🔥 OCs
welcome to my tessa talk, @shchvnts
i love oc's but it is damn hard to get them off the ground sometimes. even more so, i feel, when your fc is a person of color (all of my fc's are asian, for context) and that is why i go extra hard for original characters of color because i feel like they tend to get overlooked a little bit.
i think part of it is also because there are more resources for white actors than there are for people of color. of course nowadays there's more than there was in 2012 but still, it's probably easier to find resources for f/lorence p/ugh than for k/im a/dis.
i wonder about why it's so hard to get oc's off the ground sometimes, aside from the aforementioned things above. is it because people have certain expectations deep down inside that they haven't really challenged and maybe said expectations bleed over into the characters they write? "oh, your muse is asian so they'll only be soft and sweet and gentle and demure and nothing else," because that's often how we're portrayed in the west and it's easier to project that image onto others. we're either mathematical nerds or geniuses or soft, sweet people in need of rescue from our respective cultures.
(also for context: a white muse, written by a presumably white mun, once unloaded on one of my characters with, i feel, the unspoken expectation that my character would just give that muse advice and make that muse feel better in character. she didn't, she got angry, cussed and cried.)
that's also why i wrote udyati the way i did: she's got dyscalculia so she's not a mathematical genius; she was never that good at school stuff and sure, she may be a sweetheart but she can very much hold her own in combat.
and maybe other people are like: "that's got nothing to do with it; your fc is not why your oc gets overlooked - if you feel like your oc gets overlooked, you should be better at putting your oc out there."
i get that, i do, believe me, but i also do think it's a factor. at least, subconsciously.
part of it, i think, is also learning how to grow thicker skin. because not everyone will like your oc and not everyone will follow back and not everyone will give you the respect you give them.
sometimes you just have to cut your losses and move on.
i've been here for more than twelve years now and i've arrived at the point where i rb what i like, when i like because it's about having fun, regardless whether someone follows me back or not. we're out here playing virtual barbies, after all. so at the end of the day, it's not that deep. but people do forget sometimes, i feel, that there is another person behind the screen who put in a lot of time and effort to craft an original character from the ground up, a person who didn't have canon - whether it's books or a tv show or a movie - to fall back on.
honestly, i'm so happy to have found a circle of great friends that i write and vibe with across the board, but i also know how hard it is not to get discouraged when you reblog memes and nothing gets sent in, or when you write starters and they go unanswered so that's why i try to at least send in a headcanon question whenever i can / whenever inspiration strikes because i don't want anyone to feel left out.
but i can't be the first one to reach out, and send asks and write starters all the time. sometimes you need to be the first. and i know that's scary. i know a lot of people have anxiety, but sometimes it is up to you to step out of your comfort zone and make the first step. you can't expect others to make the first step all the time. it doesn't work like that; this is a two way street and a collaborative hobby, after all.
anyway, all that aside, at this point, i prefer writing oc's and minor characters that may as well be oc's because some of the best dynamics i've been fortunate enough to write out with friends came from those matchups (jedibeth; khiren; pollou/polloucil; harry x udyati) and because writing out those dynamics have been so healing to me.
i've grown up barely seeing myself represented on screen or in the pages of a book. i've never seen anyone that looks like me be a main character or a proper love interest, so it's nice that i can do that now - even if it's years down the line.
also, if you write an oc: i love you and send them over to me so i can ask headcanon questions (which, yes, is my love language).
