What do you think of Alicorn OCs?

[Sassaflash]

Wasn't sure if this belonged in here or in brainstorming or somewhere completely different, so first of all, sorry if I chose the wrong forum.

As I've mentioned before, I'm considering creating a comic strip which will be based mainly on G1 but drawn in the G4 style and borrowing a few concepts from it too. Basically it will be G1 and OC ponies but in a more G4-like universe. So there will be pegasi regulating the weather etc. But because it's not going to be set in Equestria, I'm going to need a different royal family.

I'm leaning right now toward making Majesty an Alicorn due to the rules and concepts I'm using, and giving her a husband, daughters and a couple of additional extended family members, one of which is meant to be a central character in the comic. The problem is, I know a lot of people when creating Alicorn characters in particular can go really over the top with them and as the creator of a couple of RP / writing development websites, I know how irritating Sues can be. She's meant to be on the first page based on my current outline

I've given her flaws and her magic is pretty average. Probably not much different to a regular unicorn's really, if it's even that strong. As a central character she does have a particular role which I don't really want to give away in advance in case I do make it, but she doesn't do any of the really powerful regular stuff. She doesn't raise the sun or the moon or the stars or anything like that. I guess she's more like Cadence without the power of love or... whatever that actually is. I don't know if I'm using the Elements of Harmony yet, but if I do she'll probably represent Kindness. Her talent is musical. I've been writing for a long time and I'm not in the habit of making Sues.

The problem is, I can't exactly show all of these things on the first page. Clearly not every Alicorn OC or OC in general is a Sue and I have plenty of non-Alicorn OCs which will also appear in the comic. But Alicorns seem to become Sues more than regular types of ponies and so some people seem to jump to conclusions and presume that all Alicorn OCs are the same.

So I thought I'd ask here first what you all thought of Alicorn OCs? If you were to come across a comic that had an Alicorn OC on the first page without much explanation straight off, would it put you off of continuing to read it?

[sunstar]

I would be very cautious as I read. Sunstar used to be a huge Mary Sue. No one was liking her very well. I decided to take her apart and remake her into something new and better. Sunstar started out as an overpowered fluttercorn. (Flutter pony with a unicorn horn) I decided to cut down on her powers and changed her form. Sunstar is now a Dralicorn with the power of fire and the ability to cast lightning from her horn. I took away manipulating the elements, shapeshifting, imortality, invinciblity, able to kill with a thought, stomp of kill everything, you name it, she could do it. I later tied her power to the sun, and added the ability to hide in sunbeams. Due to being a fire elemental, snow melts around her feet. That one came a bit later. I refused to add anything else.

I would do an introductory page before begining the comic. That would help set the stage for the comic and introduce us to your character. I notice that many Alicorns are royalty. Sunstar is a princess of Riverfalls, but she gave up her birthright to become a Guardian of Magic. As she later found out, Her sister and her parents weren't really her sister and parents. They were her cousin and aunt and uncle. Her real parents were Sparklestar, twin sister of Flamingstar, and the dark guardian Bloodstone. Sparklestar knew she would not live long enough to birth Sunstar, so she placed the embryo that would become Sunstar inside Sunriver, Flamingstar's wife.

I also have Zephrina Apple Sky, a pegacorn. She was born a pegasus and gained her horn a puberty. She grew up on Sweet Apple Acres, and her story is unfolding.

[weirdraptor]

Make sure you give your character facets, weaknesses, and the ability to grow and you should be alright.

[Al1701]

You're just going to have to develop her character and hope people aren't turned off simply because she's an alicorn.

[Zero]

one issue that seems many fandoms have is this...someone creates a character baed on the main or a powerful character and makes them even more powerful or seem to have some relationship with them.
If its done correctly like weirdraptor said if you give them facts, weakness ect then they should be ok.

[Sassaflash]

*nod* Thanks for the replies.

She can't do as much as even Sunstar 2.0. No lightning, no sunbeams. She just has her regular cutie mark related talent and one particular role which will only be shown once and is hardly ever needed. She barely uses regular magic either actually. And she definately has flaws. She's very naiive for example, and socially awkward, a little jealous at times and all too easily irritated.

Originally she was going to be a regular pegasus and if used elsewhere probably still will be. Her horn will actually be hidden for most of the story too. But she needed a reason to not have socialised much, to be a little awkward and generally unsure in the 'real' world. I suppose sort of like Luna in a way though it wasn't intended to be based on her at all. She isn't a bookworm like Twilight Sparkle and really has no reason to not -want- to have socialised before. She does have a couple of friends already at the start and is mostly fine with them though still a little quiet. It's a confidence issue more than anything else, I think. Also though her specific role is relatively minor, I can't see a non-Alicorn character doing it based on the so far released FiM episodes at least. And as I said the concepts are being borrowed from G4. Also she needs -some- kind of link to the royal family for part of the story later on and I didn't want to copy the special student idea.

The only reason I was considering making her a relative of Majesty was because all of the Alicorns in FiM at the time I started putting this all together were related. And for all we yet know Sombra might be related to them too. And all royalty in G4 seem to be Alicorns which is why I was intending to make Majesty one. She wasn't going to be one of the daughters, not a direct heir to anything. If considered royalty at all she'd be very minor and possibly only related by marriage. I believe her father was linked to Majesty somewhere though I havn't finalised what kind of link it is yet.

Overall I don't think she can do very much at all, especially compared to the special powers that some of the original ponies had. Her single specific role I tend to think of as something along the lines of Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom, except probably used less often and only in certain situations or at certain times. Most of the time she's pretty normal and with the weaknesses and the room to grow and all I'm -fairly- confident that she's not a Sue though I will be running her through a litmus test of course to make sure. I'm just a little concerned that some people will see an Alicorn on the page and presume that she -is- one which will lose me potential readers.

