Bittersweet Candy Bowl Forums

I think this is a topic worth debating.

BCB, more than most things in the world (besides Sonic) seems to have encouraged a culture of people creating their own characters to exist in the world Veronica has created. I think it's for a number of reasons:

• The characters are a anthropomorphic, so it's easy to think up and draw a design
  
• The context of a school lends itself to the introduction of new characters: "hey i'm the new guy faggot the dog, wanna be my friend mike"
  
• The fact that Veronica used Tess, Carson, McCain, Kizuna and Carter earlier on set up this new culture where people think it's a normal thing to create a fancharacter and, in certain cases, try to convince her to put the character in the comic. Hasn't helped that Vero has cameo'd new fancharacters in the background, and written a semi-canonical Liam chapter.
  
• A lot of artists (or would-be artists) read the comic, and see creating a fancharacter as key to finding an audience for their work.

This phenomenon is remarkable in itself, I think, because it does go over the top. It seems like one in every two people who participate in the forum or IRC have a Mary Sue character that is in love with Lucy.

IS THIS LAME?
Heck yeah it is. Furries are already a pretty shameful subculture, and the kind of quasi-furry phenomenon that is fancharacters seem even more disingenous and lame than straight out making up some stupid character to post on your FA.

Why is it lame, even in the cases of characters everyone loves like Melody or Liam? Essentially, because they're cheap, lazy and self-serving.

THAT'S MEAN!
But it's true! The argument I've consistently made is that they show the following:

• A lack of imagination. Why do you have to piggyback on the BCB universe? Can't you make your own world and characters for them to interact with?
  
• Laziness. Can't you be bothered to invent a complete story and world? Why make bullshit fanworks when you could surely design something if you applied your mind to it?
  
• A selfish attitude. You do realise you're essentially co-opting the fanbase of an established comic that takes a lot of effort to create and present to you, simply so that your half-baked furry character can get some attention? In a lot of cases it feels like people create characters with loose connections to the real BCB characters simply to gain an audience for their character or their artwork generally (in the past, on forums or DA, these days, on Candybooru) and this is really unscrupulous.
  
• A childish dedication to furry\anthro characters. Most of you developing fancharacters are over the age of 12. Why, then, is your creative mind limited to making things that would fit in Disney movies? The fact that BCB is based on anthro cats and you think BCB is great doesn't excuse the fact it is based on a childish concept of talking cats that would be revised if it were possible. You should be making humans living in a human world, or at least have a damn good reason for using animals.

It's somewhat convenient that most of the fancharacters people have made are really bad, but there are some good stories well-told. Melody, Liam and Larken come to mind. THESE CHARACTERS STILL BELONG IN AN ORIGINAL WORLD AND SHOULDN'T BE FUCKING CATS. There's no reason to except them from all of the above, and the criticisms of every one can still be made. This means that, based on the fact they made these characters, Kaxbe, Mouse and Toasty have shown themselves to be selfish, lazy, attention-stealing artists with limited imagination. (That might well be the wrong assessment, but these works indicate it and these works are all we're talking about.)

The more charitable way to explain away Melody etc would be that their characters fall into a special protected category of "good characters" along with Carter, Tess and McCain. But it's not true.

WHAT ABOUT CARTER, TESS, MCCAIN, ETC?
These are indeed fancharacters and as in point 3 at the top might be part of the reason why people are so into making BCB characters. BUT!!

They have been developed by Veronica through consistent use and have essentially been adopted as her own. Their original creators should still be credited, however things about Tess' story have deviated from what Lily intended, McCain has been used in ways outside of the scope of what Matrixx originally envisioned, etc.

It's the fact that Veronica has contributed to their development in a substantial way that separates them from the others, and makes them more acceptable to use in art. They're really not that different from the regular characters.

WHAT ABOUT ARIA?
For those who aren't aware, Aria is a character in SpaceMouse's comics. Like Melody, something of a self-insert but of SpaceMouse's friend Credence. Credence adopted the idea of Aria as a fan-character killer and drew a comic about it, then some later after everyone went wild about the idea. It was pretty funny, except when a full-fledged comic about Aria appeared that seemed to run the joke into the ground and make Aria just another bullshit self-insert fancharacter instead of a shortlived funny joke.

