"ATTENTION TO ALL WHO READS MY MESSAGE -

I have given Warmachine375 my full permission & blessing to re-upload these rants and advise to Fanfiction. I am not wasting your time, or my time to explain my absence from here, but please know that I sent him the Drafts and allowed him to do this. He did NOT steal them from me. If you have doubts, please see my profile (linked at the bottom), where you will see the same information. ANY opinions expressed in these rants of my own (Lorgar Aurelian).

Warmachine did NOT write these, don't give him shit for something I said.

If you have any issues with what I say in these Rants; aim your scorn at me, Lorgar Aurelian. I am the one who wrote these, not Warmachine. I will not respond however. I am all but done with this place, and these Rants. I MAY (emphasis on MAY) redo these from scratch one day, but don't hold out hope. I am sick of this fandom, and this place. However, an INCOMPLETE version of Svane's Story Ideas, Part 2, will be coming sometime in the near future. It only has three of the originally planned stories; the rest are lost.

Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful day/night wherever your timezone is in.

-Lorgar Aurelian"

Thank you.

Ah yes… Original Characters. I kind of like OCs, there are plenty examples of atrocious ones, but even when they're done decently, they can add to a story, or make for a fun read. However, there are several pitfalls when making them, and tropes that should be avoided, and just need to die. This'll serve as a rant, and hopefully some helpful advice for anyone who writes OC stories, or has considered making one. Before I begin, I just want to say that this is all my opinion, and nothing more. I am not delusional enough to think I am some amazing writer, I'm just some bastard whose been reading Fanfiction for months, and felt like writing a ranting story, plus I love giving out advice, hence why this exists. You are free to draw from this, or ignore it entirely. Ultimately, your story, your character, but I hope if you are writing one, this will be of use, or will at least prove entertaining.

Update 12-21-17: Should be finished polishing from the 14th of October update, added an introductory section for this rant. Just in case, I changed my name from Svane Vulfbad to Lorgar Aurelian. Not gonna lie, kinda got tired of the name, I don't plan to make this a habit. This will stay named Svane's Angry Rants, Lorgar's Angry Rants doesn't have the same ring to it I find... what about Lorgar's Furious Bitching? Thoughts for later.

Update 3-17-18: The backstory section was rewritten from the ground-up, using a different style of formatting. Someone I talk to had the point that my walls of text style rants can be difficult to read, Backstories was the biggest offender of this chapter. I also haphazardly changed and added details, rendering it a bit of a mess.

OC Rants Part 1

Introduction:

Before delving into any of the facets of this topic today, I want to make this point about OCs: you are telling THEIR story. What do I mean by this? When you create your character, the goal you should have in mind and attempt to adhere to should be telling us your character's own adventures and journey. Tell us about who they are, why they're here, what lead them to this point, and most importantly of all, where do they go to from here? Do not just slap an OC into the canon and have them just sort of be there as you go through the motions. Plan out why they're here, and what will come of their presence. In other words, do some bloody world-building for your character. Explore their background with some nuance to it, and come up with why they are currently where they are at. This applies more-so if you are going to give them some form of unique, lost, or one of a kind magic. On top of this, make their presence mean something, have canon arcs play out different with them being there, and add new adventures in the form of original arcs. I will delve into this more thoroughly in these next two chapters, but if you take anything at all away from this rant; let it be what I said here.

Appearance & Name:

To start off with, let's talk about your character's appearance. What do they look like? Bear in mind Anime already has ridiculous standards when it comes to this subject matter; I mean, the MC of Yu-Gi-Oh looks like he did his hair with Polymer Cement and lead paint. Despite this, try not to go overboard with how you make your character look. Anime may have more inane physical characteristics, ESPECIALLY HAIR, but your character's appearance shouldn't take fifteen pages to describe, nor should they look like a Pride Parade metabolized.

Rule of thumb, if your character is so outlandish in his or her appearance, that they could be used as the tutorial level for Spot the Protagonist for the blind, scale it back. Don't make your character impossibly beautiful or handsome either. As in, your character would make anyone who saw him would become homosexual immediately if they have a Y-Chromosome. Don't make your female character so beautiful that everyone is just enraptured by her either, and talk about how hot she is, and how she radiates beauty. Seriously, that is hardcore Mary-Sue territory.

Heterochromia Iridum, or having two different colored eyes is another common Mary-Sue trait if I am not mistaken. If you wanna do it, at least have a good reason for it. Maybe your OC lost an eye at one point, and when a false one was created, it had a discoloration, or was created wrong? At the very least, I advise against wildly contrasting colors like Platinum and Gold, or even more outlandish eye-colors, ESPECIALLY rainbow or prismatic colored.

Now, let's discuss height! Are you familiar with Robert Wadlow? Didn't think so, Robert Wadlow was born sometime in the early to mid 20th century, details are hazy for me. This man was 8'11 when he died, he was the world's tallest man, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. He died at the age of 21 due to complications of his height, he had to have braces and crutches just to walk, and even then he could not do it well. When you saw him you might at first worry about pissing him off, as he may stomp you into the dirt and become conjugally acquainted with female members of your family, while you watch.

