You are correct. OC's don't suck, people just hate joy and whimsy. It drives me nuts!
Like yes, it's valid when people tag what is very obviously oc x character as reader x character.
I think that, along with people not understanding fandom etiquette, people just being miserable fucks and people thinking it's their way or the highway it has made the fanfic/fandom space not fun and quite toxic.
It makes me sad tbh. I remember being a teenager and fandom was so fun and full of whimsy and people who just wanted to share/talk about a media they loved.
Now it's just "if you don't notice every single microscopic detail you're a fake fan" or "if you don't write/draw/or post a certain way than you're either
A. a dumbass because if you've been in the fandom this long, why didn't you know that?
B. a dumbass because even though you've only seen the first four episodes, you're still expected to know inside jokes/details like people who have finished the media.
It's why I've made it a point to really only interact with fandom on Tumblr, and even THEN it's with maybe 10 people I'm friends with and 20 moots who have the same interest in a character I do.
Sometimes I'm genuinely shocked that fandom is still alive and well purely because people are so damn mean.
yeah, as someone who grew up reading on Fanfiction.net that doesn't allow second POV fics, i never really saw the issue with OCs because i spent most of my life and longer reading those rather than reader-inserts. like yeah i get it if it's very obviously an OC with a name and appearance and it's tagged as "Reader" then it's usually them wanting more attention or mistagged on accident, but all you have to say is remove the tag lmao. you can go through any "x reader" tag on here for whatever and i guarantee the top posts aren't fics at all, its people complaining about what the fics are or where to find them, or mad about how people write like omg no wonder no one wants to post LMAOOO. yeah, i don't get it, like sometimes i will read OC fics because people make the Readers in self-inserts genuinely aggravating