Fanon Stereotypes! or How We Learned to Continue Worrying and Rant a Bunch

I've seen OCs I genuinely cared about or felt were important to get the story moving but they were basically supporting characters that filled a role that no canon character could. You couldn't always tell how long they'd stick around but their presence wasn't unwelcome. For the most part they didn't show up until at least a few chapters in. For example, a multi-chaptered fic set in Nibelheim is probably gonna end up mentioning people other than Cloud and Tifa's families to an extent where we'd end up caring about their lives too or at least getting a bigger picture of what life is like there. Likewise, a fic set in Cloud's time in the military is going to have to mention at few MPs and whatnot by name if it's not a oneshot focused on Cloud and Zack. One of said characters is inevitably going to be something of a friend or helpful acquaintance to Cloud, but probably not to the point where they'd become important enough to work their way into a retelling of the OG should the fic span that much time.

I've never read a fanfic where I have genuinely cared about someone's OC character. It seems they are too 'special snowflake' for me, or they seem like an annoying add on. For instance I feel like Genesis could have been someone's OC character the way he is forced into the story and how he tries to steal the main focus of the story. While I am okay with Genesis as a character, I don't care about him. And I definitely don't feel like he belongs in the story and it's perfectly fine by me if he never existed in the story line at all.

i guess genesis was an oc, gackt's oc
Speaking of that though, it bothers the shit out of me when people make an OC that is basically a self insert... It drives me insane because it's so painfully obvious and irritating.

I'm really particular and picky about fanfiction though. There's a lot of popular stories people adore that I just do not. I think it takes a lot to make a good fanfiction, it takes blood, sweat, and tears to make a GREAT one. I've probably read like 5 or 6 superior fanfics in my entire life. This doesn't mean I necessarily think other people's writing is bad, just that everyone's interpretations of characters are really different sometimes and if something is even slightly OOC or doesn't make sense to me I immediately grow tired of the story. It CAN be well written but still lack good story telling ... sadly.

I'm picky with my own writing as well which is why I never write an entire fic, but only fragments and one-shots. 3,000 words at least and then I'm done. x m x It's like I can feel the story getting dull after that amount of time and I can only keep it interesting in that amount of time. IDK.

I'm a huge fan of alternate universe stories because it seems that whenever I read something that exists in the same universe the characters are from they change it to where it would never work out or it fucks up the timeline and even though it might be one small thing it sticks with me and I can't get over it while I'm reading the story.

edit: ALSO I want to talk about this thing in smutfics that pisses me off. People that write Aerith like she's a virgin completely naive about sex. Like so naive that she has to be 'taught' what to do by Zack (those are the ones I read haha). And I hate how they portray Zack as this like sex addicted guy that calls girls 'baby' and uGH being a ladies man doesn't mean you're automatically a douche bag, you could just really be popular with women and a bit flirtatious. But getting back to Aerith, SHE IS A GROWN WOMAN. SHE'S NOT A CHILD ANYMORE. I'M PRETTY SURE SHE KNOWS WHAT SEX IS AND HOW TO HAVE IT. ffs

Noctis said:

Speaking of that though, it bothers the shit out of me when people make an OC that is basically a self insert... It drives me insane because it's so painfully obvious and irritating.

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This is the first hurdle with OC's that you need to pass, and if you don't, you're pretty much fucked from the get-go. I try to be as aware as possible with self insert, not just for my OC's, but my canon characters as well. Pulling the camera back to allow the characters to act and unfold on their own is so vital - and so damn hard!

My most awkward experience with self-insert is an RP blog I really enjoy. One of this person's OC's is the wife of one of the canon characters. I've seen the RP'er on cam so I know what she looks like. One day she reblogged an old drawing she did of the wife, and the drawing shared so many traits with the RP'er the whole thing was just... awkward. I mean there's no harm in it, it might be completely unrelated, or she might not be aware at all - either way, it made me think a lot about my OC's and to be even more aware of the dreaded self insert.

