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The reasons why alicorn OCs are bad and hated


Nightfall Veilwing

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You know, I once pictured an ideal Alicorn child that

1) Couldnt' fly

2) Was lousy and weak at magic

3) Didn't have the strength of an Earth Pony

And even worse off, was declared a freak of nature and an outcast.

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5 minutes ago, SaburoDaimando said:

You know, I once pictured an ideal Alicorn child that

1) Couldnt' fly

2) Was lousy and weak at magic

3) Didn't have the strength of an Earth Pony

And even worse off, was declared a freak of nature and an outcast.

You saw what Flurry Heart looked like... right?

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Just now, Stickman, The Legend said:

You're talking about my OC, aren't you

No.  It's another character that I came up with.  One who feels like he's an outcast and is often the butt of jokes because of his inability to fly or use magic, plus he is not as strong as an Earth Pony, to the point where he considers his Alicorn status as a cruel curse.

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Just now, SaburoDaimando said:

 

No.  It's another character that I came up with.  One who feels like he's an outcast and is often the butt of jokes because of his inability to fly or use magic, plus he is not as strong as an Earth Pony, to the point where he considers his Alicorn status as a cruel curse.

Oh ok

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I hate alicorns OCs with a passion.

Half of them are badly written characters who lacks any kind of flaws and every other character loves them for no real reason and the other half are badly written characters who has nothing but flaws and every hates them for no real reason. 

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(edited)

Let me start off by saying: I am biased here, so take this post with a grain of salt. My overall opinion of Alicorn OCs can be summed up by Mr. Horse. That being said, let me elaborate on a couple of points:

1. The lowest common denominator. As OP mentioned, the human brain makes large generalizations and connection to help it cut down the amount of processing required for the onslaught of information the brain receives everyday. This is the reason why stereotypes and "knee-jerk" reactions occur. Lets face it, there are a ton of really terrible alicorn OCs in this fandom, just take a look at the Everfree Character Database to see what I mean. The result is that most people are overly critical of all alicorn OCs (including good ones), due to the brain associating them with all the terrible ones in existence. This reaction also comes into play with characters that have overly traumatic pasts or over the top color schemes. Does this make all Alicorn OCs bad? No way. It is just an added challenge that writers have to overcome, and make sure their character stands out from the lowest common denominator in at least one way. This is challenging and time consuming, but the diamond in the rough is always a very memorable character.

The following points regard roleplaying with alicorn OCs

2. For lack of a better word, I will call it integratibility. Every roleplayer has an equal right to play out his or her character and mindset. With such a polarizing subject as an alicorn OC, many players will have a knee jerk reaction to dislike the idea of roleplaying with an alicorn. Every player has their own individual head cannon for the MLP universe. For some players, including me, non-royalty/cannon alicorns either do not exist or they have very specific consequences. The result is, if an OC is an alicorn, their immediate association is that they are superior by being either: more important/royal or more powerful. This problem gets more complex as GM headcanons and plans are considered. The GM may want to explore a world that implies or explores the relationship between alicorns and other ponies. Having an alicorn OC implies that alicorns are a common thing, jeopardizing the GMs chain of events and story arch. That being said, with proper planning between roleplayers and GM, an alicorn OC can be a very beneficial experience to an RP. However, many players do not realize, or do not want to do all the work and planning necessary to integrate their alicorn into a roleplay's world. More standard pony races imply less about the world around them and therefor fit into the context of pretty much any roleplay. 

3. Purpose. If your character deviates from the norm, there should be a reason for it. A good reason that can be explored throughout the course of an RP that proves interesting to the other roleplayers in an RP. Being different for the sake of being different, in this case being an alicorn, rarely works out well. As i mentioned earlier, roleplaying as an alicorn provides an added stress not only for the designer, but the other roleplayers and GM. If there is really no reason that character is an alicorn, that added work is really for nothing as it doesn't make the roleplay more interesting. Lets face it, I have not seen an alicorn OC that brings a novel culture or mindset that is extremely interesting. Unlike other races where different cultures and personalities can be explored, an alicorn is largely the same as other ponies except for having the ability to both fly and use magic. As a whole, they really bring nothing new to an RP. Yes, this is a generalization, but from personal experience most alicorn OCs I have encountered fit this framework.  

Wow, that was far larger than I intended. Sorry for the rant.

Edited by Convergence
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2 hours ago, Yamet said:

I hate alicorns OCs with a passion.

Half of them are badly written characters who lacks any kind of flaws and every other character loves them for no real reason and the other half are badly written characters who has nothing but flaws and every hates them for no real reason. 

Don't blame the alicorn OCs itself; the creator of the alicorn OC didn't take the time to put in effort.

See reason #3 of my statements for details. ^^

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21 hours ago, Millennium Shadow said:

But, one day, a pegasus stallion and a unicorn mare developed a Romeo-and-Juliet-like relationship and had a foal that had his father's wings and his mother's horn.

