I decited to write an actual long chapter talking about rivals, because it seems that most people don't see the actual idea of rivals. I've only seen couple characters with proper rivals and that's it.

First I'll tell you one thing once again:

Rivals aren't those people who act mean and y towards your character. Those are called enemies, bullies or something like that. NOT RIVALS.

I'm going to use one quite popular series as an example of good rivals. It might be bit odd to use it but believe me, I can help you a lot by using it. Can you quess what I'm going to use as an example?

I'm going to use the rivals in Pokémon as examples! Pokémon has big variety of different kinds of rivals and I'm going to use the game versions, because the ones in the anime are bit different and not as good characters. Well let's get started!

Blue is the rival in first generation Pokémon games and in FireRed and LeafGreen. He's quite boring character in overall even though his attitude is very cocky and unfriendly. His attitude is quite cliché in almost everywhere alse than here in AFF.

What we can learn from Blue: Rival an also actually be quite boring. Just don't make him/her clichè.

Silver is the rival in the second generation Pokèmon games and in HeartGold and SoulSilver. He's actually that kind of mean rival that is commonly used in OC here in AFF. But unlike those rivals who act mean probably because they're jealous of the OC, he isn't jealous of the player character/you at all. He just simpl despises the player chracter/you and is extremaly arrogant. He's probably the darkest of the Pokémon rivals but I still can't say he would be a bad person unlike most rivals here.

What we can learn from Silver: Rival can be mean, arrogant and just cruel, but him/her being jealous of the OC is just simply cliché and not very logical.

I´m just going to skip the rivals from the third generation because I sadly don't know them at all.

Barry is the rival in Pokèmon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum. He's probably my favourite rival in Pokémon games. He's great example of an friendly rival. He's childhood friends with the player character/you and has very friendly personality. He's very restless person who runs around, crashes to other people often and hardly has any concentration. He's very humorous character who's constantly challenging the player character/you into battles.

What we can learn form Barry: Rivals can even be friends with the character and they don't have to be serious or mean!

Next we have Bianca. One of the two rivals in Pokémon Black and White. She's very funny character and one of your/player character´s childhood friends. She is quite hopeless case and tends to crash into people and get into trouble a lot. But one thing in Bianca is most interesting. In Pokèmon you can choose between a boy and a girl player characters and in some Pokèmon games the one that you didn´t choose appears as your rival. That's the only case when you can have a female rival. Only Bianca makes exception to that. That's maybe because majority of people playing Pokémon are probably boys so the rival "needs" to be the same gender.

What we can learn from Bianca: Rival can also be opposite gender than your character. Not always the same!

Next I'm going to introduce you Cheren, the other rival in Pokémon Black and White. He's very smart and like most Pokémon trainers he aims to be the best. He's always challenging the player to battles but is still always very polite and nice. He's actually quite challenging opponent in the games.

What we can learn from Cheren: Rivals can be very polite, smart and nice people. You need to realise that. And who said the rival couldn't be more talented or smarter ot just simply better than your OC?

Last but not least we have Hugh, the rival in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. I actually don't know him that well but I can say you he's a real nice sweetheart. He's much like Blue, but his personality is just a lot better. (And I btw named him Daesung in my game...)

What we can learn from Hugh: RIvals can be friendly even though they're cliché.

So what we could learn from this?

Rivals don't need to be mean. In fact making them mean is simply cliché and boring. Rivals can be friends with you OC. They can be better at something than your OC. Rivals can be boring too. Rivals don't have to be serious. Don't make rivals being jealous of your OC. Rivals can be completely inept or the best.

Don't make all rivals the same! They all can't be the same!