Fandoms and OC vs Canon

[Star Pupil]

So, lets talk about Fandom roleplays, or more specifically, original characters.

Over the past twelve years of belonging to roleplay communities, I've gathered that people much prefer canon characters opposed to OC's in their fandom roleplays. I could be wrong, but that is just my personal experience. Most people that I've come across refuse to play against another person's OC, which I can understand because a lot of people tend to use their OC's as their own personal self insert against a character they really like.

Now, I personally enjoy placing OC's in my fandom roleplays, however I have never paired them up against a canon character at the start. I much prefer interactions happening naturally, although I'm sure a few partners of mine have picked up my subconscious clues that I wanted a canon character to end up with my OC in a roleplay. I don't make them specifically for that purpose of course, but rather to further my own plot in the fandom universe, and to better connect with the story.

So, my question to this community is, how do you approach fandoms? Are OC's a turn off to you, or do you like them? Is their a specific way you implement them in your fandom roleplays?

Happy Thanksgiving by the way.

 

[Revelations]

I personally prefer to play oc vs oc in fandoms for a few reasons.

1) I just find it hard to get into an actual, established character. I like to make a character my own, playing an official character limits that.

2) Headcanon can be a pain in the ass to deal with. Everyone wants to see their favorite character in a certain light, and i've noticed that people can sometimes get a bit upset if you play their 'favorite' the wrong way.

3) I just feel oc vs oc works a lot more smooth and naturally, and allows for better interaction I guess. It'sa lot easier to work with the mindset of both characters being original or official and since I prefer making my own character, i'd like to see my partner be creative as well.

Of course, if I do a fandom based plot I really prefer to do an 'Inspired by' style RP than one that's 1:1 to the source material.

 

[Razgriz]

Fandoms can be hard to do, but it really depends what the involvement the players are going to have. Some, like the poster above me, do a story where they include elements of a fandom but don't necessarily play in that universe as a whole. Mine revolve more around 'What If' scenarios and a few extra twists thrown in for fun.

I think a healthy mix of OCs and canon will help all involved to enjoy the story, as they can add a layer of depth and enjoyment that puts a fresh spin on the overall plot itself. And so far, I have quite a few successful stories that I'm extremely happy to be a part of.

 

[MellowYellow]

I honestly don't see a point in doing a fandom RP if you're going to be using original characters. I mean you could just as easily do an original setting that riffs an established universe.

But for the whole canon/OC thing... I honestly never do it with strangers. It always comes across as unfair to me, where one person plays their personal pet Sue (and they usually are, let's be honest here) and expects the other to play their fictional crush. Essentially it smacks of 'I'll sit back and you do all the work, and meet all MY specifications.' I only go canon/OC if it's with a person I have RP'd a fair bit with, and have a good connection with.

 

[Star Pupil]

I personally prefer to play oc vs oc in fandoms for a few reasons.

1) I just find it hard to get into an actual, established character. I like to make a character my own, playing an official character limits that.

2) Headcanon can be a pain in the ass to deal with. Everyone wants to see their favorite character in a certain light, and i've noticed that people can sometimes get a bit upset if you play their 'favorite' the wrong way.

3) I just feel oc vs oc works a lot more smooth and naturally, and allows for better interaction I guess. It'sa lot easier to work with the mindset of both characters being original or official and since I prefer making my own character, i'd like to see my partner be creative as well.

Of course, if I do a fandom based plot I really prefer to do an 'Inspired by' style RP than one that's 1:1 to the source material.

Head Canon is definitely one of the hardest parts of fandom roleplays, I feel. I won't play characters I have no interest in simply because I don't connect well with characters that I don't like. That is definitely a road to me not playing a canon character correctly. I am one of those people who are picky with how my favorite characters are played, so I know how annoying it can be for someone to do something out of character of that particular canon. I have had people want to play canon characters, but give them an entirely different personality which is a huge turn off.

So yeah, OCs are definitely easier, but for 90 percent of my fandom roleplays I prefer having canon characters because that's what got me into the story from the beginning.

