ALL HAIL THE OC

[Nameless]

I want to know everypony's OC's. I my self have come up with a few, but I LOVE hearing about more. Got any good OCs?

[Xiee]

Hi Nameless, you might want to look at everyone's OC's at the Application and Accepted Aps section. Please check the links below.

http://www.canterlot.com/forum/220-applications/

http://www.canterlot.com/forum/221-accepted-apps/

[Nameless]

Yes, but you can only get so many RPd. i have... at least 26 OC's. im struggling to get one RPd

[RarityDash]

Yeah, if you want to learn about our OC ponies, you probably should just go browsing around the accepted applications section and read some of our applications.

My OC apps are linked in my signature. But... if you really want a quick description of all my OCs, here you go:

Radiant Steel: A stern, perhaps overly passionate female guardpony pegasus who prizes loyalty above all else. Tends to over think situations and has a weakness for cute things.

Lady Luck: A sly and aloof earth pony mare outlaw from Appleloosa, currently hiding out in griffin lands. Generally distrusts others, but has a warmer heart than she appears to.

Spirit Flame: a unicorn filly who was abandoned in the Everfree forest at a young age; raised by a mother manticore, she grew up a stranger to pony society. Now seeing that society for the first time, she is an awkward and confused pony with little understanding of her surroundings.

Midnight Brand: a middle-aged earth pony mare living as a hermit with her young daughter. A former soldier who once delighted in violence, love and loss changed her outlook and have made her ashamed of her past cruelties.

Hopesong: the young daughter of Midnight Brand. A nature-loving pegasus filly with a cheery, gentle demeanor who asks for little but to make her mother smile. She enjoys cooking, music and spending time with animals.

Dazzle Dawn: an eternally optimistic young unicorn mare who attends university in Canterlot. Always cheerful, she lives with the hope of bringing smiles to others.

Ardent Fate: A precocious and determined earth pony filly, orphaned while still young. She seeks to follow in her father's hoofsteps and become a knight, even if all the odds seem to be stacked against her.

Snowfall: A driven yet fun-loving pegasus businessmare, who is acting as CEO of a major manufacturer of machinery in lieu of her father who vanished years ago. Assertive yet often doubts herself.

Arcana: A jaded, troubled unicorn mare with a vendetta against the current order or pony society. A seeker of ancient magics, she seeks out the knowledge that will help her change things.

I've so far RPd all of them but Arcana (though I've written her in a couple fanfics).

I have other OCs I haven't applied for yet too.

[Xiee]

Yes, but you can only get so many RPd. i have... at least 26 OC's. im struggling to get one RPd

Then create your most favorite one? You can create all your OC's eventually if you're that diligent. I myself only have 2 active OCs and I'm currently working on a third one. My signature has a link to 2 of my OCs. ^^

[Nameless]

Im trying to not annoy the staff. I tried to get Nameless out there. I gave up and am working on Mixem.

[Xiee]

Good luck with your applications. If they ever do get approved, I hope we get to start RPing. ^^

[MyLittlePonyTales]

Moving to OOC Chatter.

[lordbrony]

Yeah, if you want to learn about our OC ponies, you probably should just go browsing around the accepted applications section and read some of our applications.

My OC apps are linked in my signature. But... if you really want a quick description of all my OCs, here you go:

Radiant Steel: A stern, perhaps overly passionate female guardpony pegasus who prizes loyalty above all else. Tends to over think situations and has a weakness for cute things.

Lady Luck: A sly and aloof earth pony mare outlaw from Appleloosa, currently hiding out in griffin lands. Generally distrusts others, but has a warmer heart than she appears to.

Spirit Flame: a unicorn filly who was abandoned in the Everfree forest at a young age; raised by a mother manticore, she grew up a stranger to pony society. Now seeing that society for the first time, she is an awkward and confused pony with little understanding of her surroundings.

Midnight Brand: a middle-aged earth pony mare living as a hermit with her young daughter. A former soldier who once delighted in violence, love and loss changed her outlook and have made her ashamed of her past cruelties.

Hopesong: the young daughter of Midnight Brand. A nature-loving pegasus filly with a cheery, gentle demeanor who asks for little but to make her mother smile. She enjoys cooking, music and spending time with animals.

Dazzle Dawn: an eternally optimistic young unicorn mare who attends university in Canterlot. Always cheerful, she lives with the hope of bringing smiles to others.

Ardent Fate: A precocious and determined earth pony filly, orphaned while still young. She seeks to follow in her father's hoofsteps and become a knight, even if all the odds seem to be stacked against her.

Snowfall: A driven yet fun-loving pegasus businessmare, who is acting as CEO of a major manufacturer of machinery in lieu of her father who vanished years ago. Assertive yet often doubts herself.