Aria seems to represent the way we can tolerate some fancharacter ideas, at least for a while. I'll speak for Vero here, in saying that she gets really annoyed at fancharacter shit a lot of the time, yet struggles to explain what her general opinion is because of the seeming exceptions to the rule, like Aria. Aria epitomised this - a great idea, extended with a few comics by Credence that made it funny.. until everyone went over the top, started worshipping Aria and making fan-art purely featuring her and drawing their furries being killed by her and ugh. So now Vero finds the character a whole lot less endearing and hopes people stop drawing Aria.

MAN YOU'RE WHINY, MAYBE JUST EVERYONE DOESN'T LIKE YOUR COMIC OR THE BCB CHARACTERS?
You're welcome to go visit Kaxbe's site and check his latest comic pages instead. Or read up on the latest Liam comix at toastyjester.com.

Oh, you can't? Well, you might have to wait for them to make their own boorus and forums and webcomic sites. The thing about posting this fancharacter stuff over and over on the BCB site is that once you pass a certain threshold it starts to feel really disrespectful to the comic. If you like the world enough to create a character for it, or to chatter about someone else's character for it, surely you can appreciate the hundreds of pages that have gone into the development of the current cast? If you want to draw or write BCB stuff, why not embrace the large cast of characters and tell stories that represent your understanding of the comic?

To back off from that, to go "oh I'd rather write a story about fred the baboon the new casual teacher at bcb high than get paulo wrong", seems to indicate more than anything that you've only superficially enjoyed BCB, that you didn't care for the story and think that it's best used as a template for your own ideas. That hurts, and it's only made worse when your ideas are utterly bad and make BCB seem like a shitty fictional fursona convention for bad writers. It might not be what you think, but it's what you signal. Because why else? Most of these characters you obsess about are actually pretty shallow and shitty.

I think it's reasonable to have the gut reaction that it's childish to get upset by fancharacters, but if you dwell on it a little, you might understand why it becomes infuriating after the 30th fanfic is posted starring some bullshit character with a minor part for Lucy in the second paragraph of the third chapter. I hope some of the above explains why.

Anyway, please post your responses\defences here. It's an issue that needs some degree of exploration, but I'd stand by anything in this post and think it's a good start.

This post has been edited by SuitCase: 07 December 2010 - 03:36 PM
Reason for edit: Reworded a bit about Kaxbe\Mouse\Toasty that didn't really reflect my meaning

I have a question.

so what If I took my characters and through them into the bcb world. Would that make them fancharactes or guest or what?

I think that's technically a crossover but nonetheless it is not exempted.

They wouldn't be fancharacters because you created them before BCB, you didn't make them SO THAT THEY COULD EXIST in the series. That is the big catch of it. Like for example my friend Lisa has a character named Fiona that existed before Lisa even got to know about BCB.. and she changed Fiona a bit so she could be in their world. But in the end, Fiona still belongs to Lisa, and is not a fancharacter. Fiona has her own world now, which is great!!

I don't see why you'd want to crossover anyway. I can understand people doing silly crossovers with BCB and like.. Left4Dead (Gnukko), but what reason would you put your OCs into my world? Why not just expand your world? Make it a world worth living in?

was just wondering.

Anyway, time for serious Susan.

I've remained particularly indifferent of fancharacters but I cannot say I do not harbor negative feelings towards them. For certain fancharacters I remained silent as to why I dislike them out of respect to their creators who were my friends but I do sort of agree with the "piggybacking" argument as they are siphoning off of Taeshi's carefully constructed universe.

To be honest, I see using Tess and those like her to justify the creation of fancharacters as an extremely foolhardy thing to do because as Suitcase already explained they have evolved past the stigma of "fancharacter".

Lastly, I really, really, really hate it when someone pairs a fancharacter with one of the main cast. I doubt any one of them would go for your Mary-Sue Star Trek wannabe character and it pisses me off to no end. Liam is a prime example of this and I loathe him to no end because of all the twats that pair him with Lucy. It extends to Melody too when people pair her with Paulo (despite my hatred of Paulo -- not calling Melody a Mary-Sue Spacey don't hurt me) and it aggravates me.

