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A kind of Fanservice where the presence of a particular gimmick or kink is so widespread and prominent that it is interpreted as a specific reason the creator actually produced the work. Often, this can overlap with a certain philosophy the author espouses. Deliberately satirical or political stories often invoke associated Take That! moments.

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

Interestingly, with careful handling, Author Appeal can still remain subtext which may not be detected until much later. On the flipside, an audience who enjoys a work specifically because of Author Appeal can be easy to produce work for, if the rarity of such works sufficiently balances out any faults with the work itself. Sometimes Author Appeal 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.

Compare Fanservice, Author Tract, Writer on Board, and Filibuster Freefall. Creator's Favorite may also be relevant when specific characters, not kinks or gimmicks, keep reappearing. Inversion of Author Phobia, in which the creator uses their personal dread in a work. Contrast Playing to the Fetishes (the former name for Fanservice) when it seems like the author is acting out a personal fetish but is in fact just playing to a niche demographic. Very common in Fanfiction.

Creator Thumbprints are often this.

See also Write What You Know, which can be similar to and overlap with Author Appeal, but is when the author writes about something because they know about it rather than any particular personal attraction.


Example subpages (by creator's name):

Other examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anonymous/Unattributed/Collaborative Works, Episodes, Miscellaneous 
  • Bethesda:
  • Several doujin artists and fan artists have a fetish for muscling up their girls (whether original or not) and then having them show off their physique and/or Herculean-feats of might. note  A common secondary effect that the females are blessed with figures that would make Jessica Rabbit blush: gorgeous faces, outrageously large busts, killer legs, wide hips, shapely rears, the whole package. That's not even all of it, as other possible kinks like Cute Monster Girls and futanari are sometimes thrown into the mix.
  • Property Of Gwen and Lowroad 75 both fit in, as series where the main premise is the size of the main characters' breasts. Lowroad 75 is Fanservice to the extreme. The Lowroad artist has admitted, on his Deviantart account, that Lowroad was just an excuse to pander to his fans and/or himself. He's now working on a new comic, which isn't much different, but the main character is at least more realistically proportioned...
  • Supernatural seems to have a thing for equal-opportunity submission. Almost half of the Season Two promos had the pretty-boy leads in hooker poses, at least three quarters of episodes (so far) have had bondage or wall-pinnage of some description, Sam and Dean's powerplay in Hunted, anything involving mind control (whether it was making the girl undress in Simon Said or forcing Ellen to put the gun to her head in All Hell Breaks Loose), Gordon going after Dean in Fresh Blood, Meg-In-Sam's near-rape of Jo in Born Under A Bad Sign and the monsters' treatment of the female victims in both Skin and No Exit.
    • The fact that one of the writers (now the showrunner), Sera Gamble, was known for her erotic short stories before the show might have an influence. At least, this would explain the episode "Heart" she penned in which some very animalistic sex takes place.
    • Overindulging in Author Appeal at the show's expense is believed to be the reason behind Sera Gamble's departure after season 7. Since she's a Sam fan, when she took over as showrunner the amount of episodes featuring Sam hurt, tied up, or otherwise suffering rose exponentially, even basing two major Story Arcs around it. She also wrote out Castiel in a very mean-spirited way so that Dean could go back to being all about Sam. Unfortunately what appeals to the author does not necessarily appeal to the fans, and season 7 brought a huge drop in viewership the show has never fully recovered from.
    • Incest Subtext is also a major element. At first it was just something accidental, but when the writers picked up on what the fandom was doing, they started inserting it into the show, with a few Fandom Nods here and there. Canonically, the brothers are both straight, but tolerant/accepting of homosexuality. They even had Dean, in a very meta moment, throw in his two cents on the Wincest idea: "You mean, together together? That's sick."
  • Dreamworks movies, aside from the earliest ones, seem to have a strange fixation on Interspecies Romance, as it keeps popping up to varying degrees in their movies over and over. Especially in forms that really shouldn't be possible, or practical. In fact, it's rare to find a Dreamworks movie with a romance where the characters involved are the same species.
  • Farscape's writers have a penchant for BDSM.
    • Forget the leather and bondage, that's pedestrian. Worry about the muppets.
    • D'Argo attends his son's circumcision for some odd reason. Not to mention keeping the scalpel he used on himself for the purpose, leaving Rygel reaching for the brainbleach after he's forced to use it disabling a bomb.
  • The Whateley Universe, non-stop. Every member of Team Kimba is gender-bent in varying ways. Everyone living in Poe Cottage (the secretly LGBTQ-exclusive dorm) have admitted on their Whateley Academy entrance forms that they're LGBTQ, which is why they are assigned there. Even a lot of the non-Poe Cottage major characters are LGBTQ. And most of the other fetishes mentioned on this page show up there too. Hilariously, most people linking to the comic don't mention the fetish aspect, presumably assuming it might be mistaken for porn, meaning that readers tend to run headlong into issues you don't normally find in superhero-related works. Not that they necessarily complain. Judging from the website, LGBT is the (expressly stated) whole point of the Whateley Universe. While it should be noted on this page for the sake of completeness, for anyone who's even aware of what the Whateley Universe is it's rather like noting that many Transformers stories involve robots.
  • Sailor Nothing involves a young woman with unrequited feelings for a close female heterosexual friend of hers, who is unaware of said feelings. This also pops up in the same author's anachronauts, along with one character getting weak in the knees and a sudden desire to take up smoking again after watching a naked elf slaughter her way through a few dozen zombies and smilenote  (It Makes Sense in Context). Seems Mr. Gagne has a thing for Les Yay.
  • Totally Spies! is infamous for putting its heroines in situations that appeal to one or more of a variety of sexual fetishes (e.g. bondage, Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever, Incredible Shrinking Man, Animorphism, and many more) in virtually every episode, despite being aimed at a primary audience of teenage girls. Admittedly, these are usually just more fantastic versions of James Bondage. They are spies, after all. Good luck finding a fictional situation that doesn't have a corresponding fetish.
  • An episode of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures revolved around going back in time to meet the Venus de Milo (she of the armless statue). The real Venus de Milo had bodybuilder-level muscular arms. She spent a lot of time flexing, with closeups, and performing various feats of strength.
  • Shadownova features action girls with the Most Common Superpower constantly and the majority of the males are at least slightly Pretty Boy and are also fairly badass. Also almost everyone wears a long jacket or coat at some point. EVERYONE. Most of the cast are also in their late teens but that may have more to do with the author's own age than any kind of fetish. Iris also gets injured a lot and is extremely angsty and emotionally vulnerable most of the time.
  • Tales of MU, even for a story containing a lot of sex, mentions cannibalism and voraphilia noticeably often. Let's see: There's a whole eating establishment that slaughters human slaves for food, the dragon vice-chancellor of the university really likes his secretaries, mermaids enjoy shipwrecked sailors, ogres eat everyone including other ogres, and that's not even counting the main character. Oh, and her lover's greatest fantasy is to be eaten.
  • The author/artist of Silent Hill: Promise seems to spend a lot of time and care on the protagonist's chest and butt.
