Thread:Jenkins S115 SII/@comment-8182065-20180722063753

Saw your question, figured here would be better to give someone a view on a good answer. Also, hello!

So to begin, considering this is the RWBY Fanon, you would want to still keep the theme of RWBY in some way. It also depends on what exactly you're trying to do as far as AU goes.

1.)There's some bigger leeway when working on fan fiction and RP's, as you can use the RWBY characters in a different setting than what the show has given us. Myself I've had wandering thoughts about the canon characters being put into the Persona universe after Cross Tag Battle was announced. Specifically Persona 4 as an example: Ruby and Jaune starting up the Investigation Team after the string of murders that happen (taking the places of Yu Narukami and Yosuke Hanamura), Pyrrha being the most recent victim affecting Jaune the most of course. etc. This being a more dramatic change.

You can also do something like, Remnant in a super zombie apocalypse type setting (turn Vale into the new Raccoon City), being somewhat minor. You'd think capable Huntsmen can take care of the undead easily, but people panic, resources may be low, you can even keep Grimm as a threat since they're drawn to negativity.

2.) With OC's, things are gonna be more strict. As per guidelines, you can see that the Fanon wants to be as accurate to canon as possible. So you can't for example say your character is a fairy, because there is no record of them being a reality in Remnant. You can't give them magic like the Maidens, since the four of them as well as their creator are the only known people who can perform such feats (by this logic as well, you shouldn't make an OC who is a Maiden). And the obvious thing is to make sure that you don't copy+paste an OC from one universe to the RWBYverse (ex: bringing a Naruto OC here with the same abilities instead of revamping them to fit the RWBY canon, or worse just bringing in Naruto).

I hope this gives some decent insight on the topic! 