Source Material Inspirations - OG Cast vs OC Cast

So for most of fanfics, majority of fanfics are centered around characters from the original source material. However, for some setting, majority of fanfics are centered around original characters based on the setting(XCOM, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon), either bacause source material leads well to creating your own characters adventuring in setting or because source material isn't built around specific cast of characters and their journey. There are also settings that lead down to both in equal numbers(like yeah there are lot of Pokemon fics about characters from games, but also lot of "OC goes on journey in the canon setting" stories.)

I'm mostly curious if other people have thought on it and which one they prefer. I notice that lot of time when it comes to creating OCs in settings where most of fics are about canon characters, the authors often get pre-emptively defensive or self deprecating about it

Could it be because there’s still at least a slight stigma against OCs? I find that, very often in Internet discourse even today, OC is usually used as a negative term; Like a movie character being described as an ”OC in some fanfic” in a review is, from what I’ve seen, never used in a positive context. Like, even the term ”fanfic” is used in the negative very often.

Often, it feels like people correlate the term with ”Self-Insert” or ”Mary Sue” and therefore think it’s automatically bad. Which is probably why a lot of fanfic authors get defensive or self-deprecating: They probably want to deflect those kinds of accusations.

Sure, I guess I can understand why these stigmas get applied to fanfics and OCs in particular because it’s (at least precieved as) ”easy” to write and, above all else, easy to find, and since the ”90% of all works suck” rule seems to hold at least some water, that means that the ”bad stuff” is also easy to find. But it’s still an unfair position to hold.

Though I may just be spitballin’ here, I’ll still die on this hill: A bad work or character is not inherently worse just because it’s not ”official.”

As for the base question: For me, it depends on the execution and the franchise, though I suppose I do lean more towards canon characters being the focus of the stories.

To address your second paragraph first: I definitely started out with the OG Cast and setting, but including one OC who would solve everybody's problems only by being there and making them not be like that.

From talking with schoolmates at the time who didn't write fanfiction but did like talking about the fantasies they had after watching movies they liked...I figured this is a common story idea if you're between the ages of 7 and 12. It's even healthy to want the world you see and the people in it to be better; concepts of compromise or resignation in conflict resolution happen later. I would be very worried if somebody were that cynical at 12, especially if it was because they got bullied for their artistic expression.

Fortunately by 13 I was in a fandom in which they had deep-dive discussions about why OC's like mine get so much flack, instead of simply designating an acceptable target to dump on because they're bored and annoyed, and claiming that that's just the way the community is without thinking about why.

It can't be that it's "an author self-insert" because even when we write canon characters, we are putting our personal experiences in there.

It can't be that it's an unfamiliar character in fanfiction, because the source material had a victim-of-the-week and a villain-of-the-week every other episode who was a new character that would walk in among the OG cast and walk out at the end of the episode...so why aren't those characters getting as much reactionary hatred?

So in that fandom people took it as a challege to write OC's among the Canon Cast that would have the narrative framing to "legitimize" them...and, for me personally that was very educational. "But I can write anything I want to, forever" should coexist with "My character development could be more thoughtful and interesting."

I am dark academia trash right now. Sometimes I write that the canon characters graduate and get jobs, and then what? I will need to create OC's to employ them, to be co-workers, to meet them at social events and show that they've taken other life tracks as people and now have various different new friend groups.

And, because dark academia is an aesthetic of being in a situation (that involves a lot of various different works in its canon: The Secret History, Dead Poets Society, etcetera) I also completely understand taking the canon setting and dumping nothing but OC's in there.

I've also taken dark academia OG's and put them in an alternative universe in which they pilot giant mecha robots from a sci-fi dystopia, and aren't from a prestigious prep school in Vermont at all. Other times I give them couples' counselling and hanahaki.

Double-posting to hash out that...

Pseudo-Canonical Fic : majority of fanfics are centered around canon characters, and I would add in the canon setting

Elsewhere Fic : majority of fanfics are centered around original characters based on the setting

Intercontinuity Crossover or Transplanted Character Fic : OCs in settings where most of fics are about canon characters

That third one is a bit of a reach, because like I described above an OC amongst OG is not necessarily a Mary Sue, although I am a purist in the sense that I believe a Mary Sue must be an OC amongst OG to qualify as a Mary Sue or else it's only Sue-adjacent vibes. But I didn't want Mary Sue to be on that list, because I think that's a whole separate discussion — like whether or not Peggy Sue is Pseudocanonical. We're not talking about the Peggy Sue trope, we're talking about the Pseudocanonical trope and other tropes in its same mode. Therefore, the Sues would not feature in what we're talking about.

"Intercontinuity Crossover" is a bit of a reach because it sounds like an inter-media treaty: either the Author owns both, or the production company owns both, or one or both are public domain. In the context of this conversation, I will still count a 12-year-old's D.I.Y. Blorbo who is suspiciously similar to the creator on account of limited life experience leading to having the emotional range of a thimble and the global context awareness of a badly-educated 12-year-old...as its own intellectual property. For simplicity's sake let's say this OC can hold its own in narrative legitimacy, and so... does count in being part of an Intercontinuity Crossover and/or can be Transplanted to the realm of another intellectual property.

As for

Personally? I'm really into Film Fic right now...or should that be, Stageplay Fic... but I think I dabble in everything listed above, both as a reader and a writer. I was surprised to read on the page right now that people dislike Transplanted Character Fic but if that's associated with badly-executed isekai then maybe that's where the alleged dislike comes from.

I don't believe it's inherently bad, but I don't prefer it either. All of these depend on the execution: was the concept solid, and was it well-written? It's not use of the trope itself, it's the presentation.

Edit to Add: I think I mis-read Film Fic. Characters from A are actors putting on a play that is B, that's what I write: I write the rehearsals of the show they are putting on and that's the plot. I dislike rip-fic.

Edited by Saint-Starflicker on Jul 29th 2023 at 6:49:41 AM

I'm generally averse to OCs in a story, since when I want to read a fanfic of something I like, I want to read stories about the characters in the show and not some character made for a fanfic, especially if they're the main character of the fic. If there's going to be OCs in it, they shouldn't be the main focus. They can still be important, but they're not the main leads. The only other exceptions are children OCs of the main characters since I'm a sucker for those family-raising stories.