Yet if you got up close to him, you would see he could barely function because of his height, he did not live any kind of happy or athletic life. It was short, and painful for him. I just felt like sharing this depressing little tale, as it brings me into my next point: DON'T make your characters obscenely tall. I know this is Fiction, but no one is eight or nine feet tall. If they are this tall, there needs to be a good reason for this height, and drawbacks for their height.

The best way you can make someone so tall and have it be reasonable would be Titan Magic, you could say they can make themselves taller than they actually are, and like to use that as an intimidation factor. But their height makes them slower, so anyone with a good deal of speed could dance circles around them. The absolute tallest I would recommend otherwise is about 6'10-7'0. While you are free to go taller than this, just make it be because that character is a hulking mountain of meat, like Edgar Clegane, or The Mountain from Game of Thrones. That, Titan Magic, it being a common trait from where they are born, something to justify it. Have them also be the exception, not the rule of your OCs.

Just to add a brief section on names: If I were God, I would create and institute an 11th commandment. It would be done through Twitter, and EVERY single person who ever used, uses, or will use Twitter will see it. It would read like thus: "THOU SHALT NOT FUCKING NAME YOUR OC BASED OFF THEIR MAGIC, OR A PUN!" Then I would be a good father by reconciling with Satan, and ask him to do me a solid and create a 10th Circle of Hell for people who do this.

Now then! If you've gone through OC stories or seen the Recently Updated section, you've more than likely seen story summaries with shite such as "Rose Crystal is a Crystal Dragon Slayer" or "Fautze Icewing is an Ice Dragon Slayer". For the love of all the stop signs in the universe: Cease. And Fucking. Desist. By the Hymen Holocaust of Cyber Christ, COME ON! Look at the canon Dragon Slayers, do they have ridiculous, asinine names based off their element? No? Neither should your OCs!

This does not just apply to Dragon Slayers, it applies for any type of character for any type of magic. UNLESS there is a good reason for it. It's not original, creative, inventive, none of that. It's cringe-worthy, and makes me want to vomit. Someone shouldn't have the last name of Sunshine because they have Solar Magic, or the last name of Icewing Duck because they have ice magic.

Age:

It was stupid of me not to incorporate this into my proper OC Rants sooner. Your character's age should factor into most if not all aspects of their character, from how powerful they are, to the personality they have. If your OC is in their mid to late 20s or even 30s, I'm more willing to buy them being stronger than canon cast members to an extent, as they have been alive longer than members of Team Natsu, and have been mages longer than them.

Characters who are 12-14 years old should NOT be that intelligent, that bright, or really that mature. If you're doing an OC who is 13 years old, ask yourself, how would a normal 13 year old act? How would YOU act if you were this age? 9 times out of 10, you'd be incredibly immature, probably really socially awkward or a rebellious little twat. Of course there should be more to your character that's this age than this, but that is a good starting point.

Making a character this age wise beyond their years is absolute garbage; they should not have life's mysteries solved, have a well-grounded and realistic approach to everything, or lecture others like Natsu about maturity.

To some extent they should be immature, you could make them have obscene amounts of bravado and ego for example, borne from having somewhat competent or even good/excellent magical power for someone their age, but comparatively little experience in actual combat. This bravado rapidly dissolving when faced with an actual threat or life-threatening situation like going against Erza, or being captured by a Dark Guild; then it could be a mask to hide their trepidation and genuine fear.

You CAN make them somewhat smarter than the normal person their age, but just remember that at the end of the day they're still kids/teenagers, and those age-groups do stupid things. Meaning your OC if they're this age should have moments of recklessness, cowardice, stupidity, SOMETHING to reflect they are just adolescents at the end of the day. Awkward as hell when talking to people of the opposite sex, or same-sex if you wanna make your character homosexual is a good starting point; I'm pretty sure just about all of us were awkward as Hell at this age. If you say you weren't, you're lying. Moving on!

Backstory/Tragedies:

Perhaps the most integral part of a character's, well, character. If you are going to have an OC be the main focus of your story, or have some kind of recurring role in the story you are writing, chances are, a backstory for that character is going to be critical. Hold on skippy, before you start writing down how your character was forced to snort the bone-marrow from his compound fractured leg for nourishment as he hauled for miles across broken glass while shitting himself to death from dysentery, let's talk more about backstories in general.

To start off with, I am starting to believe that tragic backstories are almost some kind of unspoken rule nowadays for this fandom. Yes, tragedies happen to people, I've had my fair-share of strife in the past, but I still have a good life I feel. Now then, your character's backstory MUST reflect their character in the story itself. They can learn to overcome it or move on from their past, but some kind of lingering traits must remain. If someone your character was dear to betrayed them, I mean a true, genuine betrayal; one that left them broken and worse-off than ever before, then they should have excessive trust issues. Hyper-vigilance, overly guarded around most if not all people, anti-social behavior, something along those lines.

