100 thread celebration! Let's party!

Dan: Let's just get this out of the way. My name is Dan, and today I'm going to show you what an OC should be.
Chris: I'm Chris, Dan's totally-not-made-up best friend forever! I'm going to help him!
D: I have a little OC friend here for us today, thanks to Chris.
C: I invented him a few weeks ago! His name is Aurora Blaze.

D: As you can see, Mr. Aurora Blaze here is very...
C: TOTALLY interesting.
D: Yeah. Interesting. Let's review.
...
D:First off, this isn't something physical but it's very important regarding your OC's looks - their name. Does it fit?
C: Well, their color scheme is bluish-white, so that's the Aurora part.
D: What about Blaze? Is that regarding their personality?
C: Nah, it's just a cool word.
D: I hate your guts.
...
D: If you pay attention to the ponies in the show, each of their names has something to do with their cutie mark or what they do-
C: Those are already linked together, though!
D: The family they come from probably plays a role in their name and talent. Aurora doesn't have a visible cutie mark so we can't tell what he does, but I'm pretty sure aurora-ing isn't an action. Blazing might be...

D: Yep, none of those fit what this character looks like. They're a goddamn alicorn; not a trailblazer or a paperboy.
...
D: This brings us to our second mention: The fact of Aurora Blaze indeed being an alicorn. Jesus fuck, a broken horn and gilded wings? Wh-why?
C: Uh... he was abandoned at birth and his horn got broken because he... um... got in a fight?
D: What about his wings?
C: When he became totally royal and shit, he got his wings styled. Ever seen Celestia?
D: Well, yeah, but-
C: BUT NOTHING. It's COOL, okay?
D: No, it's not. There's a huge load of "rags-to-riches" stories out there, and yours isn't even any better.
C: Why?!
D: Because... he's an alicorn...
...
D: Alicorns are supposed to be literally god-tier in the character universe. Why are you making one?
C: Because I couldn't decide between a unicorn and a pegasus!
D: But there's only five known, and all of them serve a special purpose.
C: So what? When you read Aurora's story, you see that he becomes prince of Equestria! He gets married to Luna.
D: How did he get here?
C: He's a human! He just got transported to Equestria.
D: So, you stuck yourself in Equestria as your ideal pony!
C: Yeah!
D: This is wrong for many reasons. First, there's five for a reason - we only NEED a limited amount of superior characters. What if Roderick's Theory of Fiction applied and we suddenly had all the stories collide? We'd have more alicorns than anything else, because people love them so much.
C: Why?
D: For your reason, Chris. They couldn't decide between a unicorn and a pegasus, and apparently nobody likes earth ponies. Second, you say your OC is you. Why does he look like this?
C: It makes him SO unique. SOOOO unique!~
D: He looks like a giant tumor.
C: SHUT UP. MUH UNIQUENESS!!1!
D: Chris, I'm being serious here. Aurora Blaze would stand out in the middle of ALL the characters in the show lined up because of his vast array of... everything, really.
C: Yeah! Unique!
D: But that's BAD. What other ponies in the show have as many objects as Aurora?
C: Um... Um...
D: Nobody. Exactly. It's unfair to look too stylish - even Rarity would agree with me here.

C: Aww...
...
D: Your OC should not look like he's out of place.
C: But he IS. He's from another WORLD.
D: People have different skin colors on Earth. Do they look out of place?
D: Um... no. They're different colors but they're all the same human shape...
C: Right. All of the ponies here follow the same structure, but they have variety of their skin, pony type, and other things.
C: Okay, so why is it so bad that he looks like this?
D: Like I said before, it's unfair to look too stylish.
C: But...
D: No. He's too overzealous in everything. Get rid of it all and try again with a simpler character.
C: *runs away crying*

You see, all alicorn-makers out there: nobody wants to see your new alicorn, especially if they're just there. They're way too gaudy to fit into the show and, when you piece it all together, your "O"C looks like a backwards puzzle piece in an otherwise beautiful puzzle. Don't make something that stands out, because it does in all the wrong ways.

this was written at 2am so excuse the non-confluent writing

The minute I saw that O.C., I burst out laughing. Sadly, that is common today with writers.

This should make a good guide for all the dummies out there.

That thing is supposed to be a male? Good lord

Wait, 5 Alicorns?
Luna, Celestia, Cadence, Nightmare Moon... Who am I missing here?
[please no season 3 spoilers - I'm happier not knowing]

429487
I don't really count Nightmare Moon as a character because she sucks was an embodiment of Princess Luna. Chrysalis is/was technically an alicorn, even if she is pretty decayed. And the fifth is the unnamed princess seen in Hearts and Hooves Day:

Sorry for not being clear on that.

429350
Originally I planned to jokingly refer to Aurora as "the androgynous thing" but that got too long to type out.

429262
Thanks! I did my very worst.

If we're gonna have OC alicorns, they ought to be changelings. Many but not all of the invaders have both horns and wings. See

Chrysalis's guards? Some of (but not all of) the others? Alicorns. I didn't realise this until you pointed out Chrysalis, though.

429253 Damn it! You totally stole the idea I had for the OC in my next fic! Argh, It took me forever to come up with that back story.

And now how am I gonna marry Princess Luna?

429700
Um... maybe you can have him get the totally awesome time machine?

429696
I'm actually working together with a group to write about alicorn OC pseudo-changelings fucking shit up. It's pretty legit, yo.