But the cameos Taeshi does shouldn't be deemed negative! It shows she is a caring person and does connect with her fans unlike some comic artists out there. Do they have to be right in there and do there have to be cameos every single chapter? No, but they do say that Taeshi does care about her fans and this is her way of showing it. She's far less hostile than any admin I have ever met and these cameos reaffirms my faith that she does enjoy the company of her fans even when they get on her nerves -- myself included.

wow,looks like the situation reached the limit to see such an aggresive attack. i kinda understand how creators feel, to see their work redone to adopt new characters must be an ofense to the time spend writing and drawing, but i can't fully understand since i dont have any popular works. fans certaily like to imagine new contexts for their characters, and even be part of it, because im sure most of this fan chars are representations of their creators. about crossovers, well i must say even im guilty, you can find some of my things in candybooru. if that bothers the author i think ill gladly stop. last thing i want is to piss off the author of a work I honestly like.
but we should say this is price for being known. and you have created the very places for fanchars and fic to spawn. if it bothers that much , i say: terminate candybooru and art thread. , the hatred chars and fics stay away in deviantart, fanfic.com et cetera. "one does the harm, and another bears the blame" it sounds radical but finally will bring positive results, just like when i deleted my facebook...

man suit way to make me feel like an ass

at least speaking for toasty and myself i don't think either of us made our characters with the idea of doing anything except having a little bit of fun and then moving on - i think kax has gotten stuck in this loop of making larken stuff, but i know he wants to get out of it.

that being said, i think the entire fact that people _want_ to be part of your world is something to be proud of - i didn't, and wouldn't, have made melody in anything else - i made her as a fun thing, not really 'HA HA HA TIME TO INFRINGE ON TAESHI'S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY!'... i know i've been pretty vocal of my intentions. i'm not really looking for fame or a votey chapter or anything, i really just made it to have some fun, which is why i'm not really gonna do much with her from now on.

part of the problem does in fact come from the completely frankly bipolar nature of tae on the topic. (nothing personal, tae.) I think it has to do a good deal of if tae likes someone first - but from someone who doesn't hang around on irc all the time, it can look like random favor or hate. tae publically loves an aria comic tae does, and when people want to 'get in on the ground floor', for lack of a better term, they are met with scorn and the entire character is devalued.

this is kind of an unsolveable problem.

i honestly think the moment you start hating your fans for wanting to, for lack of a better term, be a part of the world you've created, you're going the wrong direction, and into becoming disconnected from your entire community. SURE, some fanchars may be selfish, or may be "here's my oc i am going to get fame now hurrr", but i honestly believe some are free from ill intentions.
i suppose this becomes an issue of if blaming the sinner or the sin. i'd like to think this public statement may finally help things, as compared to the basic silence from before. but i honestly believe that every fanchar that pops up should be taken personally. some of us really like to consider ourselves your friends, and wouldn't just intentionally desire to hurt you.

To be honest, I always thought suitcase and taeshi took the fancharacter issue far too seriously. Any created world has the oppertunity for fan insertions, and its bound to happen. Some are going to be bad, some are going to be great, most will be meh. It gets more attention here because people make it sound like such a big issue.

Between the candyborou and the fanfiction, there will always be a steady source of new characters. And yes, I'm sure people bother you consistantly for your feedback on this or that. However, I find that just comes with the territory; people will always want your feedback, attention and critique.

I say just drop all the drama with the fancharacters, and just let people do what they want to do. Its not going to hurt anyone long term (pending they don't try to make a profit in your characters), and you can't stop people from making them. Stop giving it so much attention all the time, and it won't be discussed so much

well, i think it always depends on the artist, some maybe love that others "recycle" their works. other just want to keep it immaculate. if Vero sees her work goes to the thrash bin when its altered, then obviously there's gonna be a big issue. Even worse if the "recycled result" becomes popular.

Just a thought: The fancharacters by themselves are absolutely nothing.
They are as important as Taeshi-san makes them to be.
If she takes a 'no fancharacters' policy, or a 'only fancharacters I WANT', no one has any right to say anything.
I mean, Taeshi-san has the power. End of story.

I actually understood what Mr. SuitCase said half-way through my answer.
I agree with great part of it, especially when saying that it really gets on their nerve for having fanfics with less and less of major BCB characters.

And if that is indeed affecting the BCB world, and fans, its a really bad thing.

But the solutions I can see are somewhat authoritarian. Banning, prohibiting, whatever. You are trying to make people understand that doing this is not cool, and its a nice approach. But the more fans BCB get, that'll be harder and harder.
Sonic can only undertake this much pressure because he is big, gigantic throughout the world. BCB can't take this many fancharacters, I guess.
(I do think BCB deserves the world, though!)