[sunstar]

Some questions I often ask myself are these. Does the character need wings? why? does the character need a horn? why? Can an earthling do what I want the character to do? Can a Pegasus, or a Unicorn do what I want the character to do? Why does the character need to be an alicorn?

To answer those questions, I will use Zephrina.

Zephrina Apple Sky is a pegacorn as I said before. She is black and white with electric blue and purple hair and purple eyes. She has both a horn and wings, but she is not an Alicorn in the same sense as Luna and Celestia are. Why does Zephrina need wings? Well, she is a pegasus by birth. She needs wings because without them, she would be an earthling by birth and it doesn't make sense to have her gain a horn at puberty. Does Zephrina need a horn? Yes, because she uses it for magic. She will lose the horn later on once it is revealed that Luna had given her the horn as a way to direct her inate pegasine magic. Zephrina is truely a pegasus with a special gift that is revealed when her cutie mark changes after she sheds her horn. The horn here serves a purpose, and once that purpose is served, is shedded as it is no longer needed. An earthling can't fly, which is what is needed to be able to tame the skies. A Unicorn, one who is extremely powerful, can fly, but it would create a massive headache with the pegasi, who would feel threatened by a unicorn in their domain. A pegasus is the best choice. Zephrina does not need to be an alicorn. She becomes a Pegacorn for a while until she figures out why she has so much trouble mastering Unicorn magic. Once she begins to use pegasine magic, the horn is shedded. So basically, the alicorn thing is a temperary thing.

[Sassaflash]

I've been asking myself those things, and she certainly uses her wings more. She does need the horn for a few things though, mostly for her specific role which does require both. I'm not sure about horn shedding though. I like the whole pegacorn theory in general, but I was trying to stick to the FiM universe as much as possible. I like to slot things in as neatly as possible when writing for an existing universe and nothing in Canon has really specified how it all works yet. And if she's going to be related to an Alicorn family anyway it might be unnecesarilly complicating it and making her stand out more to make her different.

Hm. How likely is a regular pegasus to be related to Alicorns? And exactly how much magic do pegasi have? I know they have weather magic but her talent isn't related to the weather. I suppose I could just draw her in a position that doesn't show her wings on the first page.

EDIT: Ran her through a litmus test and got this:

"Your Mary Sue Score: 9

0-10 points: The Anti-Sue. Your character is the very antithesis of a Mary-Sue. Why are you even taking this test?"

... However it's not a pony-specific test so it doesn't specifically mention Alicorns.

This is the test, if anyone is interested:

www.onlyfiction.net/ms-test.html

[sunstar]

When I put Sunstar through the test, she came out with a score of 69, total sue. Now, her score is 29, borderline sue. Even now I am always refining her.

[Dr. Pain]

The same way I feel about most OCs. Horrible. The same feeling towards that "mary sue test" thing. Its full of scrap.

[Sassaflash]

Fair enough. XD Yeah the test is very flawed but sometime it can help to narrow things down a bit. I'm using OCs as well as G1 ponies simply because I don't know the original characters very well besides Firefly. I was a fan when I was little and still have some of the original ponies. But I was really too young to be able to remember clearly what they were all like and I don't really have the additional time required to rewatch it all or to read up on every one. I don't really want to mess with their original personalities either if I can help it. As I said, all of the others are average ponies with normal colors, names, cutie marks etc. None of them have weird powers or color changing eyes or anything like that.

I actually had an idea yesterday about how how to keep the possible-alicorn a pegasus, but I'm going to need to tweak the details and do a little research. It really will depend on how much magic pegasi have. They have weather magic of course, but unless I can tie it somehow into the weather it might still look a little unrealistic when that part arrives for a regular pegasus to be able to do it. ...And now that I've typed that, a possible way to tie it in occurs to me. To Google!

[Al1701]

You have any questions about G1's, this and My Little Pony Arena are the places to ask.

[weirdraptor]

Actually, if you put most of the most well-beloved fictional characters through the Mary Sue test, they'd turn up as Sues. Believe me, I've done it. Apparnelty some people think, "anything remotely special about the main character = Total Sue".

[Zero]

I never understood that test. By its ruling my OC is a Gary Stu....for what being a basic colour nothing overly complex just simplsict about him....I dont get it

[mranonymous]

Depends on the Alicorn OCs. In terms of Alicorn, the first part is how you justify them. Is their being an alicorn a central part of the story? If yes it can work. If no, be very careful. If the OC doesn't have to be an alicorn for the story's sake you run the risk of just showing off. That leads to...

In terms of OC, its not necessarily if the character has so many skills. ("I'm so jealous, she must be a Mary Sue!") The key part is does the OC crowd out characters from their own story. Its one thing to have a skilled magician OC in an all OC story. Does the writer have the OC go to Ponyville just to show his character is better than Twilight? That's where the madness starts.

For example, I have one OC, Equinox. Working on the Megan becomes Celestia theory, Equinox's human name is Danny. He spent centuries wandering the multiverse looking for a way home and as such a seasoned experienced alicorn he is a force to be reckoned with.

However, on getting to Equestria he is shocked to see how much has changed and he has a hard time adapting. Firstly he still expected G1 ponies to be around and secondly, his save the day and go on to the next universe approach of doing things leave him ill prepared for his duties as a prince.

Equinox thus has to start from scratch. He has learned much... but there is still much he can learn.

See!

See y'all and have a nice day!