Oskar Osäker Rambling · 3:36am May 13th, 2013
I get complimented every once in a while for managing to make an OC that is a believable person. The way most of them get worded makes me think that this was a noteworthy accomplishment. I didn't even know it was that hard to do to tell the truth.
When I think about it... I think the reason people get OCs wrong is because they tend to want their invented characters to be cool enough to stand beside the canon characters. What they forget is that the canon character's lives are not made up of crowning moments of awesome, they have a lot of character building drama and interactions with other characters too. In doing this this, amateur authors end up creating shallow characters whose only purpose is to do things the canon characters deem impossible. And when they do this they make to sure to make the canon characters amazed and astounded by the act, especially when doing so would be completely OOC (Not doing the canon characters justice is a pet peeve of mine). When they do this they are basically saying "Look at how awesome my OC is! He even got the hottest girl in the series to fall in love with him at a glance!111" which brings me to another problem, relationship building. The average fanfic author tend to have it so that not only will their character make the girls all hot and bothered on a glance, they will instantly be the best of friends with the canon characters, even the canon characters who stand to lose out because the girl they are interested in and would normally end up with in the storyline proper are now obsessed with the OC. The relationships themselves are about as shallow and empty as you would expect too, a lot of authors like to have it so the girl's world revolves around the OC and that his beliefs are now their beliefs, you never see the girl argue with the OC over differing beliefs and opinions, it'll just be constant support even when he starts committing acts that sound cool but would normally get you a prison sentence.
I don't force my OCs to do awesome things because they would be cool to read about. If I was the average author I would have had Oskar curb-stomp both the Mane Six and the Princesses, not only that but he still would have somehow still managed to be friends with the whole lot of them and anyone that hated Oskar would instantly be vilified, because obviously anyone who hated my OC is the bad guy since they hate him for no good reason, it's not like Oskar beat everyone up because he could right? -_-" *headshake* In this I consider myself a little above average, Oskar is friends with most of the Mane Six but he isn't truly their friend, after all a true friend wouldn't secretly be hoping for your untimely death every time something bad happens now would they? Not only that but Oskar is not some fearless automaton, he has fears, this is portrayed most clearly when he meets Celestia for the first time. Oskar fears not being in control and fears that which threatens that control. To be specific, Oskar fears the Princesses for their godly might and fears the Mane Six for the powerful magical artifacts they wield. It is this fear that drives and defines him, this fear also shows in other aspects of his actions. By now Oskar is very powerful, even by Blacklight standards yet he still goes out of his way to achieve his goals subtlety instead of just taking via brute force, why? While this is Oskar being smart by not drawing attention to his presence for as long as possible, he is also doing this out of fear. Fear that something out of the unknown may blindside him for his indiscretion. As you can plainly see, Oskar is a very fearful being (I'm practicing :P), probably make a good yellow Lantern... maybe, don't understand the mechanics behind the rings.
Well I can't think of anything more so my rambling time is over, got a pretty large post out of this. Hmmm... first time I've actually used the blog for something blog related.
Lots of good points and examples. Take a gandar people.
You have a little bit of a cheat to be fair… your OC is a ‘black light’ everyone who is a fan of prototype already knows what would probably happen if said black light OC ran into a manticore or other critter from MLP so you don’t have to waste time making you OC look awesome the very fact he would survive in prototype is enough, you can just focus on interactions and developing actual characters.
On another note my pet peeve is *Oh look that unknown thing has just ripped the head off a manticore ‘or similar’ let’s be friends with it.*
If I had a £1 for every time an OC meets a character form MLP by saving them from a manticore or pack of timber wolves I’d have a new computer. But saying that I’ve seen it done well and I’ve seen it done horribly.
And in regards to the glance = friendship… its MLP that’s kind of the point isn’t it? Unless the saving is there to counteract then mistaking the human ‘if it is one’ for another everfree forest monster that just wandered out. Or getting past the hinted racism or fact they thought a zebra was scary.
I’m curious though with what you mean by ‘not doing them justice’… if you mean they always seem to watch said OC in awe when they beat the crap out of a everfree critter or dragon at worse, well RD is the only one to go up against similar in the show ‘and I assume is the most athletic’ manticore and dragon respectively and both time’s got slapped away like a fly, But again that least to my pet peeve.
Main point is a lot of the times a human is the OC and when you take away all the toys and crap we are pretty weak ‘human in equestrian = superman for similar reason not included’ so have to reply on brains cruelty and a bit of crazy, so that’s kind of where the awe would come from, In my opinion anyway.
excuse my rant... I probably spent less time writing it too.
1074791 Just want to clearify but in the second paragraph I was talking about OCs and canon characters in general,not just MLP centric ones. I understand MLP is about making friends and love and tolerance, all that stuff. But it is a much more different story when the OC is an instant trusted best friend of say... Batman. That is just plain unrealistic, to be a friend of Batman you would have to basically go through hell and back to get him to trust you with everything.
When I mean doing the canon characters justice I mean not butchering their characters, figuratively speaking, for the sake of plot. I've grown to hate character bashing so much in the past few years, it's gotten to the point I'll just up and stop reading a story the very moment I come across character bashing.
Yes I realize that I sort have skipped the process of Oskar being seen as awesome by virtue of him being an Evolved from [PROTOTYPE2]. Everyone knows that when it comes down to sure brutality few surpass the viral abominations of Blacklight.
1075533
Ah well in that case that’s a pet peeve we share.
The one thing I hate more than that with Fan fiction especially is Flanderization. especially with
1075669 Ah Pinkie Pie... I really ought to write her more often, so silly yet surprisingly insightful. Wonderful little thing!
Yellow Lanterns run off other people's fear, that's why the rings seek out those capable of instilling great fear. A more accurate ring would be White, or the will to live. Only down side is while wearing the ring that's the only thing they can feel.
1340987 So Oskar would be stuck in constant "Must survive by any means necessary!" mode? That would be very bad for everyone...
1341421 More of a "any means necessary" so more of a business as usual, its just he won't fear anything, nor feel any regret for his actions, that and the White rings are semi-sentient and sometimes act on their own, sometimes against the wearer's wishes. Something else that is interesting is that White rings can temporarily turn other rings White.
1341475 So the white ring acts as a conscious depressant? Yeah definitely bad news for everyone.