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What?! TV Tropes is dangerous enough as it is normally, but on one of my accidental age-long depth first searches, I stumbled onto the Purity Sue page - which, for anyone blissfully unaware of fanfiction terminology like I was until recently, is a collection of irritatingly unbelievable flawless and innocent characters. And it was this entry that caught several of my eyes.
She... what?! (I can't convey my reactions to this in text. Imagine Bernard Black doing his taxes and you'll just about have the idea.) All right. People write self-insertion fanfiction about Thomas the Tank Engine. Let's assume for the moment that I can cope with that. No, forget that - I can't. What? You can't just drop that into a topic and expect people to continue to function. There's... she... Oliver and Douglas! Guardian of the... and you apply shapeshifting, reincarnation and Final Fantasy angel wings into your flying, plasma-firing steam train? To Thomas the Tank Engine. This is it - I'd survived the Internet until now, I'd observed and navigated through all of its horrors, no doubt accidentally started a couple of them myself, had the innocence of everything I grew up with thoroughly shattered, and finally the beast has found the key to destroying my mind.
Update: AAAAAAH
Thomas The Tank Engine example: Fan character Iolite, who was a human (named Elizabeth Truit, after her creator), died an untimely death and was reincarnated because of it, and was assigned the job of "Guardian of the Island of Sodor". She can switch between human and engine forms, has angel wings in both, can fly, has romantic affairs with Oliver and Douglas, and has powers beyond those possessed by Lady (the Island's canon guardian angel).
She... what?! (I can't convey my reactions to this in text. Imagine Bernard Black doing his taxes and you'll just about have the idea.) All right. People write self-insertion fanfiction about Thomas the Tank Engine. Let's assume for the moment that I can cope with that. No, forget that - I can't. What? You can't just drop that into a topic and expect people to continue to function. There's... she... Oliver and Douglas! Guardian of the... and you apply shapeshifting, reincarnation and Final Fantasy angel wings into your flying, plasma-firing steam train? To Thomas the Tank Engine. This is it - I'd survived the Internet until now, I'd observed and navigated through all of its horrors, no doubt accidentally started a couple of them myself, had the innocence of everything I grew up with thoroughly shattered, and finally the beast has found the key to destroying my mind.
Update: AAAAAAH
