#if i wrote fic as fast as i produce this nonsense i'd be halfway through PBR by now.

[gerrydelano]

time for me to get sappy about OCs in fanworks! woo! was just going to lovepost about this nice trend but i accidentally wrote another meta.

CONTENTS (i should do this for all my long posts tbh)

01. OCs are good actually 02. examples of some of my favorite works that do this! (LOVEPOST) 03. a little about how i did it in both of my current fics 04. why i think some of us are scared to do this 05. why we should stop being scared

01. something that makes me really happy is disengaging from the idea that including OCs in your fanworks is “cringe” or something, like. yeah i have my own lines in terms of what’s comfortable to read when something is a major focus, but the basic practice of coloring in blank spaces with OCs is definitely something i think should be encouraged more overall? they can make something so much more organic and so much fuller, like...

people know people? people go to school and live in communities where they cross paths with neighbors and staff at stores they frequent and there will be waitresses they recognize and desk clerks at the dentist and the married couple walking their dog on the road you drive down every day to get to work like SO many people exist and occupy spaces in our lives and they change things? they influence things? we talk to them. we know their names! we don’t know their names, but we know their faces! we hear about them. they matter!

so i think including that element in fic actually makes it easier to get invested? which is why i do it in mine, i just want my writing to be as Natural as possible. focusing just solely on a main character cast has the potential to get very closed off and isolated and rigid. and depending on what you’re trying to accomplish of course it has its merits, make no mistake, i’ve done the same thing with that very intention, but! i have fun getting invested in other people’s OCs!

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02. some of my favorite works are full of this?

head in the lion’s mouth is literally a 16 chapter work in the POV of a character who only gets one mention in one statement in the background And Died. he’s been so thoroughly mapped out into a full presence and maybe might as well be an OC, even if all of those details are extrapolated from the very minor things we get from him in those mentions.

and part of what makes HLM so FULL and TANGIBLE is the presence and importance of the contortionist, of everyone danny knew in the troupe, because there are more people in the circus than just nikola! it gives depth to it and it’s SO EASY to care about it and want to know more!

tim and danny’s mother is also a really important feature here, like. building the characters’ families and backstories is SO useful and necessary so much of the time, don’t be afraid of getting invested! i would be one to talk if i said this wasn’t worth it. i want to KILL farah and the contortionist. make OCs people want to kill.

(small teaser plug: ren is planning an outsider POV companion to HLM after it’s finished. so literally, OCs talking about interacting with this pretty-much-an-OC. and the best part is that ALL OF YOU will want to read it because you got invested in the first guy! it’s!!!! there’s no reason NOT TO.)

road to damascus included PLENTY of OCs in the way of tim interacting with folks while performing Witness Duties and they gave depth to his experience there! hannah and juno in particular were such a big part of parascientific method, concessions and pendulum! not just for filler but to serve a narrative purpose that impacted tim’s whole journey! again, hannah was vaguely mentioned in canon but her personality and speech patterns and the way she interacted with tim was very original and very special! and i care her!

the OCs lent something important! to the work! i remember their names! and not JUST because ren lives with me, but because they’re memorable. mallory, ervina, mira, al (fucker), bella and her dads, william, lupita, they all DID something that mattered.

plague upon the house is from jane’s POV and maybe that’s easier to reconcile because she had one statement of her own but getting into the depth of her feelings and how she would handle different situations required a shitload of extrapolation, too, and a lot of original ideas to fill in her personality and thought process and how she solves problems and falls in love and! aaaah! SHE is CANON but in order to make certain things possible and engaging in another way you have to develop things in a Similar Way to an OC, so this is like, a facet of the general practice.

there is also a sequel, be bold, be bold (but not too bold), that features two AMAZING OCs. i’m DEEPLY invested in nora and cass and you will be, too, when you read! cuz you’re going to read this! this one has only just begun and is off to a STRONG start, specifically due to the involvement and influence of these OCs.

the long road down is an INCREDIBLE fic that would not be even REMOTELY as dynamic and transfixing were it not for the presence of ezra! that’s a whole OC! and they’re extremely fleshed out (haha flesh) and gives SO much depth to the story and also immense PLOT. there are a wealth of other PHENOMENAL OCs in this fic, too, beyond ezra that give it SO much extra, i love emerson SO much i literally cry. phyllis and richard are a Lot to cope with. everybody and their mother has their lukas and fairchild OCs, but morgan and leslie in particular are two of my favorites.