Then, I think you guys have some choices to lessen the problem. Sanctions to the creation of fancharacters, and regulation to mentioning them in any work.
Finding out what's to be allowed and what's to be prohibited... that's the hard part.
I guess you'll have to narrow down precisely what annoys you the most and hurts BCB world, and work some magic to eradicate what does.

Heh, I thought I'd write just a sentence for this thread. Me and my big mouth.

Lycan, on 07 December 2010 - 07:03 PM, said:

gugggg

What, Mr. whf? Nothing relevant about my post?

do you really want me to respond to all this

This post has been edited by whf: 07 December 2010 - 07:47 PM

Oh, do not pay too much attention to him, Lyucs. That is just how he is.

So should we make Fan characters a banable offense? I got the papers right here. They just need Suitcase's and Taeshi's signatures.

On a serious note I think that this topic is silly. I doubt anyone will stop making fan characters just because the creator(s) said so. In fact reverse psychology may kick in to make matters worse. Personally though I have mixed feelings on them. Liam is a huge Gary Stu. McCain is an incredible badass. I guess it depends whenever it's a awful self insert Faggot The Dog(Who someone needs to draw pronto) or an interesting well written character.

suitcase, your strong dislike of fancharacters hast given me an idea. I need to get on gmod, and make fancharacter skins for left 4 dead zombies. then put in the game and just blow the shit out of 'em. burning melody? DONE. Sniped Larken? BAM. the amount of time it would take to achieve this goal? GRATUITOUS. still, it has become a side project on my wall of endearing thoughts.

ok because everyone obviously hates short posts im going to make this post as long as i possibly can.

people in irc: fuck you. every fucking time i do something that is mildly off-topic its "trolling". the fact is im not doing anything wrong here and not "TROLLING". trolling is the act of attempting to antagonize someone to the point where the evoke a negative response. THIS ISNT GOING ON HERE. here i only moved away from the subject for about 1 post. if jerk were to do such a thing, you'd all go along with it and it would turn into "your favorite brand of coke/ sex fun chat #128388"
its 2 short posts in a long thread full of long posts full of drawn out bullshit: i called out someones weaboo-ness and then asked if he really wanted my opinion on the matter. only 1 is irrelevant to the topic
do you want this whole thread to be perfect? do you want it to just be stupid bitching about whos terrible ugly furry fan-character is acceptable and whos isnt?
well here (ill even use proper grammar!! WOW)

I hate most fan-art in general because it's mostly uncreative ugly bullshit and I think that the majority of fan-characters on this site are boring and faceless furry people created solely because the person has a deep dark cat fetish that eats away at them, so they create their character in the image of themselves so they can draw fan-art of their character fucking Lucy.
I am only partly joking here.
When it comes down to it really, I think that people should stop making them if Taeshi doesn't like them, and you should leave it at that.

However, I think both Suitcase and Taeshi are big babies about this subject because in most cases fan-characters are created only because their creators love the comic so much. Taeshi has also encouraged a lot of this by including fan-characters in the comic, as Suitcase mentioned (although she has made a point about getting rid of them recently), so it seems a bit silly to be so worked up about it. People are just hopeful that maybe one day the great almighty Taeshi-kun will have their fan-character make a brief appearance in the comic, or maybe even one of those quick doodles that she does so often.

Also you must remember, lots of people get their start just doing fan-art. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't drawing sonic fanart and stuff like that help Taeshi develop HER style? Lots of people work on their art skills by using a universe that is already well-defined to develop ideas and practice their art. One day they might feel confident enough to start their own series of sorts, but until then they just want to come up with their own stories in a world that's already constructed instead of making the full effort of creating a fresh new comic.

TL;DR: who gives a shit its a comic about anthromorphic cats having relationships

This post has been edited by whf: 07 December 2010 - 11:47 PM

trolling....hmmmm.....


Art of Trolling - Trolls on Chatroulette and Yahoo! Answers - internet troll - Cheezburger

lol you mad?

This post has been edited by lolwut: 07 December 2010 - 08:36 PM

nice ignoring the rest of the post/ motivational poster as your avatar pal maybe if i put my face right up to the computer and squint i can read whatever witty punchline comes right after "crab battle"

sorry, but i understand your point. I like the comic but not enough to throw a almost colored in the lines character of myself cat-a-tized and make random relationships with comic characters. much rather hangout with friends play video games like the massive nerd i am. sorry if I offended you good sir.

