Anonymous asked: Referring to prev. submission - I always think it's meant to honor the parents when that happens, but it gets annoying when done for every single one. If you assume ghosts can change their appearance, then they should be able to change their ghost form in other ways too, and you can't tell me at least some people wouldn't want to experiment or that others actually don't like their parents/want to be unique. And if they can't, it should be similar to whatever they had on when they first changed.

Well, it doesn’t absolutely HAVE to be similar to what they had on when they first changed. There’s not really a reason why they can’t just change into something else. But I think that was what you were saying anyways.

-N

This has always bugged me. Why do most offsprings of halfas have the same freaking color scheme as their parents. I see this everywhere and it annoys the heck outta me. I get the hair, eyes, and skin tone matching or being similar to their parents, but their costume color schemes do not need to be the same.

beccadrawsstuff asked: Has anyone said anything about hair colors for halfas? From what I've seen in the show (and this is going by a grand total of three characters all of which have black and white hair) I'm assuming the ghost transformation inverts their hair color, and then there's some halfa OCs with blonde hair that turns hot pink when they transform.

There’s a couple of theories on that I think? But really, the entire science of the show is up to interpretation. Like one person could say that only people with the black hair and blue eyes genetic can turn into a halfa (Vlad, Dani, Danny), or another person can say that they invert. Or that could just not be the case at all, since we’ve only seen two halfas.

Anyways, it’s all up to you and there’s no big DO or DON’T when it comes to this. Just as long as it’s a good design and the colour scheme is good, I guess?

In my opinion, I’d say just forget about the whole invert thing because I think it restricts colour schemes and makes them harder to put together.

-N

Not all halfa OCs are Sues. If you can write well enough, you can make the most absurd of characters a deep person with a great life (or half life) ahead of them.

Well yeah, of course! Any kind of fan character can be a good fan character as long as it’s done right. 

(Oh wow, this blog hasn’t been active in such a long time that I’m not sure if this is directed at a certain post or not. My apologies.)

This is a blog about cliches too, not just FC critiques. What we were trying to say was that there are a lot of halfa fan characters already and that it’d be really refreshing and neat to see something else! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a halfa character, though.

-N

Halfa characters aren’t bad, it’s just that most authors focus on them in particular. The world is made up of more than just halfas, after all. Detectives, police officers, ghost hunters, psychics, engineers, athletes, musicians, artists, etc. But all types of characters can be good or bad, it just depends on how they’re written.

As N said, this blog is for cliches. Halfas just happen to be the most common cliche.

-S

Anonymous asked: Do you think more than a couple talents makes your OC a sue? o3o

Course not. Talents are talents and sometimes people have a lot.

-N

Please remember what we can’t answer back privately to anon asks. I’d like to take a moment to clarify that if you send an anon ask to us about an individual artist, chances are we can’t going to publish it. Sorry.

-N

thecharcoalalchemist:

Hello there! I’m the same person who submitted the previous ask involving ways to obtain ghost powers, and a question about inversion (again, not submitting through the ask box…sorry). I’m back with another pair of similar questions (yep, still working on those three OCs - and a fourth one, actually, who’s the source of these questions)! 

On the topic of inversion once more…..but this time, dealing with skin color. Danny’s skin tone darkens when he goes ghost, and I’ve seen other DP OCs give their ghost-alters a corpse-like look with grayer skin tones, but most of them are Caucasian to begin with. My question is, if the OC’s human form has dark skin to begin with, would there still be a change when they switched to their ghost form? Should there be?

And jumping again to the topic of obtaining ghost powers…if Vlad got his powers as a result of a face full of portal energy, could an OC obtain powers if they somehow got ectoplasm in their bloodstream? Say, they’re a witness to a ghost attack, and have an already open wound the ectoplasm gets into (to deviate from the well-used ‘experimentation victim’ idea)…or would that be too ridiculous? 

Well, look at Vlad. He has a light skin tone and instead of becoming lighter when he changes, his became blue. I think it all depends on what the author wants. Just because Danny’s skin tone changes doesn’t mean all half ghost’s skin tone changes. Dark, light, tan, etc, could turn into gray, or blue, green, purple, gray, and any variation thereof, or not change at all. You don’t have to change your OC’s skin tone if you don’t want to.

As for your second question… I don’t really know how that would work. Jack and Maddie never really worried about getting ectoplasm on themselves when they worked. I think that kind of suggested that ectoplasm didn’t effect humans unless there was some sort of power source behind it. Without the soda or whatever powers the Fenton Portal, I don’t think Danny or Vlad would have become half ghosts. But it’s also really inconsistent because while ectoplasm doesn’t effect humans it obviously effects food… 

I guess it just depends on how you handle the situation.

-S

Heyo! Jumping in here. I was in the middle of publishing this but apparently I got here too late. Whoops!

Why hello again! Just can’t stay away, can you? Not that we mind at all. And again, don’t worry about using the ask box!

On the topic of inversion once more…..but this time, dealing with skin color. Danny’s skin tone darkens when he goes ghost, and I’ve seen other DP OCs give their ghost-alters a corpse-like look with grayer skin tones, but most of them are Caucasian to begin with. My question is, if the OC’s human form has dark skin to begin with, would there still be a change when they switched to their ghost for? Should there be?