As in, consider what your character might have, and do some digging into how people WITH these traits act. Then, try to portray it accurately, instead of making your character a complete asshole who we're supposed to sympathize with, or find to be 'cool' or 'badass'; or the exact opposite, in that they act as though nothing ever happened to them, and life is just rainbows and unicorn smegma. Though that can be used as a means of coping I suppose. If portrayed in the right light, this kind of thing can be used to show someone is mentally unstable and didn't come out of their situations with an intact mind.

Remember that someone isn't always going to be a horrible spiteful bastard 24/7. Even if your character had a hard life, or some kind of personal tragedy, they can, and SHOULD have times where they show some kind of weakness or softer side. You know, you could show that your character isn't really a complete dick, they were just dealt a terrible hand in life, and aren't handling it well. This however does have its limits. If your character is just a complete cunt all the time to anyone and everyone, in all situations, no amount of tragedies or flashbacks are going to change the fact that your character is a massive cock.

Also remember that even if this is a fantasy setting, your character's backstory needs to be inline with the setting itself. Fairy Tail in this case, does have some pretty hardcore stuff about it, Erza's backstory for starters, genocide, civil war with Dragons, demons, slavery, cultists, etc. but, that does not mean your character's backstory should be exponentially more tragic than Erza's.

Again, personal tragedies are one thing, personifying the Grimderp of WH40k or making your character's backstory be like a Carach Angren song from "Where the Corpses Sink Forever" is another thing entirely. I.E. don't make your character have a cancer-riddled puppy that constant shits all over his shoes so hard that the sheer force of the bowel evacuation kills it painfully, only to be brought back to life in a never ending cycle of suffering and damnation, and your character also has AIDS. Only for him to spout this before the entire guild on first meeting, and receive mental hand-jobs from everyone, and lead to the creation of the pity-harem. To make an omelette you need to break a few eggs, not ram-raid a truck full of eggs into a brick-wall.

Onto the next point: introducing elements of your OC's backstory, and how to handle it. Alrighty then, let's start off by saying that you don't have to make your character's past threaten to sodomize them with a cattle-prod, m'kay? Christ this is a common trope in a lot of Gray x OC stories.

Someone with (pick 1 or two):

1) Amnesia,

2) A Dark Mysterious Past,

3) Angst,

4) All of the above enters the guild or is found by Gray, they hit it off because they are both social and emotional revenants, and boom!

Her backstory shows up and how she was secretly part of the Nazi Werewolf Women of the SS program, AND THE WORLD IS AT RISK OF BEING PLUNGED INTO A FUCKING DARK AGE! AHHHHHH! Sorry, moving on! My point does remain however, what happened in your OC's past, can stay in the past. Sometimes the best stories are those that tell the aftermath of tragedies, of how the person moves on and copes with what happened. Not that tragedy's source coming back, and then they stab it in the heart and put an end to it.

The now deleted "My Army Boy" did that, Natsu was a soldier with PTSD who saw Lisanna get killed on the frontlines. They never found the guy who did it, he never showed up but for one flashback, and that was that. It was just how Lucy helped Natsu and the others move on from the past, and start their lives anew. Each one coped with it in different, self-destructive ways. That was the story right there, undoing that.

The webcomic "May the Rain Come" does the same thing, the main character lost his brother in the war, and it was the story of him overcoming that and finding a light at the end of the tunnel in a girl he slowly falls in love with. This is of course if you are using a REALLY tragic backstory... which, you probably are, if you're making an OC.

The alternative could be that someone responsible for the tragedy (or tragedies) in your character's life could come back, and instead of seeking to tear them apart or make their lives a living Hell, they want to make amends. Something happened to them to make them change, overwhelming guilt as time went on, a sudden change of heart, change in circumstances, something. Point is, they're not what they once were, and the guilt they have is killing them, and they want to at least try to make things right. Such an idea could provide for some good character development if handled well. Your character then has to decide, do they forgive this person? Do they tell them to go to Hell and drive them off? How can this be handled?

Here's a fun idea for a change of pace! Your character is the one who wronged someone, or the ones responsible for their fucked up past. An ill-spent youth, incompetence, malice, something caused them the pain they suffered, and may have taken, hurt, or ruined other people's lives too. This is something they have to live with, and perhaps one day try to amend. Wynn from Dragon Age Origins for example, she had an apprentice when she was young, and was not taking to life in the Mage's Circle well, and she took it out on her apprentice.

She finally drove him to become an apostate, and believed he was killed by the Templar. She drove him to that, and lived with that guilt for many decades. She finally asks the Warden (you) to help her confirm her fears, and if possible, atone for this sin. Gray is similar in this regard, he got Ur killed, and cost Lyon the one person he looked up to, turning him on a dark path. Your character can be similar in this regard, causing pain instead of receiving it, or both.

Finally, consider how you want to handle the introduction of these elements, and how you want them to be gotten out to the rest of the guild. I have literally seen a story one time have an OC walk into the guild, and IMMEDIATELY spout off everything bad that happened to them. This is possibly the worst way you can handle that. Flashbacks are common, and can work when done right.

"Muggle Among Mages" by PhantomGalaxy13 had a situation wherein the OC Kain had his memories looked into, and we saw a tapestry of his life events leading up to that point. Holy HELL it was melodramatic, but the way it was introduced in the context of the situation, and just... how it really handled the tragedy aspect and how he coped with it was delightful still.