Fandoms can be hard to do, but it really depends what the involvement the players are going to have. Some, like the poster above me, do a story where they include elements of a fandom but don't necessarily play in that universe as a whole. Mine revolve more around 'What If' scenarios and a few extra twists thrown in for fun.

I think a healthy mix of OCs and canon will help all involved to enjoy the story, as they can add a layer of depth and enjoyment that puts a fresh spin on the overall plot itself. And so far, I have quite a few successful stories that I'm extremely happy to be a part of.

This is why I like our Gurren Lagann roleplay. It's super hard for me to do things strictly with canon characters while making an entirely different plot to roleplay. Sometimes making new villains or protagonists just makes things so much smoother so I'm not racking my brain on how to bring back old villains to give the characters a goal to reach in the story.

I honestly don't see a point in doing a fandom RP if you're going to be using original characters. I mean you could just as easily do an original setting that riffs an established universe.

But for the whole canon/OC thing... I honestly never do it with strangers. It always comes across as unfair to me, where one person plays their personal pet Sue (and they usually are, let's be honest here) and expects the other to play their fictional crush. Essentially it smacks of 'I'll sit back and you do all the work, and meet all MY specifications.' I only go canon/OC if it's with a person I have RP'd a fair bit with, and have a good connection with.

You could do that, but why? Taking canon characters out of a plot and replacing them completely can be fun at times, but some stories need them. For example, you can take out all the characters in Digimon and replace them with new digidestined, that's not a huge deal(and I find most of the characters boring anyway). However, something like Legend of Zelda needs canon characters. Most don't fall in love with the universe of Legend of Zelda, they fall in love with the characters and the history of Hylia. It wouldn't be as fun to exclude them from your roleplay. Just because I want to add a new character, or several new characters doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to use canon.

However, I do agree that it is absolutely unfair to request your character to be paired with a canon, especially if you won't return the favor for the other person. I have made the later arrangement before, and sometimes it works, but other times, it's so incredibly boring, because obviously it is just their self insert.

If someone has a likeable OC, and the dynamic works well with the canon character, I don't mind having them end up together. That doesn't happen too often, I'll admit, but meh. It's worked incredibly well with a few partners I have, so I give people chances.

 

[Chai]

I almost never establish an OC x Canon pairing at the start of any roleplay. When I say almost never, I mean I've only done it twice in my 8 or 9 years of roleplaying. The reason I don't is for the exact reason you stated in your beginning post: people will expect you to play their fandom crush while they self-insert into their basic-ass OC. It's neither appealing or fun, and plenty of times it turns into you doing all the imaginative and creative work while your partner let's his/her OC get strung along by everything. Yuck, boring.

I do, however, love mixing lots OCs and canons into my fandom RPs and just letting the story progress naturally, and letting whatever relationships progress naturally. That way, both participants are actively making choices for both OCs and canon characters, and are also active in choosing the destinies for each character.

Also, LOL at people who demand their partners play a canon to their OC, but then refuse to also play a canon. That's just... selfish. :/ It makes it obvious that they don't really want a story, and more want someone to write out their wild sex fantasies as their fictional crush.

 

[Star Pupil]

That's exactly how I like to do fandom roleplays, Ari.

And yes, people who completely refuse to play Canon characters whilst still wanting to play against them are a tad ridiculous. I can't think of anyone who would actually want to do a fandom roleplay like that to be honest. That's a whole different level of selfish self insert bullshit that I would never want to deal with.

 

[Xanaphia]

I am really hesitant to play canon characters (think I have done it twice on here) but I don't often ask for it either. If i want self insert OC X my fictional crush, I am perfectly capable of writing it myself, thank you very much! Personally, I almost always prefer Oc x Oc in fandom rps. More fun to create something original in a structured world than to try and fit into someone else's head canon for a character.

 

[RedRose]

I will play a canon character if it's rich enough and I like it - or if I like it and my partner is fine with me developing it further. If I really love my character and the plot then I would be fine with my co-writer playing an OC. That said his OC would have to be very solid.

