Anyone Can Create an OC

As I’ve been exploring more of the Internet, I’ve been discovering a lot of the current culture veers toward group-think, being politically correct and reciprocal validation. People that run communities want their groups to be as large as possible, and that means being welcoming to as many people as they can. Everyone is valid, all opinions are accepted. No questions asked.

This unfortunately means that they have to also accept everyone’s eccentricities, and not everyone enjoys being in communities that may have questionable beliefs or behaviors... That will be seen by the curators of these communities as something to be praised instead of something to be handled.

It’s hard to walk in and give your feelings on something knowing that speaking up is a significantly worse offense than allowing bad behavior to continue. You have to endure the onslaught of those who seek to cancel you. It never ends.

I’ve debated deleting the blog, but I noticed that I was able to hide it, so I have done that.

If you’re wondering, I’m doing okay. I mentioned in my blog some time ago that at some point I would just stop, and I have.

For those that are still here, I hope you are doing well.

Naruto. Soul Eater. Pokemon. Death Note.

Mainstream anime, mostly.

Quoting Sturgeon’s Law:

“90% of everything is bad.”

Canon characters with what?

Popular media is no different than any other media we consume. It is more widespread.

Why... Not?

I don’t think we’re on the same page as to what an OC is.

OC’s are not “Unique Special Individuals” that always have whacky biographies and list like statistics. They aren’t always main characters! OC’s are literally any character you create for whatever reasons you may have!

You may create them for fandoms, your own stories, you may create them with absolutely no intent behind them at all! OC’s are characters you’ve made. That’s it!

No easy answer, and this blog is still up and has hundreds upon hundreds of posts all about how to do that!

Like my last post:

Tell us who they are.

Tell us what they do.

Tell us what they want.

That’s all you need.

To make it more interesting, tell us how these came to be.

Since every character in your own story is an OC, you will be surprised to know that the vast majority of characters do not pop out at all. If you create enemies for your heroes to fight, what if they are a bunch of nameless, forgettable goblins? Do they need to pop out? Do you have to spend time carefully cultivating a personality for each one? Do you have to come up with every painstaking detail for them?

OC’s are more than protagonists or deuteragonists. OC’s are every character in your stories.

If your character is for a fandom, then again, the answer is still no. Characters are malleable. You may want to leave them open for them to have change to grow into. In fact, that’s FAR more interesting than hooking them up with special features and powers! You don’t have to give them anything remotely interesting!

Give us who they are, what they do, and what they want to do.

Self-Inserts are not inherently bad due to the fact that Self-Inserts reference ourselves, and I like to think we are good characters. We’re the most real form of character I know!

But Self-Inserts are VERY DANGEROUS and open to so many problems! People tend to attach themselves to their characters and will defend them no matter how unappealing they are to others!

Now imagine that character BEING YOU!

Now YOU are unappealing! Now YOU are boring! Now YOU are unrealistic and impossible to relate to! Not a lot of people can handle this kind of scrutiny and so to this end, it is often best to avoid self-inserts.

I don’t want to make it very easy for someone else to find the creator and potentially give them grief. Most people wont’ bother if they have to go and look themselves, which is why I try to avoid anything that allows people to easily access the creator’s social websites.