  • Hard to say if it's an appeal of the author or just part of the series' weirdness, but Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei invokes men being dominated by women on a fairly frequent basis, with the woman in question often being Chie-sensei. For instance, one episode/manga chapter shows a line of men wanting to be insulted and demeaned by her; a Running Gag in the series is Itoshiki-sensei cutting his own class, and one manga panel shows Chie leading him by a chain connected to a dog collar.
  • It would seem that Everyone Is Bi in the CLAMP universe. It's especially noticeable in Cardcaptor Sakura, in which everyone seems to have at least one crush of each sex (except for Tomoyo, who only has eyes for her Sakura-chan).
  • Blur the Lines is written by a gay man who is an admitted chubby chaser. The majority of the male characters are overweight and the vast majority are homosexual. The author has admitted on multiple occasions in the blog posts that accompany his comic strips that he does get a thrill out of what he draws.
  • Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki: Another transgender transformation, though from a much more shoujo point of view. Oddly enough, it still manages to be an enjoyable comic, even if you're not into that sort of thing.
  • The creator of Tenchi Muyo! and other series likes to end these Unwanted Harem 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.
  • What is true for Nippon Ichi also applies to Touhou Project. Although that might be due to the creator's inability to draw non-loli characters rather than this trope. The other big Author Appeal of ZUN is alcohol (obviously), going so far that he made a game that is solely about alcohol-themed Bullet Hell. Though the artwork ingame IS getting better — this gets particularly noticeable in UFO: even before you even get onto the new characters in that game, clever use of shading shows visible breasts, specifically for Sanae. The fact it's a frontal view probably helps. And indeed, when other people do the artwork (for example, the fighting games), the sudden breasts on some of the characters can be jarring. Just look at Sakuya in EoSD, PCB, IN or PoFV. Then look at her IaMP/SWR art. you'll see why a meme arose from it.
  • Real Drive, a Slice of Life style Sci-Fi anime that is most famous among fans for its plump lead characters. The rather refreshing Word of God states it's just an attempt to depict how Japanese people actually look. Fans don't see this as dodging around the fact every woman and only women look this way; the most popular character is actually the chubbiest.
  • Scrubs:
    • The series has a lot of spanking going on. JD spanking Turk. Turk spanking JD. Turk spanking Elliot. Elliot spanking JD. Neena spanking JD so hard, and for so long, that he can't sit down. Various characters spanking themselves. You name it.
    • Sexual choking is mentioned several times throughout the series.
      It's guy love between two guys...
  • Right from the get go Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro had some BDSM undertones, but being a shounen manga it never really got overtly sexual and there was enough ambiguity to make it questionable whether it was actually meant that way or not. Then along came the villainous New Bloodline, and with it... Mistress Genuine.
  • Peter Is the Wolf. Where do we begin? Lycanthropes? Check. Big-Breasted-Bimbos? Check. Female nudity? Check. Breast expansion upon transformation? Check. Big-Breasted-Bimbos? Check. Disproportionately-large endowments? Check. Big-Breasted Bimbos? Check.
  • The Changing Workplace: Mostly animal transformation, with a touch of transgender for humorous purposes and with plenty of Lampshade Hanging.
  • Someone on the design team for the N64/PlayStation generation videogame WWF Attitude was a fan of the Murderous Thighs trope. All three women (Sable, Chyna, and Jacqueline) used the headscissor, even though none of the three used it outside the game. Also, it could be used as a finishing move in the game when outside it it's generally a resthold. And two of the pre-made create-a-wrestler dialogue sets, "Legs" and "Thunder Thighs", were specifically about this trope.
  • Sabrina Online illustrates the difference between "Funny Animal comic" and "Furry comic".
    • The author's desire to have his graphic designer lead use an Amiga computer, just like him. To put this in perspective, Linux would be more appropriate.
    • Zig Zag, the white-tiger skunk porn star of all people, hangs the biggest lampshade on why such an Amiga fascination would be nothing less than a form of masochism.
    • Eventually a later comic does admit Sabrina had been using Linux and sometimes even Microsoft machines most of the time at work since even in Webcomic Time Technology Marches On, and that her Amiga had been long relegated for home use only. Eventually even the Amgia is put in storage with a small compact Raspberry Pi emulator taking its place.
  • MegaTokyo:
    • The the author's obsession with emotionally fragile young women, which happen to make up half of the cast. The author himself has all but admitted this, making joking comments that it's practically the contents of his soul detailed on paper. The series also shows his Kanon-influenced obsession with Snow Means Love, despite being set during fall; it appears that his next work, however, is going to completely focus on it.
    • Almost every female character just happens to wear a choker at some point. Also, the character Piro has a female online avatar.
  • The Wotch: Transformation, transgender, age changes, and the occasional statue-ifying. While notorious for such, there are also signs of anatomy fixation: Jason's love of redheads is just his "thing," but when you consider just how many redheads the series has, you've gotta wonder if it's really the writers' thing. The overwhelming majority of girls who didn't begin the series as boys are redheads.
  • MSF High: Yet another webcomic, yet more transformation and transgender. The DeviantArt account of His girlfriend, who is also the comic's artist, provides even more evidence.
  • Family Guy has a lot of incest between the Griffin family members. Peter/Meg, Meg/Chris, Chris/Stewie (which is also father/son since they were in the guise of Luke/Vader at the time), Lois/Chris, Lois/Meg, and presumably Peter/Stewie since Stewie has his Oedipal conflict reversed.
  • Star Wars Legends' collective fetish is... Luke Skywalker! Seriously, in every new installment, he gets a new girlfriend, until he marries Mara. After Mara gets a bridge dropped on her, he picks up an aeons-old yandere. His descendants seem to be getting a lot of play. Ben is a young 14, and a Sith girl sticks her hand in his pants; two years later, another Sith girl wants to breed a Master Race with him. And then there's Cade... As for individual EU authors:
    • Aaron Allston likes the Ho Yay. He even has it between Luke and Ben at one point.
    • Christie Golden, in her Fate of the Jedi books, really likes to write about how beautiful everything related to the Lost Tribe is, and she's the one who seems like they're itching to have Ben and Vestara create a Master Race, as stated above.
    Their litter should be astonishing.
    • This is in contradiction with previous portrayals of The Dark Side usage, where it made people uglier. Another thing, is that her Star Wars novels slip into romance territory, to the point where it's hard to keep track of all the relationships, with a lot being written about dead lovers in particular.
      Mara: And next time you feel a ghostly presence lying beside you, make sure it's me.
    • Kevin J. Anderson appears to have an "end of the world fetish", since his books are known for superweapons.
    • Troy Denning has so many fetishes that it's difficult to count them all, but first, there are the bugs. And hive minds. And powerful women; it seems that in every one of his books, women interrogate men. And in Invincible, Jaina offers Jag and Zekk a threesome. Also in Invincible, Tahiri offers sex in exchange for intelligence to a fourteen-year-old Ben Skywalker.
    • Michael A. Stackpole has a thing for female villains interrogating helpless male captives. But he's more remembered for an offhand reference to furries.
    • Matt Stover seems to enjoy deconstructing the fandom, judging by his Revenge of the Sith novelization and Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor.
    • Karen Traviss and Mandos. Most of Mandalorian culture and language Legends can be traced to her. More specifically, she has a thing for military and LGBT themes, in that she's the only writer to write canonically LGBTQ+ characters. note  And clones.
    • Kathy Tyers lobbied for Mara to get pregnant because Tyers is pro-life.
