vovat | Self-Insertion Theatre (Reply)

I guess it's pretty common for kids to write themselves in as the main characters in stories. I mean, when we were assigned story starters by teachers, they usually insisted that you make yourself the protagonist. So I guess it's no surprise that, when my class did our galaxy projects, a lot of us made ourselves galactic rulers. Since I had already decided that the Alienking was the supreme ruler of the Great Galaxy, however, I made myself Vice-King. I think I was aware that that's not a real position (although I guess it's technically what "viceroy" means), but I'm not sure why I didn't just make myself the Prime Minister. I even remember coming up with a story of how I was taken to the Great Galaxy by the giant Bivonkrin (my attempt to come up with a name that sounded like those of the Nordic frost giants). For my high rank, however, I don't remember actually putting myself into most of the stories I wrote about the Great Galaxy. I did come up with an idea in which I travelled throughout the universe with a crew of weird beings (the only one I can remember was a sort of giant slug with legs), but I never actually wrote much of that. I think that, once I finished elementary school, I generally didn't use myself as a character in my own fiction anymore. Probably a good idea, because I was terrible at keeping myself in character. I mean, seriously, if faced with a place full of aliens and giants bigger than planets, I don't think I would be much of a hero. I'd probably either run away screaming or try to convince myself it was a dream. But really, the whole Mary Sue phenomenon is based on characters who are not only thinly disguised self-insertions, but also can do just about anything. I don't know. I've had daydreams about myself having fantastic adventures for as far back as I can recall, but I think it's best to change some of the details at least a little when actually committing stories to paper (or, nowadays, word-processing program). A lot of characters are going to have a bit of the author in them, but is it really THAT hard to make it so it isn't painfully obvious?