User blog:BurningHype/Common Ideas and Creativity Guide

Hey hey people. Hype here. Burning massiveness man of the hour.

Now I may not review at all as much as I used to, but I am the one who organizes things and often cleans up pages and directories behind the scenes. And as such, I give things a skim over, whether it be certain pages clogging the categories or to add new people in.

So let me get down to business. There are certain things that occur so much on this Wikia that it is almost trope worthy for us, and some of these may have already become inside jokes for several people. However, to someone only coming in here with fresh ideas, its a good chance they may fall under one of these occurences just because of any reason. To this, I decided to make this small guide on common things I've seen thus far on the Wikia, and left some pointers to perhaps enhance an OC with them.

'''Disclaimer : Every single thing I say here can be done correctly and has been done correctly, but is more often than naught done incorrectly or very mismatch for the OC. '''That said, some OCs have these traits and work it off beautifully, because they're made to have these.

Common Occurence One: Casual Clothing!
This is perhaps the biggest occurence I've seen misused. OC's that come from all parts of the world, have all types of potential clothing: Jeans, Hoodie, and an ordinary T-shirt. '''This is absolutely bull. '''You have all the freedom to go and look up different cultures, perhaps add style or maybe even a completely different wardrobe for your OC, or hell, go into the future and wear a jumpsuit or something more futuristic. And yet I keep seeing these redundant, boring designs on the eyes. It leaves nothing to the design. Now, there's nothing wrong with these clothes, but its such a waste of potential, its on the same level of having the golden ticket to Willy Wonka's factory, and then having it repainted.

How would I fix this? Look into clothing from all over, expand your vision of what people wear. The world does not only wear hoodies, jeans, and graphic tees. There's a huge fashion world out there, and while you do not need to submerge your body into see it, you simply need to give the effort and go outside of the comfort zone.

Common Occurence Two: Tonfas and Katanas!
An oldie but a goodie. If there are two weapon families that are pretty damn overused, is the obvious Katana, and the less obvious Tonfas. Katanas should be simple, all the badass heroes and main protagonists have one, so should yours, right? '''Ah ha, no. '''Katana's are fine and dandy, but this is RWBY. Give it a little something instead of having it be, "The sword passed down from the family". Tonfas are a slightly different story, what with their multi-fascinate design, they've become severely popular for transformations just because of the convenience.

You can't just completely ignore Katanas or Tonfas, but I would say look into more interesting weapon choices. Add weaknesses or compensate them with your semblance or something. One OC on here has a Kinetic Yo-Yo weapon, and I myself came up with a Paddleball Mace, I'm very sure you can atleast go into other types of swords and melee weapons.

Common Occurence Three: Brooding!
Raise your hands if you have or read someone with a tragic backstory. I'm pretty sure the bulk of you said yes out there. Tragic Backstories have always been a hard hitter home, ever since the Tragic Plays from long ago Rome and Greece. They entice the reader with similar feelings, and make them feel either sadness or butterflies in their stomach as it finishes, making them kind of heart-to-heart with the character. However, either the tragic stories here equate to Hope-level whining (Final Hallway 13), or are so sad and cringeworthy that it makes Kerry look like a saint. '''And do stay away with 'mysterious' backstories as well. 95% of the time they end up looking SO cheesy there is not enough chips to compensate this.'''

You don't necessairly need a Tragic Backstory to have a good backstory. Someone could have a glorious written and well comprehended backstory, and it could be about pixies and fairy dust. Just write to your ability, but do realize that it is actually quite challenging to write a Tragic Backstory without understanding the mechanics of one. If you want to learn, I recommend spending a night of your time and go reading some old greek plays. Oedipus Rex is a very popular tragic play, MacBeth is another but not Greek.

Common Occurence Four: Faunus of a Kind!

 * sigh*, perhaps another one close to the level of casual clothing, Faunus are as you know, a race of demi-humans socially underneath the humans and adorn certain animal physical and some general enhanced traits. Generally, they. However, there's a HUGE number of them which stay within The Three: Foxes, Cats, and Wolves. Foxes and Cat Faunus tend to have this steryotype of just being playful tricksters, and Wolves try to become engimatic badasses who hang alone and stuff: When Ironically actual Wolves tend to stay in packs following the Alpha to ensure survival.  It's so twisted that it pains me to see them actually be right.

It's slowly becoming less of a problem, but it isn't really too adressed. I recommend just staying away from Foxes, Wolves, and Cats if you can help it entirely. Monty pretty much said, "Oh, any animal or creature could be a faunus, just less common than mamallian types", which raises the question of how a Faunus is actually made. But anyway, you could use so many different mammals as well, don't feel compelled to use the three just because they seem 'cool'.

Common Occurence Five: Color!
I remember when the color rule came to being almost a year from this post. Some people expected it, some people were rushed in their blindspot, and some didn't care. It generally hinted to Characters dealing with colors, and as we found out are actually mechanisms to keep repeating the past's error and almost erasure of expression. Anyway, onto actual usage of the colors: When I read designs, I see colors that end up making a terrible matchup, and end up being an overall eyesore. That or, are plain unattractive and don't invite the person to their design.

'''Play around with colors. Feel them, become them. Notice how the colors work along with each other, and notice which colors should NEVER be combined'''. Bright colors, dark colors, try not to stay within a singular monotone shade or color, as it hurts the flow if you do. An easy color matchup is Black and Yellow, the Yellow is popped out due to the contrast to the darkness of the Black. However, the same could be said if Yellow majoritizes over the Black. It's really to Trial and Error, but the important part is to Experiment!

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More shall be added on when my thoughts become clearer.