivessallum were destroyed, Daniel (who’s real name is something else, but none of the other characters can pronounce it, so she says they can still call her Daniel) was left alone and vengeful. She wished to destroy Zarkon, but didn’t have the means to, and all she could do was wander space and travel to other planets. Then, word spread about Voltron, and Daniel became hopeful. She wanted to help them defeat Zarkon and maybe become a member of their team. For complicated reasons (even before this reveal, she is consistently shown to think in a very different way from everyone else and has an unusual line of logic), she decides to go and find a legendary wish-granting being who is able to create most anything in the universe. Due to already being close to said being, she asks them to help her make a Voltron lion of her own so she can join Voltron and help them.

The being thinks that this is a bad idea, but Daniel manages to convince them to do it, and together, they design something extremely close to a lion that can be semi-compatible with Voltron. The being then grants her wish, and Daniel's beloved ship is transformed into this thing. Daniel believes that the team won’t accept her if she is her real self, so she decides to make a person for herself that will “make them more comfortable around me.” She does some research on humans, and gives herself a unique human form with a false identity. “They will trust another human like them than a random creature like me.”

Upon meeting the team and them beginning to ask questions, Daniel begins to panic, and worries that they will kick her out if they learn the truth about her and her lion. So she lies. She later works on constructing a more stable and well thought out backstory for herself, and using her powers, she manages to trick everyone into believing her story.

Everyone feels extremely betrayed and conflicted, because she has been a legitimately great friend to them, and she seems legitimately sorry. She’s also done a lot of stuff that has gained their trust, and proven that she genuinely wants to be a part of the team. She cares about them and thinks of them as a second family to her, and she fully believes in their cause. The problem is that she lied to them for a long while, and basically gaslit them. They decide not to kick her out, but they do let her know that she’ll need to earn their trust back, and stop lying. From then on, Daniel mostly remains in her true form, and she changes her lion to be its own thing.

This is good, because the Orange Lion was previously slightly messing up the balance between the lions, and it was already basically its own thing. Daniel begins to let her true self show and separates herself from her human persona. But everyone soon realizes that her persona and her true self weren’t completely separate. Yes, her identity was fake, but her personality was not. Some of her human-specific interests were things she used to seem more human, but once she tried them, she genuinely enjoyed them, and even continued to engage in the same hobbies as she did when she was pretending to be human.

Even elements of her fictional life on Earth are not that different from her real life. She had a younger sibling, and most of the stories she told about her friends and family are slightly true, just altered to fit with Earth customs.

About 5 or so episodes into Season 7, a few of the others catch her hanging out in her human form, and she admits that she feels comfortable in it, and that every form she creates for herself feels like one of her “true forms”. Her human form isn’t just a persona, and she confesses that she feels like her real self in both forms. They all agree that she can still go into her human form, she just shouldn’t pretend that she was born a human, and that this is merely one of her alternate forms.

So for the rest of the series, Daniel switches back and forth between forms, and even shifts into other forms that she has taken on in the past. She also is more open about using her powers, letting the others know when she has sensed something with her powers or found out something. She later admits that she feels incredibly free being every version of herself and not hiding anything.

Gradually, the others forgive her, and begin to trust her again, especially since she doesn’t use her powers on them. She still senses their emotions and can subtly read what is generally on their mind, but that is because she can’t turn off that part of her powers. They understand this, and she rarely does anything with any knowledge she has on them. Even though her role in the team has somewhat changed, everyone still feels like she is a part of the team, she is just more similar to Coran or Season 1-2 Allura now.

So, that’s most of what I have for Daniel’s storyline in the series! This post is getting pretty long, so I will soon make a part 2 explaining her personality (which is probably more important than her storyline, but whatever) and her relationships with the other characters. But for now, I hope you liked her.

When I first created Daniel in middle school, I realized that there were lots of holes in her backstory, to the point that I even made it so that the others were suspicious of her. It just didn’t make much sense for there to be another lion, and I always wanted her to pick up on more than she should. I early on had given her mind powers that allowed her to know more than she should, but even then that felt out of place. Slightly later on, but still during middle school, I wanted her to secretly be an alien, but it just added a few more holes. Why wasn’t anyone questioning it?

Then, recently, while coming back to her, I thought, “what if all her odd character traits were the point? What if she was a character who was able to slightly manipulate the world around her so that she could be important to the story? What if she was a slightly meta commentary on how self-inserts will manipulate the entire story and lore in order to make the author feel like they can belong in this fictional world?” I thought that could be pretty fun, so I ran with it. Daniel is not supposed to fit. Her backstory is supposed to not make sense. She is not supposed to be there. That is the point.

However, she doesn’t do all this out of malice. She does it because she wants somewhere to belong. She wants to belong to a specific group of people, she wants to fit in with them and join them on adventures and be cool like them. But she can’t find a way to do that, so she twists the world around her in order to fit into the narrative. I try to be careful about how I present her morality, and how she isn’t a bad person, but she has done something bad by manipulating and lying. It does take some work for the team to forgive her, but they do learn to forgive her, because she changes and grows. And even if her story was fake, the bonds were real. Her personality is real. Even her fake identity has some genuineness to it.

I really loved working on her, especially the meta aspect of her story, and I enjoy writing about her and her interactions with the team. She is a sweetheart who is flawed and messy, and even though she can be a bit of a Mary Sue, I don’t really care. Plus, that is the idea. She is supposed to be a Mary Sue on a narrative level, and even then, she breaks some of the conventions because her actions have consequences and she fails frequently.

So she is generally a fun character to me, and I hope other people think she’s interesting. But at the end of the day, she was born a self-indulgent self insert, and I don’t really care if people think she is cringy. I enjoyed writing about her, and I hope to make more art of her, since she was really fun to draw. I hope some of ya’ll are willing to hear more about her. Stay tuned if you’re curious!

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