 

[Rudolph Quin]

Very rarely did I ever do fandom rps but when I would it was usually because I desired to play a canon character. I like self-insert type fantasies myself so co-writing a fanfiction where I get to play the interesting character and still see that sort of fantasy played out with them, satisfies by proxy. I guess it's just a no-brainer that a flimsy, "you do all the work for the story" type of character wouldn't be acceptable. I don't see how that is any more probable with fandom rps and OCs in them than with any other rp, honestly. I get that it might be the impression given that someone who only wants to play OCs to someone else's canon is lazy but it's not true. An original character and keeping them fully fledged and just as interesting as the canon we all know and love, is hard. If anything, canon is easy because you don't have to guess how they'd react, you don't have to develop a backstory, and all your motivations are already written out. As far as headcanon goes, that's based on individual interpretations. I'd only ever promise to play my interpretation unless there was something I liked about my partner's ideas. Other than that, there's not a whole lot you could argue about, having the canon right in front of you.

 

[HeyThereLittleBear]

I don't mind OCs in fandoms. I love to do fandom role-plays and I really don't mind playing canons or OCs.

I find myself not that interested in playing OC/OC as much as like OC/Canon.
For example, I love to role-play as Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter and my absolute favorite pairing is Draco/Ginny (I ship it soooo hard), but I'll do Draco/OC as well if the person has an interesting character. However, I can't guarantee I'd be all that interested in OC/OC.

For me, it's mostly that I like what the canon has to offer - they have a static part in the storyline that is already defined. For me, it's almost like a guarantee that the character is going to be interesting. Over the years that I have been role-playing I've seen a lot of really shitty OCs, some of mine even included in that. They're not always gold. They're usually Mary Sues. So, I understand why people would prefer a canon character over someone else's special snowflake OC.

But I'm still not completely against OCs. Sometimes I enjoy the world more than I do the characters themselves and would like to play with the plot line a bit more than what the canons can offer me without butchering everything, which is where OCs become very useful and even fun.

It's all about personal preferences.

 

[Mitsu]

What it all boils down to is the role-players ability to write. If someone can conceive and write a believable character, then what's the harm? It's the difference between Twilight and Harry Potter. Like any protagonists, Bella Swan and Harry Potter are at the middle of their stories. Everything that takes place is miraculously centered on them, because the story is about their amazing adventure. However one is typically hated, and the other praised. Anyone with any mind for characters will instantly know why.

In role-playing, we should strive to create Potters and not Swans. When we create Swans, we are throwing suspension of disbelief out the window, and expecting our partner(s) to just play along. From the outset we are molding a character who is fundamentally in conflict with everything we know about the fandom, and more and more concessions must be made to make that character fit. When this happens, the role-player is actively destroying what one loves about that fandom. Harry Potter is no longer the Gryfindor quidditch star, Bella Swan is. Ginny Weasley is no longer Harry Potter love interest, Bella Swan is. Ron Weasley is no longer Harry Potter's best friend, Bella Swan is.

You get the point. When you create a character like that, you are explicitly asking your partner(s) to accept those facts. This is why some people are very soured on the idea of original characters. Personally? I love them.

I like to explore a fandom from a perspective outside of what I experienced while initially enjoying it. Many fandoms have expansive and large worlds with happenings outside of what we witnessed while ingesting it through our eye-holes. Star Wars, for example, is an entire galaxy of conflict, mystery, and adventure. What would the life of a smuggler be like? What about an original story of a padawan trying to survive the purge? In many cases, some of these things are covered in the fandom. However, they have a story that has already been told. Han Solo was a smuggler who went on to help topple an empire. If I wanted to experience his story again, I'd watch the original trilogy. There are any number of stories about smugglers in Star Wars, but I don't want to explore those stories. I want to do something new, something that lets my imagination work it's magic within the confines of that universe.

I won't pretend that there isn't any satisfaction in making my own character, and then having them do cool things. I will never have the opportunity to actually make my own superhero in DC Comics. Through role-playing I can let loose these ideas that mold and form in my mind, as I flip through an issue of Batman. It is only here that I can have my very own DC Comics character, who lives and breathes in a world that has captured my imagination for two decades. In a way it is simple wish fulfillment, but I must be careful not to do it at the expense of the world I love-- nobody loves a self-insert mary-sue.

