[ SECRET POST #4591 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4591 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #657.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. https://i.imgur.com/I3Ten6r.png

[(Anonymous)]

I am confused by why you think you need OCs for that or that the majority of OCs are paired with someone because they are a self insert. Depending on how big your fandoms are, there is plenty of gen fic. I bet Star Trek and Star Wars has a bunch.

[type_wild]

Quick question: By "hate", do you mean "deafening silence"?

[(Anonymous)]

The reason that OC stuff gets a bad reputation is because a lot of it is uninteresting and repetitive. So I don't know if I really believe that people writing EU Star Wars or Trek material are going to be doing really interesting things in the setting. It'll probably be more like the Star Wars role playing game I played in high school where everyone played a badass renegade force user who was extreme and pushed the boundaries (or a similar level of quality with different anesthetic preferences). And there's nothing wrong with that but not interesting to read either.

[(Anonymous)]

+1. I would read interesting, well written OC fic in plenty of universes, but I rarely find stories that are actually good.

I think part of it is that writing OC's is a different skillset than established characters, and I'm not sure many fanfic writers realize that.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought it was more the reputation of OC fic as being an author's self insert shipped with canon character(s), so people dismiss OC fic unless fans start talking it up.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, you can't fault people for being uninterested. People often get into fandom for excitement about the characters, not just the settings. I agree original stuff can be awesome, but people then have to develop interest in your characters from scratch instead of following characters they are already invested in.

[(Anonymous)]

you can't fault people for being uninterested. People often get into fandom for excitement about the characters, not just the settings.

This is it exactly, for me. Objectively I know there is nothing at all wrong with OCs and their own stories set in a preexisting universe, and I would never suggest someone deserves to be ragged on for writing that. But. For me, love of the characters and their relationships and their experiences is why I'm in fandom in the first place. Cool world-building is nice, but it is 0% of what brings me to a fandom. So OCs and fics that focus on the adventures of OCs are basically completely antithetical to why I'm here.

And for someone who's here for the characters, OCs can feel...annoying? Like going to a concert for a musician you like and then some randoms get up on stage and start playing their set because hey why not? The stage is free until the band comes on at eight.

I'm not saying this is an apt analogy. It's just how OCs feel to me, not how they objectively are.

[(Anonymous)]

for some universes (not all, obviously) there is already sanctioned, published fanfiction that becomes part of the fandom EU or lore. most of it is not very good but Paramount wanted X number of Star Trek novels and farmed it out to known and semi-known authors and boom, there you go. Sure, there's probably fic that was written a lot better and much more faithful to the characters, but once burned by the sanctioned novels, I don't blame fans for not wanting to touch fic set in that universe but with zero established characters with a ten foot pole. Once bitten, twice shy.

on the other hand, you get what above anon was talking about: My D&D Characters From This Universe. It's never interesting characters, they always have to have some sort of twist, some natural Mary Sueing of their circumstance. I liken it to the dude who won't shut up about his D&D character. No, Randy, I don't need to hear about your half-elf half-dwarf chaotic neutral cleric, and in the same vein I don't need to hear about your Corellian Jedi who survived the purge, your Starfleet captain who allied with Q to fight the Borg, or your half-elven half-brother of Fingon who somehow traveled over the Blue Mountains in the First Age and lived among the Southrons for 5000 years until they came back to help Frodo with the Ring.

people never write about Joe Human who happens to live in the same universe as the canon and has adventures somehow not at all related to the main cast because it's too much work to make them interesting without a quirk or relationship to the main cast, plus there's a lot of "well if they live in this universe how is it they've never heard of Picard?" that you have to write around. I don't blame them for not even trying, the same as I don't blame readers for not wanting to risk the many pitfalls in the hopes that this fic isn't like the others.

[(Anonymous)]

You wish most OC fics were about "obscure branches". Instead we have tons of self inserts, long lost relatives or childhood friends, another survivor of x race and other awfulness.

[(Anonymous)]

Along with a lot of canon/oc shipping too, which doesn't really interest most people. Like, OC works don't necessarily mean non-shipping.

[(Anonymous)]

I would much rather read genfic starring canon characters than someone's OC. I presumably will already care about the canon characters and if I'm looking for fic, I'm not looking to get invested in someone's oc.

[tabaqui]

I love a well-writen OC. LOVE. But unless it's outside POV or some backstory, I'm not really gonna be all that interested in reading a story that totally ignores the canon character(s), especially the one(s) i love.

Put the OC in the story *with* the canon character(s), and have them do something AU and interesting that uses the world building. That's an excellent fic and one i'd read in a heartbeat.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

My most-kudosed fic on AO3 - by a long way - is exactly that: worldbuilding with an OC. So you're definitely not alone wanting to read this kind of thing. "Worldbuilding" and "Outsider POV" are tags you might like.

[cloudtrader]

Well, for Star Trek, at least, you can have that as officially published novels. I recommend the Starfleet Corps of Engineers series and the Star Trek New Frontier series.