429754 Hey, if it's cannon they're Changelings, why not?
Just so long as you use the Fanon names for the background swarm, okay?

Source

Idea, someone should write a fic where a douchebag pegasus thinks he is becoming an alicorn when in actuality the "horn" growing on his head is actually Shope Papilloma Virus, which causes horn/antlerlike growths on the skull. (100% Mortality)

430185
>>infects rabbits

I see this idea going weird places quickly...

430190 Damn wikipedia.... But something along those lines. He could be strutting around town telling everyone about his soon to be complete metamorphosis into an alicorn and how he will rule them all as the king of badassery.

Then he dies a horrible death.

430196 Yes, good.

430185
I'm making that but with Rainbow Dash instead because she is a douche. Douchier than a lot of OCs I've seen, anyway.

430355 Wow, you're the douche.

430383
Everyone's a douche.

430463 Says the douche.

430475
"Says the douche," says the douche.

430495 "'Says the douche,' says the douche," says the douche.

430835
Says the son of a douche.

430840 Says the douche.

...Wait...

...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa

430843
Starting an infinite cycle is such a douchey thing to do.

... says the douche.

430849 "You didn't get the joke," the cool guy says to the douche.

430853
"It was ironic," says the cooler guy to the moderately cool douche.

430862 "Well," said the coolest guy to the apparently cooler douche, "we've reached the end of the beginning."

430875
"Or... is it the beginning of the end?" said the S-tier douche, going all philosophical on the waveringly cool other douche.

430880 "The beginning of the end," the coolest guy deadpanned, face-palming at the douche's stupidity.

430887
"The beginning... is ending. But that's just the ending of the beginning to the end which will then begin the ending of the beginning of the end of the beginning's beginning. The end." remarked the mega-douche to the significantly-less-mega-douche.

430892 "Yes, but this isn't the end, and thus, it must be the middle," the cool guy replied.

430892 The mega-douche realized how douchy he was, and thus the conversation ended.

430900
The douching end.
*applause*

I have been thinking, you know how some people have split personality's like pinkie pie for example. She is sad and her hair is all gloomy when she's happy its all poofy. Well what if an Alicorn Split into three race's of Ponies like all three and they had the general strengths and weaknesses of that pony race like Earth pony's cant fly or use magic but have great strength. and pegasi can fly but are somewhat weaker and cant do magic but are faster. And Unicorns can do magic and all that other things that make unicorns unicorns. would that be a little weird?..... Crap I forgot where I was going with this.

442371
An alicorn is in fact all three species of pony mixed into one with all of their strengths combined in order to make zero weaknesses.

but what if you can make make your oc fit?Why are alicorn off limets?

1673692 Alicorn OCs are not off limits, it's just that people generally don't like them and for good reason; as Not Dan said, Alicorns possess traits from all three primary pony races and so most people choose one either for the power, because they've gotta be "beast", or because they can't decide what pony they want to be.

That said, I'm fairly certain a large number of authors have at least thought of, if not written about, an Alicorn OC at some point. I, myself, have an Alicorn OC, though he's not a main character and only has speaking lines scattered throughout all of three chapters.

I say, as long as you write your OC well, then your OC will be fine.

Edit: Technically, I have two Alicorn OCs, and while my second one is a main character in one of my stories, I'm not gonna use her often.

1673796 thanks for the help i have never written before so i did not want to do something that off limits or to hard start out with

1673796
I agree with you on this one. (Hi newbie here!) I'm not new to writing fanfiction but I am new to writing Fim fics. Out of all the OCs that I've come across (there's been a hell of a lot trust me) as long as its well written and the character's backstory/development are well thought out you can usually get away with just about any type of character.

For instance, I'm actually working on trying to come up with a decent backstory for my Alicorn OC. She's not royalty, really what happened was a small genetic thing. Sort of what happened when Pound and Pumpkin were born and everyone was confused as to how two Earth Ponies had a Unicorn and a Pegasus. Her parents are a Unicorn and a Pegasus, to help this along a bit more I was toying with the idea that somewhere way back in her family history she is very distantly related to an actual Alicorn (Not Luna, Celestia, Cadence, or Twilight. Probably the unknown princess from the hearts and hooves day episode.) Either way! That was the best that I came up with so far, but at least it's a start. I'm trying to do this as best as I can, it's difficult but I know with a lot of planning it can be done.

1673796

That said, I'm fairly certain a large number of authors have at least thought of, if not written about, an alicorn OC at some point. I, myself, have an Alicorn OC, though he's not a main character and only has speaking lines scattered throughout all of three chapters.

Nearly everyone thinks of an alicorn OC at some point, but most of us are smart enough not to use them; because, ultimately, there are only two very narrow, very specific contexts where an alicorn OC is not going to be out-of-place, over-powered, Mary-Sue bait. Those to contexts are history and parody. In all the stories I've read, I have not encountered a single example of a serious alicorn OC in a current-canon context that wasn't entirely awful. It may be possible to create one that isn't, but doing so is supremely difficult, and not something that an inexperienced writer should ever consider doing.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have, in fact, created and written an alicorn OC, and have used it in a recent context. However, he was and is intended entirely as a not-so-subtle piss-take of the edgelord OC tropes that are so commonplace here, and that's how he's used. He's also remnant of a history where alicorns were much more common, so he's firmly in both the "history" and "parody" camps.

What about OCs who are not alicorns but may be almost as powerful/as powerful as alicorns?
Not necessarily in terms of protagonist (that could be rather tacky) but as antagonists/other characters?