<snooths> oh man
<snooths> a trollface post
<Susan> Man I love Ventrillo
<snooths> the thread just got worse
<snooths> i didnt think it was possible
<Gnukko> told ya
<JuniorBoomer> It's the internet
<Gnukko> tch, it's the int.
<JuniorBoomer> Possibilities are endless
<Gnukko> fuck

Aww, Snooths. You do have some similarities to a troll, but the general consent is that you are far from one. I rather agree. ^_^

My turn:

First off, Larken was not specifically made for BCB. He is an old character. However, he was long dead before I started reading BCB and when I found BCB it seemed like a cool place for him to be. That being said, after making a few comics with Larken interacting with the BCB cast, I remembered why I stopped making Larken comics in the first place: He's boring. He was boring before he received the whole "jerkifying" treatment and he's boring after it. Drawing and writing Larken stuff has become a chore for me since I don't like leaving a story unfinished. When something "fun" becomes a chore, it is no longer worth doing. I'm flattered that people liked Larken, but it's gotten annoying to me. He's a leech sucking out whatever creativity I had. He's not even that creative. If you've ever read anything about his creation that I've posted at least three times in the old forum, you'd know he's based off of a black cat in my old neighborhood and that my first comics for him were Garfield ripoffs. I'm not joking when I say that I have nightmares about him.

Regarding the cameos, I like them, they're a pleasant little nod to the fans. But y'know what they say, "if you give a mouse a cookie..." It really annoys me when I see comments on the pages where a fancharacter appears and people are going gaga for them, wishing for them to appear more often. Liam and Larken are examples of this. I think it got worse for Liam after that incentive chapter. This next little blurb is for the people asking for their favorite fancharacters to appear: If Taeshi has a purpose for a character, she will use it. However, most fancharacters serve no purpose other than living out the creator's weird fantasy cat-filled high school life and/or stroking the creator's ego. SO STOP ASKING.

As for riding on the back of BCB, when I started doing comics for Larken again, the first ones were while I was working on something else. Granted, it was only on dA, but still, I had something that a few people enjoyed. While most of my old stuff is gone out of my gallery (oh dear lord, most of it was just lazy-ass comics which had no point at all), at least it was original. Fancharacters are a plague. What happened to all my original ideas!? When I eventually have my own site (hopefully by next summer), I don't want people to be reading it just because of "omg! itz that 1 guy who mayd larken!!11111one", I want people reading it because it's interesting to them.

P.S. Taeshi, the next time you kill off a fancharacter just fake "put them on a bus". This will make people think that you're gonna have them come back eventually sometime and you won't have to deal with too many "omg y did u kill off kizunaaa and carsonaru!?" and "bring that one fancharacter that i really like" comments.

Taking a thread out of it's topic is not trolling, but it's also somewhat bad, I think.

Also, Mr. whf,

Quote

This was not nice, and certainly not true. One could say: Who cares, its a game about a plumber fighting turtles/lizards thingies. Or the same about many things.

And, from the Wikipedia (you can search elsewhere if you want):
"Kun
Kun (君【くん】?) is used by persons of senior status in addressing or referring to those of junior status, or by anyone when addressing or referring to male children or male teenagers. It can also be used by females when addressing a male that they are emotionally attached to or have known for a long period of time. Although kun is generally used for boys, that is not a hard rule. For example, in business settings, young female employees may also be addressed as kun by older males of senior status."
So... Taeshi-kun will not do.

Now, to what you actually said... Sonic fanchars, fanfics and fanwhatever won't ever hurt Sonic's influence.
BCB still can't take that much, that's some difference.
And I didn't say fanchars should be banned, nor banable offense, just... somewhat controlled...

Lycan, on 07 December 2010 - 08:55 PM, said:

yeah they could and they'd be right because thats all it really is
its ridiculous and you should be able to see that and laugh at it while still enjoying it

This post has been edited by whf: 07 December 2010 - 09:01 PM

About the "you should be making humans living in a human world" thing. I think that's a poor statement. No one needs a good reason to not draw humans. Personally, I /can't/ draw humans and I don't /want/ to. Besides, if everyone drew the same thing it'd be pretty freaking boring. There's nothing wrong or childish with anthropomorphism, look at stuff like Star Fox. That's a good example of non-childish anthro. But why draw humans? So we can appeal more to other cultures? I like drawing animals simply because...I like drawing animals, i'll be damned if I "should be making humans" because a lot of the stuff I draw is out of my own interest and ability. Your basically suggesting that people go along with the norm because it's normal.