    • Dave Wolverton might as well have subtitled The Courtship of Princess Leia: The Erotic Adventures of Luke Skywalker. A queen tries to seduce him and kill him. Her son actually fantasizes about the seduction part. Luke takes her son to rescue Leia from Han (makes sense in context), and they go to Dathomir where both face seduction attempts from a witch (who has declared them her slaves). Ho Yay between Luke and Isolder is visible, though not as common as Ho Yay in some other books.
    • Timothy Zahn has a thing for women who seduce men and kill them, though also for sex as redemption (courtesy of Luke Skywalker, naturally).
    • Plo Koon for Dave Filoni, supervisor director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, to the point where Plo gets an upgrade to his character model at the end of Season 3, while Yoda and Windu are still waiting for one by the end of Season 4. Just look at his office in this video. He has also shown a preference for wolves in his works in the series, having attempted to feature them in The Clone Wars, only to instead bring the concept to Star Wars Rebels as the Loth-Wolves, and played a New Republic pilot named Trapper Wolf in The Mandalorian. Did we mention that Plo Koon's Clonetrooper commander was named Wolffe?
    • James Luceno can always be relied upon to take threads from all over the Star Wars continuity and bring them together. Darth Plagueis, especially, can descend into Continuity Porn with the number of links it makes with other areas of what (at the time, anyway) was Star Wars canon. Just look at the sheer quantity of characters, planets, events, vehicles etc. that get at least a mention somewhere in the novel, and then consider that a tiny fraction of them were original characters in the book itself.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • The designers for the games. Only the character designers, though. Yoshitaka Amano has a huge preference for pale, willowy men with frizzy white hair and blue lips. And Mascara, too. Almost every hero he designed for Final Fantasy looks like they could be related... except for Zidane. (Instead, it's Kuja who's the Expy) Everyone else? With the exception for Final Fantasy IX, as often as possible, he puts on capes, catsuits, spiked armor, and other such Rummage Sale Rejects. His monsters look like what you would think a monster would look like, an Eldritch Abomination. Tetsuya Nomura, on the other hand, goes for a more modern-looking anime-like approach compared to Amano's traditional Japanese watercolor style. As you can see, despite that his males look more masculine than Amano's (In that they don't wear make-up and instead look to be teenagers) he puts about as much detail into their clothes inspired by modern-day Japanese (and recently American) fashion trends as Amano put into their armour. Whenever he designs monsters, they look like an Eldritch Abomination... but instead of something from the world of Faeire, something more like a mix of inorganic features (like zippers and obviously painted-on-features) and organic features, often leading them to look horrific for a different reason than Amano's. Oh, and Nomura also loves black coats and zippers - especially zippers. Longer the better - especially with hoods, too! Akihiko Yoshida, designer for the tactics series as well as Final Fantasy XII likes tight pants on men, painted-on-abs, greasy faces, bondage gear, and did I mention that he loves really tight pants?
    • They also like using feathers a lot in the games.
  • There are a lot of doctors in Friends. Ross Geller (paleontologist), Rachel's father Leonard Green (vascular surgeon), Drake Ramoray (fictional neurosurgeon), Rachel's fiance Barry Farber (orthodontist), Richard Burke (ophthalmalogist), Timothy Burke (ophthalmalogist), Charlie Wheeler (paleontologist) and a pair of physicians played by George Clooney and Noah Wyle... and that's just the family and the love interests...
  • Anyone who has seen a few J.C. Staff shows can tell their artists really, really, really like big breasts and nothing else. In the best case of Laser-Guided Karma... er, Misaimed Fandom ever, every single one of their most popular anime series nowadays has a flat chested tsundere girl as its most popular and/or leading girl. ALL OF THEM.
    • Gonzo however seems to love fanservice and big boobs, often upsizing the resident busty characters' chests.
  • Draw Your Own Story 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: Starcraft, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Fairly OddParents!, Cthulhu, Star Wars, Dune, Ozy and Millie, Sonic the Hedgehog, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil, Metroid, Fallout, Dead or Alive, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Command & Conquer, Civilization, and more.
  • Transformers fan-artists consider anything fair game for turning into a robot. Anything at all. In some continuities they're Armed with Canon.
  • The people at Paizo, who make the Pathfinder RPG, have quite a few things they really like; sexy, powerful women (both for heroines and villainesses), the dungeonpunk aesthetic (which they arguably push farther than any D&D setting save Planescape), the works of H. P. Lovecraft and his friends (especially the Cthulhu Mythos and other Cosmic Horror Story tropes...), creatures derived from Urban Legends and similar folklore (they have versions of the Jersey Devil and mothmen as fully-statted monsters adapted for the setting), and The Legions of Hell (TEN of them, fleshed-out with backstory and multiple subspecies for each), among other things.
  • MegaPhilX, creator of Mega Man Unlimited, is an avid fan of Shampoo from Ranma ½. She'll very rarely show up in the shop in-game. (And yes, he has drawn nude art of her.)
  • The whole point of This Very Wiki. Tropers write about whatever they happen to be interested in. Also applies to page images. As most tropers are young geeks (per Troper Demographics), if the page image isn't from anime or manga, chances are it'll be from a webcomic.
  • From the MLP Analysis community:
    • Bronycurious is a HUGE Rarity fan. Beyond that though, he has a strong appreciation for character depth and complexity.
    • Any allusions to religion or classical literature is greatly appreciated by AnthonyC.
    • KP loves "reformed" Discord to borderline fangirl levels.
    • Voice of Reason states in his Camaraderie is Supernatural review that parody is one of his favorite genres of comedy.
  • Corgi Quest exists because the author wanted to combine two of his favorite things: corgis and Dungeons & Dragons.
  • Spectral Shadows contains several plots that exist mainly for the author to voice their opinions on things. A lot of the Shout Outs are also from a heavy amount of the things they enjoyed in their life.
  • Humon appears to have a strong personal fascination with femdom - large dominant women in sexual roleplay with submissive feminised men. This even intrudes into her most popular Scandinavia and the World strip in the relationship between Sister Sweden and Brother Finland. Sister Germamy tends to the dominant female, too. Femdom is far more apparent and prevalent in Humon's other works - in fact, you could go so far as to say this is a dominant theme. She really loves her men submissive and pliant...
  • Games Workshop, creator of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 really like skulls. Pretty much everything they make has skulls somewhere and there is the Chaos God of war and honour, Khorne, who sits on a throne made of skulls located atop of a mountain made of even more skulls. Fans like to joke that they have a skull Fetish.
  • Froge from Froghand has quite the thing for plushies. Perhaps even to the point of being a plushophile, seeing as he brings the term up regarding Achewood.
  • The Warrior Cats series has a remarkable amount of grey-furred cats note , all of whom are sympathetically characterized if not outright heroic. In Moonrise, The Chosen One is only recognized as such because they have grey fur.
  • Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast was created out of a combined love of old movies and TV between Frank Santopadre and Gilbert Gottfried, and their guest list reflected that. Gilbert in particular liked Universal Horror movies and was unusually reverential towards anyone related to those movies.
  • DSBT InsaniT: Any Development Gag about what DSBT actually used to be is this for Vexusdylandasecond. Characters will sometimes even point out that none of the viewers will even get those jokes. The Special Info Episode was created for this reason to provide a little context for the viewers.
