(AN: This story started out as guide for making non-terrible OCs, but I now see that it has turned into a guide for any kind of story, even one with canon characters. The last chapter, I felt, is more appropriate to writers using the canon characters and no OCs, and so is this chapter. Does that make sense? I see horrendous stories with no OCs, but they are just as bad as any Blonde OC, Half-Avatar story. I need to address those. If you can see, I changed the title, as well as the summary and first chapter. So here goes.)

If you remember, my last chapter was describing some plots and AUs that were NOT OKAY. But, since some of you are that dull, I'm going to give you a list of Bad AUs and plots that are not so common, but horrible nonetheless, and should be avoided. Also, since I can be nice on occasion, I will help you with your OC stories, by giving you some plot bunnies and OCs to make a story out of.

But now, for our feature presentation…Bad AUs, plots, and such:

Twilight crossover: NO. NONONO, NONO, NO NONO, NONONONONONO. NO.

Why.

Why this.

Why must you hurt me in this way?

I just…I don't…I…god dammit…it's just…no. I can't and I won't and I refuse to can. I mean, fine make them vampires or werewolves or mermaids or incubus or really anything like that, but for the love of Ummi, DON'T ADD POKERFACE PANTS GENERIC FEMALE PROTAGONIST OR HER SEXUALLY CONFUSED SPARKLY BOYFRIEND OR HER OTHER SEXUALLY CONFUSED BOYFRIEND WHO BELONGS ON JERSEY SHORE.

In short, Twilight/Avatar crossovers suck.

Twilight/Anything crossovers suck.

Twilight sucks.

I'm sorry to all of you, um, what do you call yourselves, Twihards, yes? But I dislike your fandom.

Next:

Hunger Games/Harry Potter crossovers: I love the Hunger Games. And I LOVE Harry Potter with a burning passion. But there is a difference between a crossover and an AU.

A crossover is when the characters from all the series used in your crossover meet, and solve the shows problem and defeat their respective villains together. It goes a little like this:

WHEN THE CHOSEN ON EAND THE AVATRA MEET AND THEY FIND THAT VOLDEMORT HAS GROWN STROUNGER THAHN EVER AND TWEN THE MORTAL WORLD AND THAT SPIRIT WORLD COLLIDE THEY MUST BOTH WORK TOGTEHER ALONG WITH THEIR FRIENDS TO BRINGS DOWN THE VILLINA AND AVE THE DAY.

Or in the case of The Hunger Games:

WHEN TRIBUTES KATNISS AND PEETA MUST COMPETE IN THE DREAESD HUNGER GAMES FOR A THIRD TIME, THEY MEET SOME REMARKABLE PEOPE CALLED BENDERS WHO TEACH THEM HOW TO MANIPULATE TH ELELEMENTS, AND THEN THEY WILL HELP TEHM WITH THE HUNGER GMAES

Ah, no.

Don't do crossovers. Do AUs. How about an AU where students at Hogwarts are benders and nonbenders, but bending exists? Using CANON characters?

Or an AU where CANON characters compete in a Hunger games-esque thing?

Yes, I know that there is a crossover section, but, well, if you had half a brain, you would understand that literal crossovers never and well. Also, crack fics are fine. Small, humorous one-shots, where things like Korra teasing Edward Elric about his height or Aang and Captain America talking about how dreadful it was being stuck in a block of ice for, like, ever.

The one exception to this rule is LoK and AtLA crossovers. Those are fine, because, they're kind of the same universe already.

Now here's where it gets tricky. When you do an AU, you're not trying to replace the characters of the series with the characters of Avatar.

So don't do, like, Korra as Katniss and Mako as Peeta.

Or, like, Aang as Harry and Katara as Ginny.

Like, yeah.

Do you understand what I'm trying to say? And, honestly, it's hard to find a match for all the Avatar characters if you do this, and lots may end up being horribly inaccurate, which makes for another story that no one wants to read.

Also! Try to avoid name mashups. They sound really fucking stupid, well, usually.

PAR EXEMPLE:

The Little Mermako.

Okay, Mermako sounds fine, really. But how dumb would it be if Korra was Korric (Korra + Eric=Korric, BTW)

And if Bolin was Bolounder (Bolin + Flounder), and Tenzin was Sebastianzin (I think you can do this buy yourself now)?

Really fucking lame.

So thank you, pinkaffinity, for making a smart choice. Side note, I love your story. Shameless advertising is my specialty.

OKAY! SO NOW THAT YOU'VE READ THIS HORRIBLE EXCUSE FOR A CHAPTER, YOU CAN NOW WRTE AN AU THAT IS, AT THE VERY LEAST, MEDIOCRE, AND THAT MEANS I'VE DONE MY JOB!

NOW FOR MORE ADVERTISING:

ImNotGoodatThis has put out another fic about Koraang and its inner workings.

Yeah, it's pretty damn fabulous, so…yeah.

Read, review, favorite, and follow the fucking shit out of it.

…

You know when you see a fic, that must have taken lot of time and effort to write, and the author's put up, like, ten chapters, and only gets, like, 10 reviews, and half of them are from the same person?

Well this is how I felt when I saw the marvelous fic, Stone Cold, and its sequel, Titanium.

Written by author Year of the Peacock, this fic, an account of Bolin, and how he is not the innocent boy the show portrayed him as. It shows his internal struggles, as well as an outside point of view. It's Bosami, but not romance-centric.

So rape the life out of THAT review button too.

…

Also, for Tahorra week, azurezury has written a wonderful little drabble about two of life's best things: Tahno and Korra having sex, and baking cakes.

…

This is all for this chapter!

Next chapter preview:

Now, chances are, if you've written a multichaptered fic, you've probably made the characters a bit OOC. This is fine, and I realize that keeping them IC all the time is boring. But unless you're writing crack, things like Tenzin tripping on acid and Asami being a female rapist are not usually okay.