Star Signs - Writing Help

TIP FOUR - Test Subject OCs

Test Subject OCs

Weird how this took me four chapters for me to think "oh, test subject OCs!" when it was literally my first fic, my most popular fic, and honestly one of my favorite ideas. Especially since Hargreeves OCs, my second go to, was literally my only fandom based chapter for a long time. 

I think part of it's because I had written this chapter a couple times and because I was out of my Stranger Things era at this time. I'm still not really in a Stranger Things era, but that's less in the sense that I'm not interested. It's more ore the fact that I'm reluctant to write stuff for season 4 that will just be changed in season 5, like what happened when season 4 came out. Which won't happen until 2027 apparently because SOMEONE won't pay their workers.

Why am I shading Netflix? Netflix doesn't read my books. I'm right, though. 

But back to the point. Test subject OCs. When I first started reading Stranger Things fics, they were the most popular types of characters. They're less popular now, but that's not in the sense that they're no longer popular, but instead just equal with non-test subject OCs. Often these characters existed to follow El's plot and be one of the boys love interests. Which In think is why there's been a bit of a change, because the fandom in general has moved away from the party and more towards the teens as people who started the show at the same age as the younger kids grew up. 

We'll touch on that. 

What is Canon?

And more importantly, does it matter?

Now, personally, I've never been a big fan of stories that fully throw out canon. Play with it? Push the limits of it to make fun ideas? Sure. But usually I feel like you need to have that canon limitation to really fuel your creativity, because without it you can just sort of slap together whatever. When it comes to Stranger Things test subjects, it's a very different situation, because the canon has changed. For the worse. 

Let me explain. From the first time a new test subject was introduced – Kali in "The Lost Sister" – it was implied that each test subject had their own powers. Or at the very least it was possible. This was back up by the comics. Where, again, each character had their own powers. And it was creative! Diverse! The older kids had actively signed up because of their powers, while younger ones were taken from their parents (or implied to have been given up by them.) There was a pair of twins (009 and 009.5), one of whom had powers while the other didn't. It was very clear that El was separate and different from the others. It was implied that she was the last subject, the pinnacle of their work because she happened to have the specific powers they were looking for.

And then season 4 came out and all the kids were just El Lite. 

You have no idea how much this reveal pissed me off. It was very, very clear that they intended for a wide variety of powers, and then at the last second they realized that it was easier to make them all the same. It's not that I expect them to have everything planned out perfect from the beginning. But it's frustrating because they'll do blatant stuff like this and forgetting Will's birthday, and then make a giant deal about how they totally had everything planned when it clearly isn't true.