I digress, this is something I never see people do: what if your character, over a few drinks with people he's getting close to, decides to just shoot the shit and share a few stories with them? You know, talk about some of his past, share a few laughs and some awkward silence, and give us some information about his past in a more natural way. It's just a scene where two or more people are swapping stories, but it gives us exposition in a natural manner.

Your character could laugh and grin a bit as he shares funny, happy, or just embarrassing stories, others could comment on them, he could embellish a bit, and things could get more somber or downtrodden when he gets to darker times. This could work much better than having it come out because someone from the past showed up, or it's in a life or death situation. It's just a conversation over a few drinks with a few laughs and solemn moments that develop your character, and their bonds with the ones they are talking to; this humanizes them too.

Tragedies could occur during the story itself too. Something bad that happens to your character, and causes them a great deal of strife, pain, or worse. Around the time I first starting writing these rants (Mid-April of 2017), I had an idea for an OC named Alaric Jitan. The name was sort of a place-holder, but I had the idea of him being a hick from a small village in Southern Fiore. His father was a bard, his mother was just a village girl he feel head-over-heels in love with. Anyway, I was thinking about trying my hand at writing a story with him, wherein he went to the civilized world purely out of wanderlust, he was young, dumb, and was inspired by his father's tales of adventure from his youth.

At one point during the story, he hears word from someone that his father was killed during a hunting accident. And he does not take it well, rather than it being something in the past he somewhat moves past, all of the negative emotions he feels or self-destructive attitudes and behaviors he adopts are there in the story. He ends up alienating himself from even his closest friends, stops taking care of himself, and almost causes permanent damage to the bonds he had with everyone else.

Soooo, how about doing something like that yourself for your OC story? Don't keep all the angst and tragedy in the past, showing something bad happening to them and how they work through it can give some good character development, and make your character seem more human. This could be pretty much anything really. Your character could fall in love with someone in the guild, and come to terms with the fact that it is one-sided, they could get seriously injured on a job and fall into a depression at the realization of how easy someone could die or suffer mortal strife. Wherein they consider giving up being a mage, and just retire.

Bereavement is perhaps a common one, but that could work well in this regard too. Just remember that all of these can share some common traits, but they are different tragedies for someone, and you should portray them differently. Once again, try and ask yourself, "how would I or someone I know react in this kind of situation I am putting my character in?". Struggles of this type can be universal, and just because this is a fantasy setting, doesn't mean portraying them naturally is impossible.

Magic & Power, Pt. 1: General

With Appearance & Backstory out of the way, let's move onto Magic Abilities & Power. This was the largest section in the prior draft, so I'm going to split this one into three sections. This one will be for Power & Magic in general, part 2 aimed specifically at Lost Magic, and part 3 will address Slayers. This is aimed for OC-centric stories, ignore much of this for scrubs or enemies that are one & done.

Now THIS I REALLY want to stress. Gildarts is the limit for power with your character, if they are supposed to be an established powerhouse in the Fairy Tail guild. Even then, they should be older than people like Erza, at least Laxus' age, that way their rank and power is more justified. Don't make your character the strongest mage in the guild. Note-worthy? Sure. Stronger than Laxus? Only if their age gives merit to it. Stronger than Gildarts? Hell to the fuck no.

Let's begin: I would highly recommend you make your character weaker at the start of a story, if you are doing one following them as the MC, or an Original Guild story. We should see them grow and develop as the story progresses, in both power and character. If your OC starts out at their peak strength, then a good part of the journey is lost right there. Your character's power (and character) should develop and grow as the story progresses.

This doesn't just apply to OCs either, this applies to Canon characters as well. Show your characters grow and develop, what makes us like a character and connect with them is seeing them overcoming adversity and tribulations, coming out from it stronger, going through darker times and bright times.

That is lost when your character can flex his nuts and make Acnologia explode, or you time-skip all the inspirational overcoming adversity and instead show them at their brightest and strongest points.

In other words, DON'T time-skip all over the place and only shows bits and pieces of your character growing and becoming stronger. If you time-skip over everything, any kind of impact or weight to their changes are lost to the void. I'll be taking this on much more in Chapter 3, where I deal with Darker Natsu stories.

Now, I am NOT saying you need to show every mundane aspect and second of your character's mundane days. No, time-skips are a good tool to have when in the hands of a good author who knows how to properly use them. I am saying you need to show them growing and becoming stronger, we should see them train some and attempt to develop their magic and power.

Let's say you want to introduce a new attack or spell they have, well, show them practicing it. Let's see them attempt to develop it, and fail in some way a few times, so we see they're trying to work on a new spell, and they aren't just pulling a brand-new one out of their ass for the convenience of the plot. Let's say you got a Fire-Mage who wants to try and use some kind of Fire-Pillar attack, show him trying this spell, and failing to accomplish it, whether it takes too much magic, comes out feeble and pathetic, or sputters out of control and risks burning him. Alternatively! Show him try to pull it out of his ass after barely practicing with it in the heat of combat, and failing miserably!

