The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Hope you'll have fun here. We're all very friendly, and there's a large RP hub on the discord server. As for the name, don't worry too much about it, and if you feel inclined to just dissociate yourself with your past, then create an entirely new one! Whatever you do, I think you'll be fine. What's your favorite color? Cats or dogs? Do you like comics?

Have some rainbow flavored gelato!

Once you finish the Original Series, I highly recommend Huinesoron's and Neshomeh's stuff to read!

Also, got any fandoms you'd like to share? Harry Potter, Doctor Who, what?

I've had a few names on different forums, and have not yet decided which I should use here. My usual name for online social dealings gives away some of my involvement in the furry fandom, and my others are associated with some role play of dubious quality. I would rather not create an additional name, so for now I default to a simple title.

But leaving that aside, I've spent a few nights since the PPC was recommended to me skimming the wiki already, though a good deal of that has been getting sidetracked by extra Firefox tabs, and have given the constitution a read, but have yet to read the orignal series itself.

If you haven't yet read them, may I point you towards the Original Series and the Constitution? They're pretty much the only required reading around these parts. Another useful resource you might use is

Hello. I was told this was a place for lighthearted sporkings, quality Mary Sue hunting, and turning badfic into goodfic by way of parody.

I was also told there would be some amount of role play, and the occasional mongeese.

So of course I decided to take a closer look.

Vortex doesn't technically fit the definition of buff. But it is a good power. Most of Atlantis' powers are solid. I just don't like the 0 dedicated heroes. It does give more flexibility sure, but it means they are overall weaker against myth units. You would need to use swarm tactics to have a good chance.

On the Chinese, they have some interesting abilities, but I haven't gotten to play much of them myself.

You have a good point Middle earth is a setting that can handle that sort of story, and it sounds like Warhammer is too. I mostly read TV show and comic book fanfics and they can rarely ever support it, especially ones set in a mostly real world setting.

That was good. And yeah, I see what you mean - but I feel that you could also have a good story in pieces of Middle-earth that have no connection to the canon characters. It would be interesting to read about the division of Arnor, even though the last king of Arnor and the first of Arthedain are nothing more than names on a timeline.

I suppose you could argue that they're still connected because they're part of the link between Isildur and Aragorn, but by that milestick, any dwarf is 'connected' to Thorin by virtue of shedding more light on his culture.

hS

I don't think I communicated effectively. The OCs I was trying to convey aren't shoehorned into the lives of the canons.

An example in which the main 'character' is a sword.

Or here where a letter plays a role in several lives.

Having Alec possessed was a fun addition too. It's always fun when something like that happen.

I mean, come on, the ability to move your entire army to any point of the map without any risk of interception? That's one heck of a buff.

I can also sympathize with the love for Atlantis, that's the very sort of thing I like in an army(ex.: Foehn Revolt in RA 2 mod Mental Omega). And paradoxally, I like Rushing, despite a tendancy to Turtle/Boom when I'm not concentrating on a rush.

(I'd also like your opinion on Chinese. Personaly, I think they're quite interesting to play too.)

(Since my reply to Miah is incoherent waffling.)

1/ Write a story that explores something the canon doesn't. All my stories (try to) do this. What if there was a tenth member of the Fellowship? What is it like to be a gay elf? What if Susan Pevensie met Maglor? Once you know what your 'What...?' is, you can use that to determine whether you need a canon character or an OC.

2/ Never let yourself be scared out of writing what you want to. Persuaded out of, absolutely - if someone gives reasons why your story is a problem, be open to listening. But never be frightened, intimidated, or bullied into not writing what you want to. Don't be scared of that bad reputation - try to prove that it's wrong.

3/ Decent wikis are your friend; Wookiepedia and Memory Alpha set the standard here, I think. Reviewing the piece of the canon you're writing about is always a good idea, too. And it really helps to know someone who's familiar with it! Most geeks will be delighted to answer all your questions... at length... with diagrams...

