WELCOME TO THE JAM! · 8:53pm May 26th, 2015

So, this happened, and I'm in it, and I've been reading and commenting and everything. It really is kind of fun--there are some really good stories here, along with some cathartically bad ones, and seeing people play around with the characters is really interesting.

One thing that nobody's really doing is commenting on the characters themselves. What you hand in when you're told "make an OC" says a lot about you as a writer, don't you think?

Here, then, are my first set of brief comments on the character sheets listed in THE OC SLAMJAM COMPENDIUM.

Straitjacket
I’m not sure what to make of the fact that I’m supposed to care about his power level (the comparison to Twilight Sparkle and the highly specific “10 minutes”), and the fact that his personality section is all about his “incidents.” It’s annoying, and it shows that the author is focusing on the wrong things. Normally I like the “background pony” type of character who sticks close to the theme of their name and cutie mark, but I dunno about this guy—his specific thing doesn’t give him much room for interaction and variety.

Candy Cane
This is the kind of character that makes life nicer for her opponents. She’s a straightforward character, with a motivation, a personality, and enough structure to her that there’s something to work with. If anything, she could be more idiosyncratic—as it is, her opponent doesn’t have much guidance in what would give this character a unique or engaging role in the story. Her personality is also a little vague, which makes me think “roleplaying character,” but it works well enough and does provide possibilities.

Melon Rind
Awesome. Right in the beginning we have our first character who is unlikeable, whose personality is decidedly nowhere near either the standard “outgoing, friendly, please love me” or the standard “introverted like all those Buzzfeed articles, has social anxiety just like me.” No siree, Lemon here is a cranky bitch who actively refuses to act like a good little pony. The personality is my favorite part of this because it gives a clear idea of how the character should play, as well as a deeper sense of who she is and how she feels about things.

Rachis Barbule (The fuck is this name?)
This is the first guy who does a good job of being unique. He has a very unusual cutie mark and talent. He has clear personal attributes such as his good grooming and the pride he takes in his work. He has specifics to his life—he runs a “stallions’ mane and tail salon,” he travels to serve wealthy customers because of his unique spells, and he has a strained relationship with his family, likely because they’re racists.

Static Shower
And here we have our first bare-bones non-character. But then, as bare-bones characters go, this guy ain’t so bad. He has a clear (if stereotypical) personality, he likes thunderstorms, and for all his genericness, he’s pretty freakin’ adorable. Mostly I’m just hatin’ on this guy because he used a picture, wrote essentially nothing in the history section, and actually wrote the “Like, Dislike, Trouble” thing as a list. A few other characters did that. Maybe it’s wrong of me to immediately like them less because of it? …nah.

Tidy Till
I was going to create “categories” for these characters, but I ditched the idea for various reasons. This guy is the motherfucking poster foal for “Idea Bin Escapee.” This isn’t a character; this is a story. That doesn’t mean he can’t work out in interaction, but damn it’s annoying to see a profile that’s all about itself and its History section (although in this case the backstory got dumped into the Personality section). That said, it is an *interesting* story, a story about the nature of cutie marks conflicting with the depressing nature of working 9-to-5 in real life, and throwing other characters into it might even give it some value beyond a single telling. Maybe.

Redwood
What even… all right, let’s all sit and contemplate the fact that this one starts with “illegitimate child of a high-born officer of the EUP Guard” and expects me to just fucking roll with it. Is that a Conversion Bureau thing? Lunar Republic? Fallout Equestria? End of Ponies? This thing stinks of a roleplaying character for some kind of military fantasy but one that takes place in Ponyland because of fucking course it does.

Dreamer
I take it back. THIS guy is the poster colt for the Idea Bin Escapee. He doesn’t even say anything about his personality. He’s just a fucking story idea. A story idea that imposes its ideas upon the opponent.

Crisp Dawn
At least this one has the decency to say “Royal Equestrian Navy” instead of “REN” or some shit. Thankfully, this one just focuses on him being a sailor instead of him being a Super Awesome Cool Military Fantasy. In that way, while he’s not stellar in terms of compelling nuances and details, he’s not bad either.

Firefly (HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS NAME?)
This is a roleplaying character who the author ships with Rainbow Dash. Next.

Dala
Right from the appearance section this one is a clear OC DONUT STEELE. She has a super unique disease, she works for Princess Cadance as a super unique alchemist, but she somehow hates authority because The Man doesn’t like how she’s super fucking unique. Next.

Copper Coin
Well shit. The second unlikeable pony of the competition seems like he’s trying to one-up all the others. He’s not just cranky, he’s a bad person, a real son of a bitch who nobody wants to be around. This is amazing. I am absolutely looking forward to what happens when this guy clashes with another character.

To be continued...

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