love ur lack of an ic/ooc divide

[rpanonyoda]

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Comments

ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

[(Anonymous)]

question of the day, oc anons! have you ever adapted an old fandom oc into one from your own original universe? I'm attempting this at the moment so I got curious as to other oc-makers' experiences. mostly I want to hear what difficulties you had extracting your character from the "source" material and how different they were (or not) post-adaption.

Re: ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

[(Anonymous)]

i have!

it wasn't too difficult, since a lot of their development happened after the transition

[(Anonymous)]

All the time! Or I'll adapt them to other fandoms as I see fit. I actually really like it, because it really makes you think about what are the key important parts of their character and how will you get a similar feel but in a different setting. It's also interesting to see the flip side, how the differences in settings will also change them in various ways. And I kind of like the differences that arise from different versions, because it lets you explore how different pressures and environments effect them.

One of my more interesting adaptions was taking a Tolkien based character and then importing him into Game of Thrones. So, originally, he had been a mongrel Easterling slave, who had escaped and killed his master in his late teens, and then became a mercenary, and eventual muscle for his crimelord(lady?) wife. So he's this vicious, brutal guy, who doesn't really have limits, but, he has a fuckton of loyalty to his wife, and their kidlets. Since, from his upbringing as a slave, he knows that people are just used, and you have to use them first, and any power you get, you have to TAKE. And knowing the world is like that, he just wants to carve out his own little piece and give his kids a step up in that brutal reality.

But then I popped him into a tabletop campaign that was game of thrones based, and just for gameplay, I needed to make him a noble. So, what I did, was made him a noble's son who was the son of a Summer Islander whore. Because, in his original version, he always felt like an outsider of sorts, being a slave, and being used when he was younger, and to give him that same feel, I made him both a bastard, and half-black in a continent of racist white people. And, his half-bro made his life HELL, thus giving my dude a rather jaded view of people. Thus, in line with his previous version, though perhaps not to the same level. But where it got interesting (imho) was the difference, namely with his father. So the original version never knew his parents and was thrust into this horrible world alone. the Got!version, has a father, who really does love him and eventually legitimizes him. And that, is so utterly vital to his development, and really does change him. Original version ONLY cares about his family, and the rest of the goddamn world can burn. The GoT!version has a similar underpinning, that those who are a part of you you defend and do what you need to do for them, but it extends from just his family, to his house, and by extension the region. And this was because the house was so important to his father, so it became important to him. And just having the influence of his father, just....gentled him a little. Original version I would firmly say is like, a minor, background villain. GoT!version is more like a (very) morally grey protag.

.....and I have babbled far too much about all of this, but I think it's a really interesting question and I love seeing different characters shift and change over time!

TL;DR: adapting OCs can make them diverge, but you have to find their underpinning characteristics.

Re: ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking as someone who primarily writes OCs, I've found that changing the universe matters less than changing (or keeping) their overall socioeconomic status and key life events as closely as possible.

I used to work really hard, when translating OCs into different 'AU's, to ensure that all those important elements stayed the same, and that effectively it was always the exact same individual just in a different outfit. But more and more, it's a lot of fun to change other significant details. How would a character you love in one iteration change if you dramatically altered their socioeconomic status? If they were drafted in a war? If they'd gotten some disfiguring condition?

It all amounts to playing out thought experiments along the nature vs. nurture debate. I think you'll find that exploring potential differences can be a lot of fun, and give you a better sense of your character's 'true nature', beyond all of the window-dressing of the world or universe.

If you're making your own original universe, I'd just advise that you take care to be thorough enough in your world-building that there never any unanswered questions or loose threads about how your character got to the point at which you're writing them.