4/ The number you need for your story. A story isn't a dumping ground for your characters; they each need a purpose. My first long story centred on a four-person team; it was only much later that I realised one of them had no reason to exist. I'm still sad about writing her out. :-/

hS

As someone who has way too many OCs and makes a detailed backstory for each and every one of them, I can confidently say:

1. It depends a lot. There are many combinations of roles for canons and OCs that if written well will definitely work. My fandom OC stories usually involve the OC as the protagonist and canon characters playing small side parts (not meaning that they become just the OC's sidekicks, but meaning that they rarely ever interact with the OC or even show up in the OC's life.) However, that's just what I like to do.

2. That bad reputation shouldn't stop you if you know you aren't going to do bad writing yourself. From my experience on the Internet, I have seen much fewer people with the "all OCs are bad" perspective than I have seen with the more reasonable variant, "bad OCs are bad". If someone doesn't like OCs and attacks you for writing with them, that's not your problem, and indeed, it's one of the few situations in which the phrase "don't like it don't read it" actually applies.

3. Wikis and guides are your friend. So are fandom-specific cliche lists and "Is your [fandom] OC a Mary Sue?" tests that you can find on Wattpad and Quotev. So is Google image searching about "[fandom] Mary Sue" or "[fandom] bad OC" or just "[fandom] OC". That latter source isn't really quite as good as the other stuff, but I use it to supplement the knowledge I gain from those other sources. It's also good to have a wiki by your side even if you think you know what you're doing, because otherwise you might screw something up like, for example, combining all the locations in Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny to make one generic "Castle Wolfenstein." *bangs head on keyboard repeatedly because I need to rid my OC's backstory of this mistake*

4. Well, by all means write multiple fics if there are too many to put into one, or if there are some who just don't fit into one fic. If your OCs can be grouped together somehow (friend groups, teams, etc), then by all means write something about each group and each remaining OC. Or you could break down the general timeline of a huge group and write fanfics about each part of it, focusing on whichever characters are most relevant to the event each time.

Springhole.net has a good amount of pages dealing with OC creation and fanfiction (link below my signature), so I suggest you check those out for more info.

-Twistey
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http://www.springhole.net/writing/ocs-fan-characters-and-fandom.htm

Firstly, you need to know the canon pretty well. You don't need perfect knowledge, but you have to know everything pertinant to what you're writing. You should be familiar with the source material, although I wouldn't say you necessarily have to read all of it, depending on how much it is. You don't have to read every SWEU novel before writing any SW fic, for example. And if your fandom has a well-cited and maintained wiki, USE IT!

As for using OCs... Well, I am primarily in the 40k fandom, and OCs are the rule there, not the exception. You are expected to write stories about your OCs, and come up with tales and backstories for all of them. I don't know a single player who hasn't given at least their HQ choice a name and backstory, if not all their other characters. Some of them have even written fairly long stories about them.

Anyways, there's a lot of great fanfiction in that fandom that has nothing to do with canon characters at all. Heck, in most of the very best ones, canon characters take on a relatively minor role. But that's how that universe works: Warhammer is very much about Your Dudes and Your Stories, and it's as much about AARs and what happened at the gaming table as it is about what was written in any book.

Given that background, I'm as interested in the well-written adventures of an OC as any canon character. I'm also partial to a good "day in the life" fic: stories about characters who aren't big heroes or amazing, high-powered awesome people, but just more-or-less normal people living in whatever world.

Sometimes, the setting itself is enough of a 'canon character' to take the central role. Middle-earth is the obvious one (for me) - you can pick any time and place in Middle-earth's history and reconstruct enough of the culture there to make a compelling backdrop for a story. I have a series of five vignettes set in various places around Middle-earth, and the only canon character who appears is an Ent who was namedropped by Treebeard once. Do the stories suffer, just because I didn't force my two dwarven lesbians to hang out with Thorin or Gimli? Does the tale of a disabled Hobbit need Merry and Pippin to play with him and show that he, too, is a person? Not in the least. They are characters in their world, and that is all they need to be.

Similarly, I could imagine writing a murder mystery set on Qo'noS, starring only Klingons, in which canon characters were mentioned (it'd be hard to not namedrop Kahless the Unforgettable) but didn't appear. Klingon culture is fleshed-out enough for that. You couldn't do the same thing even on Tatooine - the GFFA's #1 filming destination, apparently - because all the culture is either generic or centred on canon characters. (Yes, you could write about how terrible it is to be a slave, but you could set that in America and not change much.) But you could write about living in Jabba's Palace, for instance, where the canon character is - as Miah says - central even when he's not around.

