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Self-Insert Fic: Difference between revisions
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[[File:SelfInsertFic.png|link=Twilight (novel)|frame|Yeah, that's pretty much it.]]
{{quote|''<small>"Once upon a time, there was [[Little Red Riding Hood|a little girl with an adorable red cape]] and</small> '''[[Large Ham|great FLAAAMING eyebrows]]'''!"''
|[[Eldritch Abomination|Aku]], ''[[Samurai Jack]]''}}
As the name implies, a '''Self-Insert Fic''' is one where the author has made a simulacrum of him- or [[Most Fan Fic Writers Are Female|herself]]—commonly called an ''[[Author Avatar|avatar]]''—in the story's world as a key character. If the author has any sense of subtlety, the resulting character won't share their name or alias, but it's still easy to tell who that "new character" is.
The self-insert is very often a [[Mary Sue]]—in matter of fact, the ''original'' Mary Sue ([[Trope Namer|she who gives that trope its name]]) was born from [[A Trekkie's Tale|a parody]] of the (then-)standard '''Self-Insert Fic'''. In the most extreme cases—which are [[Sturgeon's Law|''usually'' but not always quite bad]]—the insert character gains some degree of godlike power, or retains considerable ([[OOC]]) knowledge of the series in which he's been inserted, or both, and ''uses'' them to [[Fix Fic|adjust things to his or her liking]]. In rare instances, it might work well—especially if the people in the setting—heroes and villains—react accordingly to the new situation and the guy that knows all the stuff he saw in the (anime/game/etc) and the situation changes in ways the character can't anticipate.
However, equally common is the subversion, where the main character applies [[This Loser Is You]] to themselves and ends up as [[The Ditz]], [[The Fool]], or in extreme cases a [[Butt Monkey]]. Care must be taken to not still make themselves more important than anybody else, lest they just end up with an [[Anti-Sue]]. The main rule is to never put the character in a high-ranking story position, although they may be the narrator.
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=== Film ===
* <s>Ebony</s> Enoby Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, of ''[[My Immortal]]'' infamy, is a thinly-disguised self-insertion [[Black Hole Sue]] in an unrecognizably goth (and poorly written) ''[[Harry Potter]]'' universe. The author, Tara Gliesbie (or Gillespie, her spelling skills are notorious) only saw the movies, and only became aware of the books at around chapter 15 or so ... not that she has any respect for the movies' canon either. The other characters occasionally slip up and call Enoby "Tara" (and at least once she actually typoed Ebony's name as "TaEbony"), thus giving away her nature as a self-insertion.
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