I don't have a fancharacter by the way, and I don't see any problem with your views on them other than that maybe the feelings of anger should be brought down a bit. You know, just, don't let it bother you so much? I mean your well in your rights to do what you want and if it's bothering you than you should say something but it looks like it might be bothering you too much, please correct me if I'm wrong.

But what about my super awesome cat who everyone loves but they are a social outcast and they secretly can turn into a dragon! I mean it's only the best thing ever!!!!111

I jest, these kinds of characters are some of the worst. I'm not saying that I haven't fallen into the "lol look at my fan character" void but I also understand how annoying fan characters can be. It sucks when you work on something so hard and long such as BCB and then just have some new fag make a character and be like "Lol look at my awesome character and can you put them in the comic cause they're awesome and they will have the best relationship with the main character!"

But I honestly don't think everyone is like this. Most people make their fan characters cause they honestly think that they have something to offer the story. They want them to be liked but in no way want them to become the new favorite characters. They want to show their appreciation to an awesome story but are too insecure with their own stories to really develop their characters. I think fanfiction is a wonderful way to get started in serious writing but if all you do is spam everything with your fan character THEN we have a problem.

When all the person does is talk about their fan character and how awesome they are and do nothing to contribute to the real characters of the story, that's when it goes to far.

So no I don't hate fan characters, but I do think that people need to put more effort into real characters and art about then rather than your own characters.

Is it also possible that people create them to get noticed by Taeshi? I mean, she is pretty awesome and I wouldn't be surprised if she's influenced/inspired some people. So it would only make sense that some people would want her attention, like a celebrity kind of :3 I'm sure this is a much smaller margin of people, but just putting it out there.

and while I'm on the subject, when Taeshi first wrote like...2 sentences to me in reply to something I was like "omg so awesome its the creator of BCB! *0*". I didn't go off and create a fancharacter or anything, I just thought it was cool. You know, like in the same way you might meet a favorite writer or something. Anyways, it may be more common than we think, but some people are just trying to hide the fact because they'll look weird.

This post has been edited by ClosetLucy: 07 December 2010 - 09:28 PM

Closetlucy, its actually a rather high amount, much more then you think. Taeshi is a much more visible webcomic artists then most. Weather intentionally or not, people ususally do go out of their way to discuss stuff with them.

The "smaller margin" I was referring to was the people who make fancharacters simply for Tae's attention.

I won't repeat what has already been said. I was going to say what SpaceMouse and Pants said. Long story short, really, who gives a sh*t? It doesn't really worsen the comic, even a 12-year-old can understand shitty fanart is just shitty fanart and what is canon and what isn't.

Quote

Uhm, yeah, pretty much.


Also, that really screws with my idea of making a Mexican fancharacter who is an illegal immigrant and doesn't go to school and hardly speaks english. He'd wear a sombrero, too.... Awwww...
Hehehehe, na, jk

This post has been edited by Migrant: 07 December 2010 - 10:05 PM

So people make fancharacters, who gives a damn? Just point out that "anything not on the characters page is not canon" and get on with it, surely?
Can't stop people making shitty fancharacters, just point out that they're crap and have no actual affiliation with BCB other than being completely inspired by them, and then you can lump them in with "really shit fanfiction"

Actually, nevermind.

This post has been edited by Seg: 07 December 2010 - 10:07 PM

Making a huge deal about it.

I must respectfully disagree with you [Taeshi and Suitcase]. While I can't say I know how it feels to have my work have fan characters inserted into it and while I'm sure it isn't a good feeling, it's simply something can't be controlled. Any well-known work will have fan characters, alternative storylines, etc. It's an inevitability. Also, it seems a tad ridiculous that you would call specific people out on it, including those whose [who's?] series you enjoyed. Perfect example would be Space Mouse's Reluctant Waltz. You both seemed to enjoy it [judging by your comments]so, why bother calling Space Mouse out on it? If anything, that's a perfect example that fan characters can actually be used for good.

If you guys hate fan characters that much, ban them! After all, you are the owners of the site. Just accept that even if you do take such drastic measures, they will still exist on places like deviant art and fanfiction.net and there's nothing you can do about it. That's just how it is...

I'm just going to say that I'm indifferent to the subject.