The flip flip side of this is that you have to make your readers want to stick with the story. A Percy Jacksonverse story about your OC Ariadne O'Shea and her quest for the wreck of the Argo is all very well, but unless Ariadne is interesting enough to pay attention to, people are going to head down to the Percy/Annabeth fluff underneath. Fanfic readers are there because they like the canon, so you need to use enough of the canon to keep them there.

My goal with fanfic is to explore unexplored angles. So in the above example, you could find some gods who Riordan hasn't covered (though good luck!), or draw on a myth he hasn't touched. If, though, your story is 'they go through the Labyrinth and run into traps, then Hades tries to trick them, and then they fight a cyclops'... then you're not doing anything new, and why does anyone want to read? Only if Ariadne has a really good hook to draw them in...

hS

The usage of OCs, for me as a reader, has to maintain the canon characters central role. This does not mean they have to be limited. It doesn't mean the canons must carry the POV. One of my all-time favorite fanfic writers uses many, many OCs and they usually carry the POV. The stories always tell a story that not only introduces the OC, but also moves the narrative of the OC forward.

The catch is that it is always a tale of 'how the canon characters intersected my life.' The canons, when they do appear on-screen, are always suberbly in-character, which helps as well. The stories also tell a story about the canons that deepens or moves them, too.

I do believe you need to know a canon very well before writing in it. How else can you get the voices and backstories and fan-picky details right? I'm passionate about my fandoms. I notice when someone doesn't know them well, but wrote anyway. If it is a messy canon (Marvel, anyone?), then putting the story into context of a particular universe and only knowing it is valid. I love Hawkeye, but so many backstories...

Does that help any?

Do you want a link to that author? I read her LOTR and Stargate fics, but she has some other fandoms, too. I do think she has the best usage of OCs I've ever seen.

What immediately comes to mind is to take a look at the canon that you're going to be working with. Get a grasp of how everything works, then find out more about the thing you plan on writing about. If your OC has a certain power, for example, you should look at other characters' powers, how they got them, and if your character's power could work.

Don't let your OC replace a canon character. There was some of this in the Original Series where the author would kill off a canon character and have their OC take their place.You should also get to know how the canon characters act so you can portray them accurately. The way I think about it, good fan fiction is the kind of story you could read to a character in the canon in question, and they would believe it.

If you're just starting off, you're probably going to have an easier time writing for one OC per story. It's better to have one well-rounded character than several flat ones. And just a suggestion for the plot, I'd recommend something simple that would take place between time skips, or perhaps after the story has ended. You'll probably have an easier time saying "This happened sometime between Book 1 and Book 2" than if you were to narrow it down to "This happens during this specific battle scene." You'll have more flexibility and you won't need to worry about little details.

I hope this helps!

Here I am asking for more advice on writing (for fan fiction this time)... and a confession.

I have lots and lots of original character ideas for various fandom, but I've been stymied by a number of factors:

1. What kind of story to write, and whether I should start with canon characters or have an elsewhere story starring the OCs.
2. The bad reputation OCs tend to have thanks to bad writing (though I admit I have done some bad writing myself in the past...)
3. Familiarity with the canon - due to being somewhat of a slackers, I have fallen out of touch with certain canons. I would like to try and catch up though. Not helped by the fact that certain canons have different "universes", for lack of a better term (ie Transformers, Sonic the Hedgehog)
4. Exactly how many characters to use, not helped by the number of names and concepts I have written down. (I may or may not have a bit of OCD - no pun intended).

I hope I'm not coming across as needy, I just want to improve my writing skills and want to do that by writing fanfiction. I just want to get some writing tips.

I haven't seen the show in a long time (thank you Cartoon Network) but I might want to give it a looksee if I have the time...

You mentioned Buffs specifically. Though Gaia's Forest does provide a buff to wood gathering for that particular forest.

I always preferred the Egyptians myself, Isis was the first deity I had competitive success with. I always liked the Norse, though I am not very good with them, I am no good with Rushing. I'm more of a Turtle/Boom style player

You play any of the new Chinese ones from the second expansion?