I really hate the "My OC, my rules" thing

Meta
Title:	I really hate the "My OC, my rules" thing
Creator:	Anonymous and responses
Date(s):	24th May 2022
Medium:	Tumblr
Fandom:	Original Characters, many
Topic:	Original Characters
External Links:
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I really hate the "My OC, my rules" thing was an anonymous submission to Tumblr blog Fandom Problems, expressing the sentiment that people with original characters (OCs) who did not treat their OCs well should "lose rights over them".

The submission was notable because it received significantly more responses and reactions than most other submissions to the blog did, largely because it breached containment and was being linked to and discussed on other social media platforms. Most submissions to the blog typically received between 300 - 3000 notes, while this post has received 160,000+ notes as of August 2024.

not submission. I really hate the "My OC, my rules" thing. Cause like, no? Just because they are your oc doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with them. If you want to make your oc suffer and not like them get help, you deserve to lose rights over them. Especially if you only do that stuff to purposely trigger people. Once you do that, your oc no longer belongs to you. they belong to the public who will take better care of them instead

Anonymous submission at Fandom Problems 

There have been 800+ replies and 82,000+ reblogs on the post, with a large amount of discussion about the post. In addition, many people were prompted to submit their own anonymous submissions to Fandom Problems asking questions of the anonymous user who submitted the ask.

Discussions

The vast majority of responses and discussions around the submission were in opposition to the anonymous submitter's perspective. Some responses were around the topic of some fans treating fictional characters as if they were like real people:

oh boy more "fictional characters are real people with real feelings"

look i'm a strong proponent of "tag your shit" so i don't care how many different ways you want to torture imaginary people, as long as you tag it appropriately, which most people already do. Most people aren't going out of their way to "purposely trigger people"

space-finally

ocs aren't real. do they know that. please tell me they know that.

pseudonymist

Damn, some people really need to take a few deep breaths and to determine the difference between reality and fiction.

stabbedinthenameofscience

Ok…let’s go over this again.

FICTIONAL characters are FICTIONAL. FICTIONAL means NOT REAL. These stories aren’t real and the characters aren’t real.

And if you don’t like something, scroll away and move on. Takes zero effort.

I swear, I sound like my parents, but some people need to get off the internet. 😮‍💨

cinnamonnt 

While some responses wondered whether the person who submitted the ask might be trolling the blog, others replied with their own examples of people making demands about how OCs and canon characters be "treated" in fanworks or other fan activities. Many of these included screenshots from Tumblr, AO3, and other platforms. This also led to further discussions about fan entitlement in fandom spaces:

This entire post reminds me of how I RP’d with someone and they got upset over how my OC wasn’t reacting to things the way they wanted him to, so when we agreed to end the RP she didn’t want to break our characters up and instead changed my OC’s name, gave him some highlights, and called him “hers.”

selahinstyles 

Oh man, I need to add to the collection about the time I had someone make a hate-poem blog and 36k of bashfic because I had two wlw use a man for conception purposes in my historical fiction.

athingofvikings 

I’m reminded of the time I got a message on fanfiction.net from some dude, demanding to know how I dared to write a Khan Noonien Singh/female OC fic series when he, random dude, ‘shipped Khan with… the USS Vengeance. Yes, the Dreadnought-class ship from “Star Trek Into Darkness”.

I responded with “What the actual fuck?” and then blocked him.

rebelle-capitan 

Others made fun of the ask in a variety of ways, including suggesting various ways their own original characters might be taken from them since there was no feasible way an OC could be "taken away" from the person who made it:

Y'all, just finished reading this: I think I've lost custody to all my OCs and about 50 braincells to go with it.

loaflovesreblogs 

I'm doing my part to raise awareness of fictional character abuse. (In the arms of an angel plays) Every year, hundreds of oc's are left institutionalized after being hit with the gayification ray...

ink-fueled-lantern 

Does the anon that wants to take away hurt characters intend to send me to fictional jail for my fictional crimes or something?

Time to get my fictional lawyer ready for my fictional lawsuit I guess.

loaflovesreblogs 

[somberbi]
You do not get to take someone else’s OCs for yourself just because you don’t like how their creator is treating them.

[averyopteryx]

# lost custody of my ocs in court

There were some posts which discussed perspectives that the anon might be coming from, even if they ultimately also did not agree with the anon:

I'm part of the self-shipping and comfort character community, and I think I may have some words to contribute to this discussion.

It's not uncommon to see self-shippers who are uncomfortable sharing their comfort characters with anybody else. Heck, I don't like sharing all the characters I ship with or seeing them written certain ways. But the key difference between entitlement and curating your online experience is understanding that what annoys or triggers you is not universal. Fiction impacts reality, and for some people it has a monumental connection to their world, but not all people are going to see a character the way you see them. I'd argue that's not only okay, but the nature of fiction itself. People get so much out of fiction, and it allows them to feel seen, understood, and represented in whatever way that means to them.

As for OCs, they're not unheard of in the self-shipping community, either. Some people create OCs specifically to ship with themselves. If someone makes an OC- and not some corporate organization who largely can't control fanart- they have the ability to set boundaries on what they're comfortable and not comfortable with, and deserve to have those boundaries respected.

It's a double-edged sword, really, but interacting with general fictional characters and OCs have one huge converging point- you can control what you see, especially on a platform like Tumblr. You can block tags, keep NSFW content from appearing, even softblock those who share a character you self-ship with if you're so inclined.

Don't harass, don't send hate asks, just softblock or ignore and move on. If fiction shares a deeply personal tie to you, that's amazing. But don't force others to shift their viewpoint because of your personal opinions.

friend-or-fo 

Further Discussions and Meta

• Chain of responses including examples of other similar behaviours referred to as the 'Online Entitlement collection' by as-thou-will, ^{Archived version}