All I know is that fan-creations will forever exist, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

The biggest confusing I still have with your post suitcase is calling out spacemouse. I do recall she was quite worried after the first comic because of the opinion yourself and taeshi had on the comic. You did give her your blessings, and off she went. Now, maybe you didn't truly appreciate the comic, but that's rather harsh to call her out like that after what you said earlier. If the comic bothered you that much, telling her the truth she would have stopped

Furthermore, you've included her in a recent comic (even as a background character), which is even more confusing. Wouldn't you want to avoid that as much as humanly possible? I know the including was more for making space happy then actually having the character in the comic itself, but its bloody confusing.

I do understand where your coming from in terms of the issues these characters bring, but it comes across two faced because of the bias you place on particular people. Its not intentional, but its very hard to ever figure out where you stand occasionally.

All I can say is if u want the fancharacters to stop. Ban them. other than that, just deal with it.(*in a respectful tone*)

[
Also, that really screws with my idea of making a Mexican fancharacter who is an illegal immigrant and doesn't go to school and hardly speaks english. He'd wear a sombrero, too.... Awwww...
Hehehehe, na, jk
[/quote]

that would have been awesome.....

I think what everyone's saying it:
"We can't see a reason as how fancharacters would be hurting BCB".

And, the fact is, if they're not doing anything to BCB, they're harmless.
But what Mr. SuitCase is saying is exactly that, they can, and are, hurting BCB.
Exactly how is not entirely clear to me, though.

Would Taeshi-san and Mr. SuitCase care to elaborate (more) on how fancharacters are bad (directly or indirectly) to BCB?

This post has been edited by Lycan: 07 December 2010 - 11:45 PM

because they dont like them

Lycan, on 07 December 2010 - 11:44 PM, said:

In my eyes, they're bad because they can generate the most ridiculous fanbases ever. Examples: Liam, Aria, Larken.

My case is not so different from Spacey's. The only reason I drew my 5-month-old dog as a righteous teenager wearing sweatshirt was for mere fun, and I had absolutely no intentions of annoying Veronica with his existence. In fact, I didn't even knew she didn't like them when I made that GSD (also, someone tempted me to draw him). If I knew I would never make him. I already have my own cast of anthropomorphic characters and their very own background and world, but the last thing I wanted was to make them have any sort of interaction with the BCB cast for this very exact reason.

Well, I do agree that this whole "tons of fan-characters" things is utterly annoying, and I do admit that I kind of made one, myself, but I never really made use of him in actual fan-art (if random doodles for the sake of having something done at least once per week doesn't counts). I have no intentions of drawing him interacting with nobody from BCB cast, and you bet I'll not. Then again, I only created him for simple fun, so I apologize if I offended any of you with what I've been drawing so far, and also will stop with these needless and unrelated drawings I've been doing since I came here, and focus on actual fan-art. Once again, my apologies.

I see nothing wrong with wish-fulfillment and self-insertion. It's annoying and obnoxious and so forth, but I think there's something in the way the characters are written that attach people to them emotionally. I mean, isn't that what you wanted? Engaging, charming characters with complex interpersonal relationships? Is it so hard to understand that someone might not have that, might want to live vicariously through their characters with yours?

It cuts both ways.

P.S. Fine! I'll write Faggot the Dog into my own comic.

I loled at the whole thing.

Fan characters are cultural detritus.

You know what it means to have fan characters? YOUR POPULAR!
I'm surprised that SuitCase sounds like he figured out the answer to life on page 1

To add one thing, I do have to disagree with Souppy about him including Toasty in the list. I mean yeah Liam is kind of a gary stu in retrospect and I was just in a euphoria of drawing cute LiamxLucy comics, but the difference is that Toasty only really draws Liam when we (And I say we as in we giggle about it and I give the thumbs up) come up with a good idea about it. I remember getting all LiamxLucy at one point and he drew a few more pictures just because of that. But otherwise Liam is just some dumb character that is up in the air and Toasty is off doing his own thing.

Whereas we have people like Kaxbe who do nothing but bitch about how much they hate Larken yet make like a freaken novel about Larken comics. I know he's trying to get out of it, but it's still kind of unnerving because it's like "finish the damn story already" and "shit but if you finish the damn story there will be more comics"

And Mousey I'm sorry but I'm gonna have to call bullshit on that. You did start off Melody for fun, but people really bloody loved her. So you felt compelled to draw more and more of her, and then you became yet another dumb fancharacter maker who only draws Melody and gets happy over Melody fanart and ohgod melody could actually date Paulo!?!?!??! that makes it okay!!!

