OC Stand-In: Difference between revisions

*** Or, for that matter, sees her as a threat - the natural consequence of the prospect of one sister enslaving the other or else dying.

* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'': Vegeta's father gets this treatment. He's been dead for years and gets three scenes total over the course of the anime. He gets another in the [[Non-Serial Movie|first Broly movie]], but if you count it as canon (which requires some shoehorning) it's a [[Moral Event Horizon]]. He shows only bare hints of personality. Yet he's also the subject of fan devotion that's surprisingly intense, if small in scale. (Vegeta's [[Missing Mom]] is also the subject of much speculation.)

*** It's believed to be Fasha (which was not confirmed in any way). She gets this treatment too.

*** Since we're at Fasha, all of Bardock's teammates.

* Matt from ''[[Death Note]]'' is a good example of this. He gets little time on the page in the manga, and even less time in the anime, but he has a large fan base, and thus many people end up writing about him, usually just writing him as whatever they need, within limits, for the story.

** Also Linda, who was mentioned in the manga a grand total of twice, seen only once, and has only one line. Considering that, she is a ''massive'' [[Ensemble Darkhorse]]; if you type in "linda death note" on deviantART you get 526 results, and she has 34 fanfictions on fanfiction.net.

* From ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' we have Kyoko Soryu (we have no idea what she was like before [[Gone Horribly Wrong|the]] [[Empty Shell|incident]], or even what the woman looks like) and (to a lesser extent, due to having somewhat of a discernible canon characterization) Yui Ikari.

** Also, [[Class Representative]] Hikari Horaki's sisters, Kodama and Nozomi; they never appear on-screen, and the only known facts about them are that they're older and younger (respectively) than Hikari {{spoiler|and that the three of them have a [[Missing Mom]] like the rest of their class}}. To a lesser extent, Hikari herself. Also, Touji's little sister.

* ''[[Code Geass: Lelouch of Britannia|Lelouch of Britannia]]'' is prone to taking minor, undeveloped (and sometimes thoroughly unsympathetic) characters from ''[[Code Geass]]'' canon and giving them personalities, backstories, complex relationships with existing characters, and [[Ascended Extra|major roles]]. In some cases (particularly Kewell and Darlton), this results in their being [[Rescued From the Scrappy Heap]].

** Also in ''[[Code Geass]]'' (though not in the above fic) Kallen's brother Naoto Kozuki sometimes get this treatment, largely because all we know about him is that he was the leader of Ohgi's group and died sometime before the series started.

* Example from [[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]: Nakim, one of Yoko's pupils, stars in his own story in the fic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5765216/1/The_World_Tree The World Tree]''.

* This is heavily subverted with the series [[Zatch Bell]], where unless you're Zatch, Tia, Zeon, Sherry, Brago, or another of the main characters, you'll never get any actual writing or stories based around you. Case in point, any of the many villian-a-week enemies of other mamodos Zatch faces. This extends to major recurring enemies as well.

== [[Film]] ==

* The [[Pirates of the Caribbean]] movies gave [[No Name Given|no name]], characterization or any information about the mother of James Norrington other than ''she exists'' (because everyone has one). The [[Mega Crossover]] [[Fanfic|fan]][[Web Comic|comic]] ''[[Roommates 2007|Roommates]]'' made her an extremely likable Irish [[Cool Old Lady]].

== [[Literature]] ==

== Music ==

* [[Vocaloid]], naturally, since there is nothing canon about the singers, besides name, voice and appearance (and sometimes not even that).

== Newspaper Comics ==

== [[Toys]] ==

* This trope is all over the place in ''[[Transformers]]''. The franchise is filled with characters who only appear as toys with bio notes of varying character depth. It has even happened in canon on a few occasions - the profile book ''More Than Meets The Eye'' required the authors to invent personalities for the Micromasters out of whole cloth, since those characters did not have bio notes.

* The same applies to ''[[Bionicle]]'' and its [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], some of whom only appeared in a [[One-Scene Wonder|scene or two]] and barely get to be described (the author claims he is very bad at coming up with visual traits, for example). The developers of the beloved ''Mata Nui On-Line Game'' said that [[LEGO]] barely gave them the most minor of side-characters to work with, and they had to develop their personalities and culture themselves. What resulted was a game teeming with characters more memorable and charming than many of the ones that the "official guys" made up. They easily became fan favorites.