To talk more about how strong they are, don't make them stronger than the canon cast. I don't mean they need to be weaker than BETH from Mermaid Heel. Don't make them on-par with Team Natsu or above them, this applies one-hundred fold for someone like Makarov or Gildarts. Unless there is a good reason for this anyway, age for example could be used to excuse or at least partially justify your OC besting someone like Natsu or Erza.

If your OC is in their 30s or mid to late 20s, even older, and they've been a mage for much longer and trained brutally, I'd be more willing to accept them being on-par with someone like Natsu. Of course that doesn't mean they should backhand Natsu so hard he gets knocked forward in time with no effort. If they do get a win against someone like Natsu, it would be far more preferable if it was a hard-fought victory.

They don't even have to be AS strong as someone like Natsu or Gray, they could have magic that is the counter of the other person's magic, or they could use their noggin to win. That, or even use underhanded tactics and cheap tricks to win, victory at any cost. That, better strategical thinking 'n use of environment, anything. Victories against canon characters are perfectly fine, it's the situation leading up to the victory, how hard fought it was, and WHY they win that matters.

I'll try to keep this brief, let's talk Magic unique to your character. If you want to give your character something that is one of a kind, unique to them, cool! Just have a reason for why they have this magic. Don't just give it to them and call it that, tell us how they got it, what's so great about it, and most importantly, what drawbacks it could have.

It would work better if this magic was also rooted in some form of pre-existing magic, and your character trained & worked to develop and alter it into something wholly or partially unique to them. To give an example, say you got some form of Ice or Cold-based mage user named Tyberos, if you wanted to give him a unique form of Ice-Make Magic that allowed him to create ice-constructs that can function autonomously; a reason for how he got to this point would be beneficial, alongside balancing factors.

In this instance, you can say Tyberos incorporated another magic, Animation magic in this case. He'd learned the basics of that, and worked to infuse it with his Ice-Make Magic, allowing him this ability at the cost of it taking more time to create something, or it taking a great deal more magic, making his constructs limited in size & power, or more taxing on him to utilize. You don't have to do this, but I think that works better than having an utterly unique & rare magic because they were born with it, or just pulled it out of their ass.

For the love of Satan, please have some diversity in your move-set. Even the most awesome, kickass and unique of magic abilities will become tiresome and stale if you don't have the move diversity to fully realize your OC's Magic's potential. This is one of my pet peeves against Child of Heaven. Eve's Feather Magic or whatever it was called was one of the more original magics I've seen in this side of Fanfiction.

The issue I had was that Eve had so few moves to fully realize the potential of this magic, it was always the same three or four attacks, ad nauseam. So! Even if you just use Dragon Slayer Magic (coming soon), have a repertoire of magic abilities for your OC's main magic. Coming up with moves can be difficult, but do give it a try. Hell, if you make your character a maker-mage, have their own hobbies, interests, and personality quirks factor into just what they make with their magic.

Say your character is very into Science Fiction, or traditional fiction novels, he could create some of what he reads about, or what he personally draws or creates in his own time. Fantasy creatures of their element, war-machines that are made of their element purely, but not actual machines of course, or phalanxes/archers. My point is that Maker-Magic particularly has nigh limitless potential in both versatility and creativity, if you use this magic (you totally should instead of Dragon Slayer AGAIN), spare some thought to the hobbies and interests of your character, and make those reflect what they create. You can have them over time learn how to do dynamic maker magic like Lyon, and fuse that with static, so you have animated creations with stationary shit like armor or weapons. Maker Magic can really push the bounds of creativity, as can many magics, just spare some thought to how you want to handle your magic repertoire.

Of course, have reason in what boundaries your OC's magic can push. No one likes a character who is a walking Swiss Army Knife of Shitstomping. What your character CAN'T do is just as important as what they CAN do. In other words: restrictions and drawbacks HO! No seriously, even the strongest of magics need to have their limitations.

Magic & Power, Pt. 2: Lost Magic

Moving onto Lost Magic, I'm amazed, I really am. I've seen very few OCs with Lost Magic, barring Slayer & Healing magic, which is a Lost Magic, but it's getting its own section. You can give your OC Lost Magic if you really want, but have a good plausible reason for them having such magic. Lost Magic is just that, Lost. You cannot really be born with this kind of magic, and this is not a type of magic you can just go into a store and buy tomes on.

So, why does your character have it? Perhaps your OC has a mentor or parents who collect Magical Artifacts from bygone eras, and your OC would spend years studying tomes relating to the Lost Magic she has? Perhaps someone passed it along to her for one reason or another, even her parents could've done it, out of goodwill or malice, given how dangerous Lost Magic is established to be in the canon. I'll leave that part up to you, but I will say that no matter what, this magic absolutely needs to have drawbacks and dangers to using it.

Really most if not all abilities and magic types should have this to varying degrees, but this applies much more to Lost Magic. It was so dangerous and unstable it was intentionally purged from the world, all records of it were attempted to be burned and destroyed by previous generations, or the Council themselves, whatever. Let's use Arc of Embodiment as an example, it was the magic Rusty Rose had in the Tenrou Island Arc. What he imagined, was embodied. Fine details are rather hazy for me, and the wikia is kinda useless, so I'm going to have to wing this one. Let's say your OC has this magic, at first glance it may seem like Mary-Sue fossilized tripe, but it can be balanced.

