I miss the days where I didn’t have to justify in allowing myself to make an OC. So much of my modern excuses childhood me did NOT care about.
“I don’t know enough about this source material”
Child me did not care. Child me saw something cool and ran with it.
“I don’t have a use for them right now.”
Child me did not care, some characters are like that. Child me had favorites and that’s normal. Child me would make whole warrior cats clan rosters and didn’t use the majority of them. They weren’t intended to be used and child me didn’t care, it was to fill out the ones I did have use for and pretend there’s a wider world going on like in the books.
And use is subjective here too. What is “using” an OC? Why must something have a use to be loved?
“I just made a new OC recently”
Child me would just make another. An idea was born from something exciting. There’s new possibilities now with another OC.
“I need to stop making new OCs I have so many characters already ”
Child me did it anyway. Some characters will collect dust and become an old part of you. Child me didn’t care. Child me was having fun. Child me didn’t have an audience they wanted to impress, but now I wonder why I must impress at all if it’s *my* OCs? Who cares? I’m showing my passion? Old OCs are still on the shelf or in a box, they didn’t go away.
“I need to make xyz, I don’t have art, OC doesn’t have -insert thing here-“
Child me had a pencil and paper and an overflowing folder full of something they found fun. We don’t need art. We don’t need an aesthetically coded profile. Just to do it. Child me did it badly, and most of the time it lived in their head, intangible, but there. And if it must be shared then it all begins with thoughts and words.
Adult me sees all of this and it’s still hard to allow myself to create for the fun of it. Holding myself to limitations that I made up, too worried that it’d be too much, that I’ll annoy people or not be interesting enough for them. Or I’m convinced I won’t come back to these OCs later despite proof that I have before. Afraid of overwhelming whatever person comes by and wants to RP with me. Barely anyone comes by. No one is there. Everything is dead. No one is looking. So why filter my fun through someone else? Though this is a harder thought to believe in when after years of being in this blog space I’ve come to believe and behave that to have a character for myself means someone else must be interested. To have muse I must ask someone else for a crumb of my OC.
Sure I still do creative stuff but why must I keep asking myself permission to make something new. It’s a silly self made prison…
gracieabrams
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