Random OC I made for @axidentshappen’s OC workshop! Rolled 216 (depressed, human, formal attire) and decided to go with a supernatural military officer.
Still not sure of the name but I imagined a character with powers who was recruited by the government to deal with supernatural monsters in the country. He always ends up as the sole survivor in a team so the military always couples him with disposable (also supernatural) people when building a new team (?). Eventually he grows accustomed to never having friends because they all die by the time he builds a relationship. He has a fox familiar that helps him fight and is his only friend.
Then one day the military pairs him with a dude that can regenerate quickly so he can never die, yadda yadda they become friends, blah blah they make out, the end.
Thank you so much to the participants for joining in and making ocs! Below are pieces of fanart that I did for peeps.
@thealphabard
@miitten
@gargoylesister
@inali-of-winterfell
Thanks again, everyone!! If anyone wants to join in next month, shoot me a dm and I'll invite you to the monthly creative discord server (authors are more than welcome)
This was originally going to have a 3-paragraph-long opening on Sturgeon’s Law (believe me, it had the math and everything) but I thought I should cut on the fluffy shit and just cut to the chase with this one.
Tumblr Pandering? It’s bad. Don’t get it. Here are some very specific things no one likes.
Subject: Tumblr Pandering
Symptoms: Abuse of labels, sheer amount of uncommonly non-majority communities, sheer amounts of disrespect for the entire LGBT and mentally ill community
Treatment: Either make it useful or don’t mention it at all, do your research
Listen, before you accuse me of wanting to kill the jews or something like that, I do not mean that all of your characters have to rival Homestuck in whiteness. In fact, I do believe experimenting with different races and cultures is essential as a writer, and of course it is, since that means you’re willingly breaking out of your comfort zone for once, but there is some sort of specific symptom of Tumblr Syndrome and it’s this:
Every Character is LGBT, Every Character is Mentally ill, Every Character is Non-white. It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s just there.
You guys remember Humantale? Of course you don’t. Not even I remembered it before this. The brain is good at blocking traumatic memories.
Had your dose of that yet? Good. Because I need it as a point, regardless of what you think. This is against my best interests, but y’all will skin me if I don’t.
Do you know why nobody liked this? You can figure it out yourself, I’m sure (and no, it’s not because Sans literally looks like Tito from Rocket Power), but if you need the hint, it’s the headcanons. Nobody liked that shit. Like, no one. It was too much diversity, too much everyone being special, the sheer play-down of, y’know, transgender being a cutesy slap-on like a Hello Kitty Sticker on your daughter’s shitty scooter.
This is actually more of a writing fault, honestly. How to fix it?
Blueball your information. Is the character being gay, trans, etc. Important to the story? If yes, then use it. If not, then don’t straight-up mention it. It’s not a selling point for your characters at all (and personally, when people try to sell me franchises like ‘look, this show has X therefore it’s good’ I find it extremely patronizing) and it’s just background info that is not really that important. Mental illness? I see you. Research that shit. Borderline isn’t roses. Anxiety isn’t pretty. Autism isn’t trendy. Don’t be patronizing, sit the fuck down and look for the info you need. Ain’t nobody a jackass that don’t want to be. When you do that kind of stuff, you make them look like that’s the only thing they are.
Had Overwatch presented their cast like that, it would’ve been a completely different scenario. And also goddamn hilarious.
(UPDATE: Tumblr killed the quality. Here’s the full image.)
Bullet point list, for the lazy:
A general writing flaw; presenting your characters with only their labels and not having any deeper job put into it. For different cultures, here’s a resource on basically any culture you need. Wikipedia is also your friend.
Writing a Mentally ill Character just for the label. Here are some help sources for writing your characters (I, II, III, highly recommend the last one for practically anything else you need on the subject and more). Once again, wikipedia is your friend.
Avoiding, in general, “forceful diversity”. You can generally do whatever the hell you want in a fictional universe, but be aware of the demographic around it. 1000′s America wasn’t exactly filled with white people.
I’m generally just cutting this PSA here because although I wanted to do a whole job on Tumblr Syndrome (shitty vitiligo, heterochromia, character traits, etc), I felt like those weren’t exactly tumblr enough to be worth a mention and because if I put it all in one post people wouldn’t stick around for the important parts (the brain has a low attention span). Those will be covered later. Be patient.