Unlike traditional storytelling, role-playing is a cooperative effort. Two or more people set upon the task of creating a story that is mutually enjoyable for all parties involved. Ideas and concepts are pulled and tugged on, and characters from the mind of another meet with my own. It's interactive in a way that video games strive to be. Role-playing is our virtual reality future in written form, and it's taking place right now. In a fandom role-play, I get to carve out a part of that universe with another person, while still maintaining the integrity of what I love. In some ways it's no different than a new writer introducing a new set of characters to the established mythos. Having the freedom and power to do that is undeniably fun. There is a reason so many aspiring writers want to work within Star Wars, or with various comic book publishers.

You get to add something to a thing you love. Role-playing original characters in fandom is adding something to the thing you love. We only need to be careful not to subtract. Granted, many people are very terrible at it.

There are plenty of people that prefer to completely shatter the lore of the series, and create characters that eclipse what has already been established. While this is not a terrible sin while writing on your own, one must realize that role-playing is not a solitary endeavor. A writer can shrug their shoulders, and tell someone to not read their work. A role-player is directly responsible for the enjoyment of one or many people. The things we write should not be written with the express purpose of only making ourselves happy. To do so, within the confines of role-playing, is selfish.

It is for this reason that many people view canon x oc pairings as dubious at best. Many of these people are not looking to explore or enjoy the fandom. They are looking to create a self-insert to satisfy their fantasies. They are not concerned with the fantasy of their partner(s), and will shatter the fandom to make their fantasy a reality. They are only interested in their character interacting, fucking, and being loved/hated by the characters they love the most on the page/screen. There is no similar reciprocation. The other person(s) are tasked with realizing this fantasy for that single person, who is playing their self-insert.

Is it wrong to be selfish? Yes and no. If there is no harm, then there is no foul. Some people are perfectly happy to indulge these people. I do not believe that every instance of this type of pairing is bad. All it takes is a self-aware individual with some creativity. Sadly, I don't think many people fall under that category. Fifteen years of this shit has told me that many role-players are about as creative as a beige wall. One should also consider characters that have no romantic interest in the official material.

I think that original characters in fandom make role-playing an entirely powerful and unique form of entertainment. For better or worse, it exemplifies the entire point of this medium. In role-playing, you can do anything.

 

[November]

I almost never establish an OC x Canon pairing at the start of any roleplay. When I say almost never, I mean I've only done it twice in my 8 or 9 years of roleplaying. The reason I don't is for the exact reason you stated in your beginning post: people will expect you to play their fandom crush while they self-insert into their basic-ass OC. It's neither appealing or fun, and plenty of times it turns into you doing all the imaginative and creative work while your partner let's his/her OC get strung along by everything. Yuck, boring.

I do, however, love mixing lots OCs and canons into my fandom RPs and just letting the story progress naturally, and letting whatever relationships progress naturally. That way, both participants are actively making choices for both OCs and canon characters, and are also active in choosing the destinies for each character.

Also, LOL at people who demand their partners play a canon to their OC, but then refuse to also play a canon. That's just... selfish. :/ It makes it obvious that they don't really want a story, and more want someone to write out their wild sex fantasies as their fictional crush.

all dis

also, a lot of this depends on your partner. like, no shit you should run screaming from somebody who has a million "notes" on how a canon has to be. or they have a lame ass basic OC. That's not inherent to that kind of character balance, that's just poor writing in general.

but like, lmao an RP is not real literature. you scribble it up in your downtime at work. you have hit some cool bits that are literary, but it's mainly corny wish fulfillment that your partner will flake on at any moment.

So given that, I will play with your corny wish fulfillment character if they entertain me as much as they entertain you. And if you want me to play as Severus Snape or whatever in the course of that... okay.

((PLEASE NO PMs, SNAPE IS A GREASY LIL BASTARD AND A BAD TEACHER THAT PROJECTS HIS GROSS HIGH SCHOOL ISSUES ONTO 14 YEAR OLD KIDS LIKE lmao please get over yourself for the sake of humanity okay thanks))

But that almost never happens. You know the problem with self-inserts is usually they don't exist to do shit besides be fawned over while the other writer does all the actual work, and no thanks.

