OCs: drinnocentchild

drinnocentchild

OCs

Dec 06, 2009 14:20

"OC: Stands for Original Character, i.e. a character created by the author of the fan fiction, as opposed to one already existing in canon. "
Wapedia.-

"Often created by TARTlets, but found all over the internet, an Original Character is either one of two things:

A character in Fanfiction that is not part of canon
A character in original fiction

Although these can be well done, many damn nearly all About 99% of these fall into the Mary Sue trap. These characters are usually self inserts of the artist, always depicting themselves with Mary Sue qualities and having every male anime fag in the drawing fawning all over them. Scientists believe this is some form of compensating for their lack of a life IRL. "

Enciclopedia Dramatica.-

But really what it means to someone to have an OC? I can't speak for others, I can only talk about my own experience. In your begginings as an OC creator you can start with a shameless self-insert or pretending to play the rol of a canon character, and it would be the same as when you were a little child playing house, saving the world, or having any other kind of big adventure; such were my childhood fantasies -maybe yours too?, and I remember how much I loved to play bein the TMNT, and I was Donatello every single time (not because I chose too, he was and still is my favorite turtle, but I wanted to be Leonardo, but I couldn't have that character because it was destined to my big sister)

Then I got older and with time I learned a thing or two about people and the world we are living in, television wasn't the same, it never is - always changing for each generation, but it was still good, and reading books was another excellent option to uleash your imagination and let your creativity grow with you. Fantasy would get more detailed, it could have the brightness of your favorite fairy tales and romance novels, or the darkness and brutality of those action shows and horror some of us love so much.

But when it is that a real OC comes into the spotlight? For me it is when I find a hole, a certain feeling that someting is missing, when the que question of "What if?" comes into mind and the opportunity for adventure and having a good time appears infront of me. That is when the muses decide that they have had enough of their "beauty sleep", and the design of a new character can begin witch each of the basic pieces and options being chosen one by one. But what if my OC end ups being one of the -now days so hated- "Mary Sues"?

My character is a mary se, so what?, now what?.... erm... what?

I have only been accused of creating a mary sue once, it happened in a forum from Gaia Online and I was presenting my favorite OC for the Beyblade fandom, and a girl pointed out how much of a mary sue was my character for having such an exotic name as Pandora Lockheart, she didn't mind that my character was blond, tall, rich, talented and pretty, but she didn't liked the name Pandora.. that weirded me out, so I didn't now what to say to her and decided to forget about it. Such kind of incident has never been repeated after that.

But speaking properly about the mary sues, what are they? and why people hate them so much?, I know they are there and I have seen them, and some times they have made me laught and other times they have made me sick, such interesting creations they are! they are great character indeed, but I think that they can be tolerable ONLY in comedy. There are lots of pages describing what a mary sue, is and the name has even been used as an ofence for OCs and real life people; I really don't think people and ocs should be compared, because people is complicated and there is so much in life one can do if having the energy and motivation, but sticking to the reality of time and space, and I could think of an example of 3 or more persons I have met that are extra talented and are practicaly flawless,...but a mary sue, *sigh* well they seem to have more tricks than a magician on his hat, and most of the time they are even better than the Goddamn Batman even if they are suppouse to be normal people in a romance story. But what really would describe a Mary sue is, a character that gets to be too complicated in a story in a small among of time, shoving in the face of the audience how wonderful they are not giving the oportunity for character development or enjoy the discovery of diferent facets, being everywhere and by doing so taking the spotlight of the main/canon characters moving they aside to make of them secondary characters. As a resume, a childish fantasy with a bad written story.

But its my fantasy, my dream! should I let other people ruin it? or, should I ruin other's fantasies by telling them their character is a mary sue?... well, the real question should be: "Do you really mind that much that it would ruin your fun?". It hurts when somebody doesn't like what you do, or tell you you are doing something wrong; nobody is perfect, we need to learn to take critics, cherish the good constructive ones, and turn the destructive into something good by check over your work and try to understand the hidden message of that lousy comment, and when its your turn to do a critic be polite and respectful (remember that we are people, not animals; or should I point out that even animals know how to behave better than us?!)

OCs are a form of expresion, formed by creativity and imagination, and by the means of that it is ART fueled by desire; and for me... my little "Barbie dolls" that let me dream and play with my friends n_n.