TUC

 

MANY, MANY reasons. Ever so many reasons. Here's at least three good (and pretty universal) ones;

A: So many roleplayers tie their characters to canon characters that folks like Tails end up with, like, a hundred long-lost brothers and sisters who've never heard of each other.

B: While it's okay to adopt concepts and such from other people's creations, taking characters and plots is just plain bad writing. Better to fashion your own 'world' and characters/events therein than create a tiny piece of the puzzle that could grow to be something so much bigger.

C: Canon timelines and fan timelines should stay separate for the sake of cosmic simplicity. Once the two start colliding, people get confused or cranky, there's lots of BAAAAAAWING and no-one seems to be able to agree on at least fifty points of each other's interpretations.

BlizShadow

 

I'll probably be repeating TUC a little but, but nevertheless I think the easiest answer is because it unnecessarily risks canon. One primary attribute and purpose of a fan character is to have some feasibility of fitting within the universe that they're based from. If your fan character has some relation to an official character that hasn't been elaborated on by Sega, such as Knuckles' long-lost sister or something, then it effectively destroys the canon and one of the primary reasons for your fan character to even exist. You might as well thrown in a character from another universe.

Furthermore, official characters are essentially the par of characterization that can be achieved by the franchise. Their endorsement and use by Sega practically warrants it. Thus, having a character that has a strong and feasible relationship with an official one gives them a status level that is completely unwarranted and undeserved by the simple fact that, technically, your fan character doesn't even exist. Plus, it's very easy for a character that is heavily associated with official ones to have strengths that supercede those of the official characters or ride on the coattails of a character's aesthetic successes, i.e be a shallow recolor.

In short, these unwritten taboos force the creator not to rely on stereotypes that will cripple their character and simultaneously damage the universe. You can have a fan character that is a strong one without it outright plagiarizing Blaze's looks and powers.

Blaire

 

*'Distanced' Relationship-(I have no other name for this ^^;;): Basically, you've got a fan character that meets the canon cast at the beginning of a fic. The FC may help the CCs with a problem and vice versa. HOWEVER, the relationship the FC has with the CCs is distant at best-they don't become best friends with Sonic, they don't become Amy's love interest, and when the fic comes to an end, they basically just leave the group.

Now this, I can take in a fanfic, provided the fan character's relationship with the canon characters doesn't go too far, and the fic itself is well-written of course. Also, I seriously recommend NOT altering the games' storylines just so you can fit your fan character in all the action.

*Intimate Relationship: What I like to call, 'A fan character getting too buddy-buddy with a canon character. Put simply, the FC becomes the best friend-or at least a very close pal-of a CC. Sometimes, they even become a permanent part of the group.

I strongly suggest not doing this-especially making the FC a permanent part of the group. That would seriously mess up the canon. (I admit, I actually broke this rule when I first started out. ^^;;)

*Blood Relationship: Making a fan character a brother, sister, cousin, ect, of a canon character. (They don't have to be blood related, but I've yet to see a fan character adopted into the family of a canon one)

How many long-lost brothers and sisters does Tails have in the fandom world? Waaaay too many to list. This, I very much frown upon, for the same reason that TUC and Bliz mentioned before-the canon would be ruined.

Now, depending on the universe, I'm a liiiitle more lenient on parents. After all, while Sonic may not have a sibling, he could not have existed without parents. If you want to include a character's parents, you could, just as long as you follow the canon.

*Romantic Relationship: I can't put it any more simply then; FC x CC. The romantic relationship between a fan character and a canon character.

No. Just no. I draw the line at these. Do not create a character just so they can be the love interest of one of the canon characters. Put CCs with CCs and FCs with FCs.

Talancir

 

while it's true that messing with canon is sloppy and unprofessional, IMO there's nothing that says you can't talk about augmentation, or what goes on when the camera's not being recorded. Because canon is set in the proverbial stone, however, there isn't a lot of modification that you can do to a storyline until someone cries foul.

The trick, of course, is making such transitions done thoughtfully, intricately, and carefully, guided by lots and lots of research.

Let's call up my own RP/fanfic as an example. It takes place in the Archieverse, but it alters the Archieverse canon to the point where people could and would cry foul. The key, of course, is that it's a fanfic.

In this RP/fanfic, I introduce Auriel, son of Steppenwolf. Anyone familiar with Knuckles' lineage according to the Archieverse should be raising their eyebrows. Yes, he is a son of Steppenwolf. No, he's not Knuckles' great great grandfather, 16 generations removed. According to Auriel's bio, he's Knuckles' uncle. Knuckles is descended from Steppenwolf through his son, Moonwatcher. Nowhere in canon does it say how many sons Steppenwolf had.

The key, I think, to making characters and inserting them into the canon storyline (if you plan on going that route), is looking at the storyline piece by piece, finding the gaps that the canon doesn't have set in stone, and go from there.

Phoenix_Saturn

 

Family Relationship
Not unless you're doing sons/daughters or an extremely distant relationship. It's extremely overdone, and usually done poorly.
Romantic Relationship
As long as your character is there for some OTHER reason than just being a love interest and it makes sense, why not?
Distanced Relationship
As long as it makes sense.

