why is it that every time there's a banshee in the story its Lydia from Teen Wolf.
and no, I don't mean Holland Roden the actress
I mean Lydia Martin the character
it's basically taking the Lydia Martin concept and putting her in the TVD universe
- sometimes she's a sibling or cousin to a TVD based character or she's a total OG only
- you guys literally don't change a thing about her other than her name at times
- the face claim changes at times when it comes to the banshee creature, but about 83% of the time it's Holland Roden
- the genius-level intelligence
- the awesome fashion sense
- the flirty attitude
- her Teen Wolf quotes or Stiles' quotes about her are said by others or even by herself
- sometimes it isn't Holland Roden but she does have the name Lydia
you guy's aren't being original, you're just copy-pasting an existing character from another show
there's been a Lydia Gilbert, Lydia Salvatore, Lydia Lockwood, Lydia Donovan
(I should know, since I've used her in a book already, and I'm even calling myself out)
i even read one fic with Holland Roden as the face claim, but it's half of Malia Tate's storyline and the other half is Klaus' with the hybridness only she isn't part of the Mikaelsons (yet, because she's in love with Klaus anyway) and it's basically Holland Roden playing the Malia character and taking her quotes
that's, that's not a concept, that's taking existing characters and their storylines and just merging them, that isn't how you do that if you're gonna do that, it's basically a crossover
but im cool with the crossover ones because they literally take Lydia from Beacon Hills and bring her to Mystic Falls, I can excuse that because they aren't copy-pasting the personality of an already established character, they're very clearly bringing another character from another show, a crossover
five years ago I would be so on these fics, they'd be filling my library, but it seems like no one learns when to stop with overused concepts.
Especially when it didn't stop with TVD, you can find her in Hogwarts, on Twilight, with the Winchesters, on Stranger Things, with the Flash, with Loki, with the Avengers of all places, even the Walking Dead at some point
you gotta think to yourself: if you've seen a bunch of Lydia-style TVD or TO books, and you think to yourself "Huh, I bet mine could be better,"
or you just don't like who they paired her up with on terms of love interest so you decided to do it yourself with a different pairing.
What makes you think people won't do what you did when you read through those books and just skip to the next one since they've seen the same content over and over again?
There's a difference between popular content and overused content
popular content are fics about Damon, Klaus, Stefan, Elijah or Kol. They can be different all over, but they are probably the top five most written about fanfics. So yeah they're written about a lot but they aren't all the same. (though again could said for the overused 'salvatore sister loves a mikaelson brother or mikaelson sister loves a salvatore brother' concept)
overused content are fics about Elena's twin sister, Klaus's twin sister that isn't just a hybrid but a hybrid that can do magic, replacing Caroline from Klaroline scenes with your OC when their love interest is Klaus, overpowering your OC, or yeah the whole 'im a salvatore in love with a mikaelson' or 'im a mikaelson in love with a salvatore' that's never been done before
get the gist of it? if you're going to write about a banshee, try not to copy Lydia Martin's personality on her and make one up yourself.
We're writers, it's what we do.