Talk:Naruto Fandom: Mary Sue Test/@comment-30629165-20161128223234/@comment-25156300-20161128232152

Sharing a few traits with you is not a self-insertion. Most characters will have some similarities with the creator, just because we know ourselves the best. The important thing is to limit how much of you shows up. Each of my characters has a part of me in them. It's just split up between them (there's about 10 or so in my main cast).

However, self-insertion is taking it too far. This is when the OC is basically the creator thrown into the role. They may change the name, or possibly a few appearance details that they wished they had in real life, but it's still them in anime form. This is what's considered bad, because it's not creative. They haven't made a character, they've made an avatar.

As for the "trouble of coming up with a backstory and all that complicated jazz" - A backstory doesn't need to be complex to be good. Giving a character a regular/boring past is perfectly fine, and can give them a chance to have a more complex future as their story develops.

And for the Sasuke part, as long as it doesn't mess up the canon (including making him act out-of-character), then that shouldn't be too bad. This test is not a rulebook. It's just to cover the common things creators take too far.