I mean you have to write what you know, but there's a difference between using your experiences and putting yourself entirely in your character's shoes. (The risk, with self-insert is, of course (how I see it anyway) that you might end up making that character an image of who you want to be instead of who you are, making them unrounded characters. I like using that quadrant of the 4 'awarenesses' as an example for this:

The things about you that...

* Both you and the people around you are aware of
* The things only you know
* The things only they know (that for x amount of reasons you don't learn - varying from 'they're afraid to tell you/ don't see telling you as relevant' to 'they thought you already knew' (like if you tend to talk too loud but have no idea yourself)
* The things you don't know about yourself that others don't know either (tbh I find it very hard coming up with examples for this one)

My point is that looking at a character that's different from you, it's much easier to be aware of the traits in point number 3, and as I see it, these things can be very important for characterization.

That was kind of off-topic but I enjoyed typing that

edit: ALSO I want to talk about this thing in smutfics that pisses me off. People that write Aerith like she's a virgin completely naive about sex. Like so naive that she has to be 'taught' what to do by Zack (those are the ones I read haha). (...) But getting back to Aerith, SHE IS A GROWN WOMAN. SHE'S NOT A CHILD ANYMORE. I'M PRETTY SURE SHE KNOWS WHAT SEX IS AND HOW TO HAVE IT. ffs

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Oh, this. So much this. It's clear during the Wall Market and Don Corneo's mansion scenes that Aerith's a lot feistier than you're led to believe at first. Out of the two of them, Tifa's far more of a 'virgin' than Aerith, if one is to use those terms in the first place. But fandom seems to prefer Aerith as a pure virgin and Tifa as a slut, because, you know, outfits.

I wonder if some writers believe that creating a character means pulling them out from inside of themselves? That's one way of doing it, I guess, but it doesn't have to be done that way - especially when writing in the third person. I'm really struggling to express this idea, because the shortcomings of the English pronoun system keep getting in the way, but anyway -

When a reader reads about a character, it's the same as when you meet a person in real life. The more time you spend with this person, the better you know them, but you'll never know everything about them, and your impression of this person will evolve out of a combination of what they tell you, what you see, and what your own imagination provides or assumes. Creating a character is a collaboration between a writer and a reader. "My" Macbeth, for example, isn't exactly the same as Shakespeare's or yours. (This is one of the reasons why I think it's ridiculous for authors to claim that they 'own' their characters The way I see it, when an author publishes a book she has given her character to the general public. It takes two to make that character exist: the creativity of the author and the imagination of the reader.)

I wonder if a lot of new writers think that 'write what you know' means 'write only your own experience', which is why we end up with all these unconscious self-inserts. Whereas, in fact, you can draw on what you observe in all the individuals around you to create you characters. Writing in the first person seems to be the preserve of younger writers as well, I've noticed. I wonder if this is because older people have more perspective, view the world through a wider lens than just themselves?

My rambly thoughts on a Saturday morning, putting off doing the housework.

My method of coming up with OCs is to look at what characters would probably have to be there in real life. If it's probable that the OC would be around, then they don't feel as awkward.

Examples:
Hojo is called a professor. So there's probably some type of college system that he, Hollander, Gast, Lucrecia, Gillain, and Grimore all went though to get the basic science knowledge they have. That would included other Professors, students, etc.

Fort Condor is hiring their personnel and equipment from someone else who isn't Shin-Ra. So there's at least one, if not more, mercenary groups out there that people can hire out if Shin-Ra doesn't think their problem don't bring them good publicity, or if they don't have enough money.

Loveless is being put on as a play, and even Cid knows about it. There's probably a huge entertainment industry overseen by Shin-Ra that we never hear about.

There has to be people who are getting in supplies to the backwoods towns like Nebielheim and Bone Village, and Icicle Inn. And given the monsters in those areas, they're probably pretty skilled at fighting...

*hides back catalogue of exactly the kind of thing you all dislike*

To an extent I agree with everyone, but I still have a soft spot for OCs in general, and I've seen fics that suffer for not including them. If you write about Cloud first joining the military, his environment should be composed of little but OCs. He's not going to meet the Turks, or SOLDIER 1sts, and if he does, they won't know anything about him. He'll eventually run into Zack, but won't be hanging around with him every other day. Hojo runs a huge department, he won't personally oversee every individual recruit's Mako enhancements. The Shinra building is huge, it''s not just composed of 'Lobby, SOLDIER floor, Turk Floor, President's Office' with a small pool of 'secretaries' for Reno and Zack to hit on. Even if you work in a specialised office like SOLDIER, you'll get to know at least a few support staff as well. I like reading about OC fics, if anyone has any particular recommendations let me know.