  • This Tumblr post, parodying this phenomenon in internet artists' work. "fave kind of entertainment: that when some fetish artists try to draw casual non-fetish stuff but you can still see really clearly what fetish stuff they usually draw." As an example, it includes a sketchy picture of an anthro character... with feet drawn in much more detail than the rest.
  • At least one member of the Cybird staff has admitted to having a fetish for men with eyepatches, which is why every single Cybird romance game has had at least one potential love interest who wears an eyepatch or bandages over one eye: Byron Wagner from Midnight Cinderella, Saito Hajime from Destined to Love, Masamune Date from Ikemen Sengoku, Harr Silver from Ikemen Revolution, Aki from Magical Days the Brats' Parade, Jean d'Arc from Ikemen Vampire, etc. They even lampshaded this in Masamune's route in Ikemen Sengoku with the main character thinking that "anything sounds good coming from a man with an eyepatch".
  • Goats are common in Wasteland 2, and you can get a status buff for having one follow you around. So far, so what? Then the beta of Wasteland 3 was released, and the Quirk that buffs critical hits was named "Goat Killer." Someone at the studio clearly wants goats to have more visibility in games.
  • As of recently, the authors of Cardfight!! Vanguard (V Series) seem to have some kind of obsession for young girls wearing a single thigh-high stocking while the other leg is bare. The idol dress Mikuru briefly wears in the first half of the Shinemon arc, Nanami's casual outfit in the second half of the arc and Emi and Shuka's Magical Girl outfits from the -IF- arc all feature a single stocking.
  • Starting from 2018 onwards, The Game Awards featured at least one of The Muppets as a guest. Geoff Keighley (who happens to be friends with Muppet performer Bill Barretta) even once openly admitted that the main reason he started the event was so that he could eventually host Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker.
  • In both of the Laura Bow games, there's a promiscuous French or faux-French woman who dies. Admittedly, 90% of the cast dies (it's that kind of plot), but it's enough to make you wonder if Sierra has a grudge.
  • Castle Chase: From Word of God:
    "Kitty" is the single most useful item in the entire game. Don't you forget it! This may or may not be because both of the game's designers are cat people.
  • Tales of Eternia: According to the game's character designer Mutsumi Inomata, a female Namco executive was very involved in Keele's character design, directing Inomata to design him based on her own preferences in men.

    Multiple Media 
  • In the Doctor Who Expanded Universe, veteran Doctor Who writer Terrance Dicks' contributions display a rather alarming tendency to have the Doctor's female companions threatened with rape upon being captured by the villains. Nothing ever happened, of course, but its frequent presence in his works got more than a bit unsettling. The Doctor even makes a rape joke in the theatrical play Doctor Who - The Ultimate Adventure.
    • Lloyd Rose, who has written various stories in the Doctor Who Expanded Universe, likes to portray the Doctor as The Woobie. A lot. He gets injured (or otherwise suffers), in various nasty ways in at least three of her stories: City of the Dead, Camera Obscura, and Caerdroia. Really nasty. Also, there's often quite a bit of sexual subtext, almost always between the Doctor and characters who pose an immediate, physical threat to him. Looks like there's a bit of a sadomasochism kink there.
    • Jim Mortimore and Body Horror, specifically dealing with full-body infections leading to transformation. At one point he does it to the entirety of Asia.

    Fan Works 
  • Always Visible: Vitaly Ivolginsky is Russian by nationality, so expect that a work about America will not have authenticity, but will be jam-packed with references to Russian culture, which is alien to Americans.
  • Comic Book SNAFU is basically a Massive Multiplayer Crossover between a bunch of characters/series that author Benja Tatafasa likes.
    • He has a fondness for retooling forgotten concepts from old Marvel and DC Comics, such as the Riddler's game show and the World Counterterrorism Agency from Marvel.
  • Enemy's Heartstrings, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction. The author is a big fan of Spuffy, likes writing Spike in 'romantic poet' mode instead of evil, and enjoys bashing Buffy's other love interests Angel and Riley. This fic is no exception. Sympathetic Spike with all his good traits on show and with all his bad traits almost non-existent, thus washing him down from his canon complexity? Check. Buffy's own canon complexity being watered down to how the author needs her to act for the sake of the story? Check. Angel and Buffy's relationship with him being tossed aside quickly and unrealistically for the sake of Spuffy? Check. It wouldn't be so bad if the author didn't sacrifice believable story and character development just for the sake of the pairing, and it doesn't help that the author appears to suffer from Protection from Editors.
  • Nimbus Llewelyn is a self-admitted particular fan of Harry Dresden, Black Widow, Bucky Barnes, Carol Danvers, Jean Grey, and interpretations of the Phoenix Force that don't boil down to Always Chaotic Evil Eldritch Abomination, which is why all of them tend to have increasingly prominent roles in his writing (and even if they don't directly appear, they get referenced).
  • The Child of Love: The author is very fond of Asuka, very much so. He is also a die-hard S/A shipper.
  • The Devil Fruit Hero: The author is very fond of Big Beautiful Women, so several characters end up bulking up throughout the fic, usually with the In-Universe justification of it either enhancing their Quirk or finding it sexually appealing. The two primary examples being Hilda and Momo.
  • The creator of Evangelion 303 really likes airplanes and redheads. His doujin and his page are devoted to pics of Asuka and airship models.
  • HERZ: Rei is the author's favourite character. Although she does not show up in a lot of scenes she is ever-present, the remainder characters talk about her constantly, and she saves the day several times.
  • Kingdom Hearts: The Antipode: The author is a massive Disney fan. Thus, the series is filled to the brim with Disney Saturday Morning Cartoon references. This is also the reason why Gargoyles was included as a Disney world and why Ringabel is a recurring character. In addition, Riku Replica is one of the author's favorite characters; thus he plays a major role in the series.
  • ThatPersonYouMightKnow of The Lion King Adventures fame employs Slap Stick and manic game show characters—such as the Interceptor—in all of his works.
  • DL Abaoaqu likes to put in his series, Can't Believe It's Not AVGN, quite a few references to Mobile Suit Gundam and the Cold War here and there; also, being a conservative Christian, he enjoys making various Take Thats at Family Guy and other works by Seth MacFarlane.
  • The One I Love Is...: After completing the series, the author confessed that Asuka was his favorite character and he had always planned for a Shinji/Asuka ending. However, he also stated that he started truly liking Rei after writing chapter 3 and he nearly changed his mind.
  • Slightly Altered has Buwaro sing Hikari from Kingdom Hearts in one scene. The fact that there are also numerous references to that game, including "C'mon, lazy bum! Wake up!" being a recurring phrase, as well as Ortimor's line "It is I, Anton, seeker of thy heart!" further indicate this.
  • This is the very reason for "Linkin Park Z" (i.e., Dragon Ball Z music videos set to Linkin Park 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.
  • There was a fic where Rei Ayanami revealed her love of Dungeons & Dragons. After that the whole thing dissolved into an Author Tract about how people can't appreciate modern fantasy.
  • Neon Exodus Evangelion is a Neon Genesis Evangelion Massive Multiplayer Crossover, whose authors were also clearly into New England college life, antiauthoritarianism, motorcycles, the Titanic and the UK. They were not, however, fond of anything the original creators of Eva had done with the themes and characterization.
