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OC Stand-In: Difference between revisions
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A particularly successful [[Alternative Character Interpretation|interpretation]] of one of these is likely to [[Sure Why Not|ascend into]] [[Fanon]] when other fans want to play with that version.
{{examples
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
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** Taiwan as a [[Yamato Nadeshiko]] with romantic feelings for Japan; the [[Yamato Nadeshiko]] part was [[Jossed]] with the Drama CD (and more recently, the fourth manga volume) showing her to be a [[Plucky Girl|Plucky]] [[Genki Girl]], and she doesn't seem to act much differently with Japan than she does with her other Asian siblings.
** Vietnam as a [[Tsundere]] [[Tomboy]] who [[Improbable Weapon User|uses her rice paddle as a weapon]] or a [[Broken Bird]] emotionally scarred by her wars; it looks like her canon self will be more subdued than either of these characterizations.
** Thailand as a [[Nice Guy]] who also happens to be a [[Bare
*** A few times, he's a [[Wholesome Crossdresser]] (thanks to RL Thailand's ''kathoey'', or ladyboys).
** Romania was almost always depicted by fans as a female (probably because of the potential [[Les Yay]] between her and [[The Rival|Hungary]]), only to have canon [[Jossed|Joss]] that with the fourth manga volume establishing him as male.
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** New Zealand is almost always depicted as either having a [[Vitriolic Best Buds]] or [[True Companions]] type relationship with Australia.
** India, like Romania, was almost always depicted as female in fanworks only to be established as male later on in canon. No one seems to really care, though, probably because of his '''awesome''' Bollywood entrance in ''[[Hetaween 2011 (Manga)|Hetaween 2011]]''.
** For a long time, Bulgaria's only canon scene was him hitting Italy with his stick and the most common fanon depiction of him was as a [[Jerkass]] with a [[Hair
* Matt from ''[[Death Note (Manga)|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.
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* ''[[Code Geass Lelouch of Britannia (Fanfic)|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.
* In [[Yu-Gi-Oh]] fandom, there was a brief period of time during which people knew about the Toei series, but had no fansub available. Cue Miho, who was a one-shot character in the manga and had a prominent role in the anime, becoming an [[OC Stand In]], though her personality did often overlap with [[Shy Blue
* 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.
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* On ''[[Neighbours]]'', Lisa Jeffries was a very minor character who shared a few scenes with Summer Hoyland; she appeared in about a dozen episodes over the course of two years. She has, however, inspired a substantial volume of fanfic, which has developed her in ways totally unrelated to her canonical characterization.
* A juvenile character named Marissa Flores, who appeared in the ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' episode "Disaster" (and absolutely ''nowhere else'' in Trek canon), spawned the rather infamous ''[[Marissa Picard (Fanfic)|Marissa Picard]]'' fanfic series, written by a chap named Stephen Ratliff. And it's not limited to just Marissa; Ratliff also included a bunch of one-off kid characters from TNG as the title character's various minions and cohorts.
* In the ''[[
* Puck's mother and sister on ''[[Glee]]'', since they don't even have [[No Name Given|names]] in canon, but he presumably lives with them and they therefore play at least a minor part in most fics about his life outside of school and glee.
* Since Sebastian Moran (Moriarty's [[Dragon]] in the original Doyle stories) has no canonical characterization in ''[[Sherlock]]'', he's effectively become one of these for the fandom. He's been depicted as everything from [[Affably Evil]] to a [[Domestic Abuse|Domestic Abuser]] [[Gender Flip|to]] a [[Dark Action Girl]].
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* 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.
** Many fans were actually ''thrilled'' when this was done, en masse, in the canon comic ''[[Transformers Last Stand of the Wreckers]].'' Japanese exclusive Overlord and toy-only characters Pyro, Ironfist, Guzzle, and Rotorstorm were assigned new, quirky personalities and [[Rescued From the Scrappy Heap|pretty much became fan favorites overnight]]. Well, Guzzle had been used in comics before, just in a negligible, minor role.
* The same applies to ''[[Bionicle]]'' and its [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], some of whom only appeared in a [[One
** 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.
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* 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.
** Likewise with game fanfics themselves. No one takes account to Dawn or May's in-game personalities, being that they're technically not their canon ones though. Most [[NPC|NPCs]] get this treatment to various effects. Rivals and protagonists are given whatever personality, being that you really have to look into the text of the games to see any bit of personality beyond "[[Hot Blooded]], determined [[Child Prodigy]]".
** 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.
* Commonly done to Dark Link from ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]''. In the video games, Dark Link is a mindless, monstrous, obstacle, usually representing the evil in Link. [[Self Fanservice|But fanfiction writers and fanartists tend to give him]] [[The Blank|a face]] and personality.