I came across one fic where the Turks needed a blond haired woman for an infiltration mission. Their first choice? Scarlet, because she clearly has nothing better to do than infiltrate the Honey Bee Inn(!) on behalf of the Turks. Then she got sick of it, so they went to Elena. Because in all their thousands of employees, those were the only options available.

I'm always a bit puzzled by how much people seem to care about Aeris and Tifa's virginity or lack thereof. I can see both of them either way, but there's like ten pages of arguing about Tifa's chastity early in the headcanon thread as though it's a determinable fact. It's weird that people seem to get offended somehow if one of them is/isn't a virgin. Aeris could easily either have dated a lot or very little, and given that she knows the Turks are always following her around, she might not want a photo of her first time stuck on the inside of Tseng's locker. We don't know much about Seventh Heaven's environment, it could go either way and there's no real way to know.

On female SOLDIERs, I actually put a fair bit of thought into this over the last while. There are a couple of possibilities, mostly relating to kids being born with wings and a tail if not carefully controlled in a lab environment or Mako enhanced two year olds demolishing the HQ creche. Or that allowing women in moves control of propagating SOLDIERs out of the labs? But generally I agree that there probably were a few that didn't come up in the plot because Square were too lazy to make an extra model. I'm one of the few people I've read that actually writes women into the Shinra infantry, I always think that's strange.

Oh my god, Clement, there isn't a word in your post I don't agree with.

Except that first bit about your backlist being stuff we don't like. As far as I am concerned, you're a role model of how to do OCs right. And IIRC, your OCs are always characters who could plausibly be one of those NPCs populating the corners of the scene - 3rd classes, low-ranking infantrymen, Corneo's flunkeys.

Yes, Shinra is a huge company. The Shinra building must house thousands of workers. In that respect, the OG does a better job than most fanfics in suggesting that a lot of lives are being lived in that building and in that city - and it's precisely because it's so big that entropy starts to set in and some things just never get done, like fixing the toilet on the boardroom floor. It's always somebody else's job.

The obsession with Tifa and Aerith's chastity has always bugged me too. I think it all has to do with which one is more deserving of Cloud (ie, which one has remained 'pure' for him). And yet I never got the impression that it mattered to Cloud.

I just felt like throwing in a couple of more cents. <-- that's me trying to be 'foreigny cute'

LicoriceAllsorts said:

Actually, I often enjoy OC stories in FFVII's world. It's a world that allows for further world building, and I like the idea that it's full of people just living their lives.

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This. I have an idea for a series of drabbles called 'NPC's in XII' - just telling everyday life of regular people in the different parts of Ivalice you encounter during XII. I bolded the part in Lic's quote here because I think those few words sums up exactly why I like OC's in fan fiction - world building. And, also, character building. Sometimes you need to add other people to help the canon characters grow.

I usually end up growing more fond of my OC's than the canon characters, and that's even when I write them kind of unemphatic

I've had this plot bunny for ages where we follow an Item as it passes from one NPCs hand to another in Midgar. It would start with a soldier who looted the item from Zack's body, and end up with the item passing to one of the Turks - I wanted it to be an item which the party can win or steal from the Turks, so eventually I settled on the Ziedrich. On its way from Zack to Rude it would have various adventures and be a symbol of various feelings or aspirations for the different characters who temporarily owned it. One of them was going to be the stage manager for Loveless, and another one was going to be Little Bro. I never got any further than that with it, though.

As you know, I love your OCs, Fangu, and I would love to read more about the adventures of Fira, Serpent and Snow. I think Serpent's my favourite, though. And Clare was exactly as she should be!

I think your plot bunny sounds awesome. This is definitely something I'd want to read! Especially since you know so much of the VII universe - I know I could trust you entirely to just sit back and be washed with clever world building bits.

