Warning! Generous amount of quotes ahead!

Article begins!

Fancharacters. Love them. Hate them. Regardless of your opinion of them, they still exist.

I’ve come across the attitude that “Even if the pairing of Fancharacter x Canon Character works out swell, the sheer fact that they are hooked up downgrades your character and story.”
~ShuffleStar
As one who is the owner of several FCs; some paired with CCs, some who will be, some who are related to CCs and some that just exist in a canon, as well as being friends with people who are in the same boat as myself, I feel that it is time to add my voice to the discussion pool.

And yes, I'm going to be quoting myself quite a bit because I'm lazy and can't be bothered to retype/reword stuff to fit into the article.

”I myself don't frown down on a CanonCharacterXFC pairing, if it's well done, and the character in question is convincing/likeable, and the canon character is kept in character (if that's possible).
If they are annoying and or obviously a Mary Sue/self insert, then I have a problem.

I am seriously sitting on the fence here. I understand that for some people, a fancharacter who is related or dating a canoncharacter is a no no and is frowned down upon/instantly disliked. On the one hand, I can understand why, on the other hand, I think it unfair to have such an opinion.”
~Myself

If you haven’t figured already, purpose of this article is to defend Canon Character (henceforth acronymed to CC) X Fancharacter (henceforth acronymed to FC) when it’s done properly.

“The general idea is that a lot of fancreation is unoriginal and boring. Sure, "It's my art and I do whatever I want", but it gives the fandom a bad name when you see a bunch of uncreative goons running the fanbase.”
~ShuffleStar

A frank statement of the sad truth. Over the years it is not hard to notice that certain fandoms have gone down the drain due to the actions of the majority of the fans. However not all fancharacters are unoriginal and boring. There are a lot of good fanauthors out there buried under the layers of tripe, you just have to look for them.

”. . . if someone feels the urge to write it then they can, but they should be prepared to cop the flak (I'm not saying anyone should flame them, I'm just saying they should basically be prepared that fans probly won't like it, and that they shouldn't go expecting their story to be hugely popular with the fans). They have the right to post their stories, however much people find them disagreeable.”
*saiyan-frost

While people are perfectly entitled to their own opinions, this is still judging something based on the fact that you don’t like it and/or because so many others like it are substandard.

“"Even if this is well done, it still has a downrading effect."
Did you mean degrading? Degrading = bad. But how can it be bad if it's well done? Nice paradox there. Speaking of. Here's another. "It's like scoring a 100 on a test, and get getting 5 points off for making a mistake." But if it's well done where's the mistake? Except in the opinion of the reader that CCXOC = automatic downgrade. And therein lies the problem, because that's an opinion and not a fact which therefore nullifies the Test analogy since tests are supposed to be marked on facts and not opinions.”
~Myself

“So a more proper way to make this into a test analogy... It's more like getting a 100 on your essay, best damn essay you ever wrote, but losing 25 points for writing about something controversial the teacher grading you doesn't agree with.”
~Aleister-Crowley

”The fancharacter pairings are where it gets iffy. If the character's made explicitly to be with a canon character, ew no. If it just happens through a story, which could be written in some of the same manner for two canon characters to be in a relationship, then certainly it's not a major offense...”
~TimeTravelingEchidna

If you can find nothing wrong with the pairing, except for the fact that they are paired with a CC, then what’s the problem? It’s like eating an orange and finding out it tastes great, but still hating it because it's a fruit/you hate the colour orange.

“I was pointing out the canon-cliche saying that It CAN work, but it can moreso easily work when you make your whole story yourself. . .”
~ShuffleStar

“While I agree that there are possibly a handful of good fanfiction writers out there, I would strongly suggest those good writers to invest their time into something more original. Writing about stuff you like is okay, but there are infinitely more avenues of storytelling a writer could go down if they wrote a story in a world where the rules are governed by the authors themselves instead of by the author of which the work is based off of.”
~Aleister-Crowley

So the argument would be that authors are better off writing about something that’s of their own creation? Well yeah. . . but
“Yes, you're using someone else's characters and someone else's world. But what the author does with them is no less original then making a story out of their own characters in their own world.
Keep a CC in line is more challanging than keeping your own. It's also a way of expressing your love for the characters, story, etc. There shouldn't be anything wrong with that.”
~Myself

“I'd say it's worth it to give Power the benefit of the doubt, because there could possibly be good fanfiction writers out there that are indeed smart enough to know how to tell a good story, it's just they want to write about another work because they might feel they have something to add, or just loved that other work. It wouldn't be right to just stereotype everyone who's done a fanfiction that their work isn't that great, because then you would be the one downgrading them, and thus, we come full circle.”
~Aleister-Crowley


Tl;dr/the gist/in short;
“You should dislike a fanfiction or CCXFC pairing because it's badly done, not because a whole bunch of other fanfictions of the same canon are.”
~Myself
Your thoughts please, whether you agree with me or not.