Arcana: A jaded, troubled unicorn mare with a vendetta against the current order or pony society. A seeker of ancient magics, she seeks out the knowledge that will help her change things.

I've so far RPd all of them but Arcana (though I've written her in a couple fanfics).

I have other OCs I haven't applied for yet too.

listen to this guy, he writes really good apps

[Lucan]

You are struggling on getting one confirmed? Here's my advice -

I have tricks for creating characters that I like (I usually like having characters who are not all they appear to be (literally) and other rather gary stu traits) and keeping them away from being Gary Stu characters. I saw your Nameless app, and I think I should give some advice.

Age - Be careful on this. To keep myself from making my characters too old or young to fit a task (or be gary stu), I keep my characters around the age of 20. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 are the ages I like using. I am considering making a 16 year old character, though.

History / Shocking Points in life - You seem to be like me, giving your characters a tragedy they had to live through (Or, in your case, even die through sometimes). The best tradegy I know of is being bullied for a long time at a young age. This here can go from mild to an extreme of having the bully even egg your house and be absolutely cruel to you. My character Dice Focus is a good example of a bullied character. Another tragedy is having a mental illness, and then something happening to the character that temporarily (or permanently) makes them much worse. Let's say they are paranoid and their house gets egged (I'm not done with the whole egging of the house yet! ). They begin to think that the others are becoming more violent and that they are in severe danger. Or they are like my character Azure - their sanity is pretty much attached to something (in his case, music). They run away or do something else that concerns the parents. Why? They (your character) wants more exposure to that one thing. The parents try taking it from them, and your character is ruined. You decide what happens from there.

And if you want to meet my characters, then here ya go.

Dice Focus; Born in Manehattan, no plans on ever going back. Incredibly rude to strangers, but nice when you get to know him. Makes and sells board games.

Azure Tune; Call him a traveling musician. Call him a beggar. There's one thing for sure - he's great with his Ocarina and has an indian accent. He tries to be calm, but is rather sensitive.

[RarityDash]

Age - Be careful on this. To keep myself from making my characters too old or young to fit a task (or be gary stu), I keep my characters around the age of 20. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 are the ages I like using. I am considering making a 16 year old character, though.

You know, I kind of disagree with this advice. I think those are some of the most problematic ages that can easily lead to creating a Mary Sue. Late teens and early twenties is still fairly young. The character shouldn't be very experienced at that age. As we all want our characters to be good at what they do, having them that young kind of can be a little dangerous if you're not careful. You run the risk of making the character more accomplished than they should be at their age. With child characters the problem is even worse.

Making the characters a little older allows you a little more space to make them more accomplished. My Midnight Brand (who is about in her forties), for example, is a very accomplished, hard to match fighter, who climbed the ranks quite a ways before she left the REA. My other military pony, Radiant Steel (about 20) on the other hand, is a new recruit, a private, who has far more passion than experience and far less refined combat abilities. If I had chosen to give Radiant Midnight's strength or position, I'd be running the risk of making her a Mary Sue I think.

I made my Snowfall in her late twenties because I wanted to play her at a moment where she was more confident and self-assured rather than lost. Same with Lady Luck, in her thirties; I wanted her at the top of her game, not still learning the ropes of the gambling outlaw game.

Again though, that doesn't mean you can't do younger characters. You just have to make sure you balance the characters out and make it reasonable.

History / Shocking Points in life - You seem to be like me, giving your characters a tragedy they had to live through (Or, in your case, even die through sometimes). The best tradegy I know of is being bullied for a long time at a young age. This here can go from mild to an extreme of having the bully even egg your house and be absolutely cruel to you. My character Dice Focus is a good example of a bullied character. Another tragedy is having a mental illness, and then something happening to the character that temporarily (or permanently) makes them much worse. Let's say they are paranoid and their house gets egged (I'm not done with the whole egging of the house yet! ). They begin to think that the others are becoming more violent and that they are in severe danger. Or they are like my character Azure - their sanity is pretty much attached to something (in his case, music). They run away or do something else that concerns the parents. Why? They (your character) wants more exposure to that one thing. The parents try taking it from them, and your character is ruined. You decide what happens from there.

I think it's really, really easy to take the tragic past thing much too far. Having too much unnecessary baggage in a past leads to Mary Sue. That's not to say you shouldn't do it at all; I'd be hypocritical if I did. Tragic past events should all have weight. You should start with what you want your character to be like, and work backwards from there when coming up with a character. Let the past explain why the character is like they are. For example, my Arcana is dark, brooding and has taken order as her enemy; a suitable tragedy was needed in her past to make her have such a twisted view, so I came up with one. With my Spirit Flame, I wanted a character who was sort of alien to the world around her, so I came up past tragedies that supported that. My Midnight needed something powerful to cause her to change her ways entirely.

