ORIGINAL DIGI DESTINED ANONYMOUS
By Ucchan
Yamato Ishida, the object of worship for many fangirls everywhere, stood at the podium in the center of the room looking down at the chaos of the crowd that chatted in their seats, completely ignoring him. It was the annual DD meeting. Or rather, in today’s case, the ODDA meeting. ODDA was short for Originial DigiDestined Anonymous. Matt was dubbed chairman on this group because he was worshipped by practically everyone in the room. Original DigiDestined Anonymous was a group of Digidestined that only existed in fanfics and fanart, in short, characters created by fans. The reason is was “anonymous” is because it was very similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, in that everyone at that meeting had a SERIOUS problem. In some cases the problem was their existence. In some cases, their lack of substance. In still others, the problem was trying to hard to be real… In most cases, however, it was neglect, lack of care, or poor authoring skills.
Yamato, or “Matt”, his horrible English-dub name, surveyed the room once more before switching on the microphone at the podium in the center of the auditorium, “Welcome, Original DDs, to the first meeting of this year’s Original DigiDestined (not destineds, destines, destine, or destens as poor writers like to use, DigiDestined is both singular and plural) Anonymous! The purpose of this club is to get out into the open the biggest problems of original characters in fanfics, okay, then… shall we begin?” He looked out into the crowd where several hands were raised, he called on a brown-eyed brunette of average height, medium build, in a white t-shirt and jean shorts.
The girl stood up and addressed the crowd, “Hi THERE! My name is Genn Eric! I would like to address the topic of how Original Digi-destined characters always fall into generic caricatures.”
Matt nodded, “Yes, that does seem to be one of the biggest flaws.”
“Well…” Genn went on, “The problem is that most authors have a problem with getting a realistic personality to fit in the cast of Digimon, which already has a very diverse cast covering different personality types with their own flaws and features. Due to this, I think that most of the original characters out there end up falling into the same category, as a love interest for one of the pre-existing digimon characters or as a new, SPECIAL team mate who comes along and saves the day. This role is very tired and seen really, WAY TOO MUCH.”
“I agree” called a blue-eyed girl with blonde hair and a short height and full figure, she stood up, “Hi, I’m Stery O’type, I would like to say that most characters not only fall into the same role, but also, the same personality types. For example, when a new character is introduced as a love interest for Matt, she is most always cool and distant or preppy and happy. The same goes for Tai love-interests, always preppy and happy… For Izzy love-interests, she is ALWAYS intelligent or wise. And those are just PARTS of their personality, it’s the WHOLE of their personality. She’s normally JUST SMART, and then she falls for Izzy, and that’s it. Ken love-interests are always motherly and Davis love-interests are hyper and clingy. As for the new team-mate personalities, they are normally the hero-types, the loners, or the scared/surprised reasoning types. The flaws and features are normally similar as well. Matt love interests play music (normally harmonicas). Tai love-interests are cheerleaders or athletes. Davis love-interests have obsessions easily.”
“Wait!” said Ucchan, who happened to be a self-insert character, “what about self-insert characters?”
Matt smiled, “good point, they are quite a problem…”
“Yes,” Ucchan elaborated, “I think self-insert characters are boring. If you wanted people to know about you, just tell us, don’t write a story about our favorite characters and how you want to ‘fall in love’ with them, beat them up, stalk them, or help them save the world. Reading a self-insert fic is like giving testament to egotism. And that goes for this author, too for putting themselves in this fic!”
“WAIT!” called Mat, a CDD, or Clone Digi-Destined, “What about the problem of characters who look like, act like, or are literally clones of the pre-existing characters?”
Matt, who looked calm for seeing a clone of himself (must happen OFTEN), said to his clone pointedly, “I think clone characters are the most liked of all the original characters, because they are clones, which are less like new characters and more like plot devices. However, the distinction should be made that clone characters who are just original characters that look/act exactly like old characters and are supposed to be separate individuals are the MOST HATED of original characters because there is no imagination at all in the creation or portrayal of the characters.”
Mat, the clone, sat back down, only to see Matt’s 3rd cousin, TJ, stand up, “Hi, I’m TJ, Matt’s 3rd cousin, here to represent the invented family members of original DDs Anonymous. We would like to say that we should be the most liked of the original characters since you know we exist and probably DO have an effect different character’s lives, and we normally make for interesting fanfiction.
Matt considered this, “While it’s true family members do exist and have impact on characters’ lives, it is important to note that they are not wholly original characters due to their assumed existence from the show. However, long-lost relatives DO NOT count as good characters, for they are rarely impacting on characters. They are amusing in humor fics, and this will be noted in the ODDA notes, next?”
Jennifer Morton, a red-haired girl with a slim build and stature, stood up, her digimon, Foximon, perched on her shoulder, “I would like to protest!”
Matt smiled coyly at the attractive redhead, “Protest what?”
“Well,” the girl began, “What about well-written original characters who do not take over the whole story, are not introduced to be solely love-interests, don’t fall into stereotypes, and are actually presented as palpable, true-to-the-show/story characters?”
A rumble of agreement arose from the crowd.
Matt considered the girl’s words, “Well, the thing is, as great as those characters truly are, the problem with that is the sheer number of Original DDs who DO NOT fit that category. There are so many poor original characters, that well-crafted originals just aren’t the norm. I am hard-pressed to think of more than 5 good original characters in the all the years I’ve been reading digimon fanfiction, of the thousands of original characters I’ve seen, met, read about, and fallen in love with,” he gave the room full of girls a wink.
“That’s another major problem!” a girl in the back shouted, standing up, “Hi! My name is Fi Maile, I’d liked to address this important issue,” Fi took a breath, “have you ever noticed that nearly EVERY original DigiDestined is a girl, woman, alien princess, human-form girl digimon, or some other female?!”
The room full of girls, (minus clones), stared at one another, taking the others in, sizing up their chances of beating them for Matt’s affections (for nearly every 3rd girl was in love with him). They all nodded solemnly at this truth.
“Only time for one last person before the meeting for Original DigiDestined Digimon Anonymous, who is it?” Matt called.
A young blonde child of maybe 7 years teetered on her seat as she raised her hand, “HI! I’m Yama-chan jr.! Mommy told me to discuss the issue of using the digi-destined’s children as original characters! She says that’s a poopy, tired, old, and extremely boring idea!”
Matt smiled, “oh really?”
“Yuh-huh!” the young girl continued, “Mommy says the main reason why original DDs are boring in the first place is that people are reading fanfiction to find out about their favorite characters! They don’t want to see our new people we just fabricated! They wanna read about people they know and love! Sometimes one or two well-written new characters are okays! But an entire new cast is pointless! No one wants to hear about your Mary Sue or Mary-Sue-mon! They want to read stories of Yamato and Taichi getin’ it on!” the girl paused, “at least, that’s what mommy says!”
Just then, a horde of grostequely cute and varying-sized digimon invaded the room, “HEY! You’re auditorium time is UP! It’s our turn!”
And with that, started the 3rd meeting this year of the Original Digi-Destined Digimons Anonymous.
A/N: This is a fic to express my views about ODDs. If you don’t agree, flame me, I want to know what you think. (this ensures that no one will flame the fic, flamers are weird that way…ne?) This is a satire, sorry if you’ve been offended. I tried to put everything in such a way that no person would be hurt, just to push them in the right direction of writing either GOOD original characters or NO original characters. Either one makes me happy. Sorry to anyone who likes fics about the Digi-destined’s kids.
Gomen ne!