Inversion has been this long controversial thing among the Danny Phantom fandom. It’s not directly stated in canon that inversion is law. It’s only a theory. Of course you could pull up that Vlad and Danny were both inverted, but Danny retained his skin tone (Er, sort of. The paler highlights and darker highlights are swapped. The DP shading/lighting is freaky weird.) whilst Vlad turned blue and those are the only two we’ve seen or know of to be ectohybrids (sans Dani, but she’s just a clone). Those are only two people and it could just be a coincidence. You know how people can get, seeing patterns in things that aren’t there. It all just depends on your preference, personal theories about the show, and creativity. Personally, I don’t like the inversion idea very much. I like to base colors and looks on powers and the individual.

If you’re basing it off of Danny’s transformation, I would try swapping the base color and the highlight of the human form’s skin tone on the ghost form. If you want, you can go with whackier colors like grey, green, blue, purple, whatever you think looks ghosty.

And jumping again to the topic of obtaining ghost powers…if Vlad got his powers as a result of a face full of portal energy, could an OC obtain powers if they somehow got ectoplasm in their bloodstream? Say, they’re a witness to a ghost attack, and have an already open wound the ectoplasm gets into (to deviate from the well-used ‘experimentation victim’ idea)…or would that be too ridiculous? 

Ooh, well that really depends on how you think ectoplasm works. Nothing was ever really confirmed in the show, so for all we know it could work like normal bodily intruders and get gobbled up by white blood cells or it could act like (and excuse my lack of better term for this) cancer and cling to DNA. I would assume it works like the later statement, assuming that the radiation/energy/beam whatever that exploded in Vlad’s face infected him.

There’s no such thing as too ridiculous… Well, alrighty, there is, but you shouldn’t let that hold your creativity back. Cliches or tropes or whatever you want to call them can be executed brilliantly if done right and given the right twist. I’d say go for it! I wouldn’t be against it.

Hope that helps!

-N

Anonymous asked: I just wanted to say something about the whole thing that there are few male FC, and a majority of female FC. There's nothing wrong with that actually, if you think about the whole thing with there being few notable female characters that aren't a token chick or love interest. And the whole love interest issue may be what is wrong with most of the female FC. Most of them exist just to be with this one canon characther. :/ (sorry my grammer and english, its not my motherlanguage)

Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. It’s not necessarily a problem, really, but it would be refreshing to see more male characters and more fan characters that are independent from canon characters. In my personal opinion, I find it easier to cut fan characters off from canon characters all together. It just gives a little more creative leeway, I find.

Don’t worry, love! Your English is clear and understandable.

-N

myvocaloidheart asked: Well, I have another idea in my head and I really can't decide :C It's the idea about the transformation. I saw many DP Halfas has rings to transform into a ghost. But my idea is different like a mark on the hands glows and transform into a ghost and later it disappears after it. I know the mark has to connect to the powers though, but I'm talking how the way of the transformation works. When the mark glows, the halfa transforms and disappear after that. No rings. Just the mark. Is is a goodidea

Well, we can’t really dictate to you what is or isn’t a good idea, but if you’re asking me, I’d say go for it! As long as there’s a reason behind it, it sounds good to me.

-N

Pardon me for submitting this outside the ask box…therer wasn’t enough space. I was hoping to ask a few questions, and perhaps get some feedback on three OCs? They’re a full ghost, a halfa, and the halfa’s son, who is only a quarter ghost. They’re currently RP-only, and still in development. I’m always picking away at them, because I don’t want to make any Mary Sue/Gary Stues……but I still like stretching Canon and playing around with theories….so I was wondering…

What are the possible ways to get ghost powers? I know of the portal idea, and I’ve been toying with the ‘having a ghostly parent/ancestor’ idea (inspired by someone’s lecture on ghostly powers and genetics)….but while I want something original, I don’t want something utterly ridiculous.

I’m also stuck on the ‘inversion’ topic….is it bad to invert eye and hair color when someone with ghost powers transforms? I’d think there’d need to be some sort of physical difference between the forms (with the exception of the uniform). Again, I’m sorry I didn’t put this through the ask box…..but I didn’t want to pester you with five different asks as part of the same question.

Oh, that’s quite alright. Submissions in place of questions are welcomed too, if there isn’t enough room. Also, a little off-topic, but I find that roleplaying characters before writing out their bios is actually very helpful.

Well, it depends really. There are a lot of possible theoretical ways. Granted wishes, freak accidents, waste spills, disease, animal bites, or maybe dormant ghost DNA that’s reawakened through an electrical shock of some kind? It’s all just fringe science in the end. Feel free to go as crazy as you want, as long as it makes sense. Heck, you could even say something happened and a ghost and a human swapped DNA through some freakish electrical current and they became hybrids from each other. Maybe a human vessel was made to house a ghost’s consciousness or maybe a ghost possessed a coma patient and was accidentally semi-permanently infused through some freak event? You just gotta go a little crazy with it, regardless of if it makes you sound like a lunatic or not. Maybe even watch a few shows or media that’s based around paranormal or fringe science for inspiration. Sci-Fi tends to work best, I find.

Inversion! Oh, man, inversion. Between you and me, I can’t stand it. Inverted color schemes tend to be bland and look-alike and cheap, in my opinion. There are people who can pull it off brilliantly, but there are a lot of other ways to make a character’s alter ego look different. Different clothing styles, the way they style their hair, color schemes, even physical differences. Maybe the ghost energy reacts differently and messes with their physical manifestation and their appearance is different? Inversion isn’t a rule. In fact, most of DP’s science and theory is up for debate. It just depends on how you, the fan, interpret most of it. There is no real law to it, so again, go crazy. Go absolutely mad with it.

-N