Subject: OCs as in..
Author:
Posted on: 2013-01-13 16:30:00 UTC
From original fiction, or from our fanfics?
Subject: OCs as in..
Author:
Posted on: 2013-01-13 16:30:00 UTC
From original fiction, or from our fanfics?
So, I was going over some characters in my head late last night, and I suddenly discovered that two of my characters were really rather stellar.
These three characters were:
Seth Beldan - Seth is one of the Nine Traitors in the Chronicles of Zeyr; that is, one of the nine innocent people who were arrested in a preemptive attempt by a villain to remove threats before they knew they were threats. Out of all nine of the Traitors, Seth is among the friendliest. From the start, he was the owner of a legitimate business, and treated all his customers equally, even if he hated them - which was difficult for him and his natural sunny demeanor to pull off anyhow. Seth detests war, and became physically ill after each conflict where his squad was involved. Upon being arrested, Seth made it a point to leave a good impression on all of his fellow to-be-executed convicts, even going against the racism towards elves to try and help Ki'Eran, who admitted that Seth was perhaps the only human he didn't despise. When the group was escaping and Demara was struck by debris, Seth was almost incapable of continuing his flight from danger. The list goes on, but it's not often I make a character so downright saintly, let's just say.
Denestra Demara - Where Seth is the friendliest of the Traitors, Demara is one of the most level-headed to match his well-mannered nature. Born with a high concentration of magic, Demara had to learn how to stabilize his thoughts in order to control his powers, and so took up an interest in debates, psychology, statistics, rational judgements, and other brain skills that served to give him a mental edge over his opponents. Though Demara is weak in the physical sense, he is very much a combat pragmatist, and can certainly go below the belt if it helps him win.
So what's this topic about?
Easy!
Name your favorite OCs, and give some reasons why you like them.
In my first post, I accidentally wrote that there were three characters instead of two.
Let me just correct this by mentioning:
Drake Ironpoint - In a series with a cast including the world's unluckiest woman, an egotistical sorcerer, a seafaring captain that reeks Aura of Smooth, and a Mercenary With a Heart of Gold, Drake stands alone as really the only normal person of the group. Even despite being born an Animagus to a family of high-end Animagi, Drake prefers living a simple life and practicing the skills of a huntsman over his natural-born talents. In a fight, Drake only resorts to magic when he absolutely has no other choice. Despite the inherent danger of being romantically involved with the Iron Butt Monkey of the cast, Drake keeps a healthy, humorous and natural relationship with Iris, partially on account of his saving her life once, and his ability to turn most bad situations into comedic ones.
Well, I'd have to say that I really like my character Deryn Salir, a bodyguard for the supernatural elite. I used to RP as her, but eventually I revised her occupation so that she worked for a consulting exorcism firm. She's a very sassy, impulsive character that gets into a lot of trouble when she runs her mouth,, which is often. I decided to change her occupation when I realised that bodyguards would have to be a good deal more thoughtful and stoic than she was.
Unless, of course, said bodyguards are demons forced into labor at the hands of demon hunters in the occupation of, ironically, demon hunting.
Think Hellsing, here. Alucard is nothing if not a pretentious ass.
Is it good?
My favorite OC ever, who has, by now, accumulated a fair share of adventures and oddities.
Jack - Jack's from my original 'verse. In the beginning, he was a recurring side character, but eventually he got his own batch of stories he's featured in.
He's a Computer Science teacher in a boarding school and leads a secret life as an (in)famous hacker.
He's kind of a genius, but he's always been hiding that fact since, even in that world, being the smart kid in school gets insults (and more material things) thrown at you. He later returned to his old school as a teacher, mainly because he felt like he needed to rise the average quality of Computer Science teachers there.
Most of the time, he's goofing around and can get a bit arrogant, but he knows when things are serious and will call you out on it. He's also very protective of children, especially those in his school.
There's tons of story and background details about this character, to the point of ending up as almost-Sue on the Litmus Test. Most of that comes from him being one of my favorite character, so that I keep adding details and things that happened. Given the world and the fact that he's best friends with the 'verse's weirdness magnet, strange things are bound to happen to him.
I'll stop here before I go on rambling any more.
Oh no, by all means, continue rambling. I don't mind in the slightest.
