Board Thread:Fanon Discussion/@comment-4598697-20140407203338/@comment-29789305-20140707014243

I think one problem is that many of the OC couples/relationships between two characters who are destined to be together tend to be very similar. And that goes for most that I've seen, primarily the relationships between Beauty and the Beast OCs. For example, the Belles all seem to be bookwormish girls and the beasts all seem to be jerky guys, and they always seem to have this attracted-hateful relationship. I don't know about you but it seems to be a heavy reference to Disney's rendition of the tale, and I haven't exactly seen those personalities/that relationship in the original tale. And yes, it bugs me a lot because I LOVE Beauty and the Beast. Which is exactly why I avoided doing that in my OCs. Granted, they do have their own little take on being interested in literature, and being a harsh jerk every once in a while, but I don't let it define them as a whole. I especially don't let it define their relationship as an attracted-hateful relationship. In fact, their relationship is more of a reference to the original tale. "Every night, the Beast asks Belle to marry him, only to be refused each time. After each refusal, Belle dreams of a handsome prince who pleads with her to answer why she keeps refusing him, to which she replies that she cannot marry the Beast because she loves him only as a friend. "  Despite their role reversal, Bella being the beast and Lionel being the Belle, it fits their romantic relationship, and it's even beginning to teeter into their friendship. They have tried the romantic thing in the past and it just didn't work out, which is why they've stayed just friends. Even Lionel's constant pestering to Bella about giving their romantic relationship another try, she gently rejects him because her feelings for him have grown during their friendship. As for personalities? Lionel, the next Belle, or Beau if you will, lives up to his role, without completely rubbing off in every other next Belle stereotype. Sure, he sort of has the jerk personality as every other male beast OC, but it was only really to get his notorious reputation. At this point, he's trying to better himself, by helping people, even if it may be a backhanded gesture. And for Bella, the next beast, she's anything but a jerk. In fact, she's one of the sweetest people ever, and hides her melancholic feelings inside by being kind to people, and she enjoys it. Yes, I know she's into literature such as every other female Belle OC, but she uses it as an outlet to confide, and for literature it's only limited to poetry and song writing, because she also uses art as her outlet. Probably the only thing I can pinpoint to Disney between the two is Bella's secretive melancholic loneliness, much like the beast, but then again she's rather express those in creative outlets rather than really snap out at people. And at times she kind of expresses her beastly nature whenever she experiences nightmares, because they happen to be quite disturbing and gory, which I won't get into detail, and it kind of causes her claws to retract and ruin things while she's in slumber. Other than that, I don't quite think that I've over referenced Disney, perhaps I've taken a few references from several versions of the tale but that's about it. As Bug mentioned waaaaaay above, she tries to define the "O" in OC and she does it pretty well, and that's really what inspires me to completely ignore the Disney versions and all the other OCs that revolve around it, and just do my own thing. Many of you may disagree and that's definitively fine, but I enjoy making my OCs different from the usual, especially since they come from such a well known tale that many OCs are created from. Sometimes I feel the need to alter them a bit, but everyone feels that with their OCs every once in a while, but then I compare them to the others and I feel the tiniest bit of pride. It actually makes me a bit happy. I find it that if you're willing to differ your OCs from the rest instead of doing the expected and usual, it's kind of best in the long run. Because to me it makes them more memorable, and no ones going to really remember an OC that doesn't really differentiate from the rest. It's a bit boring, and it would be much better to start using a bit more references from other tales, especially if the tale is wildly popular. But that's just my opinion. Using the same stereotypes and allowing them to dominate your OC is not good, and if it defines them then they don't quite have that much depth at all. I mean stereotypes are perfectly fine to begin the base of your character, but you need to build on top of that and even begin to break the stereotype. Those are the kind of things that keep a character chained from ever developing further. I'll admit, at first my two most developed OCs started off as utterly atrocious, but that's because I didn't take them out of the same old Disney Belle and Beast personalities, but now they're completely different and I've worked out kinks. I'm not saying that now they're absolutely perfect, because a believable character/person doesn't work that way. They have their share of positive and negative traits, quirks, and development that doesn't revolve around their romantic relationship, and I honestly like them a lot better than I did before. This was probably a very long ranty and pointless post, but it's a perfect example of how breaking stereotypes can lead to further development. Honestly, I don't see it very often on the wiki, but it would be nice to!