These are just my thoughts and opinions, please don't take anything personally. I would love to hear your opinions on this AS LONG AS you don't hate ^^ so probably most people on scratch have come across a MYO, custom species, etc. And some of these species are really creative! However, other species aren't as creative such as 'waterdogs'. BUT Species that aren't very creative, I think are fine as long as they stay an open species (meaning anyone can make one) and they shouldn't have any like 'love and fave to get traits' sort of thing. They should more be used as insporation and ideas for creating a new character because you have all the body types, colours and other cool stuff right in front of you rather than thinking of it yourself. But there's also the argument that you can't 'claim' a trait such as half water. Well you're not claiming the trait, youre adding it to the list of things you can put on a character. Does every character with wings look unoriginal to you? I'm fine with calling the species unoriginal as they might not be very original. But my point is that it can be a whole list of cool ideas that you can have for your character rather than having to come up with all these extra bits yourself. And sometimes the species might not be all that creative, but two other things can make people like it and that's completely fine! Firstly, perhaps the design looks quite nice. Secondly, the species might not be creative to the eye, but the lore and stuff might be really deep and interesting. Such as my w.i.p. species that aren't creative in the slightest, but they have a lot of lore about them. That's not unoriginal, it can be quite interesting sometimes. so basically unoriginal species are valid as long as they don't ask for stuff to get traits. They're more guidelines and ideas for making a character, and anyone should be able to make them. Like a dog-plant-water species might look original and stuff, but but it's not in the slightest; its an animal with extras. You could make a character that looks like one by accident. Wheras a weird goat-alien-lizard-ghost creature would be more recogniseable as original because you couldn't make one by accident. (well maybe you could but it'd be far less common) Also please don't like yell at people just because their character looks like your species. if people are able to make characters that look similar to your species, do you think your species is original? That people need a species for something they already make? A label to give their character? Original species are never before seen creatures, which are hard to accidentally make a character who looks like it. thanks for reading :0
if i've got anything wrong correct me please :' btw i made this when i was really tired so theres probably mistakes and stuff