User blog:Stitched Doc/OH JOY! ANOTHER Do's and Don't's of making Fan characters~!

OH JOY.

ANOTHER ONE OF THESE SUGGESTIVE THINGS~! lD

I suppose you can consider this a rant, actually, it depends on how you speculate such.

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Ahem. Getting serious here, I honestly have had the urge to do one of these for awhile. Now, please take in mind, I understand, Fannon is for OCs, but there are some... do's and don't's of making them. I suppose some could be even classified as my own opinion. Bash me if you must.

=== Some do NOTs to start us off~? ===

OC and Cannon relationship things.
While ahem LURKING this Wikia for some time now, I've noticed the high amount of OCs pairing themselves up with cannon characters, or being related to Cannons. Honestly, this is a large pet peeve of mine. First, let's start off with your whole OC/Cannon. Do you honestly think a cannon character is going to go all love-love over your OC? No matter what they accomplish, how they act, who they are, etc.? No. I highly doubt even the possibility of MEETING them. Even if there's some roleplay evidence of your little pairing, I highly doubt it ever happening. What about the character? What if they have interest in another cannon? Are you really going to just shove that factor aside? I would hope not. Cannon children are another peeve of mine. Can you put something into consideration? Like... if a relationship between said-cannon parents is possible? I mean, what if someone ELSE likes another pairing? Or has... let's say Sonic as the father, and oh, Sally as the mother, while you have Sonic as the father, and Amy as the mother? Doesn't that make Sonic look like some kind of... oh I don't know, ''womanizer? ''Last time I checked, Sonic is a care-free 15 year old, energy-filled kind of hedgehog. ... Then there's the age, actually. Most characters are in their teen years, can you really explain such? I've seen the "In-the-future" kind of thing, but it highly get's old after awhile. And it hasn't actually been revealed if Sonic/Shadow/whoever will even have relationships in the future- non-comic wise. Meeting cannons.. are iffy. Technically, this counts as an opinion. I dislike the idea of a OC being all buddy-buddy with a cannon out of NOWHERE. I mean, living by them is fine, knowing of them is okay, but just starting off all; "HEY BUDDEH, WE ARE TEH BEST FRIENDS" just... illogical. I myself, would actually LOVE to see a backstory RP of the two, with a well-experienced Cannon-RPer. OC and Cannon relations... I just.. no. How many brothers does Sonic, Shadow, and Tails have now? 100? Keh. But, getting on track. I don't find such very logical, because if they WERE related, would they not be known cannonly? No. Not really. And you can't really make up the excuse of "Oh, they're long lost", I mean, really. Sonic/Shadow/Whatever would of remembered. Ammnesia? Doubtful. ====Recolors==== Re-colors... lord, how many do we have? I personally LOVE creating character designs but.. uh.. well... let me start this off. I don't generally find re-coloring artwork/sprites is considered... original. Even slapping a shirt on, changing the shoes, etc, would be unoriginal. Maybe change up their appearance? Especially with hedgehogs. You can really do A LOT with their quills if you put your imagination into it. Though many start off as re-colors, I'm sure you can progress with character designs in time. ====Mary Sues/Gary Stus==== Lord pray a lot don't invade wikia. Now, some of you may not know what Gary-Stus/Mary Sues are. Such are a breed of characters. A very terrible trait, if you will. Gary/Maries have OUT STANDING abilities, and are perfect in many aspects. There are different types, e.g. Attention Sues, for example. Sues/Stus generally have a lot of characters fall in love with them due to some kind of special ability, such a great singing, body, WHATEVER. They also tend to uber and be over-powered. If you DO create a sue, I would hope they would not progress as such. Accurate, definition is unaccurate.

Terrible Back Storys
This... I suggest avoiding. I LOVE good backstories, but some are over-used. Mainly the whole; "Gerald's experiment", "Shadow's brother" "ARK" "born from Chaos Emeralds" etc. Before actually creating a character, think of a back story to go with it, or at least that's what I do.

Originality;
The best thing when creating a fan character, is to be original! Don't copy someone else' ideas, it's quite disrespectful, and will earn you a flame or two. And those aren't a lot of fun. When creating a character, think of a name that isn't highly used, but still represents the character in some way. As for their appearance, that's a good way to be creative. See what kind of great edits you can do to sprites, that's the fun of things. Backstories, try to think of something never-done before, but remember, it doesn't have to be perfect. Nothing is perfect. Just PLEASE, don't do an already-cliche-highly-overdone-one. And remember the cannon relationships up there? Yeah. Try going for themes that will fit your character the best. For powers, think of the personality too. Is your character a meek healer? Perhaps an energetic fighter? Now those are stereotypes, you can mix and match, just don't go over-board with power, and add some flaws to your character. They can't be perfect. Even Shadow wasn't perfect.

TL; DR, just ignore this crapload of text. Expect edits?

http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/ae144/Thompson_sisters/Gifs/Episode5SteinCiseaux.gif "Now then, where shall I make my first cut~?"-Doc 02:32, October 23, 2010 (UTC)