I mean, really minor, nigh insignificant. But that's what this thing is here for! Hooray!
It bothers me a bit when people start talking about "their OCs". Part of it is because most of the time they spell it OC's which is ABSOLUTELY FLAGRANTLY WRONG LEARN YOUR PLURALS AND POSSESSIVES FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE ALREADY—
*ahem*
...but mostly it's because of what the phrase stands for.
And I say it's minor because I understand where the phrase originated. If someone comes along and reads the little fanfiction you wrote and notices characters that aren't actually canon, you tell them that they're original characters, which makes sense. But my problem with the phrase is twofold.
First, talk about created people online generally devolves to "my OC", which means "my Original Character" which out of context makes no fracking sense at all. If it's in fanfiction, fine, I no longer care, but if it has nothing to do with any established work by another author which you are using, the 'original' part is already fracking implied. I mean, cripes, if you say simply "my character Joshua" I'll have a pretty good idea that you're talking about a character you made up for your own universe and not one for some other fiction which you just wanted to explore.
I don't refer to my own characters as OCs because ... well, because first I'm not an abbreviation whore, but mostly because doing so needlessly obfuscates the topic and immediately relegates said characters to the Bin of Probably A Mary Sue. On top of that, it indicates that this (or these) character(s) are the only ones in their universe at present and there is no one else on the fracking planet for them to talk to aside from faceless stereo- or archetypal cardboard cutouts. And at this point they might as well be your imaginary friend, because there ain't much else for them to do.
Which brings me roundabout to the thought that perhaps "main character" is a bit of a misnomer, but that's not something for now.
Second, reference to characters as "my OC" implies that you're filing that character in a massive category of like characters, and that implies further that:
- there are potentially thousands of characters just like yours, which to me is extremely disheartening;
- you really don't plan on doing anything with your character, which to me is completely unfair to the character.
With the former, the purpose in declaring you have "OCs" at all is a means of acceptance into a group of people who have the same, and the focus on the character is lost in favor of focus on you. With the latter, if you create a character and don't really have any idea where you might go with him or her, or what you might build around him or her—aside from the standard parent/relative/relationship/physical/psychological amazingness or trauma or other such paraphernalia that really ignores anything wonderful about the character's story—then wasn't creating the character a gigantic waste of time? Isn't saying "Oh yeah, that reminds me so much of my OC" and then leaving it alone apart from little doodles mostly pointless? Wasn't it all just another daydream?
Kei asked me a while back, after I expressed to her a deep-rooted dissatisfaction with the title of Invictus, what my purpose was in writing the short story. At the time I told her it was mostly to get it out of my head, which, since I had given the idea in the question very little thought, was not untrue. But looking back, I remember spending several hours trying to figure out how to approach the work because all that I initially saw was a few sections of action inspired by a Saliva song.
The story itself had a good bit of action in it. But after I started writing it, it ceased being about the action so much as it was about Nicholas Flaherty and who he was and what drove him. Without that, it would have merely been another flashy script with little substance—and even then I still kinda feel it was a little on the shallow side. (Although that's probably because it takes me ages to develop anything, given my tendencies towards longer prose.) And so if she asked me now I'd probably answer that subconsciously I wanted to know more about who he was, and especially why I got the huge impression that he hated the one particular type of creature that showed up at the end, which he apparently tended to try to avoid at first.
(At the time of the RP which spawned him, Flaherty would have been much more likely to run down and attempt to kill a gaunt on sight, but Invictus was at a time close enough to his 'Imbuement' that he was still somewhat like his former police-detective self and was not so thoroughly possessed of the Templar psychosis that later seized hold of him, and so concepts like 'backup' and 'allies' registered a bit more clearly in his head than they later did.)
But the major point of this slight ramble is that any time a character is made in my mind, they still sit and linger to an extent if I don't do anything with them, but aside from that they fade away and no longer matter, and so I no longer really consider them characters as much as ideas. The ones that do stay and develop in my mind I begin to view as actual people who happen to be characters, and the label of "OC" seems to insult them to an extent. So I am left to wonder why a person would willingly debase their own work in that manner.