BlizShadow

 

Well, I was only referring to the Sega Universe with that response. Anyways, the possibility of these theoretical siblings existing doesn't address the problems I've brought up. Because Sega haven't said anything about the matter, the rational conclusion is that they don't exist; This is the simple and proper placing of the benefit of assumption. Thus, fan character siblings tend to break canon by default, and that also leaves them privy to overusing an official character's aesthetics and powers because, yanno, they're siblings so they should be alike. xP

SuperShadowgal

 

So, you mean take Knuckles and revamp him sort of thing? Like make him a 300 spartan with tons of different characteristics?
Eh, I find this a tricky subject. Many people don't take kindly to people taking ownership of an already established character, irregardless of whether you've jazzed them up a bit of not. (And here I thought I would be able to write this up before school)
Maybe I'll ponder this more once I return home tonight.

Blaire

 

Hmm....you do have a point with that last one. Now, what I was talking about with the 'don't involve fan characters with canon characters thing' was with non-related characters. I have actually read a fic that showcased Sonic and Tails parents. Now Sonic, still pretty young at the time of the fic, didn't play that big a part and Tails didn't even show up until the last chapter. Most of the fic was about the thier fathers. And it done pretty well, I might add.

In retrospect: I am a bit more lienent on involving parents in the canon, so long as things aren't messed up beyond repair.

BlizShadow

 

Now, is it okay to alternatively develop Sonic characters as your own? Well, it isn't something I advocate for the very same reasons I talked about in my first post. If it's frowned upon to have your own fan character strongly intertwined within the canon's characters and events, it would naturally stand to reason that using official characters themselves is the epitome of this taboo. This doesn't mean that it can't be done tastefully, of course; Anything can with effort and talent. But that is besides the very valid issue of warping the canon your "character" in this instance is based off of, and whether or not this partially invalidates your character's existence.

Phoenix

 

Mmmmnn... No. I disagree with this, UNLESS you are using Archie Canon and make a Moebius counterpart. I normally disagree with this just because it seems like a really lazy and effortless way to create a character. I suppose it's fine if the character is rather two-dimensional and minor, (Say, for example, Ergo [which I have done]) but I wouldn't give, say Knuckles a little bit of redesign personality-wise and call him my own character. That just seems cheap to me, and I've seen it done very, very poorly. I've seen someone redesign Sonic with the only change being that he dislikes soap. No.

BlizShadow

 

As for topic three, abilities are a no-brainer and are included in everything else I've said. Sonic is the fastest hedgehog on two feet because Sega have stated as such, and he is only rivalled by Shadow, Metal Sonic, and in certain cases Jet in that area. When an official character has a talent, they are de facto the par of skill. Not only does having your fancharacter supercede an official one's strength break canon, but it leaves everyone else minus other godmods at a vastly unfair disadvantage when fighting.

Blaire

 

It kind of depends. For instance, one of my main characters has the gift of superspeed, clocking at speeds of around 110 mph, double that if she uses a special ability of hers. Now, looking at that in comparision to Sonic, my character is actually kind of slow. Or sure, she's probably faster then I imagine most Mobians to be, but even when using the special ability that I mentioned doubled her speed, she's not even half as fast as Sonic.

Plus, Sonic can run at top speed for hours upon end without showing signs of fatigue. My character on the other hand, has rather low stamina, and tires out easy. In fact, if she was running at her top speed of 220 mph, she would be able to perform almost no actions for quite a while as soon as she stopped running.

So, in summary, it may be okay to give a fan character an ability similar to that of canon character, just so long as the FC isn't better then the CC. It's okay to have a fast character, so long as they aren't as fast, or faster then Sonic.

Phoenix

 

Sonic is a special exception to this rule. No one can be faster than him, since he is the "fastest thing alive". However, for the rest of the characters, that's like saying no one else can fly because Tails can do it and no one else can be strong because Knuckles is, and that's just stupid. Take Blaze for example, the pyrokinetic princess from another dimension. Can no one else be pyrokinetic because she is? I say, "Of course not."

And what Blaire said.

Zak

 

That has to be one of the most difficult rules to by pass. If you had a character that was simply "faster than sound", the problem is that people automatically think "oh, he just copied sonic, what a n00b. " and have a whole different outlook on the rest of the bio. Even if it's an original idea (not super powered sneakers) then people will still look down on it. It think the main reason for these riles is not to stop the creation of fancharacters with these atributes, it so first time creators see that doing this is wrong, because most of them will not elaborAte or expand on it, just say he's super duper fast 'cause he is.

Talancir

 

I think the points are convoluted, and some of them are out of context. It's universally stated that Sonic is the Fastest Thing AliveTM, so that's not up for debate. It's also stated that Tails is a bright kid (Genius level Intelligence), but it doesn't say that he's the smartest thing alive. I think some people need to do more research and stop stretching the facts, tbh.

Mind you, no one ever said exactly how smart Tails is, nor does it put out any definitive scale. He can't possibly have outsmarted Eggman, though.