Before anyone says anything, I don't do requests. These are purely my ideas for you, so getting submissions to do ideas just kind of defeats the point.

That said, somebody asked me to do a deconstruction of the SI/OC protagonist genre in the RWBy fandom, and after nursing it in my head for a while, I can't just pass it up.

So, here we go.

SI/OC Deconstruction

(Inspired partly by Re:Zero)

Our OC protagonist, named Riley Harrison, is just walking around on Earth, when he is suddenly isekai'd to Remnant, given an extremely overpowered semblance, and shipped off to Beacon.

A standard start to every SI/OC story, right?

Except this is a deconstruction, so already, things are presented as severely wrong.

For one, Riley Harrison isn't a blank slate for the readers to project themselves onto. He's a character. An actual person.

And more over, he's a person with a deeply dark and troubled past.

Now, obviously, that's just standard for an OC protagonist, right?

Except the effects of Riley's past are presented realistically: He is deeply disturbed and traumatised by his past, has deep trust issues, is incredibly shy and timid, is incredibly self-loathing, has a fear of his own sexuality, and is prone to neglecting his own health in favour of others due to his own self-loathing. While he is a genuinely kind person who just wants to help others, this is presented as more self-destructive, as his refusal to be selfish and look after himself in favour of others is constantly taken advantage of by other people, leading to him having little to no confidence, and becoming an extreme doormat of a person.

What's more, his attitude to being isekai'd to Remnant is treated differently than any other isekai: Instead of just rolling with it, Riley is extremely scared and confused as to why he was taking, and is desperate to get back home, even if his life back there is terrible.

Furthermore, his OP semblance? It is extremely self-destructive, harming himself as much as his opponents, and while Riley would normally be fine with that, it is also extremely difficult to use, meaning that it is practically useless. And to top it all off, his lack of combat skills isn't treated as just a minor inconvenience: He is absolutely useless in a fight, and has to learn how to fight completely from scratch, having to work his way up to becoming somewhat of a competent fighter, which isn't immediate, meaning that he has to use his pure wits in order to come out of a fight alive, much less unscathed, something which he fortunately has at least some practice in.

And then, his admittance into Beacon? He never wanted to go there, and he ends up taking the role of Jaune as leader of Team JNPR, somehow, after having to be carried by Pyrrha through initiation. Common for SI/OC fanfics to replace Jaune with an OC, right?

Except here, Riley is saddened and depressed by it, thinking that Jaune deserves his place more than him, being a far more competent leader, and he confesses to JNPR that he has no idea why he's even in Beacon, much less made a leader of an entire team, something that he is clearly not good at at all.

Soon, the members of Team RWBY, sans for Weiss, begin to fall for Riley? A standard affair for SI/OC stories, for him to get a harem, correct?

Except here, it is presented as strange, unusual, and even unnatural. Riley has presented far few qualities to actually fall in love with at such a short period of time, so for these 3 girls to just suddenly fall for him is presented as not natural, and something that even Riley isn't a fan of, due to his deep seeded issues. Furthermore, their attitudes towards him are almost unsettling, and something that Riley is deeply disturbed by, though part of this can be chalked up to his own issues and lack of good mental health.

Eventually, Weiss confronts Riley about all of this, ranting to him about his failures, his lack of skill, and the utter lack of logic behind him being made leader, or why the rest of her team is fawning over him, and, to her sudden shock, he agrees wholeheartedly, as he is himself confused about all of this as well, and the 2 of them decide to team up to figure out what the hell is going on.

And then, Riley ends up encountering Jaune in Vale, and, still feeling guilty about what happened, he ends up befriending the boy, whilst also somehow encountering Penny, and becoming her first friend as well.

Soon, the 4 of them become a close group of friends, with Riley even developing a crush on Penny, though the robot girl doesn't reciprocate it.

However, eventually, Riley's backstory is revealed:

At a young age, when he was just a child, he was raped by someone that he once thought to be a friend, leaving him with a crippling fear of his own sexuality, as well as the source of his deep seeded trust issues.

And then, just a little bit later, his only friend, a young girl the same age as him, passed away, awarding him with equally deep seeded abandonment and attachment issues, mixed unstably with trust issues and fears of getting close to people.

All of this, plus years of bullying and being taken advantage of, have left him with an extremely fragile psyche, which he tries to make up for by helping out other people, as a way to not focus on his own issues, which is self-destructive, to say the least.

Riley isn't a generic SI/OC character. He's an actual character. What's more, he's an incredibly flawed character with a lot of issues that prevent him from evolving as a person.

At least, without the help of other people around him.

All of this cultivates in a long character arc, where, with the help of his new friends, Riley must learn to be a better and healthier person, whilst also learning how to control his incredibly unstable semblance, and how to be a Huntsman, all at the same time.

Eventually, our central heroes, Riley, Jaune, Weiss, and Penny, learn that the person that brought Riley into Remnant, was none other than his first friend, the girl who had passed away in his youth, her soul somehow travelling to Remnant, and now existing as a god like being, a ghost with reality warping powers, who had placed Riley in Remnant, and was warping the world around him, as well as the minds of the people there, into a sort of childish fantasy, so that he might find a better life there.

However, since she died as a child, she also still has the mentality of a child, and doesn't understand much of the world around her, or why just plucking him off of Earth and onto the equivalent of a death world wasn't a good idea.

Now, the plot changes, as our heroes must find out the mystery of how to communicate with this child like godly entity, and figure out how she even got to Remnant in the first place. All the while, Riley must juggle multiple problems at the same time:

How to stop the coming fall of Beacon.

How to protect his friends.

How to survive on this new world.

And more importantly...

How to get back home.

And there we are. A deconstructionist take on the SI/OC storyline, where the main character is an actual character! Not quite what you requested, but you're welcome anyways, random guest user!

Again, I would just like to stress that I don't do requests or submissions. If you guys want to use these ideas, then as always, hit me up with a PM, but please, don't treat this one off occurrence like it will be a regular thing, because it won't.

But, with all of that said, I'll be seeing you all next time.

Titanmaster117 out!