  • Shinji And Warhammer 40 K has one Author Appeal element, but it's right there in the title, and used with style.
  • There is one Tenchi Muyo! fanfic where Tenchi and his crew gave in willingly to Kagato because he threatened them with country music.
    • Another Tenchi Muyo! example was alien princess Ayeka listening to the 1997 song "Bitch" by Meredith Brooks (real subtle there) despite the fact that she had never been to Earth, and the song wouldn't be written for 700 years.
  • Knight of Lolicon: In addition to the premise, at some point the writer must have just felt like throwing in obscure anime that only fellow otakus were likely to have seen, and made the fic nigh-unreadable to anyone who isn't familiar with Magical Girl and Shoujo series targeted towards young girls. There are also a lot of Shout Outs towards things that make little sense in context.
  • Nyoron Churuya-san (a Haruhi Suzumiya gag manga) is largely based on Churuya's desire for smoked cheese — which exists because the author really likes smoked cheese.
  • Decks Fall Everyone Dies: the Yu-Gi-Oh! characters with their Abridged Series personalities in the plot of Moulin Rouge! with whatever songs the author wants to parody.
  • The Darker Knight is a Batman Troll Fic in which Batman saves random celebrities and rock bands and fights against a zombie apocalypse with characters from other comics, cartoons, and movies.
  • One AU High School Musical fanfic had Gabriella and Troy share a mutual dislike of eggs. To say nothing of the setting, namely casting Gabriella as a well-off Jew and Troy as one of the Hilterjüngen in Nazi Germany. Luckily, the author canceled the fic after coming back from a long hiatus and realizing that it was kind of terrible.
  • Harry Potter fans (among others) call these elements "pepperjack cheese", or just "pepperjack", after a Harry Potter fanfic in which Hermione expresses a fondness for pepperjack cheese, a mild cheese with jalapeño peppers that's popular in parts of the United States but unknown everywhere else. England is part of "everywhere else", and it's nigh-impossible to obtain there.note  The author boldly stated in her notes that Hermione liked it now because she (the author) liked it. It was such a blatant example that it soon became shorthand for "the characters must like what I like!"
    • Oddly enough, from around 2007 or so it became possible to find something at least vaguely similar to pepperjack cheese in Asda, a British supermarket chain that is now owned by Wal-Mart. Make of this what you will.
    • Musical choices are a very common element. Fanfic writers will often put Hogwarts students (even pureblood wizards like Draco) in shirts advertising moody American Muggle bands that hadn't even been formed at the corresponding timeline.
      • Then there's Hermione's Talent, in which Neville raps (!) among many, many other violations of canon. In the Spiritual Successor Karaoke Night, Draco Malfoy of all people is the rapping one.
  • My Immortal: Every heroic character is a goth who likes emo bands gets their clothes from Hot Topic. Bisexual men seem to be an interest of Tara as well.
  • A Drizzt Do'Urden fanfic that was slightly more nuanced than the standard. Catti-brie wanted to try bondage, and while Drizzt is at first interested, being from a society that is controlled by a frothing boot-on-the-neck abusive matriarchy he started freaking out. He got used to it in the end, though.
  • Fics in which the characters eat the author's favourite meal are quite common, and often not particularly problematic, but see the above mention of Pepper-Jack Cheese - it doesn't work when the food is not accessible or there would be other reasons for the characters not to eat it, such as a Redwall fic where the woodlanders had a taste for chicken. For example, there was once a Lord of the Rings fic which featured the elves making a pizza.
    • A subspecies may be fics written by Americans using American names for food that is called differently in Britain; so you get fluffy stories of Hobbits baking cookies rather than biscuits which is undoubtedly the word Tolkien himself would have used.
  • A curious Star Trek: The Next Generation/Battlestar Galactica (original) crossover fanfic had this as the climax, with an Enterprise crewman precipitating the rapture with a piano recital. It took a good chunk of both series humans (save for a befuddled Picard, musing on whether he could find faith), and some Cylons, which were revealed to be lizards in silver armor. (This last is a reference to the little-known novelization of the original pilot movie, which was adapted from an early script that predated the Executive Meddling which turned the Cylons into robots in the first place.)
  • An author has produced a few short Doctor Who Meta Fics in which Ninth and Tenth join the Eleventh Hatedom, and lambast him whenever he enters This Time Round.
    • There's also a Doctor Who/The Prisoner crossover fic. The "new Number Two" convention from The Prisoner is compared to Time Lord regeneration, which provides the sole hook for combining the two series. It's very weird.
    • And then there's the Fan Verse of Rich's ComixBlog that includes characters from Forever Knight and Jem becoming companions of the Doctor.
  • An otherwise well-written Babylon 5/Battlestar Galactica (revival) crossover seemed to indicate that NCAA basketball was a major obsession of the Earth Alliance.
  • With Strings Attached is what happened when the then 15-year-old writer got into The Beatles and Dungeons & Dragons simultaneously, though the final product (which she finished when she was 44) went far, far beyond anything as simple as D&D.
  • Peptuck, the author of the Command & Conquer story Tiberium Wars (no, not the official novelization) is clearly a big fan of Warhammer 40,000, especially Gaunt's Ghosts, and this shows up in his portrayal of Nod which definitely has elements of the Imperial Guard and Space Marines. Plus all the other subtler Shout Outs (and not just to Warhammer 40,000). He even specifically referenced Gaunt's Ghosts in his notes, and the GDI 4th Recon Battalion are the Ghosts in all but name.
    • The same author is also a fan of Summer Glau, as shown by some of his other fics, particularly Forward, where River is the primary character.
    • Another thing he is a big fan of is military hardware in general, and infantry kit in particular. Many of his stories, particularly Tiberium Wars, Forward, Renegade, and Harbinger place a lot of emphasis on realistic infantry movement, equipment, and tactics. The narrative in these stories often takes pains to show characters properly using sights, checking and securing gear, covering one another while moving, and proper room-clearing.
  • The fanfic Return to Atlantica, besides being a terrifying behemoth (one chapter, one hundred and sixty-six thousand, two hundred and eighteen words), contains everything from Pokémon to The Little Mermaid (1989) to Spyro the Dragon to Super Mario Bros.
  • A fan of the Legacy of Kain series starts pulling the characters out of the video games. Since they are in the "Real World," they can watch movies and play video games, including their own. Due to the nature of the magic involved, the characters will occasionally run into characters like Dante from Devil May Cry and Cloud from Final Fantasy VII. Razzy Plush, Sequel to Razzy Plush, and Plus Kain: The Convention Adventure.
  • A Daria fic features shy, insecure Stacy Rowe, who is obsessed with being popular and liked by others, as also being secretly a fan of the Dead Milkmen. More inexplicable references to and cameos by bands that it was clear the author loved followed.
  • The two authors of Calvin & Hobbes: The Series make alot of Shout Outs to shows they like (also indicated by their other fics):
  • Another Daria fic shows Daria's parents as loving and completely indulgent to the disgustingly spoiled Quinn, while Daria is neglected to the point of emotional abuse. When Daria asks for an upgrade to her creaky aging Apple computer, her parents respond by buying Quinn the very latest and best IBM-clone computer. The writer's preference could not have been more obvious if she'd added "Written on an Apple" to every paragraph.
