Fanfiction and OC's

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

I've been reading a lot a fanfiction recently and what I've noticed is that most of it seems to be the same characters in different circumstances, environments and/or crossovers. I think it would be interesting to see some OC's (original characters) thrown into the mix but I haven't seen many (I can't think of any). Does anyone know of any fanfictions that have some good OC's, even self insertion if it's pulled off well?

Come to think of it are there any crossovers that have characters from another series visiting Jusenkyo and dealing with curses?

Many crossover characters have visited Jusenkyo. I can think of two Harry Potter fics right off -- three if you count sequels. The Sailor Senshi occasionally get a dunk there. Nuku Nuku has landed in the Spring of Drowned Girl, and found it interesting. (All-Purpose Jusenkyo Girl Nuku Nuku).

I've used OCs in my own fiction (Bjorn Njalsson, the were-bear.) And ContraBardus throws in characters from all over the place, some of which are his own.

If you're looking for Jusenkyo fics, just put 'jusenkyo' in the FFNet search engine, alongside your favorite character. Be sure to use variant spellings and namings. You'll be surprised what you find.

[mondu_the_fat]

The problem with OCs is fanfiction is, well, it's fanfiction. Most people, if they're reading a ranma fanfic, they expect to read about ranma and the rest of the ranma cast. If an OC is the main character the writing had better be goddamn good. And it doesn't help that OCs as the protagonist are sometimes self-inserts.

I've read a few OC-centric stories, but the latest one is something I reviewed couple of weeks back:

And What Alice Found There

And here's another of my favorite OC-centric fics

Just a Face on a Train

The story is about one of the survivors of the train spiderman rescued from Doc Oc in Spiderman 2.

As for good self-inserts... I dunno. I keep on reading reviews to some fics that say that "this is different, the SI is good and totally not a mary sue!" but I keep on getting disappointed.

[CRBWildcat]

This may or may not add to the disappointment, then, but the Touhou fic Average Joe in Bullet Hell is supposed to be pretty good. At the very least the SI (or "semi self-insert", in the author's words) doesn't come off as a jerk or overpowered, and gets some honest to goodness character development later on.

As for the topic of original characters in fanfiction, I have a few paragraphs about my perspective on the topic saved to disk somewhere. Just have to find it.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

I have a self-insert in my fiction, who stays very much in the background. But there are others in my fiction, and I have no compunction using them in fanfiction. The SI stays home. Keeps me from doing foolish things.