This is a topic dedicated to fawning over your favorite OCs, after all, so why not?
From someone else's works I'd have to admit I adore Samantha Carter - who is, actually, not the Sam Carter you're probably thinking of. She's from "The Secret Life of John Watson", and she is just really hilarious and realistic and provides good insight into what it'd actually be like to date John Watson. Her friends are amazing and their interactions remind me of my interactions with my own friends. It's fantastic.
Anyway... in my own terms I think I really like Takara from the International Academy of Hetalia Fanfiction. Truth be told she was modelled off an OC from the Hetalia Facebook Roleplay group I used to be a part of, and this OC had been a good character up until she murdered my character (who, by the way, was Hugh Fraser), and I realised she... well. She was the daughter of England and Japan, had a speshul necklace, was dating a human diplomat, got away with a lot of crap, and was pretty and witty and seemingly innocent (she hoarded yaoi). And really, her entire thing of shipping Hugh with his colleague Charlie (who also shows up in IAHF) should've been ...ing annoying, yet he kinda put up with it and I thought that was a bit unfair (and a bit unrealistic). So when I started writing Takara, I changed her into a shy nurse who has a crush on Hugh (and is an orphan, but apparently her parents were English and Japanese, not necessarily England and Japan), and who faces the consequences of taking Aura of Smooth to seduce him - most of the school thinking she's a turncoat and a pregnancy to boot. She was one of the characters that grew the most in her short time in IAHF, I think, and despite the fact that he'd been Suefluenced at first to sleep with her, I think Hugh harbours affections for her (though that may stem from respect for her handling the aftermath of the entire fiasco with maturity and not from, say, some demented Suvian Stockholm Syndrome).
Aww, reformed Sue adorkableness.
(Because anyone who ends up in an OFU who isn't staff has to be a dork in some manner, right?)
From original fiction, or from our fanfics?
I'm not picky.
I'm currently working on an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes in the Redwall universe, because the only thing better than a modern spin on it is a spin on it with badass medieval furries. While the characters are inevitably based on some character of the SH canon, I'm trying to make them my own, both in terms of a few personality traits and backstory, so that they feel very Redwall-flavor.
Quindon Russet is the Watson, a young squirrel who, as of the beginning of the story, recently left the services of the Long Patrol. (There are a number of reasons I didn't make him a hare, one of which being that the Baskerville story takes place in Southsward with the royal squirrels, and a plot point in the original is that someone mistakes Watson for Sir Henry and warns him off, which clues him in.) In this, I made Quindon a bit of a free spirit, which aside from his crippled footpaw drives him to leave the Long Patrol at all. His other main weakness besides the limp is a crippling fear of water, which I couldn't resist giving him to give the inevitable Reichenbach scene more tension, as well as to add comedic scenes when Damon Thorn (Holmes) drags a protesting squirrel onto a boat for some reason or other. Also, the friendship between the two leads is an unlikely one, and almost doesn't happen at all since Thorn is a ferret. In fact, the first thing Quindon does upon seeing Thorn is attack him. Of course, right afterward Thorn drags him to the scene of a murder and asks for his healer's opinion, and that is the start of a beautiful friendship.
Halftail is the Wiggins of the story, a tough, scrappy rat child who leads a small gang of equally young and scruffy rats in Mossflower Woods. At one time they had aspirations for infamy as a feared band of cutthroats, but age and inexperience threatened to get them all killed or pressed into a horde before long. Luckily, Damon Thorn found them before then. Halftail was suspicious at first, but Thorn offered them proper clothing, food, shelter, and medicine if need be, in exchange for the gang's services as his spies, informants, and messengers. Over the course of a few seasons, Halftail warmed up to the ferret and became incredibly loyal to him. He and his gang, now dubbed the Baker's Tavern Irregulars when they're out of earshot, address Thorn as "Chief". He's a bit wary about this strange squirrel joining things, but he gets used to Quindon after a while.
Finally, Shad Swiftpaw and Ivy are a pair of weasel friends that frequent the Baker's Tavern and often give Thorn information about the various villains and ruffians he has to contend with in his adventures, being as they are from a less than desirable background themselves. Shad was a former hordebeast and Ivy used to sing and dance in seaside taverns, and both of them still have connections with old comrades and fellow scoundrels. They're based off of Kitty Winter and Shinwell Johnson, two characters that showed up in only one Sherlock Holmes story, but I liked them so much that I decided to make them recurring minor characters.