  • In Camp Nightmare, Calvin and Hobbes listen to Nickelback in the staff bathroom.
  • DSBT InsaniT: Any Development Gag about what DSBT actually used to be. Characters will sometimes even point out that none of the viewers will even get those jokes. The Special Info Episode was created for this reason to provide a little context for the viewers.
  • The author of the infamous Rose Potter fan fic seems to have a thing for naked women; specifically their breasts and nether regions, which are invariably the first things mentioned whenever a naked woman is seen, and always described in exactly the same way.
  • Total Drama Island, by Gilbert and Sullivan owes its very existence to this trope. The author is a fan of both the Total Drama series and the Gilbert and Sullivan series of light operas, and his whole purpose in combining them was to introduce to one people who are familiar with the other.
  • In The Legend of Total Drama Island, Cody (who bears more than a passing resemblance to the author at that age) is the go-to character for allusions to two of the author's favorite entertainment franchises, Star Trek and Monty Python.
  • In A New Order, a Sailor Moon fic, Usagi is a fan of Neon Genesis Evangelion. There's also a more meta example: Sailor Uranus is the author's least favorite character and, despite being a powerful fighter, her first fight ends with her near death while the other senshi are relatively unharmed.
  • Plastic Raven, the author of the Sonic X fanfic Don't Keep Your Distance, seems to have a bit of a fascination with languages and linguistics; it is likely one of the few fan works out there to explicitly name-drop the "Northern Cities Vowel Shift".note  A number of characters and locations are also named using fictional indigenous languages of the planet Mobius.
  • Starbound, a Lucky Star fanfic, has two core points: the long-haired characters' hair done up into beehives, and an attempt to be the next EarthBound (1994). The former is even more noteworthy than the latter, because the fic has been written by the same person who commissions for other long-haired female characters with their hair in an updo, created a five-girl band of magical girls known as the Beehive Brigade (of whom he also commissions pictures), and even runs a group known as The Beehive, which is all about that trope.
  • By his own admission, the author of the Earth - 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. The author also has a deep love for obscure, second-string heroes and villains, and elevates them to take center stage in the series while pushing the A-listers to guest star status.
  • Exaggerated and parodied in Alone by Monica Gilbey Bieber, which features a Self-Insert who is a ridiculously wealthy world-famous architect and bestselling writer who has met and befriended various celebrities and rock stars. The story vividly describes how successful he is and how he is living the dream, including paragraphs worth of the author telling the readers about his architecture firm, luxury penthouse, black Lamborghini with personal chauffeur and butler, and black Persian cat named Cruciö. He also explicitly states his musical taste in-story. However, James (the character) surprisingly isn't really a Gary Stu, and the fic manages to subvert the trope as well by stating that James is still short-statured and single at thirty years old. He also exposes some of his own character flaws in-story.
  • The author of Pokémon: The Great Adventure really likes music. Most battle scenes have a battle theme that is very often taken from Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts (though there are exceptions) and nearly each chapter has a song at the beginning. Bryan Adams, Owl City, Toto, various James Bond themes and especially Phil Collins seem to be her main preferences.
  • Green Phantom Queen of Horseshoes and Hand Grenades loves Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead for some very odd reason: the two boys who were with Mei are nicknamed "Ros" and "Guil" two chapters of Tears to Shed are named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (along with appropriate quotes from the play), and Jun quotes some lines from the play in one chapter of Month of Sundays.
  • Cori Falls is a huge fan of the fantasy genre and certain rock groups, and it shows in the way she not only incorporates elements of them into her stories but also makes the characters fans of them.
  • The Captain of the Virtual Console says that video games are awesome, and should be treated with respect and remembered.
  • Yogui likes crude penises as background jokes. This can be seen in the Something series and any of his contest entries.
  • Supercrossover military fanfiction The Terminators: Army of Legend series obviously contains some author appeal within it, especially considering its protagonist, Alex Vaughn, is effectively an idealized version of the author, minus the self-insert characteristics. For example, Alex and Alpha Company will often play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or Halo: Reach multiplayer between missions. While Alex and Terrias both enjoy Dark Souls.
  • The writer of Origin Story is a self-admitted fan of theme parks, and the Disney theme parks in particular. One entire chapter of the story is set in Disneyland, while visits to theme parks are mentioned off-handedly in other chapters.
  • The author behind Twintails of Fallout: Equestria - Occupational Hazards has no shame in making his fascination of nuclear explosions (or his subsequent appreciation for Vera Lynn) abundantly clear, within reason.
    • This makes another appearance in the sequel Fallout: Equestria - Empty Quiver, in the form of the merciless destruction of Molly Manticore's Pizzeria and the design of the XB/A-1 Valkyrie closely resembling the Avro Vulcan.
    • Back in the original flavor, Littlepip seems to get publicly embarrassed and teased about her romantic life (or lack thereof) an awful lot. Maybe once does she ever seem to ask them to stop, and then the person in question keeps doing it, but on "friendlier" terms note  This culminates, perhaps, in her girlfriend talking about their sex life on the most popular radio station in Equestria. She also, ahem, "mares off" with her crush lying in bed next to her.
  • The author of Angel of the Bat is Catholic, hence why it is the specific religion Cassandra Cain becomes interested in. He also calls himself a struggling idealist and is a proponent for God Before Dogma, both of which come into play later on in the story.
  • Cibus Esculentus Madoka Magica is all about fat versions of magical girls from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. In-universe, this actually makes sense, but McKnight has gone as far as to create pocket on Writing.com for others to spin their own stories off from it to.
  • A vast majority of those who make YouTube Poop videos seem to have a thing for sauce.
  • Doing It Right This Time has easily the most meta example on this page by strongly implying that designated Meta Girl Asuka is a fan of TV Tropes.
  • Here We Go Again!, a Fix Fic of the web novel Gate - Thus the JSDF Fought There. The author of this particular fan fic is a retired US Marine tank crewman and an Afghanistan veteran, as such many of the characters and events are based on his own personal experiences in the Marine Corps as well as a What If? scenario if his retirement had been interrupted by the events of Gate.
  • From Rakenzarn Tales:
    • Negima! Magister Negi Magi is apparently a favorite of the game's creator. Negi, Asuna and Mana are all recruitable characters, Setsuna, Nodoka and Konoka are summonable allies, many of Negi's students can be interacted with at the guild and it's suggested that Negi's father may somehow connected to the overall plot.
    • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has its own sidearc in Rakenzarn's version of Equestria. You can recruit three ponies as party members, including fan favorite Derpy Hooves, with two and possibly more as summons as well.
    • Kyuu Renjo is the main character. This is commented on by Deadpool when undergoing recruiting him, when he comments that the creator got all upset when he beat up his "super favorite" protagonist.
  • To the Stars is what happens when a fan writer takes the setting of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, shifts it several centuries into the future, and adds elements from transhumanist writings and what appears to be Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie).
  • Paul of With This Ring can't use paper money, since his faith in fiat currency was destroyed by the subprime crisis and the ring just keeps destroying it. note  After New Year's, he mentions in the narration that Earth-16 apparently never actually had that crisis, due to legislation with unusually bipartisan support that he resolves to look into later. Turns out Plutus, Roman god of Wealth, is posing as a prominent economist to help steer the global economy away from such things.