But yeah, generally there are a lot of ways to make your OCs interesting, not just giving them troubled pasts. It's kind of overdone as it is, so its best to avoid it entirely when you can (though only two of my own OCs, Radiant and Dazzle, have managed that).

[Lucan]

You know, I kind of disagree with this advice. I think those are some of the most problematic ages that can easily lead to creating a Mary Sue. Late teens and early twenties is still fairly young. The character shouldn't be very experienced at that age. As we all want our characters to be good at what they do, having them that young kind of can be a little dangerous if you're not careful. You run the risk of making the character more accomplished than they should be at their age. With child characters the problem is even worse.

Making the characters a little older allows you a little more space to make them more accomplished. My Midnight Brand (who is about in her forties), for example, is a very accomplished, hard to match fighter, who climbed the ranks quite a ways before she left the REA. My other military pony, Radiant Steel (about 20) on the other hand, is a new recruit, a private, who has far more passion than experience and far less refined combat abilities. If I had chosen to give Radiant Midnight's strength or position, I'd be running the risk of making her a Mary Sue I think.

I made my Snowfall in her late twenties because I wanted to play her at a moment where she was more confident and self-assured rather than lost. Same with Lady Luck, in her thirties; I wanted her at the top of her game, not still learning the ropes of the gambling outlaw game.

Again though, that doesn't mean you can't do younger characters. You just have to make sure you balance the characters out and make it reasonable.

I think it's really, really easy to take the tragic past thing much too far. Having too much unnecessary baggage in a past leads to Mary Sue. That's not to say you shouldn't do it at all; I'd be hypocritical if I did. Tragic past events should all have weight. You should start with what you want your character to be like, and work backwards from there when coming up with a character. Let the past explain why the character is like they are. For example, my Arcana is dark, brooding and has taken order as her enemy; a suitable tragedy was needed in her past to make her have such a twisted view, so I came up with one. With my Spirit Flame, I wanted a character who was sort of alien to the world around her, so I came up past tragedies that supported that. My Midnight needed something powerful to cause her to change her ways entirely.

But yeah, generally there are a lot of ways to make your OCs interesting, not just giving them troubled pasts. It's kind of overdone as it is, so its best to avoid it entirely when you can (though only two of my own OCs, Radiant and Dazzle, have managed that).

Hm, never thought about that with the age thing. But still, having an elderly character who is extremely energetic is rather Mary Sue. But I disagree about the tragic past thing. As long as you keep it reasonable, it works wonderfully. I've given ALL my rp characters (on this site and others, too) tragic pasts. It's much more interesting than living the good life, living a typical life, or just working since birth (This is Equestria, not China. That shouldn't be happening!). I challenge you to show me a good character past that isn't a tragedy... if that's alright with you.

[RarityDash]

Hm, never thought about that with the age thing. But still, having an elderly character who is extremely energetic is rather Mary Sue. But I disagree about the tragic past thing. As long as you keep it reasonable, it works wonderfully. I've given ALL my rp characters (on this site and others, too) tragic pasts. It's much more interesting than living the good life, living a typical life, or just working since birth (This is Equestria, not China. That shouldn't be happening!). I challenge you to show me a good character past that isn't a tragedy... if that's alright with you.

I agree on not having an elderly pony be too active. There's a large gap between 22 and elderly though.

Yeah, I really do think characters can be perfectly interesting even without a lot of tragedy in their past. A story or an RP should ideally be focused on what is happening in the present, not the past. It can go back into the past and use that to enhance the present, but the events currently unfolding are where the story should be most of the time.

I like to think my Radiant Steel is a perfectly fine RP character, and there's nothing particularly tragic in her past unless you count somewhat contentious family relationships and not being able to fulfill early childhood dreams. My Dazzle Dawn is a lot of fun too, I think and the saddest thing that happened to her was having to move away from her best friend.

In some cases, it's really best if a character doesn't have a lot of past baggage, I think. If they're experiencing the difficult things for the first time, that can be that much more compelling then if they've seen stuff like that before we start following them. And in some genres (comedies, for instance), I don't think anyone would ever even expect some kind of tragic past.

Again, I reiterate that it's not wrong or anything. Most of my characters have at least some tragedy in their past (and some of mine are really kinda dark). Just in general, it's still something that should be kept at a limit. If its not important for shaping the character's views or ideals in the present day, its not really so necessary.

[BlindJester]

I have quite a few OC's myself of all different species, if you wish to take a gander click my sig.

[Skye]

Im trying to not annoy the staff. I tried to get Nameless out there. I gave up and am working on Mixem.