i’ve read some of the upcoming sequel already and it is FANTASTIC, much of it having to do with ezra! i’m invested in ezra! ezra is so fucking cool they’re all so cool read TLRD! (also the literal physical formatting used in this fic is one of the most engaging things i’ve ever seen it’s so worth the read please please please go look at this if you for whatever reason haven’t yet)

bailey school kids is in the POV of an OC who knows gerry and the outside view from THEM gives a lot of insight to how he’s perceived by other people as he is in canon! it’s a really interesting lens to view him from! of COURSE you care about kira and basil and mae and sweet clementine of COURSE you end up invested in them. i literally cried like a baby at this fucking fic! and a lot of it was because of kira’s narrative voice, the very unique and individual way they talk about gerry and the way it gave us a look at someone caring about him without condition! that’s something we always want for gerry, and we have to make up folks in order to get it.

a temporary fix is another Gerry Slice of Life piece that i literally am so invested in that i’m using the lore from it (with enthusiastic permission) to enrich my own work! i’ve mentioned portia in TSP, and she’s going to play an active role very soon! giving him a friend is important - we literally CAN’T write about things he does in between the events in canon without making people up to fill those gaps. without some invention there, he’s so alone! why would we want that! he HAD to KNOW PEOPLE at SOME POINT. he had to have crossed paths with people enough times to recognize who they were! this is one of those examples and it’s SO GOOD!

a better fate than wisdom doesn’t feature OCs as main characters or anything, but the few that are used are very memorable! emily carlisle colors in sasha’s childhood, which helped shape her life and growth! the kid in the bookstore who catches tim and sasha in the back room is HILARIOUS and memorable! tim’s family at his cousin’s wedding gives perspective into who he was surrounded by when he grew up, which tells us more about him and makes us feel more about him! all of it is worth it! all of it matters! 

the library of babel is a lovely agnes fic where she’s listening in on a conversation in a coffee shop, and that conversation between those OCs is the reason her thoughts go where they do, the connections she draws between herself and them, they have a presence and a purpose and even agnes has seen other people and listened to them talk and thinks about what they say not everything is so vacant and empty and limited, EVEN for her and how she was by all accounts completely alone all her life. much to think about! using OCs is the most effective way to give her a glimpse into the world outside of herself.

and on the flip side, there are so many other fics out there that use outside perspectives to look into canon characters/situations, like nor any more youth or age than there is now, and they’re so lovely to read! very endearing because you can achieve that sort of... distant fondness and curiosity and uncertainty about what’s really going on, that you might not always be able to achieve with a canon character who is already personally involved. it’s a really interesting perspective and tone to work with, i wish i could find more of that kind of story around.

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03. and you all know how much i do this in my own work

breathing like i never did was a really short example of OCs having a bearing on the story; georgie wouldn’t have had the same experience coming into the butch identity without meeting another butch, so of course i had to expand on that and make it believable that it would impact her? and so forth.

and two ships passing wouldn’t be even half of what it is without miriam, even just from the perspective of how enjoyable it is for me to write. knowing people care about her and wanted to learn more about her is such a good feeling! like, yes, she exists in canon technically but she’s like danny in that she only gets a few sentences devoted to her, she actually has less backstory afforded to her than he does. i built a lot of crap from the ground up to make her as multidimensional as possible and it’s a fun exercise! and it’s paying off! because it also shapes JON, and shaped gerry, and has an impact on Where the ENTIRE story ends up.

i worked backwards from what jon said about her and gave a Reason for it, and her feelings on it, and how she had been perceiving the situation the entire time - and how that doesn’t mean it aligns with the impact it had. that was my initial motivation in writing her and the further back i went, the more life she took on.

there are literally so many OCs in TSP that really shape what happens? leo and alma give shape to jon’s college experience, mickey is a major part of what happens to him the summer he hurts his knee. gerry is incredibly alone save for the presence of portia as a fixed point he can come and go from.

miriam had a husband, a child, a family once upon a time. to talk about HER life i need to talk about them! ruth and simmy and desmond and ira and the vanishing soldier are all important! you have to care about them to care about her to care about what her presence did to shape jon, it ALL trickles back TO the main characters but every piece is important and comes from a place of love and attention to detail. at least, that’s how i’ve been trying to operate.

i won’t describe all of it here too much when i could just say scene 3 in chapter 13 is one of my easier examples of how i worked this technique into a larger story.

(one fun detail i just want to say i was really excited about, though, was introducing simmy as just “simmy,” giving him shape, and THEN confirming that it’s a nickname based on his surname, which makes you go OH! SIMS!

it was a REALLY fun way of saying “here’s jon’s grandfather” without actually saying This Is Jon’s Grandfather In His Teen Years. more like “ah yes see this guy you now care about? surprise! he was pivotal all along.”

it’s SUCH a fun writing tactic and i was so happy to get to use it, like. there’s LORE there that means something.)

pharos by right isn’t going to have as many new OCs that i’m aware of Yet, save one that actually is already alluded to in TSP (two, actually, one of whom will have an Extreme relevance), and other references to other GTCU recurring characters! leo, alma, portia, kira, miriam, MAYBE even mickey too! who knows! i like establishing things and reusing them, they definitely make it easier to get invested when you see them in more than one place over time. it’s a fun easter egg hunt.

