History Main / AuthorAppeal

* [[WordOfGod By his own admission]], the author of the [[FanFic/UltimateSleepwalker Earth]] - [[FanFic/UltimateSpiderWoman 2706]] verse is very attracted to women who wear Converse high-top sneakers or do tap and ballet dancing, and has worked these traits into both the girlfriend of the male protagonist of one of the series and the female protagonist of the other. One of the major hallmarks of the series is also drastically subverting the traditional pecking order of the MarvelUniverse by relegating A-lists like {{Wolverine}} to guest star status while elevating obscure (and in some cases ''very'' obscure) CListFodder villains to become deadly threats, and in some cases the [[ArchEnemy Arch Enemies]] and {{Big Bad}}s of the series.

* The creator of ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'' and other series likes to end these UnwantedHarem shows by having the male lead get together with every single member of the harem. It's not for nothing that this outcome used to be labeled the Tenchi Solution.

* Creator/RolandEmmerich ''loves'' demolishing cities/famous landmarks. He also seems to really enjoy destroying the White House, having done so three times in his career (possibly four times, depending on how WhiteHouseDown plays out).

** D'Argo attends his son's circumcision for some odd reason.

* ShirowMasamune appears to have an amputee fetish judging from the number of times his heroines lose an arm. He even makes them cyborgs, so he can dismember them repeatedly!

* TheFarSide creator GaryLarson obviously had a thing for obesity and [[BeehiveHairdo]]s

* Heinrich Kramer, the guy responsible for the infamous ''Literature/MalleusMaleficarum'', was so obsessed with demon rape that he got tossed from every monastery he got sent to after he drove the monks up the wall by talking nonstop about it.

* Tetsuya Takahashi, head of Monolith Soft. Just seems to love a good JigsawPuzzlePlot with a passion. Wanna a proof? He's the creator of ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', the ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' trilogy and ''[[VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}} Xenoblade Chronicles]]''. Arguably the three most convoluted plots in the entire [[EasternRPG J-RPG]] genre. [[SoCoolItsAwesome And nobody makes them as good as him!]]

* In the SailorMoon fanfic Fanfic/ANewOrder [[GenkiGirl Usagi]] is a fan of NeonGenesisEvangelion. There's also a more meta example: Sailor Uranus is the author's least favorite character and, despite her being a powerful fighter, her first fight ends with her near death while the other senshi are relatively unharmed.

* If it's a JonathanHickman comic, it WILL have charts in it. ''Comicbook/FantasticFour'', ''Comicbook/TheAvengers'' and ''TheNightlyNews'' all have them, and {{SHIELD}} takes it to the next level.

* Creator/BrianMichaelBendis was a huge fan of {{Luke Cage|HeroForHire}} and [[ImmortalIronFist Iron Fist]] while growing up, and brought both characters into greater prominence by making them core members of the popular ''[[Comicbook/TheAvengers Avengers]]'' franchise. Ditto for Comicbook/{{Spider-Woman}}, [[Characters/{{X-Men80sMembers}} Kitty Pryde]], and his own creation, Comicbook/JessicaJones, who frequently appear in his stories.

* James Robinson is positively obsessed with the GoldenAge of comic books, and details his love of the era in the text pieces included in ''CryForJustice''. He also absolutely loves [[LegacyCharacter Legacy heroes]], and this can be seen in his runs on ''[[JusticeSocietyOfAmerica JSA]]'', ''Comicbook/{{Starman}}'' and ''Comicbook/{{Earth 2}}''.

** His ''CouncilWars'' series plays it more realistically with its very-similar MarySue protagonist, Herzer, but the appeal is still there.

** In ALL his series you will eventually encounter his musical tastes; Crüxshadows, Evanescence and The March of Cambreadth put in the most consistent appearances.

AuthorAppeal is perhaps the single leading cause of MarySue characters and MegaCrossover settings. Beyond just being written from the ground up to appeal to the author's baser interests, most writers can't help but to then derail the storyline and other characters to facilitate the character; that's the line where AuthorAppeal gets out of hand.

Interestingly, with ''careful'' handling AuthorAppeal can still remain subtext which may not be detected until much later. On the flipside, an audience who enjoys a work specifically ''because'' of AuthorAppeal can be [[{{Fanservice}} easy to produce work for]], if the rarity of such works sufficiently balances out any faults with the work itself. Sometimes AuthorAppeal nets you not only people with similar interests, but people on the receiving end of those interests who may be flattered to be an object of an author's/fandom's affection.

If a writer's early work contains obvious AuthorAppeal, and their later work doesn't, this may overlap with OldShame.

See also WriteWhatYouKnow, which can be similar to and overlap with AuthorAppeal, but is when the author writes about something because they know about it rather than any particular personal attraction.

* Alex Ahad, the creator of ''{{Skullgirls}}'', draws a ''lot'' of curvy women.