Don't forget to read the rules. After reviewing Nameless, part of the problem was that it didn't appear that you read the rules, nor paid attention to the structure of the application. There's more to having a character approved than just copying the fields from someone else's character and editing them as you need. There's structure and form that we've established as a standard to ensure quality. The rules are very well spelled out in the Getting Started Section, as well as in the Tutorials. The application form has an abridged version of the rules for the RP in them. Look them over and compare your application to what we've established and you'll see why Nameless wasn't approved.

[Ancre]

But I disagree about the tragic past thing. As long as you keep it reasonable, it works wonderfully. I've given ALL my rp characters (on this site and others, too) tragic pasts. It's much more interesting than living the good life, living a typical life, or just working since birth (This is Equestria, not China. That shouldn't be happening!). I challenge you to show me a good character past that isn't a tragedy... if that's alright with you.

Ah, the tragic backstory subject !

It's true that it works very well for creating interesting characters, if only because it gives something to write about when you write him or her a story. (Most stories working on a problem -> resolution schema, it gives the "problem" you need to talk about something).

I wouldn't say it's much more interesting than a normal life, but it's certainly much easier to do. It is possible to write a character with a normal life that is still interesting, however : mostly, he or she will have different challenges to overcome. When you write about him or her trying to reach his or her goals, there are other obstacles you can use other than being a social outcast or having a broken family : it can be money ("despite his engineer cutie mark, Gearwheels could barely afford the materials he needed for his inventions" => inventive stories about how he acquires whatever he wants), it can be access to education (Codex is a pony born in a poor family that loves studying and tries very hard to get into Celestia's school for gifted unicorns), it can be geographic issues (Penpal was a pony born from travelling parents (diplomats, entertainers) and had trouble making friends), it can be defying social conventions ("Father Blueheart, Mother Crystalglass, I do not wish to follow our family tradition and become a diplomat in Celestia's service, I desire to become a rock farmer instead !"), it can be anything.

All those ponies can have an interesting backstory, while still having a loving family and very nice friends. However, they all have one thing in common : a problem to overcome. Because what gives a story consistence, what can resume almost any story, is having a problem, a starting situation that does not fit the character, and working on solving it.

And, here are my oc ponies !

Bumble Buns is an earth pony bee keeper. She loves living and working in her family farm, and had an unhappy childhood as an outcast in a residential school where everypony though little of her because of her farmer origins.

Opuntia is an earth pony cactus farmer. She was born in Manehatten, and her parents were florists. But she never felt at home (and always felt out of place) in the mannered society of her hometown, and happily went to start a new life in Appleloosa.

Whirlwind is a pegasus filly. What she loves to do is flying ! Especially crazy stunts and twists and randomly flying around. She was quite careless and a daredevil before, and she had an accident where she lost her rear leg and paralyzed her front leg. She is now a bit more cautious. A bit.

Moondrop is an albinos unicorn. Due to her condition, her parents overprotected their beloved filly and she spent most of her life in her house, only going out to see doctors or family. She didn't minded much, as what she liked was reading stories and create or re-create them with toys she received as gifts or made herself. She grew up, won more liberties (with a few fights with her parents) and ended up finding a job as a toymaker. But she's still quite new to the outside world.

River Spirits is a botanist zebra. She was an orphan, who got adopted by an earth pony who travelled constantly. She travelled with him and lived an unusual life. Her daddy finally died of old age, and she now have to live all alone ; she have a lot of questions about what she wants to do with her life.

[Lucan]

Meh, I preffer the tragic backstory. It's very hard writing an interesting past without a tragedy. Of course, that's my style. Add a point that really throws the character off of average life highway. Y'know?

[RarityDash]

But the main point to consider is not the past of a character being interesting or not interesting. It's that it doesn't always have to even be particularly relevant. A character can be perfectly interesting without some sprawling backstory that comes before we start following them.

Also, in some types of stories, having a character who comes from a happy, stable background only to have that broken as the story progresses is actually much more powerful then if they were familiar with tragedy from the start.

It really depends on the story. For the RP here, largely a social thing, complicated tragic pasts really aren't necessary when coming up with fun characters to play as. And if every pony in the RP starts having their own huge tragedy, it does really start to become less unique.

[Ginger Mint]

hi hi

Having a history at all is usually a good thing, but the important part is whether or not the character has motivations for doing things in the present. No amount of awesome, tragic or whatever in a character's past is going to make up for them acting like a cardboard cutout or a mary sue in the here and now. Tragedy might be memorable, but as long as the characters have things that are important to them, then they'll have ground to walk on.

Ginger Mint is the only OC that I've submitted as a character so far, but she has a family and I've made a few others that might never be applied, like Rally the adventurer, Dawn Feather the errand buffalo, Emberspark the earth pony with a magic cutie-mark. But really, I could probably make characters all day long and still not run out of ideas. There are about as many characters out there as there are people.