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04. i think a lot of people are scared to put their OCs in things! i know i sometimes get nervous about it, too, like “oh no, is this weird? am i bogging the story down with something that doesn’t need to be there? no one gives a shit about this, they’re here for something else.”

like! would you believe it! REN WAS SCARED TO PUT THE CONTORTIONIST IN HLM... just! imagine what kind of story it’d be without her! you can’t, because it’d be vastly different, and nowhere near as engaging or painful because her presence there makes danny’s struggle that much more tangible and readable as something that anyone who has gone through relationship abuse can relate to. she’s a useful tool for that, and she’s not inherently out of place just because she’s not in the podcast herself; she is drawn up from the source material to shape her, and that’s enough for her to fit in!

even i see something tagged as like “(main character), (OC)” and more often than not just go “eh, maybe not” because i have that same misconception about whether or not i’ll get invested enough to care? and i wish i didn’t, i wish i knew where that idea came from, because! dude! some of my favorite things are built off the backs of OCs. my own fucking work relies HEAVILY on their inclusion!

part of why i wanted to talk about this in general (and honestly a lot of my “metas” aren’t directed at people to Teach Anything or sway them into a belief, most of the time i am just talking to myself and trying to get my thoughts in order and puzzle out why something makes me feel a certain way - in this case happy!) is because i’ve noticed a little influx of people feeling more comfortable doing more work with their OCs in their stuff! ren and i have both been told that seeing our nonsense makes people a little less afraid to put their OCs in their fics, and wow, they turn out so beautifully! and i love seeing them!

i think we should try to train ourselves out of being afraid of sprinkling OCs into things because we don’t want to be judged or we think it’s “cringe” like g-d i HATE that. yeah i might not read a self insert ship fic because that feels kind of funky to me a lot of the time but hey, if OP had a fun time writing it? that’s what matters and there Are people who are out there who like stuff like that because we all tend to projection in a different way.

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05. okay, getting to my point.

i mostly want to encourage people to spice up their stories with OCs and allow yourself to get attached to them and let them flourish and grow! the more depth your OCs have the more they’ll bring to your story, even if they’re only briefly in it; the more you know about them in your head, the better you’ll be able to render how they’d speak or behave, and therefore the more unique the interactions they’re involved in will be. and those interactions can change SO much! you can really surprise yourself mid-story and things can change and sometimes they end up in unexpected territory, and the finished product will just be that much more engaging!

TSP wasn’t intended to be this way! i always wanted to give nuance to miriam, but putting her first POV chapter in there was a complete whim. i was nervous! and then i realized she had a bigger part to play. and then i realized she’s just as much a main character in that story as jon and gerry are; to the point where i could have a four chapter stretch of just her interacting with gerry, no jon physically present, and STILL continue telling an important story. and apparently, people are invested in it! people have shed tears! the response has been SO overwhelmingly positive!

and she’s basically an OC.

so write OCs into your work! give other people’s OCs a chance!

let yourself create and have fun and see where it takes you! get invested and fall in love with them and let other people see the kind of things live in your heart and let them love it, too!

i think it’s worth trying to unlearn this fear and aversion. we owe it to ourselves to disengage from the things we may have picked up on from school experiences with bullying, being silenced by peers, being called annoying, being dismissed by our parents, having different interests from our siblings and maybe not being able to get them interested in your things, all of that.

all of those things do this to us and the result manifests in a lot of ways, and in THIS context, we have that on Top of whatever we’re seeing online about cringe culture and we just get embarrassed and retreat and assume and we shouldn’t.

who’s it hurting? no one. the most that’ll happen is someone chooses to scroll past, and that’s always going to happen to every piece of work put out there. everyone has their own taste and their own reasons for reading whatever they read, and that’s why i’ll reiterate also:

give other people’s OCs a chance, too! help other people to unlearn this fear, too. encourage other people and it’ll come back around. leave a comment and a compliment, pull inspiration from other creators, let them know!

there’s always gonna be stuff out there that isn’t quite for us, but you may be surprised! i will never NOT talk about my friends’ OCs and how much they’ve inspired and influenced me and my own work, too; it’s a big old feedback loop of creativity and that’s a really beautiful, communicative thing that makes me really, really happy.

don’t let a weird unconscious fear stop you from having fun and sharing things you care about! even if you think “fanfiction isn’t the place for OCs” or something, like no one will care, i promise: someone out there will.