 

[how_is_you]

If I may throw my hat into the ring here...

For me, personally, OCs depend on what universe I am looking for. If I am majorly craving, say, a roleplay set in the Fallout universe or the universe of another RPG, I always find an oc/oc character to be the best. 'Canons' in those worlds typically never interest me as much as the universes themselves. I find that I typically steer away from playing the Lone Wanderers, the Commander Shepards, and the Dragonborns of an RPG fandom universe. I have a lot more to work with to create an OC I find interesting to inhabit the mind and control the movements of with as much lore that is usually packed into every crevasse of a Bioware or Bethesda universe.

If I am wanting something in Mortal Kombat's or Street Fighter's world, I would typically prefer to have a canon somewhere in the pairing. I find it considerably more difficult to create a believable OC in a fighting game universe, which is where a good bit of my other fandom craves come from. I always judge my interest in a fighting game on the characters; if the characters aren't good, I won't enjoy the game, no matter how solid and fun the mechanics are. While this might be bad practice in regards to roleplay, even subconsciously I find myself doing this in the universe of a fighter; if I don't find the characters to be good, be they my own, canons, or my partner's OC or OCs, I am going to have difficulties getting into that roleplay. As of late, I have become a heck of a lot more lenient on the inclusion of an OC in general; a long while ago, I would only take RPs for Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat on the condition a canon female is used for my male self-insert. As I dig deeper and deeper into the lore, I find it easier to create OCs as I usually do with RPG universes, but there is still a large disparity between the amount of info sources I have available.

That's just my two cents. I dunno how sound that ended up appearing, but I wanted to get my thoughts out there.

 

[Chai]

all dis

also, a lot of this depends on your partner. like, no shit you should run screaming from somebody who has a million "notes" on how a canon has to be. or they have a lame ass basic OC. That's not inherent to that kind of character balance, that's just poor writing in general.

but like, lmao an RP is not real literature. you scribble it up in your downtime at work. you have hit some cool bits that are literary, but it's mainly corny wish fulfillment that your partner will flake on at any moment.

So given that, I will play with your corny wish fulfillment character if they entertain me as much as they entertain you. And if you want me to play as Severus Snape or whatever in the course of that... okay.

((PLEASE NO PMs, SNAPE IS A GREASY LIL BASTARD AND A BAD TEACHER THAT PROJECTS HIS GROSS HIGH SCHOOL ISSUES ONTO 14 YEAR OLD KIDS LIKE lmao please get over yourself for the sake of humanity okay thanks))

But that almost never happens. You know the problem with self-inserts is usually they don't exist to do shit besides be fawned over while the other writer does all the actual work, and no thanks.

Yeee, okay, agreed on everything.

Also, lol about the Snape part.

You hit exactly what I was thinking when I wrote that the person writing the canon character does all the work. I don't like that, often times if you're the one writing the canon character, you can tell that the person writing the OC just wants their character to be fawned over and be given the sex. Some corny "I see you, I fuck you" type shit, lmao. In my own experience, it's uncommon for people to request OC x Canon pairings and make a well-developed OC. But then again, my experience is limited to GaiaOnline when I was younger, and one other RP site besides Bluemoon. It's rather limited in that aspect, especially since I've tried my best to avoid OC x Canon pairings within recent years.

I can see a few fandoms in which I might want OC x Canon pairings, but these are also fandom universes in which completely original characters are just as, if not more, appealing as writing canon characters.

 

[Melevolence]

In the rare instances I actually do participate in fandom rps, I tend to want to play an OC of some kind. I feel playing a character from a franchise is restrictive and not that fun. I don't like playing a character with an already established personality and relationships. I don't mind playing opposite a character from said fandom. But me playing an OC is really the only way to get me to do them.

I roleplay to experience new things and build my own characters and worlds. I just don't find as much enjoyment in playing in pre-established worlds and lore and definitely don't like playing a pre-defined character who I may not even like to begin with.

