Jacen's Rants

OCs Beyond Fanworks

May 6, 2025

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A friend recently shared a post discussing OCs. Related to it, I've always found the term "OC" to be a bit confusing outside the context of fanworks.

When I was younger, I wrote some fanfiction without truly understanding what fanfiction was. Once I gained access to the Internet, my world was opened to fanfiction written by others. A common term I learned was the "original character", or "OC". This specifically referred to non-canon characters created by the fanfic author to fit into the canon world.

Fast-forward a few years as I became more acclimated with the Internet. I continued to see the term "OC" used outside the fanfiction space. It always seemed a bit out of place and nonsensical to me to call these characters OCs.

An OC outside of a fanwork is just a character at that point. It could just be my personal bias, but the term "OC" feels somewhat amatuerish. Calling your character an OC feels like you're selling yourself short as a creator. The term "OC" doesn't convey the level of respect I feel you deserve as a designer.

Overall, while "OC" is a useful term to differentiate characters in the context of fanworks, it feels a bit pointless outside of that. All characters are, at their core, OCs, and there isn't much purpose in making that distinction just because you don't have a professional creative team behind you.