Liam COULD date Lucy, Larken COULD date Lucy. That doesn't mean they have a freaken snowball's chance in HELL.

And that goes for Larken freaken being into Amaya. WHY DO FANCHARACTERS HAVE TO WANT A REAL CHARACTER. WHY. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. GET OVER IT. STOP THINKING THAT. THEY WILL NEVER BE FRIENDS, THEY WILL NEVER DATE. IF THAT WERE THE CASE IT WOULD BE IN THE COMIC LIKE MCCAIN OR TESSA.

You had to constantly apologise to me over me rolling my eyes at yet another dumb Melody comic and be all "but they made me do it wahh!!!", you either decide to please the masses or please me. I can understand you going for the former because - hey - you're getting attention from a WHOLE BUNCHA PEOPLE, but don't go apologising and feeling sorry for yourself every step of the way. You KNOW I hate fancharacters. You SAW my reaction when Melody was FIRST introduced. Is it REALLY that surprising?

You either do it shamelessly and get my scorn (In that ONE thing because jesus, I don't hate Kaxbe or Toasty or Mousey for making fancharacters, they're like some of my closest bros), or you don't. Simple as that.

And look, guys, i can understand people thinking "GEEEZ LIL IT'S NOT THAT BIG A DEAL MANY SERIES GET FANCHARACTERS IT'S INEVITABLE", but the problem with that is the creators of those communities aren't involved enough in said communities to be involved in that kind of shit. I have to deal with that shit all the time. I used to gets notes about people's stupid fancharacters and how bad they want to be cameo'd in BCB, there was even one person who THREATENED to take down their pictures if I didn't include their fancharacter. And don't get me freaken STARTED on fucking kizuna.

Look, I could easily get away from this community and allow you guys to make all the stupid fancharacters you want. I mean if you think fancharacters "aren't that bad", step in my shoes! Let's see if you can do it better than I can! I was tolerant back then, hell I used to love fancharacters. Why else would I have included them in the comic? I became jaded, realised that was a horrible mistake to have made, and it's difficult to clean myself off of it now. It really is. Because I will be like "ughghgh fancharacters" and people will be all "WOT ABOUT MCCAIN LOL YOU LIKE HIM DOUBLE-STANDARDS"

They're unimaginative, irritating, and diminishes all the work I put into doing this comic. I know it's not perfect, but when I have people flooding candybooru with some shitty fancharacter just because they're the hot topic of the day and going on about how they're better than Lucy, that really boils my shit something fierce.

Seriously, that's one thing that has made me ANGRY. People who are like "Oh Melody is a much better character than Lucy" or "Oh McCain should take over BCB and become main", like how freaken dare you? How dare you diminish that work? For some stupid half-baked character whose sole purpose is to be "cute" and "nerdy" and "into Paulo"? Like seriously? It shits me because I don't want to offend Mousey, but when you're acting like they're this superior developed awesome character, it is just goddamn offensive! I don't go around and say "Oh hey Susan that's a nice fanfic BUT NOT AS GOOD AS MAVERIK'S" or "MAN CARMEN'S DRAWINGS ARE SO MUCH BETTER THAN SOCKS"

But like.. yeah, they shit me immensely. And it's depressing that it had to come to making a freaken topic about it for people to get the point. Because we have people like Mousey who are all "Tee hee i made this character based on susan tee hee BUT DON'T HATE ME TAE THEY MADE ME DO IT"

of course I'm gonna hate! Because you freaken should know by now how much I had to deal with this bullshit! I can't wait till BCB ends some days, because I know when I make my next comic, I will have learned to not even CONSIDER a fancharacter. Just go my own way, no cameos, nothing.

I can't even do CAMEOS anymore without someone bitching about how badly they want their fancharacter in a cameo (I'M LOOKING AT YOU KOU)

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.



---

OH HERE'S ANOTHER THING CHRIST

I MEAN SERIOUSLY

WHY DO PEOPLE RUIN NICE THINGS

LIKE THE ARIA COMICS

DID YOU SERIOUSLY HAVE TO DRAW A CONVOLUTED STORY ABOUT YOUR STUPID FANCHARACTER FIGHTING ARIA AND HAVING A CHANCE DANCING-SWORD

LIKE SERIOUSLY

AND BEING ALL "DON'T FINISH IT OFF I STILL HAVE MORE TO DO"

WHAT ARE YOU TWELVE

"OH GOD I GOTTA PROTECT MY FANCHARACTER"

JESUS