Fan Characters - Why We Should Love Them!

[grassgremlin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN16PT6gpGU
Video is hilarious and appropriate.

Fan Characters . . . the internet hates them. Mostly of the My Little Pony and Sonic The Hedgehog variety . . .

. . . but why?

What have those loveable canon/non-canon additions to your fave franchise ever done to you?
Isn't the nature of a product to insert your fantasy character into a preexisting world to shake things up?

I think the vitriol fan made creations get from the internet is unwarranted. How can one judge a person's character on the Sonic Recolor he decides to post on his avatar.

His Cinos. We should all love Cinos, for he feels no shame in his deliberate intention in being better then his long lost brother, Sonic.

Let's discuss fan characters and fan-made content in general and what constitutes good and bad.
I like to think a person with the writing chops to insert a well written new character into a existing franchise has a right to do so without the vitriol angst of the internet and it's stigma.

Because a poorly written character transcends his or her inception. Bad unoriginal do-not-steal characters are bad no matter if fans created them or the professionals who make the playgrounds the fans insert them into.

Note: This OP has plenty of fan characters he's created both past and future cause nothing is more fun then to shake up a existing world with random crap.

 

[Twintix]

Because a poorly written character transcends his or her inception. Bad unoriginal do-not-steal characters are bad no matter if fans created them or the professionals who make the playgrounds the fans insert them into.

This is an important bit that I feel that a lot of people deliberately overlook. A bad character is, indeed, a bad character no matter who writes it. The poorly written fan character is not somehow worse simply because it's a fan character.

I raise my eyebrow at people who claim to hate fanfiction and fan characters. Like, I'm sure most people have made a character be part of a universe that they like. I write fanfiction (Not frequently, mind you) and draw fan characters. It's fun. It's really fun. It lets my creativity flow while it lets me improve my writing and artistic skills.

Most of the people who write "bad" fanfiction and draw "bad" characters are, more often than not, young, usually pre-teen to early teens, and new to this whole newfangled writing business. Of course they're not going to produce "Hamlet" or "The Last Supper" on their first attempt. You shouldn't expect them to. Everyone need to start somewhere.

Do you know what you could do to help people with character design and writing?

[HEADING=3]Give them feedback.[/HEADING]

Any feedback. And don't be a prick about it. It's simple; Just give them some pointers, tell them how they can improve. If you just bash them and tell them how much they suck, they aren't going to learn anything. And they might give up doing what they love. And wouldn't that be a shame, to discourage potential future writers who might be able to write masterpieces with a few years of practice? (This is the part where I should ask if you would've liked it if someone just bashed your hard work, but I'm afraid that'll make me look smug and pretentious. I'm sure you can connect the dots anyway)

Of course, some of them aren't going to accept your critique and will react negatively. Some of these writers will be bad at accepting critique. But they'll have to learn to handle it, and I believe they'll still have learnt something, and if they don't realize it sooner, they will later.

Also, try, at least try, to find something positive about their work. Look, I'm sure that Jake the Hedgehog is a poorly written character who is just a sprite recolor with a stupid backstory, and Princess Emerald Diamondfart might be the living incantation of a Mary Sue. But I don't believe that there are things so gut-wretchingly awful in the world of writing and character design that there are absolutely no good points whatsoever. You might have to look hard, but I'm sure you'll find something you thought was at least OK.

(Even 50 Shades of Grey, as wretched of an existence as it is to me, gave us the hilarious dramatic readings. And My Immortal is unintentionally gut-busting at times. Some of the good points to you may not even have been intended by the author/artist, but try to boost people's confidence a little bit, will ya'? Please?)

I don't know if we should really "love" fan characters, but we should strive to help people improve.

I long for the day where "fanfiction" and "OC" are no longer used as insults.

(Can you tell that I've wanted to talk about this for a very long time?)

 

[Leemaster777]

I feel like looking for good fan-created characters is a bit like sifting through 22 septic tanks with your bare hands to find treasure. Sure, you might find a diamond ring that someone accidentally flushed, but you just sifted through 22 septic tanks. With your bare hands. And you probably have hepatitis now.

...wait, where was I going with this? Whatever.

Point is, I don't put much stock in your average OC to be anything worthwhile. I say "much", because there ARE a few legitimate gems out there. Case in point:

 

[MiskWisk]

I'm not entirely sure what constitutes a good fan-made character. To be honest, if you do see a good fan-made character, they are usually in a well-written story anyway. Getting the correct balance of flawed but not so much to basically end up a hate sink and useful enough but not so much to be a walking deus ex machina is hard. Doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good fan-made character though.

I will note however that I love the Oogakari family from the Yet again Naruto fanfic. A group of god-mode OCs just doesn't inspire confidence and yet they are written just hammily enough and are self aware enough to get a good set of laughs. The real kicker is that they are well written enough that there are times when you forget they are all psychopathic in their own ways which gives a nice little "oh shit" moment when it pops up.

 

[Entitled]

The "fan-" prefix isn't really describing specific type of works, they are closer to insults at "whatever I don't like".

50 Shades of Grey is often called fanfiction, even though it takes neither the copyrighted setting, nor trademarked characters from any other work. We KNOW that it's early draft was based on Twilight, but by the same logic, Watchmen is also fanfiction. Licensed spinoff like the Star Wars EU get slammed for being "glorified fanfiction", but never a work like the Walking Dead games, or Disney's Grimm and Andersen based cartoons.

"Fanfiction" is used in a way that by definition it only includes bad, shallow, cheap, unprofessional, and pandering works. If it is high quality, professional, deep, and appealing, then it is "not just fanfiction".

The same applies for fan art. When you say "fan caracter" and peope think of a Cinos, that's because they first automatically filter out all the good ones, by various excuses, as not really fan characters but something else.