* MichaelCrichton may have a...fixation with people using the bathroom, especially women. It generally doesn't derail the plot or get heavily detailed, and often it comes up to add verisimilitude to crazy situations, but it tends to come up at least once a book... often two or three.

* RolandEmmerich ''loves'' demolishing cities/famous landmarks. He also seems to really enjoy destroying the White House, having done so three times in his career (possibly four times, depending on how WhiteHouseDown plays out).

** The brigade of women who do nothing but wear leather fetish gear and torture men is also a big chunk of AuthorAppeal here.

* Creator/LloydKaufman of Troma (''Film/TheToxicAvenger'') Entertainment likes his {{Gorn}}, girls and especially in combination. He's not alone, as he finds many actresses and models who love appearing blood-splattered and faux-mangled. Promoting this as a defining quality of Troma blurs the line between AuthorAppeal and PlayingToTheFetishes.

* Yukito Kishiro of {{Gunnm}} fame just loves to destroy the human brain. [[{{Gorn}} Dramatically.]] He allso likes to tear his hapless main character to pieces over and over again. Kishiro is a self admitted pervert.

** A remarkable number of his novels include father-son relationships of some sort. Besides the literal (and most obviously dysfunctional) ones in [[APerfectSpy A Perfect Spy]] and ''Single & Single'', [[ParentalSubstitute substitute father]]s appear, to one extent or another, in ''The Looking Glass War'', [[TheQuestForKarla Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy]], [[TheQuestForKarla The Honourable Schoolboy]], [[TheSecretPilgrim The Secret Pilgrim]] and ''The Night Manager''.

** More than either though he seems to love 80s PopCulture; in a given episode of FamilyGuy, AmericanDad or TheClevelandShow you can always count on at least one reference to 80s music, cartoons or movies.
* In the same way GregRucka and ChrisClaremont have a thing for [[ActionGirl strong women heroes]], {{Dwayne McDuffie}} loved working with well-developed non-white superheroes. Aside from his work on the ''StaticShock'' animated series, he helped make the John Stewart Comicbook/GreenLantern into a more prominent character in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', and while running MilestoneComics, he introduced a number diverse characters such as Comicbook/{{Hardware}}, {{Icon}} and Blitzen (a Japanese lesbian). He was a major proponent of more diversity in superhero comics, as well as film and television, and this is quite evident in his work.

* GrantMorrison loves taking ideas from the [[GoldenAge Golden]] and [[SilverAge Silver Ages]] of comics [[ReimaginingTheArtifact and reappropriating them for a modern context]]. His [[GrantMorrisonsBatman Batman]] run is filled with nods to the campier, sillier Batman stories of the 50's, often considered a DorkAge by many fans and writers, and his ''AllStarSuperman'' series had many of these same elements.
** Despite his regard for comics of the 50's and 60's, he's mentioned that he likes trying to inject more diversity into the DCUniverse. His ''SevenSoldiers'' series introduced the new, [[AffirmativeActionLegacy black]] Golden Guardian, while ''FinalCrisis'' introduced the Super Young Team and Big Science Action, two teams of heroes from Japan. ''Batman Inc.'' also introduced Mr. Unknown, the Batman of Japan, and Batwing, the Batman of Congo.
** He also really, really, REALLY likes using elements created by JackKirby, especially his [[NewGods Fourth World]] opus.

** He also has an admitted fascination with loneliness; all of his works have it as a major theme, and most end with some form of permanent separation and/or DidNotGetTheGirl (except for [[spoiler:''ThePlacePromisedInOurEarlyDays'' and, in the implied epilogue, ''VoicesOfADistantStar'']]).

** All the oral sex references (cunnilingus, specifically) are AuthorAppeal as well. His podcast and live Q&A's discuss this at length.

* {{Suda 51}} ''really'' loves [[MaskedLuchador Luchadors.]]

** The series creator, ZUN, isn't a very good artist, and his male characters are all either non-humanoid or don't appear in the games themselves; on his part, Gensokyo's unbalanced population might be less rooted in AuthorAppeal than the limits of his abilities. More directly, though, he's notorious to the point of MemeticMutation for his love of alcohol, which might explain why every Touhou character seems willing to drink at the drop of a hat, even though the human ones sure don't look of age. There's even one who has ''never been seen sober''.

** [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Multibillion-dollar corporations run by morally-bankrupt blowhards]] ([[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 Mann Co.]], [[VideoGame/{{Portal}} Aperture Science]], [[{{VideoGame/Half-Life}} Black Mesa]])
** Prerecorded voices ranting at the protagonist(s) via loudspeaker ([[VideoGame/{{Half-Life2}} Dr. Breen]], [[VideoGame/{{Portal}} GLaDOS, Cave Johnson]], [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 The Administrator]])
** {{Fake Russian}}s ([[VideoGame/{{Half-Life2}} Father Grigori]], [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 The Heavy]])

** Deserts (maps like [[VideoGame/{{Counter-Strike}} de_dust and de_dust2]], [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 ctf_2fort, pl_goldrush, and cp_dustbowl]], and [[VideoGame/{{Half-Life|1}} New Mexico]])

** In his new show, ''WebVideo/DemoReel'', BadassAdorable {{Ditz}} Rebecca Stone seems to coincidentally have a gun in her hands for every episode.

