Christopher Angel wrote:

Oooh ooh ooh! Someone talking about SIs!!!  Must respond!

You know, it's not true that SIs are "usually godlike".  At this point
there are plenty of SIs about ordinary goofs who for some reason become
instant friends with the heros of the series and get to date Nabiki or
become the fifth Knight Saber...

I beg to differ.  As much as it tries to achieve that, it doesn't quite
succeed.  Of the major SI's I've seen, it's rarely if ever that the SI
character is ordinary.  Look at Hopelessly Lost and BGZone: Gryphon,
Megazone, and Bert all end up being (somewhat) brilliant hardsuit designers.

The simple truth is that ordinary goofs are usually cannon fodder.

That being the case, I wish self inserters would stop putting that
silly, "Unlike the others my character will not be godlike" disclaimer

Heh.  I think I did this once, and then said "screw it, my character IS a
god, deal."

in, particularly since those who dislike SIs don't dislike them for the
godlike powers they are given.

Case in point: Twister.

Typically a Self Insert is given
slightly more power than the average major character (but frequently not
more than the lead), is pampered by having all of his favourite
characters instantly like him as much as he likes them and can use his
omniscient knowledge of the people and events of the series to twist
them as he desires.

Hey I set my SI in the time after the series has ended. That way neither me nor
the main cast has a clue what is going on.

You know, this is the one thing that irritates me, and that I've tried to
address in God's Toy.  SI's are more fun if your SI is just as clueless as
the rest of the cast, is just a character in the mix.  (But then, that's my
opinion.)

Why do people dislike this?  The Self Inserter is obviously fond of
himself and will frequently distort character and plot to make himself
the center of attention, rather than concentrating on writing good
character and plot.

Just a point here: the SI character IS the center of attention, more often
than not. :)

Further, all too often, the Self Inserter simply is
not a good character in his own right, perhaps because he's basicly
dull, or because the Self Inserter isn't prepared to reveal his
character in sufficient depth to make himself a good character.

There's a good reason for this: it's REALLY hard to reveal the things about
yourself that gives your character more depth.  It involves bringing things
to light that you'd rather forget, or rather not have people know.  This is
often overcome by coming up with (possibly) false angst.  Bah.  Make it
real, people.  Your SI is YOU, he/she should have your regrets and neuroses.
Bring those in, and your character really comes to life.

That's what I tried to do with Twist of fate. I did not make myself a god. In
fact all the knowlege that I have is of past events

Besides it would be much more believeable if I did that. I needed a background
to set this story against and I did just that