Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2020: Week 17
Self-insertion is a practice by authors of writing themselves into their own stories, either explicitly or in thinly-disguised form; in a fannish context this most often means fan writers writing themselves into their favorite source material so that they can interact with canon or its characters. Fan artists also sometimes incorporate themselves into fanart, and in modern fandoms where this is prevalent these self insertions are usually referred to with a play on the word "persona".
Fan writers may write self-inserts as humor (for example, in metafic featuring an author arguing with her characters) or as an in-joke (for example, making an extremely minor character a self-insert that will only be recognized by friends, although this may instead be considered a cameo).
Self-insertion as a literary device has a particularly bad rap in fannish circles, due in large part to its association with Mary Sues; generally speaking all Mary Sues are assumed to be self-inserts and all self-inserts are at least suspected of being Mary Sues.