I've made Sherlock (or Sílchanar) a elvish "consulting Ranger" and John (or Hanncome) his Hobbit healer/writer companion and it is actually so much fun trying to place the BBC Sherlock canon into Middle-earth. There has to be changes, given that the cases take place in different parts of Middle-earth and that it takes place between the Hobbit and LotR (so it has to set up the LotR plot and stuff).Don't judge me it's fun.
I made Sherlock and Mycroft (Damon and Micah Thorn) a pair of very rare "good" ferrets, G. Lestrade (Gareth Lutra) is the local Skipper of Otters, and I even threw in Stanley Hopkins as the young Abbey warrior Tobias Hopbine. Ferret!Mycroft's fun. Instead of an antisocial government employee he's the Abbey's recluse of a Librarian. The Badger Lady takes the place of Queen Victoria, whenever gypsies are mentioned they are usually Guosim shrews, MAN it is so fun to put Sherlock Holmes in Mossflower!
Even though I don't know much about Redwall outside OFUR.
I've got Mycroft (Maechenebon) as a "minor advisor to Lord Elrond" and Moriarty (Morfindir, amid various other Lore Names) as a Noldorin smith who had been in the Gwaith-i-Mirdan prior to Sauron's deception, and he turned wicked because of Sauron's treachery, the Rings of Power/lesser rings that he had helped to make, and his own lust for power. And my Lestrade (Lestedir) is one of the Dunedain. :'D
Are you adapting any of the more well-known cases, or is it a new case altogether? I'm basically going through the BBC Sherlock canon, although I add in elements from the ACD canon, and I'm also planning on doing His Last Bow and The Empty House.
Though I am throwing in elements and nods to the BBC series. I'm still working on A Study In Scarlet, but I'm planning to do some of my old favorites, like The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Illustrious Client, The Naval Treaty, The Dying Detective, and of course The Final Problem/Empty House. I've been wracking my brain for how to do The Speckled Band, because in the Redwall world, vipers are enormous monstrosities that can't be tamed or hidden in a safe, so I'm thinking of using a poisonous spider instead.
Ooh, are you going to toss Silchanar and Morfindir over Rauros?
But before that I'd like to get the other bits of The Reichenbach Fall into it. Perhaps something of a denunciation to Lord Elrond/The White Council...
Right now I'm working on the Blind Banker (I've already done A Study in Pink/Scarlet) and afterwards I need to fill in holes and gaps between the cases - there is, after all, a Mary Morstan in my verse.
I'm thinking I probably won't have a Mary Morstan in mine, because for one thing I'm not sure if I want to do The Sign of Four, and for another, I haven't really planned for the character in my big picture view of how this fic is going to go down.
I'm thinking of doing The Dying Detective a bit like this other fic I read once, where Watson gets to the boobytrapped box before Holmes can warn him about it, which gives Holmes a very tight time limit to solve the case and get Culverton Smith to give him a cure. Of course, that fic also ended with a lemon, and I highly doubt that mine will.
adding an element of the Three Garridebs into The Great Game, where a bunch of orcs (controlled by Moriarty) wound John and Sherlock panics - it'd definitely help pave the way for things of a more... romantic nature? I want my Sherlock and Watson to develop a love that's caught somewhere between Aragorn and Arwen and Legolas and Gimli, so yeah.
Unfortunately I don't foresee much a role for Mary in mine outside keeping John and Sherlock apart until her death (which will, I think, happen before Bilbo's 111th birthday party, which I'm also planning on writing about from John's POV.)
Oh, the other story I'm intent on doing is the Charles Augustus Milverton case, because of all the great Holmes/Watson moments there are. Watson grabbing a chair to beat up Milverton, later accepting the possibility of jail time for Holmes' sake, to say nothing of all the hand-holding. I fully intend to ship-tease the daylights out of these two without actually making things blatant. Also, one of my online friends who absolutely loves this idea let me borrow one of his Redwall characters whose MO is blackmail to put in the role of Milverton.