Sep 2021
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soumhi
Sep '21

I'm curious to hear from different people-

  • Why do you have an OC?
  • What's good and bad about having OCs?
  • What do you think the difference is between a fandom participant's OC and a character in mass media?

Almost everyone I know personally who spends a lot of time on original characters has planned out really cool high-effort, longterm projects they barely work on. I've been reading online and it seems like some people relate to them as their kids or as coping strategies. Some people talk about having pretty overwhelming obsessions with their OCs in a way that seems kinda destructive.

There are some grey areas but in general, it seems like OCs can be put in any situation, whereas a character in a book, movie etc exists in a specific context. They're judged alongside other media of that type, and exist "in conversation" with the public and with other media of that kind. The creator seems to take on a lot more emotional risk- if people don't like an entire work depicting a story/world/characters you spent months or years working on and getting produced, that's a much more intense rejection. People who produce an album of music etc don't often say they did it to cope or to practice.

From an outside perspective, it seems like OCs do help people practice skills more, practice escapism, and connect to others online with similar interests, but so few people into them seem to ever do anything other than work on fandom or OC work. I know some do, it just doesn't seem like that many compared to how many plan to. What's going on with that?

As someone who isn't a part of this subculture, it's pretty hard to understand from the outside... I want to "get it". I understand there must be positive aspects.

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BLTX
Sep '21

I have plenty of original characters I REALLY like in my comic, so I think I can way in.

For one, they really can't be put in any situation. In fact, I personally created a set of VERY strict rules that the characters can't break. Whether it's because of their age, personality, age, or whatever. They also live in a backwards discriminatory dictatorship, so that also plays a factor.

For me, I think they may also act as a coping mechanism. The story, and characters are based off my middle school years. To keep it simple I won't go into too much detail here, but they we're THE worst three years of my life and rubbed off on me in a VERY negative way. The story, and the main character's personality are basically an exaggerated, darker, and yet more comedic version of me, and all that happened in that time.

If you're curious here's a link to the comic.

But that's my take on the whole thing. Plus, it's just nice having characters to call my own.

DelythThomasArt
Sep '21
1

The short answer is simply...For Fun.

Long answer is different for everyone but people like to create. OC's can just be a standalone character in someway like an imaginary friend. Or be any creative medium like film, music, animation, writing, comics ect.

The term itself being Original Character is mainly to stand for something made by yourself and imo totally Original from any other media as most I know refer to media based creations as fan characters like a Naruto fan made ninja character following that franchises world building and rules. While compared to an totally original character who is for a world you often construct and is essentially unique. Any author, film maker, game creator ect are using "ocs" if they are making something original and not associated with prior properties.

I made a lot of my characters and world because it was fun but also I wanted to see things that weren't avaliable in media of the time. Things like lgbtq+ was reaaaaallly scarce when I started my creations back in the 2000s and was something I wanted to see more of. There wasnt much in representation of Welsh folklore or culture either other than history books and some gift store mythology books, so that was another factor.

I had been lonely as a teen, art and writing had been an escape for me. I could create epics to entertain myself for 6hr car journeys and boring class lectures (back in a time mobiles only sent texts n calls and not everyone had the internet). I had to make my own entertainment, so naturally I made silly and fun things that grew with me as my interests developed and I wanted to be a writer and animator.

It feels good to have something you made that you can point to, that others can then enjoy and even participate in. A big draw here at Tapas is seeing all the different characters and stories people have created free of mass media control and pressures of Marketability. The sheer creativity is magical.

WoollyPAR
Sep '21

Honestly, I just do it cuz it's what I like doing. I don't make a lot of OCs, it's not like a religion or anything. When I have an idea for a character I like, I go "oh that's cool" and I develop it more. Sometimes they're OCs for my own stories and universes and sometimes they're OCs that I imagine in a story someone else made that I enjoy. I just love creating characters and thinking about their personalities, histories, preferences, etc. It's fun for me.

Can't think of all that many downsides lol, it's just a fun thing to do. You can make OCs for a story or just to enjoy for yourself. I guess maybe a downside would be making an OC when you could be doing literally anything else, but whether or not it's a waste of time is entirely up to you. Any other negatives I can think of are equally subjective

I don't think there is a difference between fandom OCs and characters in mass media. Any time someone makes their own character, that's an "OC", no way around it. You could say the difference lies in the fact that a fandom OC was made for a piece of media that wasn't made by the OC's creator, but I think that barely makes a difference. Either way, they both made a character. They both could've been inspired by the exact same things, they could both be equally guilty of being self-inserts or marry sues, they could both write stories for these characters. Any differences are arbitrary, a character is a character is a character, doesn't matter what context in which they were made.

NickRowler
Sep '21

Fandom OCs can be ways for fans to engage in media they love and be creative.

Personally, from my struggles with AU characters and trying to write a story about them like in my series Akatsuki Babies. I sort of ran into an issue where I wanted to develop that characters outside of the world and personalities set up in Naruto. I sort of felt I hit a brick wall and I sort of felt I wanted to create my own original stuff where I didn't have to worry about continuity. I do really love Baby Kisame as a character but I hate how he's tethered to another franchise. This also mean I am also not allowed to upload this series to webcomic sites due that I would lose ads on my original series.

migxmeg
Sep '21

It's really fun! My husband and I have OCs that are for a comic project that we are working on so I'm not sure if your questions apply as much. But I (the artist) do love to mess with them in AU's and draw them in random situations sometimes. It's entertaining. That's it.

People spend absolute gobs of their time and money on all kinds of entertainment. (The one I don't really understand is sports fans but yeah! You do you, sports lovers!) If it's bringing joy and not interfering with your life then of course it's worth it.

DiegoPalacios
Sep '21

I have OC's because i need characters for my comics and games :grin:.

If you make a story and you have one or more characters created by you, it means you have at least one OC. Personally, i don't share too much about OC's that haven't appeared on my projects yet.

Of course there are also the OC's created for fanworks. Personally i don't have those, but don't see anything wrong about the existence of these.

There's nothing bad about having original characters, but you can't monetize fanfics (unless you somehow get permission from the original creators)

thecrystalrook
Sep '21

An OC is no different than a...non-OC (?). Every character is an OC to someone, namely the person who created it. Goku is an OC to Toriyama, Donkey Kong an OC to Kevin Baylis.

The difference is you don't need licensing to produce and monetize your own characters - usually. Exceptions apply, Kevin Baylis doesn't own the rights to his rendition of Donkey Kong (Nintendo does).

Scarlet_Cryptid
Sep '21

I've never understood the appeal of fanfiction-- specifically writing stories about existing characters in mass media-- because I almost never relate to them. I struggle to think of any mass media character at the moment that feels like 'me'. That I 'get'.

I make OC's because, as harsh as it sounds, I don't care about existing characters the way I care about my own.

Now, I spent a long time dropping OCs of mine into existing fandoms (usually smaller, lesser-known fandoms because I'm somehow allergic to really big, popular things) because I liked the worlds that existed in mass media, but I had little to no emotional investment in the characters. So I'd do things like write stories about my own starship crew in Star Trek. I'd made mutant characters that ran around in the X-Men universe, but never interacted with the known, canon characters. And I LOVE RPGs, where the point of it is to make a character of your own that interacts with a setting. How would I handle this world, these rules?

But eventually, the fact that I could never publish any of this, never monetize it, the fact that it was never going to be fully 'mine' forced me to actually put my own characters in a world of my own making. I had to stop leaning on someone else's world if I ever wanted to get somewhere with my own.