I call mine dummies or dumbasses sometimes, but mostly when they really act dumb. I nicknamed one "sad broccoli", but idk if that's an insult. XD
So, I think of my MCs as lovable idiots. I didn't want to start off calling them that, though, because I didn't want come off as insulting my own work and trying to get pity or whatever.
...Then people started commenting on the chapters, calling them lovable idiots XD And I realized "MY AUDIENCE GETS IT!" So now I have no problem calling it like it is!
I insult my characters when they are being difficult to draw for no particular reason.
I also plead or reason with them to cooperate with me.
tries to draw character but it isn't working out
"There's no reason your hairline should be giving me this much trouble Osiris. Why are you doing this?"
keeps redrawing same panel over and over
"Osiris please. I have a deadline, this page need to be done today."
draws the absolute WORST version of this panel yet
"Osiris you bitch."
My characters are annoying af. I adore them but nobody's following the plot. Everyone ignores the challenges I set up. Nobody's on script.No romances are going the way I thought they should. So much ad-libbing. I am so jealous of people who say they control their characters. Like how?
So I've earned the right to call these assholes that.
To be fair, "I can smell you from here" is how my sister and I say we missed talking to each other.
Sometimes, I forget that my main character's name is 'Zerwan' and NOT 'Immature Brat' 
That's how he's called in my head anyway.
Funny thing is that I called him Zerwan because he used to be only a secondary character without a name who I was calling 'the other one'. Add thick French accent... Z'ozerwan haha. So the poor guy mostly got derogatory names in my head but that's not that I don't love him.
@TJSchongar Ah yes I called yours 'likable idiots'. More true than ever some chapters later 
Eh, I don't really call my characters anything on a regular basis. Sometimes I might refer to a few as 'idiots' due to their personal stubbornness. But I certainly don't call them 'my babies' or whatever. The only thing in my life I use that term for is my cat (but then I also call him 'bastard' and 'bitch', those of which I will also use on my husband, and he to me).
Hm, I did give one of my characters this shirt … as I was thinking how readers might view her decisions to come. But she would totally own the term.
I do not do art. I don't know how it feels not being able get that line right, how it feels working so hard and realizing your proportions are off or just not being able to nail that damn perspective.
I just write. Just like in the case of visual artists, my characters are in my head, jumping around. I would love for them to sit down, wait a second, and let me finish the paragraph before they run off to do something else. But they do not listen. Ever. So yeah, whenever I write about them, though I might not write it the text, I call them egotistic, psychopathic (when antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders meet in an explosion of ill-contained anger) dipshits who only ever do what they want. Eff them, seriously.
@joannekwan, this part about your cat made me realize that in a way I treat my OCs like I treat my cats.
I call them a number of insults on a daily basis, regardless if it fits the situation or not (some of them certainly deserve it, some mostly don't). But I also call them my babies and beloved children and adore them to bits.
Though, talking to my siblings, we also casually insult each other all the time (...to an extent), so I guess this stuff comes naturally to me with a certain level of closeness.
You realize that I feel very disillusioned about Zerwan's name right now. 
This is exactly how I felt at age 14, when I realized it was really time to stop playing with Barbie dolls and that however well I encouraged them and organized them, they would never be able to start their own chapter of the Communist Party.
You just made me grow up a little bit, without my wanting it. Zerwan, my bratty little adventure-seeking first-world-problem-whining post-millennial, you shall never be the Z'ozerwan for me. To me, you shall always be #1 (you might think I am joking, but this was really a bit disillusioning).
Well.. if it makes you feel better, there is more in this name that just some bad French accent. One clue: Persia. Was it what you were thinking of? (I don't really want to say more publically because I'm still not sure how much of a spoiler that would be).
You really want to distract me from my studying. So now, I obviously I will go onto google and read EVERYTHING about the history of Persia (because we all know how less interesting Persia is than shoulder luxations). 
I insult them often and think they kind of deserve what is coming for them. I just feel it weird when people call their character a baby or such, unless it's a literal baby.
I never have a direct talk to them (like asking them to cooperate or such), or treat them as an entity that is relevant to my own word. I personally think having a mental dialogue to your own creation is creepy, and I make in any way possible they aren't aware of my existence.
Kainat … welcome to the world of creeps! You are due for a wake-up call, we are ALL (and I am saying ALL - looking at you too) creepy on here. Just in different, varied ways!!! 
Me being a tulpamancer, I am keenly aware of how I relate to and interact with my characters. Even I, however, have no problem with a character getting insulted undeservingly. It's just a basic ability to differentiate between reality and fiction. A character has no more right to be treated fairly than a slice of bread has a right to not be eaten.
I had to google what "Tulapmancy" is and I was truly impressed by the very concept of it. I can indeed see that there is some cynical humor behind how society approach the term and concept, however I do believe that it is quite close to reality.
Was it in his "Metaphysics" that Descartes proposed that all ideas originate from the outside, that a human mind cannot create anything independent of external influence? I am myself a believe that ideas are independent and that they chose us, as opposed to us choosing, let alone developing, them. They modify us, we do not modify them. Our minds are too underdeveloped to understand the ideas in their complete form, our minds butcher them and absorb the small pieces that they can, reflecting them in different processes (speech, writing, physical creations).
As such, ideas, and characters being ideas, would be independent, not a reflection of us, rather we produce an imperfect, partial reflection of them. Like a tiny piece of glass that can only show your nose, the corner of your mouth, being too small to reflect your whole being.
I don't know. I have never read Descartes. You model of ideas being channeled instead of created by human minds might very well be valid for all I know. If so, than respecting the dignity of characters would be a valid principle. You certainly explained it well. Buuuuut, I am a results-oriented pragmatist. If characters are channeled and can be harmed by disrespect, I would expect to have seen some evidence of that happening by now. Until I find some, I think I will stick with my policy that fiction is fiction.
Yeah, though I'm not sure why. A handful of my characters are real ugly on the inside and refuse to change - I have no hesitations referring to them as the idiots / jerks they are in discussion. My main character is quite dopey and very sensitive, and while he really doesn't deserve it, I pick on him a lot outside of writing his story. I guess I just must be one of those people who is mean to her OCs. :<
oh yes, Jr is a fucking dumbass 
like its starting to show creators cant have fun without being judged in this day and age cause everyone has to be offended...
pretty soon having your characters do bad things will be considered manipulation which can also be abusive, to a being that doesn't exist in our plain of reality