What if the special talent is winning?

Good point I admit.

But the thing is that all this character talk is ignoring the fact that this is an ART group. Badly WRITTEN O Cs are only a problem in Fan Fic (which they decided to keep the folder of). Part of the logic is "Well most fans don't care about the O Cs." I'd debate than even less care about the background ponies but they still allow that art.

Or being better than everyone.... Wait that is trixie's cutie mark.

@ gingerale

I totally agree with you. I'm very fond of making up my own characters.

Problem is, when executed badly, O Cs become a burden. Mary Sue is rife, afterall. Plus, many fand just don't care about O Cs and only want to see the cannon characters. Which is...OK, I guess. But outright blocking O Cs is a bit much imho.

As a rule of thumb, I only use O Cs as supporting characters to cannon ones. And I purposely 'mute' them.

edited 6th Oct '11 10:02:10 AM by Justanotherbrony

Thou hast been ninjed.

But you can think about that ON THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

BEEYATCH!

edited 6th Oct '11 10:51:55 AM by RichReeders

I'm not too fond of O Cs. (nothing against them, they just never appealed to me)

I AM however fond of ponyfications of other fictional characters. It's so cool to imagine what they'd be like as ponies

Me to. I love ponyfications. (But hate oposite of it).

I like that too.

It just kills be becuase all the other OC groups have no standards. I was working so hard to meet group standards and for them to just kill all the hard work I put into improving those designs just kills me.

At the risk of sounding trite, improvement for the sake of improvement is never a bad thing. When you improve on your work, you gain valuable experience for the next thing you write or draw. It's a never-ending procedure, and there's always something else you can work on.

Of course, once you publish something, the 'improvement' should stop. I'm looking at you, Lucas.

I just need something to be motivated about. The initial project I have is usually something I do for fun but I only put efforts into improving if people care enough to criticize.

I'm vary of OC's, but they're not all bad.

And I like ponifications and other-fications of the ponies. Like kittyfications.

Seriously, "kittehfied" is a tag at ponibooru. They're adorable.

Quick question;

Can anybody picture Pinkie Pie being in the marching band back when she was in High School? Better yet, holding the position of Drum Major?

I think the best part is people hate on OCs so much and then go and assign an arbitrary personality to a background pony, write about her/him and don't even bat an eye.

For writing, my philosophy is the story goes where the story needs to. If the role can be filled by one of the main six or a secondary character with a semi-decent amount of screen time, I use her/him. If there's a contextual reason to use background ponies (like say, the spa sisters because there's a scene in the spa), then I'll use them. Otherwise, if I'm going to basically going to be grabbing a random colour scheme as seen for 5 seconds on the show and assigning an arbitrary personality, I might as well use an OC. For example, at the start of Evil's Twilight, I needed a peg who was a fairly good flier to come tell Twilight just how much the storm was screwing over the weather team. The Wonderbolts would make zero sense, so they were out. Fluttershy is animal team, so she was also out. Dashie was out because I needed a peg holding back the storm and we all know she's at least the best flier in Ponyville. So it came down to either background pony or my own ponysona/OC. My pony had the benefit of a personality I had already started to think through, so the choice was a no brainer, really.

Oh and I've also had a few specialized roles that none of the existing ponies could really fit, so that called for custom tailoring an OC.

As far as reading goes, I'm personally fine with any well written OC.

Pinkie Pie IS the Marching Band!

I do regret this whole situation but I have a bunch of questions that I'd like answered. and I'm willing to look for someone else who works on the show but I don't know where to go

plus, Lauren Faust still has some say on the show. her thoughts on any detail are still important.

I hope she replies back to you. Just on't forget that she is very busy and therefore she might not be able to answer them

I hate that too. Seriously. And becuase all the background ponies have Fanon personalities if I wanted to make a story involving say Derpy, as a lawyer bronies would complain.

I wonder... I was already planning on using Luna as a judge, so maybe I could do a group shot with all my O Cs and Luna and try to submit it.

OC ponies really interest me as a pshycological phemonenon... I do't see anything wrong with them at all

edited 6th Oct '11 11:27:25 AM by FallenLegend

Fanon characterization of Derpy will probably stick, but I bet there are going to be a lot of broken hearts the next time Luna speaks.

That's good. I'm fascinated by them too. After all, they can be used to introduce new ideas to the setting that might otherwise have never happened.

I have my umbrella braced for the ensuing crap storm.

edited 6th Oct '11 11:25:26 AM by Justanotherbrony

It just depresses me. Especially due to how fast this decision was made and that almost every more reasonable suggestion (higher standards in general, only finished artwork) was completely ignores.

Hell, one of the most popular fanfics is based around nothing but OC ponies, where canon characters get cameos at best: Fall Out Equestria.

Justified, as it's based in a different time than the show and the cameos are recordings of the past.

Yes, Pinkie would be a one pony marching band wouldn't she?

What do you the rest of the cast were like at High School age?

Twi would still be a nerd. But more anti-social.

Pinkie's a Drum Major in the marching band (needs fanart asap!)

RD has to play on some sort of sports team.

What about the others?

Yeah, background ponies are basically O Cs anyway. I've never understood all the hate.

Hee, I've never been good at writing characters or dialogue so the only pony story I'm working on has no canon characters at all and is in MSPA style comic form. Though I did end up drawing a few pages.◊ (Never done a comic before as you can see.) I wish I had the time to continue it. And the page I need to draw next is so intimidating, hahaha. Stupid crazy angles and their vanishing points. xD

But wait.. The mane cast as humans in a high school drama? That'd be... interesting.

edited 6th Oct '11 11:48:06 AM by gingerale