LicoriceAllsorts said:

I think Serpent's my favourite, though.

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See now you're making me curious as to why Although I can sort of see it - Snow is just a boy trying to make it in the world, and Fira is still a child. Serpent is headstrong, smart and mysterious - it's in her name. I have headcanons of her being seduced by this charismatic witch, teaching her all kinds of lesson on life, love and power, then later learning her childhood friend Faris (her neighbour, you know) had been in love with her the entire time. idk. One day, perhaps? She's definitely the one of the three to get into the more exciting and darker of adventures.

This doesn't mean I necessarily think other people's writing is bad, just that everyone's interpretations of characters are really different sometimes and if something is even slightly OOC or doesn't make sense to me I immediately grow tired of the story. It CAN be well written but still lack good story telling ... sadly.

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There's a tendency in fanfic to fixate upon one aspect of a character and to blow it out of proportion. It doesn't make the story bad -- it often adds to the enjoyment factor, and it allows people to explore facets of the character that aren't well-explored in canon -- and I wouldn't call it strictly OOC ... they feel familiar, but the characters plainly aren't the characters you see in the canon. (For example, it's like everyone suddenly jumps a level or two in Wittiness when they appear in fanfic.)

There are also authors whose characterizations are actually OOC, but they've nevertheless managed to cultivate huge fanbases in spite of it on the strength of their other talents (e.g. sense of humor, wit, solid writing, speed of writing, etc.). I won't name any names, since people will think I'm bitter.

But that brings me to my next point, which is that I think for a lot of people, they'd rather read OOC canon characters over decently-done OCs. Sometimes they'd rather read OOC canon characters over IC canon characters too. I can totally understand this in some cases though; Genesis in canon is ten times of awful, Angeal is boring to the max, some of the retcons make characters plain difficult/confusing to balance (e.g. Reno), so on and so forth.

dief said:

There's a tendency in fanfic to fixate upon one aspect of a character and to blow it out of proportion. It doesn't make the story bad -- it often adds to the enjoyment factor, and it allows people to explore facets of the character that aren't well-explored in canon -- and I wouldn't call it strictly OOC ... they feel familiar, but the characters plainly aren't the characters you see in the canon. (For example, it's like everyone suddenly jumps a level or two in Wittiness when they appear in fanfic.)

There are also authors whose characterizations are actually OOC, but they've nevertheless managed to cultivate huge fanbases in spite of it on the strength of their other talents (e.g. sense of humor, wit, solid writing, speed of writing, etc.). I won't name any names, since people will think I'm bitter.

But that brings me to my next point, which is that I think for a lot of people, they'd rather read OOC canon characters over decently-done OCs. Sometimes they'd rather read OOC canon characters over IC canon characters too. I can totally understand this in some cases though; Genesis in canon is ten times of awful, Angeal is boring to the max, some of the retcons make characters plain difficult/confusing to balance (e.g. Reno), so on and so forth.

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Yeah, most of times fanon Genesis is more fun than canon Genesis.

I don't think it matters if Tifa or Aerith are virgins or not, I just hate it when people write them like they're 12 year olds with no inkling of how sex works at all. Like you can still be a virgin and still have sexual desires and know what's going to take place when you DO have sex. It's like people think sex somehow taints someone's 'innocence'... but it doesn't? Not to mention the fact that I wouldn't describe Aerith as innocent. That kind of description I'd probably give to a character like Serah even though fact of the matter is that no character is completely innocent and they shouldn't be portrayed as such. At least imo!

I read a Zack/Cloud fic once and it had plenty of OC characters like, grunts that Cloud hung around with and stuff. They had given a personality to that random soldier that falls off of Mt. Nibel and they made it kind of sad because they made him one of Cloud's other friends. (Just because Zack is his BEST friend doesn't mean he was his only friend I think that's realistic) Sadly they could have written it better, but it was still an interesting idea.