** Possibly an Inversion, as Emp and the other characters began as commissioned porn. Warren decided to write them into actual characters and so effectively, the ''plot'' is the AuthorAppeal.

* Tennessee Williams, mid-1900s gay playwright and author of ''Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire'' had a thing for writing passionate, gorgeous {{Bishonen}} leading men in their mid to late twenties, and, if possible, naked from the waist up (he included a bedroom in a suspiciously high number of his plays where it was very convenient for them to be half-naked). He would write a half-page paragraph describing everything from how they moved to what they were dressed in, while giving the women about one sentence description (i.e. the bare minimum, usually with more description on the clothes than the person in them). When you have lines like, ''"His body shows no sign of decline, yet it's the kind of a body that white silk pyjamas are, or ought, to be made for"'', it's a little hard to avoid. Still, he wrote amazing plays and integrated his own AuthorAppeal into them so well that it not only became justifiable but essential to the play (and hence achieving the goal of all fiction writers since the beginning of time).

** Matt Stover seems to enjoy deconstructing the fandom, judging by his ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' novelization and ''LukeSkywalkerAndTheShadowsOfMindor''.

* Anyone who has seen a few JCStaff show can tell their artists [[AuthorAppeal really, really, really like big breasts]] and nothing else. In the best case of LaserGuidedKarma...er, MisaimedFandom ever, [[LightNovel/ShakuganNoShana every]] [[Anime/ToAruMajutsuNoIndex single]] [[LightNovel/ZeroNoTsukaima one]] [[LightNovel/{{Toradora}} of]] [[LightNovel/HidanNoAria their]] [[Manga/YumekuiMerry most]] [[Manga/HayateTheCombatButler popular]] [[Anime/TanteiOperaMilkyHolmes anime]] [[LightNovel/OokamiSan series]] [[LightNovel/KamisamaNoMemoChou nowadays]] has a flat chested girl as its most popular girl. ALL OF THEM.
* ''Webcomic/DrawYourOwnStory'' bases its insane plot upon, among other things, an insane mish-mash of a thousand works with little or no explanation as to why are they all here together. Let's quote from the work page: ''{{VideoGame/Starcraft}}'', ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'', ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', Franchise/{{Cthulhu|Mythos}}, ''Franchise/StarWars'', ''{{Literature/Dune}}'', ''Webcomic/OzyAndMillie'', ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'', ''{{VideoGame/Half-Life}}'', ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'', ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'', ''{{VideoGame/Metroid}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'', ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'', ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'', ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'', ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'', and more.

* ''Fanfic/ShinjiAndWarhammer40K'' has one AuthorAppeal element, but it's right there in the title, and used with style.

* Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'s episode ''[[http://oglaf.com/fairest/ Fairest]]'' ([[NotSafeForWork NSFW]]) well illustrates the nature of AuthorAppeal.

* This is the very reason for "Linkin Park Z" (i.e., ''Manga/DragonBall (Z)'' music videos set to Music/LinkinPark songs), despite the fact that most Linkin Park songs are relatively dark and brooding and have little to do with the more cheerful and combat-oriented Dragon Ball sagas.

*** [[http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/A_Game_of_Thrones-Chapter_6 The first sex scene]] in his magnum opus ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' is between an [[HappilyMarried in-love married couple]], in the missionary position, for the purpose of procreation.

* The founder of Dozerfleet Productions frequently includes a WaifFu-ready, AmbiguouslyBrown woman, almost always skinny and with A-1/2 to B breast size, tiny rear end, brown eyes, and silky black hair, as a protagonist somewhere in every story. These women often are from families that have been wiped out or nearly wiped out by a sadistic EvilOverlord who wants to [[OffWithHisHead collect the girl's head for a trophy]], usually with plans to execute her Anne Boleyn style. While they often witness horrific violence committed against their loved ones, they seldom hesitate to throw themselves at a protective white male who becomes their central love interest. This male will usually be very insecure, a [[BigBrotherInstinct big brother figure]], and have black or brown hair. The plight of his family will usually be less severe; but will be bad enough to make him feel like he has failed them somehow and needs to make amends for not successfully preventing tragedy. The girl in her relationship with said man will often feel very ambivalent, wanting eagerly to express her love by sleeping with the man but being uncomfortable about expressing her sexuality too freely. The man will usually react by being the ChivalrousPervert.
** Human characters that fit this include Olive Kitty (''Mechanical Conflict'',) Vaneesa Abiyoti (''StationeryVoyagers: Final Hope'',) and all three of the Flippo triplets from the Webcomic/CiemWebcomicSeries. Stationeries are all over the map with this when their human forms are presented; but the most glaringly obvious examples are Neone Delft and Verdegal.
** In RealLife, the author admits to having a thing for Filipinas.