For starters, your character cannot just imagine a really long dildo-sword inside the chest cavities of her enemies. There is a very limited range she can summon something, which while it can be expanded (your call whether this is true or not), anything that blocks your creation will render it unable to be created, so no making a Warlord Titan in the middle of a city-block. It takes a great deal of time and effort to master something new, so for example if your character wants to create a Magic Mobile, it takes her a great deal of training, time, and effort to pull that off.

It's kinda like the opposite of regular Maker Magic, you can create something that moves and is animated, but it's difficult as Hell to do so, and taxing on magic and mental state. So for example your character if they wanted to could create an Ork Loota from WH40k with a Beamy Deff Gun, it will take orders and do as she wants, but at the end of the day it is just a creation of her magic. She cannot create legitimately living beings.

Overusing it in a short period of time can be detrimental to the user. Their mind becomes clouded, they become frustrated and agitated, easily losing concentration and in extreme cases, being unable to discern reality from what is something born of their magic, the onset of sensory deprivation further hindering them to the point of being vegetative, or even comatose.

Long-term effects from the magic wear on the user's mental state, putting them more at risk of Catatonia, Dementia, or other mental/neurological disorders. See? Something like that, your OC with this magic can create nigh anything they dream of, but they're going to pay for that kind of power. You can come up with new types of Lost Magic if that's your thing, just don't make something like 'Arc of blow EVERYTHING THE FUCK UP WREEEEEEEEEEEE!'. (That is NOT supposed to be Pepe wreeing, that's supposed to be Dio from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. OR, an Eversor Assassin from Eliphas' video). That, and remember what I said above, dangerous yet extremely powerful, but not unstoppable or infallible.

Now then, let's talk Healing Magic! Remember that Healing Magic is lost in the canon. This was established very early on, Healing Magic had been lost for generations, I believe even before the times of Zeref. I know Chelia and Wendy have Healing Magic, BUT what magic do they have specifically? Exactly! Slayer Magic, which is also lost, meaning they are special cases.

So, if your character has genuine, authentic Healing Magic, explain WHY they have it. How did they obtain this magic? I'll leave that one up to you, if they do have genuine Healing Magic, they should in some way shape or form be of interest or a target to people. The Magic Council for example might want to study their magic so it could possibly be replicated, and you may have people who have those who are sick or dying that may seek your OC out, desperate for help.

Just something to consider, you could make them a wandering healer, or make them a horrible bastard that charges for their services, profiting from their lost magic. Anyway! This is important, I highly recommend giving said Healing Magic drawbacks and repercussions of using as well. The most obvious one could be that it drains magic extraordinarily fast, and healing can only do so much. So no reviving the dead, or regrowing limbs.

Other possible ideas could be that it weakens the body and immune system, leaving the recipient more prone to illness or infection for several days after being treated. It could wear them down and make them lethargic, and thus unable to fight, even if they are fully healed.

Another possible avenue is that the process of healing the recipient is extremely painful for them. They ARE having flesh reknitted and regrown, then sealed together again before their eyes. This could leave them screaming in horrible agony, depending on the nature of the wound. Worst-case scenario this could leave the person in shock, or even cause their heart to give out and kill them from the pain.

Meaning anyone who is truly and gravely injured cannot be healed by magic, as there is a strong risk that it could kill the recipient. Macabre? Perhaps. But original! I think. Original idea or not, it still brings up what I feel is a valid point about regenerating flesh being extremely painful as all Hell, and it gives a dire drawback to the magic. So someone has an excuse to NOT use it for everything, any of these reasons by themselves are good enough.

Magic & Power, Pt. 3: Slayers

Fuck Elemental Dragon Slayer. Oh, err, I'm sorry, I guess I should've given some lead-up to that. Ahem: Golly Gee Willickers Elemental Dragon Slayer as a concept can go to Hell, because it's Mary Sue horse-smegma. Alright fine, I'll elaborate properly.

I'm going to take on Slayer Magic first, as OCs with that magic are quite common it seems. To start with Dragon Slayer, I'm serious, Elemental Dragon Slayer is stupid, overpowered, overrated tripe that needs to just die and go away already. There is no balance to having a magic that lets you eat several elements at once, and then use them against your enemies, or fire off multiple elements in one roar. Even if that isn't an issue, you've got four or more elements at your disposal that you can use with Slayer Magic, an established very powerful magic.

If you're going to use Dragon Slayer Magic, pick something that's not been overused and done to death, impossible to use, or overpowered. Crystal perhaps? That could possibly make a good element, it's a physical, tangible element. One I've not seen done too often in Fanfiction. Ice & Earth are ground that aren't really tread as much as bulldozed and purified with salt & fire as well. But at least these can be balanced, and aren't that awful Elemental Slayer shit. I should reiterate this, if your character is going to be a Slayer, make their element tangible and plausible.