** Fans themselves also get chances to flesh out some of the more underused characters, via official writing or art contests. In the latter, they can even design the look of the characters themselves.

* Any [[Heroic Mime]] character tends to be this, due to little to no characterization of them in the actual source material.

* Just about any ''[[Pokémon]]'' fanfic that places characters from the games (Brendan, Lucas, Silver, Leaf, etc.) into the anime's continuity will make use of this principle to some extent, since most of said characters never appeared on the show outside of 3-second cameos, with Leaf never appearing at all. There's no set pattern for what personalities writers assign them, but there's usually a good chance that they will be used for [[Shipping]] somehow.

** Due to the fact player characters and rivals [[Hello, Insert Name Here|can be named by the player]], fic writers can freely use any name for any of the above characters, except possibly Brendan and Lucas in the anime. For some reason, [[Author Avatar|writers tend to use their own names]] for these characters.

** The Generation IV Frontier Brains (other than Palmer and Caitlin, who have appeared outside the Frontier in the games) rarely appear in the anime continuity, but when they do, they are this trope.

* The same is true of Chell, the protagonist of ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]''. The few things that we're told about her character are [[Unreliable Narrator|likely to be complete lies]], so any characterisation in fanfic is made from whole cloth.

* Decoy Octopus from ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' is one of these, especially since it's part of his job description. He literally can adopt the personality of whoever he's disguised as.

* The [[Precursors|Forerunners]] from ''[[Halo]]'' are practically an entire species (or group of specieses) of OC Stand-Ins. The upcoming trilogy of novels should shed come canon light on them, though. Til then, fanfic portrayals of them remain wildly varied.

** The Rookie in ''Halo 3: ODST'' is this to a lesser degree, having no lines beyond grunts, no visible face (he always has his helmet on), and no identification beyond the initials "JD"; the designers claim this was intentional, to better allow the player to integrate with the character. Spartan-B312 in ''Halo: Reach'' is this even moreso, with male and female voice sets, and armor customization that is persistent throughout both campaign and multiplayer; this was done for the same reasons as the Rookie.

* Odd ''canon'' example, ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'', a crossover that featured characters from the first 12 ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games, had to pretty much create personalities for the Warrior of Light and the Onion Knight from the wholecloth.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' fanfiction has Oriana {{spoiler|Miranda's twin sister}} and Kolyat, Thane's son, as a relatively popular pairing despite ''never'' meeting, or even coming ''close'' to meeting and having no connection to each other in the game besides a certain Commander intersecting with their lives. Kolyat is developed a bit better than Oriana, who never actually speaks or is interacted with.

** Annother popular target for an OC Stand in is Hanna Shepard, the [[Player Charicter]]'s mother if the spacer background is chosen.

* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' has accrued several such characters, though since these often turn up [[Adaptation Distillation|in the comics]], said personalities are often used. Nevertheless, Ray the Flying Squirrel, Mighty The Armadillo (though he's almost always put as the lost forth member of Team Chaotix), Bean the Dynamite, and Bark the Polar Bear (often paired together, for being introduced in the same game), often end up being OC stand-ins, as do [[Good Bad Bug|Ashura The Hedgehog]], [[Fan Nickname|Wechnia]], [[Development Hell|Tiara Boobowski]], [[What Could Have Been|Nazo]], and [[Dummied Out|Honey The Cat]], though these five are very rare to see in fanfic, not that the first four show up often, [[Original Character|Original Characters]] are far more common.

* This is common in the ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' community, due to the prevalence of [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Ensemble Darkponies]]. Many of the most popular characters in the fandom have no official names or speaking roles, let alone a canon characterization. Some of them have appeared onscreen for only a couple of seconds in a single episode.

** Special mention goes to Princess Luna. When she finally appeared in Season 2, she left this trope behind by contradicting nearly every fan depiction of her.

** Dani Moonstar and some of the New Recruits serve as this as well. As Dani only appeared in one episode, not much of her personality was fleshed out, and as such can serve as any personality type they want. Roberto only got a bit of characterization: A slightly egotistical 'jock' type, while Rahne got a snarky playful personality, both from just one episode, after that, they get no lines other than background appearances.

* [[Danny Phantom]] has a few, but none so popular as Star, or Star "Satellite" as the fandom has named her. She has some lines and establishing character moments, but in general, the Show portrays her as the blonde girl who hangs around the [[Alpha Bitch]] Paulina. Naturally, fanfic authors have a ball giving her [[Hidden Depths]].