Actually since we're on the topic, one of the fanon stereotypes that has always bugged me is that Zack and Cloud are best friends. It's not that I object to fic that writes them that way, it's just that I don't think there's anything in canon to support it. At best, I think it might be one of those relationships where Cloud is not the best friend of his best friend. But I don't think we see anything in particular to suggest that they are really close before the Nibelheim incident. They go on a couple of missions together and share some laughs and find a couple of things in common - but I mean, I do that with loads of people who are not my Best Friend Forever, or even what I'd call friends.

Cloud and Zack really only become close during the years that they spend in Hojo's labs, and even then they're less friends per se than two people who develop a unique bond through suffering through the same, shared experience - maybe more like Rick and Daryl from the Walking Dead than two best mates for life. Zack saves Cloud's life at the expense of his because that's the kind of person he is. And Cloud's grief is not due to the fact that he lost his "Best Friend from way back since my rookie days in Shinra", but because this amazing, awesome guy whose strength and courage kept him alive through four years of hell is dead, just when freedom seemed to be wuithin their grasp, and now he doesn't know how he'll keep going.

I guess it all depends how you define "friend". But I still maintain that Cloud and Zack were, at best, very casual friends before Nibelheim, and Zack almost certainly loomed larger in Cloud's universe than Cloud did in his. But I don't think it makes any difference to anything in the story if they barely know each other before they go Nibelheim. They're not friends who find themselves accidentally thrown together into a horrible situation, but acquaintances whose bond develops as a result of their shared suffering.

I also got the impression that Zack and Cloud are not particularly close. I'm not convinced they worked together any more than what you get in canon actually (Modeoheim, Junon, and Nibelheim), and it doesn't sound like they're buddies. I wouldn't be surprised if Zack was Cloud's bff though, even if Cloud wasn't Zack's (if Zack even thinks that way).

That said, I don't mind seeing it. It's pretty harmless, and there's something appealing about making Zack the first person to really look out for Cloud.

... hmmm, another bit of fanon that makes me twitch, but that I can tolerate, because it's everywhere and often a plot point in stories: Angeal's degrading like Genesis!

I'm still not sure if Angeal's degrading at all. Hollander says he's perfect, and the first time his condition looks less than perfect is right after Zack kicks his ass. That can be explained by, well, he's dying, so. His copies degrade, but that could just be because they're copies.

I think I can accept that Hollander is just wrong, but if Angeal is degrading, it seems he's degrading at a far slower rate than Genesis. Either that or Angeal's just that good at avoiding injuries.

I never thought of that, but you're right. So Genesis is degrading and tying to live, while Angeal, who isn't degrading, can't bear what he is and wants to die.

Three others that came to me:

1. Genesis's parents are physically and verbally abusive. I get it, people're trying to make him more sympathetic in childhood, but there are so many more interesting ways to get him from "good boy" to "raging sociopath" that involve delicious, tasty things like miscommunication, the inability to break patterns of behavior, non-receptivity, etc.

2. Nibelheim dialect = German! I think I know where this came from, but it's ridiculous. I don't mean to offend anyone who ascribes to this, and I can't say I've seen it a lot, but it's definitely something I heavily dislike. Part of it's because I get horrible flashbacks to Daniel Jackson trying to speak German. The other part is because I feel the lack of regional dialects/languages means something in the game.

3. Where did Reno Sinclair come from?

Along the same line, I'm uncertain if I believe that Turks use code names. It's a cool idea, but it also seems totally pointless to me. But I am not a Turk specialist.

dief said:

1. Genesis's parents are physically and verbally abusive. I get it, people're trying to make him more sympathetic in childhood, but there are so many more interesting ways to get him from "good boy" to "raging sociopath" that involve delicious, tasty things like miscommunication, the inability to break patterns of behavior, non-receptivity, etc.

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This one in particular bugs me because we have canon evidence that they were genuinely good parents.

2. Nibelheim dialect = German! I think I know where this came from, but it's ridiculous. I don't mean to offend anyone who ascribes to this, and I can't say I've seen it a lot, but it's definitely something I heavily dislike. Part of it's because I get horrible flashbacks to Daniel Jackson trying to speak German. The other part is because I feel the lack of regional dialects/languages means something in the game.

