The "Fan characters" section has suffered a lot since its creation, and that's partly due to the fact that when I first added it on the site, I didn't finish it entirely.

So now, just like the other sections, the fan characters have rules and must be validated by moderators before they are added on the site. They will also have "must see"s.

Here are the rules :

Related to Balto : Fan characters should be connected to the Balto characters / universe. For example, you can invent the son of a character, a friend, a foe, etc...Or a character connected for other reasons (places, universe, themes etc...) Official characters from other films/series are not accepted.

Used : Your character must be created for a reason : you must associate it to fanarts, fan images, fanfics, ... Unused characters will be disabled automatically after some time.

Complete : Complete : Your character must have one "headshot" drawing, one "detailed" drawing, a long description (at least 5 lines long) with such information : Age, Breed (if an animal), Personality, Likes, Dislikes, Background, ... You mustn't use photos but drawings.

Bad renders : Same as for fan images, badly recolored pictures of official characters (from same film or others) can be refused.

Your pets : You should avoid creating characters based on your pets. If you do, they must respect all the other rules (associated to creations sent, related to the universe, ...)

Unique : Your character must be creative and unique, as such you should avoid renders and draw the pictures of your characters yourself. The name also has to be unique : if someone already used it, add your username in parenthesis to your character name.

Expect a lot of characters that do not comply to these rules (which means, most) to be deactivated. If that happens with your characters, just modify/improve your character page and re-submit it to the mods.

This shoud help getting a better quality for that section.

On another side, I have finally added the possibility to choose the characters on fanfics! (wheee!) That was requested a lot, it took me a while but at least now it's possible. It also works for fanfics that are already on the site, just modify them and choose the characters to update it. For now, gamebooks and videos are left, I'll need more time and the videos section needs a real "management" part anyway.

Finally, now that chars can be added to fanfics, I'll add an automatic deactivation for characters that haven't been used in anything. I'll wait a little to give you the time to update your fanarts / fics / images info with your chars.

UPDATE (october 28th) : Because too many people think the characters must be "blood-related", I have added something to the first rule : your character can be connected for other reasons (places, universe, themes etc...) For example, dog sledding is allowed for the Balto Source characters. By the way, your characters DON'T have to be only dogs or wolves, any type of creature including humans is allowed, if it respects all the rules. (seems like it wasn't clear either)

The main aim of these changes is to push more people to get creative and prevent the bad "clones" splattered over the characters pages.