  • The authors of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines and their side stories seem to have a thing for the Statuesque Stunner trope. A lot of the characters, major and minor, are tall and attractive, with the girls being rather busty. Justified as many of the characters to whom this trope applies are probably half-siblings.
  • Mischief (MHA):
    • Hirona's love for movies is inspired by KageNekem's own love for cinema.
    • KageNekem is a massive Star Wars fan and an avid Yu-Gi-Oh! player, so he always makes sure to add several references to both franchises in the story.
    • The author is also a fan of badasses in suit who are dressed to kill, so he always makes sure for his characters, especially Izuku and Loki, to look as dashing and badass as possible in his descriptions.
    • Hilariously averted with his food taste. KageNekem hates black chocolate, often having characters describing it as gross and saying white chocolate is better. He even has Tenko to dust a black chocolate bar in chapter 61 just because. This is an inside between him and his editor and fellow writer JustaPerson1, who loves black chocolate but despises white.
  • The Differentverse: A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fic which features Twilight Sparkle and a different set of ponies from canon - Moondancer, Derpy Hooves, Scootaloo, Marble Pie and Coco Pommel - as the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. The author freely admits the whole concept was a shameless excuse to partner Twilight with five of his other favorite characters.
  • The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fic created by Evilhumour and beta-read by Anon e Mouse Jr. (who was eventually promoted to co-writer). The latter's segments tend to have a dose of this by including small Shout Outs to other pieces of fiction that he likes, though usually just as background details.
  • The infamous Hammer Brother was created by Henrique, who seems to love Pokemon Creepypastas, as a whole host of them are referenced. Another prominent one is traps that are unfair even by Kaizo standards.
  • Skyhold Academy Yearbook is stuffed with Author Appeal. It was initially conceived as a private writing project for its co-authors; for their own amusement they took the Dragon Age universe, turned it into a modern Boarding School Alternate Universe Fic, and started throwing in more or less everything else they love. Even after it became a public and sprawling Fan Verse, they continued the trend since it was so well received. The result is that the cast of Dragon Age: Inquisition (and friends) are very familiar with William Shakespeare, Disney movies, fairy tales, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, pizza, and Monopoly - among many other things.
  • The authors of the unofficial Batman Dusk to Dawn novels, Fareeha Huq and Cody Wexner, admitted in an accompanying Q&A the collaboration began after bonding over their mutual love of Catwoman. This favouritism is really apparent in the books, as Selina is something of a Adaptational Badass, her backstory is at the centre of the first book, and, despite Damian Wayne being the official protagonist, she is in the spotlight the most and given some of the best lines going forward.
  • In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, the author admits to being a fan of Savage Garden, which is why they appear on All Might's anglophile playlist of tracks that include The Beatles, Neil Patrick Harris as the Music Meister, and Hoyt S. Martin (who composed the Super Friends theme song). The story itself is also laden with Shout-Outs and Mythology Gags to DC Comics and other works.
  • A Child Shall Lead Them (Transformers), the Dinobots, Swoop especially, get a lot of screen time in this fic, and their actions and issues drive most of the plot. The Last Unicorn also gets a lengthy, and surprisingly plot-relevant, quote.
  • Cat Tales chapter Trick Or Treat shows that Chris Dee knows quite a bit about Sherlock Holmes.
  • Dark Mark's fanfics like Hellsister Trilogy, A Force of Four, A Prize for Three Empires or X-Men 1970 show he's fond of continuity-rich fictional universes with a long-storied history and powerful, heroic action girls.
  • Battle Fantasia Project: The presence of two Italian series and elements of a third (Winx Club, the comic book version of W.I.T.C.H., and the satiric series Suore Ninja respectively), two manga massively popular in Italy (Cat's Eye and City Hunter) and one set in Italy (Gunslinger Girl) are owed to the authors being all Italians.
  • In Wild About Words, the villains that were chosen to work with Zach were picked because they are among the author's favorites.
  • inserthedgehog, who wrote The Progenitor Chronicles, is a fan of strong female characters and sprinkling Easter egg references throughout his works. He also wrote the Video Game Shrines, and he shows this there too.
  • The Avatar the Last Airbender fic writer savage barbie (who has written works like Ash and Petals, Restraint, and So We'd Both Be Free) uses various themes throughout her mostly unrelated stories: Azula is usually depicted as lesbian and in a relationship with Ty Lee, Ozai is physically and sexually abusive towards his daughter Azula, and Mai's parents are physically abusive.
  • The author Taitofan (capitalized as "taitofan") is notorious for writing numerous fanfics centering around characters wetting themselves, most notably Kokichi Ouma in the infamous fic "Let it All Out", which has become somewhat of an inside joke in the fandom. She's admitted on numerous occasions that it's a fetish of hers.
  • Fanfic author Saphroneth has professed a particular appeal about fantastical elements being applied towards space travel. In the Pokémon fanfic Ashes of the Past, a reformed Mewtwo starts working with Mossdeep to augment rocket engines with Psychic Powers, and during the Delta Episode, assorted Pokémon from Ariadospace are seen developing a moon base. Similarly, in Harry Is a Dragon, and That's OK, Ron Weasley gets a fascination with space and begins developing Magitek rocket engines and spaceships during his OWL and NEWT years.
  • Several of L1701E's fanfics show his love of obscure and lesser-known characters from both Marvel and DC. His stories also tend to make references to classic rock music and 80s pop culture.
  • The author of The Prayer Warriors is rather fond of American automobiles, as he frequently talks about characters using them, and goes into great detail about the cars they're driving.
  • Infinity Train: Blossomverse: A few things to look out for when reading the stories:
    • Food. The author is a foodie and any time she has a chance, she'll bring out descriptions of food and people having conversations while eating.
    • Horror with every story has their own collection of nightmares. To give you an example, Blossoming Trail crosses over with the psychological horror juggernaut Silent Hill.
    • Specter whom the author has a fondness over. He appears as a character in Knight of the Orange Lily and expies exist in some capacity in the trilogy.
    • Females. Girls in the trilogies shape the actions of others and the stories also takes a look at how girls get an unfair treatment in the Pokémon world. In fact, Blossoming Trail was spawned from a scene in Pokémon Journeys in which the author notes that when Chloe has to be asked who she wants to be in life, she gets words put into her mouth from all her classmates...but the classmate prior to her (a boy), gets to sit back and go "My life is a work in progress" with a big smile and everyone laughing at him. In fact, this is such a recurring theme that there's even a sub-page in regards to the Double Standard.
    • References to Alice in Wonderland are also very popular.
  • A Mid-Sinnoh Night's Dream is another Pokemon fic. Most of the author appeal is admitted in the notes at the end of most chapters.
    • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is the main one. The protagonist's partner Pokemon is a Golurk that was experimented on until it could act like a mecha. The stories share themes as well. Whether or not this is plagiarism is up for debate.
    • Why Cheryl joined Team Black. The author liked her character in the Generation 4 games, and thought she was underutilized. The same is true for Marley, but that seemed to be because there was a need for filler. And allegedly to balance out the harem as well as subvert Two Girls to a Team.