E.G. Crystal, Steel, Rock, Sky, Water, etc. something like Phantom or Technology does not work in the slightest, how does that even work? You can't eat ghosts, and you certainly can't roar Technology... what? Alrighty then, have your OC eat their element. This is a complaint I often have about DS OCs in stories, they rarely if at all eat their own element. That, and DON'T do anything stupid like 'Queen of All Dragons' or Prince of a certain element, nothing makes me drop a DS OC story harder than either of those. Well that and multiple elements, as in more than two.

On that topic, I would advise heavily against having more than two Elements for your OC Slayer, even then I advise introducing the second element much later on in the story, rather than starting out with it. Anyway! If their own element cannot be found in the area, and it is a solid, tangible element, then how about giving them Requip so they can store a small amount away?

Not entire gallons of water, or entire I-Beams for Iron Dragon Slayers, but even just a few iron balls or spikes for a slight energy boost when needed, inside or outside of combat would be nice. Finally, I know your OC's dragon isn't going to be around for that much of the story, but if you are going to show the dragons themselves, don't make them benevolent and sagely in their behavior.

Dear Vishnu-vara this is done to death, EVERY story I see (barring ONE EXCEPTION, One Sweet Dream) does this. Have your OC's Dragon parent have SOME kind of depth to them, some kind of different personality traits that make them stand out from the rest of the monotonous plot-devices that exist for the sake of making your character a Slayer.

God-Slayers aren't done often, I rarely see OCs with God-Slayer Magic, and that is disappointing. If you're going to do this however, try to elaborate on how that magic works, and expand it some. This applies more-so for brand new Slayer types. Which by the by, should have lore exploration and detail on why they exist, and nothing like Beast or Wolf Slayer, as those can just be killed by nearly anything.

Let's say you want to make a Phoenix Slayer OC, cool! How did they get the magic? Did they study the Hell out of Phoenixes and have sources of their magic to teach themselves, did someone do this and pass it into your OC? Did they find a Phoenix Egg, hatch it, and then sorta kinda learned it from their new best friend forever? Eh, I got nothing, come up with something yerself if you want to do this. I'm trying to argue that their magic should be explored and so should why they have it, and NOT 'They have it because I say so, bitch.'

This also applies to something like say... Spirit Slayer Magic. Alright then, you can kill ethereal beings, well, what's your OC's element, how did they get this magic, what are the properties of it, and what's the backstory behind this magic? Once again, do some world-building and explain to us, the reader, WHY this magic exists. What lead to them obtaining this magic, raised by a ghost? Studied an ancient tome found in ancient ruins?

What properties does this magic have? Are the magic attacks ethereal/corporeal? One last point before I move on, give it its own unique properties as well. Back to Phoenix Slayers again, they could be more susceptible to becoming what they slay. So when they unleash their full power, they could sprout Phoenix's wings, and start to have feathers growing from their body, this of course looking hideous and frightening as Hell.

Rather than having the peerless sense of smell and hearing Dragon Slayers have, they could only have the peerless Eyesight, which is taken to further lengths than Dragon Slayers. I'll let you decide how you want to handle their magic, the color it may have, what kind of properties it may have, that kind of thing. Do try to go above and beyond in giving the magic its own unique traits and characteristics, that way it seems like a genuinely thought out Slayer magic, rather than nothing more than a Dragon Slayer knockoff.

Alright then, I debated rather or not to put this in Pt. 1, but I talked about Elemental Dragon Slayer here, so I'm going to add this here I guess. I'm cool with Elemental Magic, but being a Slayer where you can eat several elements at once and use them against your enemies is asinine. And yes, I am well aware of the fact that UNFORTUNATELY, Elemental Dragon Slayer is kind of canon with regards to God Serena. But you know what? Even that was bullshit. So not only is there YET ANOTHER Dragon Slayer, he's basically the Dragon Slayer equivalent of Jesus. It would be like Toriyama introducing a new character that is Super Saiyan six from the get-go. Which, given how Super seems to be going; would it be a shocker if he did?

I could go onto a mini-tangent, but I'd rather keep this on track. Just because the canon does something, does not mean you should too. Elemental Dragon Slayer is abhorrent in my opinion. It is overpowered Mary Sue bullshit and should not be employed under any circumstances whatsoever. Kind of a shame too, character-wise I found his overly flamboyant to be legitimately fun and enjoyable.

At this point I'd advise against doing Dragon Slayers at all. Or really any kind of Slayer, a world full of unique and incredible magic, and everything goes back to Slayer Magic. Both canon, and Fanfiction. Great. But, if you insist on making a Dragon Slayer, I once again cannot overstate this: Ice & Earth are ground that aren't really tread as much as bulldozed and purified with salt & fire as well. As I said, I would highly recommend finding some other form of element that you can use for your Slayer. Something TANGIBLE and NOT ABSTRACT. Okay, canon kinda shits the bed with Sting; he eats the color white... yeahhhhh okay sure whatever. Personally I'd retcon that to light or something. Still, having a Banker Dragon Slayer for example makes no sense at all. And why yes, I did totally steal that from Minipa. Still not as bad as some other examples I've seen however.