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Well, we know that there are at least two different writing systems or languages, English and Japanese. And that Shin-Ra uses both. Although if I were the one to peg Nibelheim with an accent/second language, it would be Icelandic (modern version of Old Norse). IDK, I think there's enough evidence in game to justify regional dialects, if not completely different languages existing at one point in the FFVII world. Given how isolated Nibelhim is, I could see a dialect surviving there a lot longer then in Costa De Sol.

Obsidian Fire said:

IDK, I think there's enough evidence in game to justify regional dialects, if not completely different languages existing at one point in the FFVII world. Given how isolated Nibelhim is, I could see a dialect surviving there a lot longer then in Costa De Sol.

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I find that thinking in terms of regional languages helps with world-building, even if those different languages are dying out now that Shinra rules the world. if I have to add new towns or name mountain ranges or rivers or whatever for my story, I don't want to simply invent a random sound. So I like to imagine that in Nibelheim and points north-west they used to speak a Germanic-type language; Costa del Sol, a Latin derived language; Gongaga, Hebrew (because of Zacharias); Mideel, Hindi; Wutai, Japanese (because I don't known Chinese); the Northern Continent, English, etc....This helps me with naming OC places and people. But that's as far as it goes.

My two chief objections to Reno "Sinclair" are
1. It's not his canon name goddamit
2. It's not the name I would give him
(In fact, his 'real' name is Reginald Norton)

One of the main points of the game is that ShinRa basically wipes out identity and variation. While I'm sure regional dialects existed at one point, actually having the characters speak another language when they're not from Wutai makes me raise an eyebrow. I don't deny that there may be traces, but they're only that: traces. I'm not going to believe that Cloud or Tifa go around spouting things about mein Vater or die Frau or babbling German in their sleep.

The extent to which regional dialects affect my writing:

1. Names: Extremely arbitrary. I pick a name I like, I find out what language it's from, then I pull other names in from that language when I need more characters. (My Mideel is randomly Irish, for instance.) I try to stick to semi-common names, ones you don't hear every day but ones that also won't raise an eyebrow.

2. Swears: I use summons as swears, and I regionalize these based on where the summon materia are found. On the Eastern Continent, you get a lot of Shiva/Ifrit/Hades; around Nibelheim, Odin and Gaia (I know it's not canon, but I like it, and it's used exclusively by the Nibelheimers); and Wutai has Leviathan, of course, etc.

Wutai's an odd mix of Chinese, Russian, and Japanese. I actually feel that there are much fewer Japanese elements compared to Chinese elements, but that could just be bias on my part.

I agree about Wutai being more Chinese, both becauase of things like Da Chao and because it's meant to feel foreign to a Japanese audience as well. Incidentally, the naming conventions are why I feel there's justification in assuming Tseng to be from Wutai, though I'm quite sure "Kisaragi" is Japanese.

Kisaragi's definitely Japanese. I think it's the only Japanese name though? Everything else scans most readily as Chinese to me. Aside from Da Chao, Wutai also sounds Chinese, and there're some Wutai soldier types that're romanized as Bing, Ding, Geng, Ji, Jia, Wu, Xin, and Yi. If I'm not mistaken, these are "stems" related to the Chinese calendar.

Don't forget Chekov.
I could never figure out what kind of theme was going on with the Russian names.

I agree too about Wutai being Chinese. I make it more Japanese in my fics just because I know some Japanese and I don't know any Chinese. At least if I stick to Japanese I won't accidentally name my characters "Glorifying Tax Return", or something similar.

Suggestion shamelessly ganked from FF Wiki: Chekhov, Gorky, and Stanislavski are all creative writers, and all were born in the 1860s. If you accept that Shake = Shakespeare, and Godo is a reference to "Waiting for Godot," then it's pretty much all some sort of literary allusion, though I don't know enough about most of the Russian writers to say for sure.

Glorifying Tax Return. *snort* That is certainly a worry when mucking about with foreign names. There's always the option of stealing names from actors/celebrities/characters in films/shows though.

Speaking of Wutai, a lot of fan fiction writers will depict Sephiroth being half Wutaian or having Wutaian descent. Mainly because people assume that Hojo is Wutaian.