** Link himself, whose dialogue [[Heroic Mime|is limited to the player picking 'yes' or 'no' when asked a question]] ([[But Thou Must|and "no" usually gets you a re-statement of said question]]) lends himself to this. The [[Featureless Protagonist|main character of a video game is often a blank slate for the player to write him/herself onto]], after all.
* ''[[Touhou]]'' has this mainly in the form of the dialogueless midbosses<ref>except Te([[Spell My Name With an "S"|w]])i, who got plenty of canonical characterization later</ref>. The standouts are Daiyousei, Koakuma, and Momiji, who have managed to become [[Ensemble Darkhorse|fairly popular]]. Most of the time they remain [[Satellite Character|Satellite Characters]] to the boss whose stage in which they appear.
** Daiyousei and Koakuma don't even have any stated non-danmaku powers in a series where virtually everybody has a random superpower, so fans are ''required'' to make up a power for them. They didn't even have ''names'' originally, the ones used here invented entirely by the fandom (translated as "big/greater fairy" and "little devil", respectively).
** Part of the reason for the massive doujin and fanfiction community that has arisen around the games is that, despite the [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], only a small portion of the cast receive anything more than a brief character profile and some dialogue, and even fewer receive any form of backstory, leaving writers with enormous wriggle room. Even the two [[Universe Compendium|Universe Compendiums]] are written by [[Unreliable Narrator|Unreliable Narrators]] working with a lot of second- and third-hand information, and ZUN himself is [[Shrug of God|notoriously unhelpful]] and even outright [[Flip Flop of God|contradicts himself]]. Most of the widely accepted interpretations (for example Marisa and Alice as friends, the existence of Team 9, Reimu experiencing [[Perpetual Poverty]], Yukari as the God and Ruler of Gensoukyou) are not even hinted at in the games but remain entirely plausible.
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** ''Especially'' Gretchen, who in [[Fanon]] is often paired with Ferb, apparently just because she's the first girl his age (other than Isabella) to get a name.
* Ezekiel from ''[[Total Drama Island (Animation)|Total Drama Island]]'' gets this fairly often; he got very little development because he was the first character to get voted off, an event that some viewers thought was unfair since he had completed the episode's challenge while other characters didn't. To a lesser extent Katie and Sadie also get this, since in canon aside from their co-dependency they have very little that separates them from the more developed and funnier Lindsay.
* Gretchen on ''[[Invader Zim]].'' In canon, she was strongly hinted to have a crush on [[Hero Antagonist|Dib]] in one episode. The pairing is not widely popular (despite being the ''only'' romance in an otherwise [[No Hugging, No Kissing]] series), but even those who don't use her as a main character often elevate her to "[[Mauve Shirt|Most Important Random Skoolkid]]" or mention her and Dib's "romance" in passing.
** Another commonly used character is Invader Tenn; she only shows up in two scenes in one episode, and it was planned for her to return in the never developed series finale. Because of this, she is very often often used whenever a writer wants or needs to use an Irken outside the ones with more screen time (Zim, the Tallest, Tak, Skoodge). Of course, most of the stories she shows up in are based on (or are outright fan versions) of the aforementioned finale.
** Zita is another victim to this. While a girl with her looks is common to see in the episodes, all we know about her is that she considers Dib to be crazy and, unlike other students, is respected by Ms. Bitters. Nevertheless, people throw even this minor canon out of the window and pair her up with Dib. That's how terrible they are.
* The ''[[Metalocalypse]]'' fandom has Klokateers. In the show, they're several legions of hooded, uniformed, fanatically loyal employees of the Dethklok company who rarely have lines and are referred to by number rather than name. Because of the extremely stringent entrance exam and its 50+% mortality rate, the recruits who survive to become Klokateers are extremely exceptional specimens, physically and intellectually. This makes them ''ripe'' for this trope. There are a few who have risen to prominence, mostly through slash fandom.
* ''[[Daria]]'' fandom is pretty notorious for this, largely due to the fact that the show has scads of random recurring backgrounders who never do anything and yet have extremely distinctive character designs (a result of them all being based on real people who worked at MTV at the time). Because the fandom is relatively close-knit, the characterizations of many backgrounders have actually become pretty standardized. Burnout Girl is almost always involved with drugs, that blond from ''The Invitation'' is named Tori Jericho & was president of the Fashion Club before Sandi, etc.
* This is common in the ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|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.
** It's common with the [[My Little Pony|other series]] too. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of toy characters that either didn't pop up in the cartoon adaptations or didn't get much screen-time at all (many didn't even speak). Thus people make up whatever personality they want, especially in later gens where few characters actually have real backstories anymore.
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