ZR?
...
So, your name's ZeldaRan?
<_< No...it stands for ZeldaRant. It's supposed to be redundant. *made up on the spot*
Fan characters can be interesting when done right.
Right now, I'm in the process of making my own fan-crew for One Piece.
Of course, to avoid said things that bother me, I've taken some precautions.
While my fan-crew has heard of the Strawhat Pirates, they probably will never meet them, and in all honesty, don't care about their existence.
The captain technically isn't a Devil Fruit user (I say technically because she owns a sword with Devil Fruit powers, but she didn't eat one herself. Also, it's a Paramecium fruit. )
None of the other crew members that do have Devil Fruits have Logia fruits.
The few Logia fruits I came up with, I'm saving for their enemies and/or ally crews.
And the Captain character actually doesn't even start the story as a pirate.
.....I may post the first chapter up here to see what you guys think of it.
It frustrates me so much when I try so hard to make decent fancharacters with believable abilities and who are balanced within the world they inhabit....and then you have people who make crappy characters like that and think it's a good idea.
Now, I'm going to exposition here for a little bit, so you don't have to read if you don't want.
The reason that I created Catastrophix is so that I can avoid barriers. He is omnipresent. No matter which fanfic you put Catastrophix in, he is still himself. He shows up everywhere, laughing and creating mayhem and saving the day as he pleases. His express purpose is to be there for fanfics. He is the ultimate crossover character, because he shows up everywhere. His powers may be different, maybe even his clothes or backstory. But it's him.
And on another note, while I do agree with your concerns, you have to remember that all of the characters, even the ones from the original work, are fictional.
Doesn't stop him from being a Gary-Stu. >_>
I've done something similar, but very different.
While some people would say this is bad writing, I've created a single central character template based on myself. This "Michal" character basically consists of aspects of my personality and appearance. Building off of this central "Michal" character build, I then create variations of her for different worlds and works of fiction.
Michal Ritter is the main character of my own original work of fiction. She's basically me, only with a bunch of special powers I'm not going to get into here.
Michal Tentsurugi is the main character of a giant amine crossover world idea I have. She's the character based on Bleach, and as a twist to the normal cliche, she's actually based on how I used to act rather than how I act now.
Aryll Ritter is the captain of the Seagull pirates. She's the captain of my fan-crew, and her only abilities is master swordsmanship and owning a sword with the powers of the Beam Beam Fruit. ( It allows the sword to shoot beams of energy. )
I have a version of Michal I use as a Bleach fan character with a lightning themed zanpakuto.
And I'm currently working on a version of this character that is a Naruto ninja.
It allows me to use the same basic character personality wise in multiple works of fiction. Without it actually being the same character.
The best part is, while it is technically an "author insertion" character, she rarely, if ever, interacts with canon characters...
And all versions of Michal aside from the Michal Ritter character of my original story I just made up for fun, usually for RPs and such.
So yeah, it's kind of lazy writing, but the character herself is a fun character to write, so I like to make variations on her.