But enough about that for now. Instead of doing Elemental Dragon Slayer, or Slayer of any kind, what about some form of Elemental Take-Over magic? Whether Atronachs, or Elemental Archons.

The Archons being somewhat based off of the Archon ability from Diablo III. You could give your OC this kind of magic, explain why they have it, and have them work to develop and grow in with power with this magic. They could have Fire-Archon Take-Over, and learn other Elemental types as they go along, or learn stronger variants of the Fire-type. They can't eat their own element, but are either highly resistant to it, or even immune once they become adept at their own magic enough. The drawback coming from the fact that they are greatly more averse to the opposite of their elemental form.

So for example if they have Ice-Archon Take-Over, fire and heat based magic is their Achilles' heel, and it's a damn bad one too. They could burn much easier, go into shock or even die easily from such attacks. They could of course work to reduce this trait, but it's there as part of the magic. Opposite side of the spectrum, being in an environment that suits and benefits their current take-over form helps them by boosting their attack strength, and reducing magic requirements. So a Fire-Archon may find harsh desert areas where the heat is sweltering to be home to them, same for the mountains being home for anyone using Ice-Archon Take-Over.

Food for thought, probably a stupid idea, but I honestly like it more than Elemental Slayer. At least this one has some kind of balancing in-place, and utilizes Take-Over, a magic I rarely see in OCs.

Due to seeing quite a few of these types of stories, lemme tackle this right quick: Wolf Slayer, is stupid. Pretty much ANYTHING can kill a bloody wolf, so why would there be a specialized magic for killing one? Unless this is Warhammer 40k's Fenris, Where Fenrisian Wolves the size of houses roam around, there is literally zero reason for there to be some kind of Wolf Slaying Magic.

Dragons and Gods make sense, Dragons are titanic winged beasts of legends whose scales are highly resistant, even immune to magic attacks. Gods are Gods, nothing else to say about them. Wolves? Get a blunt instrument, gun, fire, practically all forms of magic, there you go, dead wolf. Even if you make up some kind of super duper awesome wolves of some kind that are all lunar and magical and shit, it's still cringe-worthy and cliche.

Even if you do use the unholy trinity of staleness (Ice, Water, Earth), you can make it work if you do what I said above, and have some diversity and differences in the move-set. Don't just have varying martial-arts attacks (kicks, punches) with your OC's element like with Natsu or Gajeel, have some unique moves and ideas for both basic attacks, and Secret Arts. Also! What about Solar 'n Lunar Dragon Slayers? Only ever seen those elements once, and that was in Iron Body & Shining Soul. Wendy eats air itself, Sting can eat all things white, those aren't too far-fetched.

One last point before I conclude this. Do something different if you're going to do a Slayer. Seriously, if you're going to do a Dragon Slayer, do something that breaks the mold. At the very least, have your character develop their magic in a way that they have a repertoire of spells for their element that isn't Dragon Slayer. A Crystal Dragon Slayer could have Crystal-Make Magic, or some form of manipulation of that element in question.

They could be Dragon Slayers, but have some form of defect or thoughts on their Dragon parents. Earth Dragon Arnighte made Laki a Wood Dragon Slayer, and explained that by saying that she HATED her mother for abandoning her as a child, the complete contrast of Natsu who wanted to find Igneel, and she still holds resentment even after coming to terms in using her Wood Dragon Slayer Magic to protect her friends, you could do something like this.

Your OC resents and despises their dragon for leaving them behind, and actively seeks to avoid using the Dragon Slayer part of their magic, opting for spells they themselves develop purely out of hatred and spite. They could also have some flaws in their DS Magic, maybe they never adapted too well to the magic in terms of senses. So, they have no enhanced eyesight, hearing, or smell, but they do not have motion sickness because of it.

One last point: do NOT make your character's name, Exceed's name, or your Plot Device (Dragon)'s name be a fucking pun based off the element of your choosing. No Glacias, Frostwing, Icicle-Dick, etc. NO! NONE OF THAT! SHAME ON YOU!

Alright then, this concludes part 1 of 2 of my OC Rant. Part 2 will deal with Character Traits & Personality, Companions, Applying your OC to the story, Canon Divergence & New Arcs, & finally Self-Inserts. A dick-load of stuff, really. Some of these sections are short, so that is why there are so many crammed into part 2. Magic & Power was originally one giant section, with an addendum in Chapter 6. I split it up to be able to talk about more aspects of Power. The reason for the schism is that as I said, I imported the sections from Chapter 6, expanded on Magic greatly, expanded the Self-Inserts Section, was going to make a Second Generation Section, and generally reworked this one greatly, making the chapter length about 11k words. Splitting it in half seemed like a good idea to me.

I hope this was helpful or at least entertaining, this was originally written for catharsis, and so I could get a Beta-Reader profile. Not really the strongest of reasons, but this has become a passion project of mine, I hope it was enjoyable, thank you for reading.

-Svane Vulfbad

Stories referenced:

One Sweet Dream by Yellowchikadee: /s/12159029/

Roaring Earth by Earth Dragon Arnighte: /s/11144809/