 

[E_Nygma]

While new to this site, I have RP'd in this fashion for sixteen years. I have done canon and original, but the canon that I've done always comes with a caveat. I use established histories as a starting point, and then I make the characters my own, with a nod toward their history. My canon characters range from pretty spot on to divergences that I (obviously) feel are an acceptable growth of the character. This has caused disagreements in the past, as there are those that feel a canon character should only be done in a certain way. Sometimes, we can agree to disagree and still RP together. Sometimes we can't. When the latter happens, I hold no grudges; to each his or her own.

I have also written many original characters, and I find a Mary Sue is not fun to write. It's the flaws and weaknesses of a character that make it interesting and exciting to play, and that gives other writers an opportunity to leverage into exciting roleplay. For a totally new character, I can agonize for days or more to find the right references and examples to inspire the character. And I usually find out within three posts that the character is not at all what I thought they were. My characters take over and write themselves quite often, and I am left wondering where the ideas, the chemistry with other characters, and sometimes even the concept came from. And I love it!

Which is better? It depends. I believe that if I am sufficiently motivated, I can always come up with a decent original character. This doesn't mean my partners always like them, or that they are a good fit for the story, and when that happens, the character is put aside to be used later, either in full cloth or as fodder for other ideas. I have also found that, if there is a story that I like, I can take canon characters that I have no interest in and come up with a way to write them that I enjoy, and so far, my partners have as well.

I don't think there is a way to judge whether OCs are better than CCs, or vice-versa. It comes down to the writing styles and desires of the writers and the ability to learn how to compromise without losing interest. My only hard and fast rule is that I won't be pigeon-holed. You want me to write Riddler? Fine. I can do that. Riddler was a character that I had never dreamed of writing, that I had zero interest in writing, but a partner had an almost fetishized love of the character, so I took up the gauntlet. Five years later, Riddler is probably the character that I've written the most. And I enjoy writing him. Immensely. But, it isn't a canon Riddler anymore, if it ever was. It's my Riddler, and five years later, he's grown away from the "established" character in so very many ways.

But if you want me to write bronze-age Batman, I'll have some difficulties. Granted, this is the Batman I grew up on, along with the syndicated 1960's Batman television series, but Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman changed the world of comic books forever with "The Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns", respectively. Comics as a whole became far grittier after those anthologies, and for me, there's no going back. I can write Batman, but I have to be free to write the Batman I have come to know and love and to allow him more latitude in what constitutes not only interrogation, but training as well. (And, yes, that would be very relevant to a sexual roleplay.)

Words. I know how to use them. Sometimes, though, I don't know how to quit using them.

 

[Amaranthine]

I love both canon and original characters - when they're done right. What's been said before flies pretty true in my opinion - a lot of people want to use canon/oc pairings to throw a weakly thought out wish-fulfillment character up against their fictional crush. That's not a bad thing, but it's not to everyone's tastes.

I personally love to play canon/oc pairings - but I don't use my originals as self inserts, try to develop them as their own people who don't completely revolve around the goal of boinking their canon fave, and also offer the opportunity for my partner to play an original as well so that no one ends up feeling like they're dragging along in a story they have no real investment in. Solely playing a canon character for someone else's wish fulfillment is boring and frankly I lose interest in doing so pretty quick unless they have an awesome character that really seems to suit the story.

I also have to really, really like the canon material and feel like I have a solid grasp on the canon characters in order to feel comfortable writing with/as them, versus when I do oc/oc stuff (which I do enjoy) I can be a little less invested with the story as a whole and make the universe itself my (and my partner's) own.

 

[Aviatrix]

When I get into fandom RP's I usually prefer to go for something that is usually CanonxCanon or OCxOC. The draw towards the former for me is both the ship itself, but also the opportunity to look into an alternate universe of the series, for example using the Harry Potter theme that was mentioned earlier it could revolve around something like "What if Harry and Hermione were closer at the start of the story and developed feelings for each other as time went on." And then writing a story together accounting for those changed.

And the reason I enjoy OCxOC is that it let's both writers go on the wild side, exploring their imagination and coming up with adventures that can tie into the canon plot of the universe but not having themselves tied to that story. For example an RP of two young Purebloods in Harry Potter caught up in the war. Or two Muggle born students trying to hide and survive. Or any combination that is enjoyable for the writers.