My headcanon is that Celestia and Luna were the nieces of Princess Platinum:  her sister married a high-ranking brother of Commander Hurricane, and Chancellor Puddinghead performed the ceremony---thus were the governments of the three tribes united.  So...I think this is pretty plausible, though I wouldn't go so far as to say they were considered an abomination.  And maybe a few canon works contradict this headcanon...

 

21 hours ago, Millennium Shadow said:

1. We lack canon info

Quick! Tell me something about alicorns that's been confirmed!
-cricket noises-
Yeah, I thought so.

That's another thing.  There's an alicorn OC that I recently got permission to use for my fangame named Thunder Artist, and...well, having him in the game as an alicorn wouldn't have worked with the worldbuilding for my game, so I had to downgrade him to a unicorn, unfortunately.  This is lack-of-canon-info-on-alicorns thing actually a big reason why we need to make our own worldbuilding, and because of your point #2, I figured that being an alicorn led to being royalty, if for no other reason than that their great power brought great responsibility.

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6 hours ago, HereComesTom said:

My headcanon is that Celestia and Luna were the nieces of Princess Platinum:  her sister married a high-ranking brother of Commander Hurricane, and Chancellor Puddinghead performed the ceremony---thus were the governments of the three tribes united.  So...I think this is pretty plausible, though I wouldn't go so far as to say they were considered an abomination.  And maybe a few canon works contradict this headcanon...

 

 

Except that, According to the journal of the two sisters, alicorns already existed before the founding of Equestria. In fact, there was a whole tribe of them in what is now Canterlot, and Celly and Luna are from there. Just don't get your hope high of expanding the lore, as the journal quickly drops the subject. Basically, the only thing they mention is that: those alicorns left Canterlot shortly afterwards for reasons unknown, they get their cutie marks at a very late stage of their lives, and their life spans is long.

God , I hope they have a chance to salvage the whole brother of Celestia and Luna: Cosmos, and the alicorn lore that was originally planned for the pony movie 

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I'm changing up this Scar quote from TLK, "Surely Alicorns are not all that bad!" I could say that general OC ponies in general can be bad, it just really depends on the creator. In general fandoms tend to look down upon OCs in because they can be uninteresting and many tend to OOC and alternate universes. I am kind of mixed on OOC because there are always many different sides to a character we don't see. For example, Harry Potter is form Harry's POV. Are all the characters as bad as he shades them or as good as he shades them? Maybe, maybe not when looked at from a different POV. I digress, to lump all alicorns into bad OCs is not really a fair generalization because I've seen OCs that are bad from earth ponies, unicorns, and alicorns.

Are there non-royal alicorns? Maybe, but so far the series has only shown royal alicorns and female alicorns thus the generalizations that alicorns tend to be royalty. I have an alicorn OC which is not royalty (it is a mare, but I'm female so my OCs are thus female).

 

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15 hours ago, GoldenGumdrop said:

Are there non-royal alicorns? Maybe, but so far the series has only shown royal alicorns and female alicorns thus the generalizations that alicorns tend to be royalty.

 

Exactly! As I said in reason #2, we believe that all alicorns are royalty because of something called the "availability heuristic." Meaning that we judge something based on how many immediate examples of said thing we have. In this case, we've seen more alicorns that are royalty than those that are not, so we assumed that all alicorns are royalty, even though this logically false.

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I made up a story where, in the future, the royal family of alicorns had twins: an earth pony and another alicorn. It was originally just going to be about the royal family not accepting the earth pony, but then it turned into a story about self-acceptance, racism between the different pony races, and other moral values. The alicorn twin hadn't gotten a cutie mark because her family would never let her go play outside and be herself. She had to wear a fake one. The earth pony sister, when she got her cutie mark, was banished from the family! In the end, the two sisters unite, defeat the corrupted royal family, and basically just save the day.

 

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Because most of the time they are written by inexperienced writers, and have no real reason why they had to be an alicorn and couldn't just be either a unicorn or pegasus instead.

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On 6/8/2017 at 11:05 AM, Ed Lyons said:

I can see why they're liked; magic and flying, what's not to love? I can see why they are hated, though; that makes them 'overpowered'.

just like a certain purple pony who came in around season 5

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  • 4 months later...
1 minute ago, The Artist Formerly Known As A.V. said:

Surprisingly, Draconequus OCs are almost nonexistent.

IKR? :wacko:

Since "draconequus" is a portmanteau of the Latin words that mean "dragon" and "horse," you'd figure that draconequi were dragon-like ponies and/or pony-like dragons, rather than a mix-match of animal limbs, you know? :please:

I don't know about you, but I think the brony community views non-pony and mythical creature OCs as either too strange or too foreign. :ooh:

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Most MLP OCs/FCs are bad in general. Most of them are Mary Sues/Gary Stus. And I hate it when fans ship their OC/FC with actual canon characters, and I hate it when fans make OC/FC relatives (like offspring) for the canon characters. 

How can fans ship their OC/FC with actual canon characters and make OC/FC relatives for the canon characters when knowing that their OC/FC isn't and will never be canon to the show?

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