  • This is how Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath ruined their friendship with the Star Trek: The Original Series cast. They had a definite fondness for Kirk suffering sexual violence, one-track-minded about it in their book with Shatner, and having it in both fic and professional stories. Then they condescended to David Gerrold that he didn't understand that Kirk wanted to be raped, they got cut off from the cast/crew, and they disappeared.
  • The author of Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Fifth Path has fully admitted that Byleth joining the Black Eagles was really just because it's his favorite house.
  • to forget is unforgivable: The author is fascinated by glassblowing and occasionally compares Izuku's eyes to blown glass.
    author notes: I loved watching the glassblower when my elementary school visited those renaissance fair places, can you tell?
  • Realistic Pokémon: RJ loves dinosaurs, and so many of his Pokémon designs are based on them.
  • OminousPredictions, author of both Crumbling Down and the CONSEQUENCES series, is a fan of the Kim/Max ship from Miraculous Ladybug, and will include them as either mentions up to being the leading couple, particularly in CUTTING THE STRINGS and the Role Swap AU Miraculous: Tales of Royal Fortune and Matagot. Other male/male pairings like Nathaniel/Marc and Adrien/Luka also appear frequently in their stories.
  • Billie Morrigan Gaetano, the author of Little By Little, is a big fan of Rino Gaetano, who sang the song this fic was based upon (if his pseudonym didn't make it obvious).
    • Other Italian artists and bands he enjoys are also listed.

    In-Universe 
  • The Alchemaster's Apprentice: From The City of Dreaming Books, we know that Optimus Yarnspinner loves his food, is a hypochondriac, and was once helped by a well-meaning if creepy Uggly. All these things are reflected in this book.
  • It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
    • When Dennis takes it upon himself to design women's clothing, his design sketches are nothing but gigantic boobs on stick figures. The trope shows up again in a later episode when he writes a novel about his fictional "erotic life."
    • Also parodied when Armoured Closet Gay Mac decides to include a Ho Yay-ridden volleyball scene and Shower Scene in The Gang's Fan Film, Lethal Weapon 6, causing one of the viewers to confuse it for gay porn. Mac defends his decision by saying it's not gay but a love story between two men. His friends are understandably confused.
  • Decker: Kington and Decker are basically heavily idealized copies of their actors' characters on On Cinema.
    • Kington is an avid movie buff who snacks on popcorn (even ordering it successfully at Lanoi's bar), has the largest film collection in the United States, and during Season 2 is shown dubbing tapes and trying to get a Guinness World Record for watching 500 movies in 500 days.
    • Decker has strong conservative principles and hates weak politicians. He is also the frontman of a very successful rock band. The character also drove a harley motorcycle in the first season which was back when Tim was interested in them.
  • Spoofed wonderfully on Extras, where Patrick Stewart (playing himself) explains his idea for a new movie he's been writing. He says it's an exploration of what would happen if there were one person in the real world who could control people's minds. In actuality, though, the only thing his character does is go around making women's clothes fall off and "seeing everything." When Andy explains his own idea for a script, Stewart only becomes interested when Andy claims that there's nudity in it.
  • The Logomancer: Invoked. As said in the Strategy Guide - Playable Characters, about Cynthia:
    I created Cynthia with a lot of the qualities that I find personally attractive (short hair, glasses, brainy disposition etc.). The bizarreness of this method of character creation is explored in the Edited for Content questline.
  • A long-ago SNL sketch featured Patrick Stewart as the owner of an erotic bakery. As various customers came in to pick up orders or browse, it becomes clear that Stewart's character refuses to bake anything except cakes depicting women going to the bathroom.
  • Mr. Garrison's romance novel in South Park, which was filled with loving descriptions of penises. And little else. Even a lesbian scene quickly meandered into a loving description of penises. When the publisher accuses the novel of being "really, really gay," Garrison insists that it's just Fanservice to the female audience. Later he comes out of the closet anyway.
  • Oglaf's episode Fairest (NSFW) well illustrates the nature of Author Appeal.
  • Dennis Farina plays a writer of detective fiction in That Old Feeling and he was married to an actress played by Bette Midler. His victims are always actresses.
  • David on Roseanne likes to draw big-breasted women. Or maybe that's Mark. You try to make heads or tails of the Gainax Ending.
  • Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! has a reoccurring character named Pierre who has a dad fetish and makes instructional videos for children. They'll inevitably derail into him asking the kids about their dads. He also has some sort of obsession with meat and the Internet.
  • The queue for Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges at Universal's Islands of Adventure contain advertisements for "Popeye's Cruises", which show that one of the cruise's activities is "Spinach Everything", and the cruise's restaurant menu consists of things like Spinach Salad, Spinach Soup, Spinach Juice, and Spinach Surprise.
  • In Arata: The Legend, Hinohara dresses Kotoha in clothing he imagined-to-life with Sarae. All of his attempts are bikini and cosplay outfits he's most likely into, much to Kotoha. This is played for laughs and oddly enough, a heartwarming moment.
  • The main reason why the Gender Bender devices in El Goonish Shive tend to produce healthily-sized women? The one programming it has his own preferences for what sexy looks like. (Whether this overlaps with Dan Shive's own taste is not explored in this Q&A comic).
  • Given the Stealth Parody treatment in Andrew Hussie's short webcomic Humanimals (link possibly not safe for work, definitely not safe for sanity). It's a quaintly innocent, even slightly dull, workplace sitcom... except that the (fictional) author's bizarre, disturbing and grotesque fetishes keep creeping in.
  • In The Comic Artist and his Assistants, Aito quite clearly stated he draws the Show Within the Show to fulfill his Panty Shot fetish, often to rest of the cast's ire. In fact, many want to make sure he does not do this in expense of the plot.
  • This is mocked in the "Piss World" strip of Gunshow, where a Tabletop RPG Game Master with a piss fetish keeps inserting piss-related nonsense into his game, much to the annoyance of his two players.
    "Stop injecting your horrible fetishes into our game."
    "I am going to punch you."
    • This strip also led to the coining of the term "magical realm" to describe a situation where the Game Master (or player) of a Tabletop RPG campaign attempts to insert fetish-related material into their games (especially ones not shared by the rest of the group).
  • Less Author Appeal and more Editor Appeal in Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun. Maeno loves Tanuki so much, he makes poor Miyako add them to all her stories.
  • Chainsawsuit: In "hollywood movie pitch", an unnamed man tries to pitch Sexyfeet: The Movie ("Concept: What if you could marry a foot"). Then he tries to insist it's not just a script about his fetish.
    Kris Straub: it's tough pitching a movie when you're actually pitching a multimillion dollar version of the reason for your divorce
  • Discussed in the creative writing guidebook/parody How NOT to Write a Novel, wherein the authors — themselves professional editors — discuss the volume of unpublished works which have crossed their paths wherein the author has revealed more than they perhaps meant to about their various kinks and tastes. Their general rule-of-thumb advice is that most of the time, such material doesn't need to be included at all. That said, if the author is really determined to throw it in, they counsel that it should at least be made relevant to plot and characterisation, it should be downplayed (or, in the case of really off-the-wall examples, handled with extreme care and acknowledgement that the author's in a minority on this one) and that the author should at least be honest about what they're doing, since no one ever believes that I Just Write the Thing and trying to claim so just makes the author look weaselly and insincere on top of weird.

Alternative Title(s): Fanfic Chop Suey

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