OCs you will never use beyond personal enjoyment?

[DAYDREAMER]

Just a thing that I have been thinking about for a while. I have had this intense hobby, if you will. One that involves two OCs of mine. But context is needed.

I used to love playing Genshin Impact, and I especially loved the Fatui Harbingers, especially Il Dottore and Pantalone. Alas, soon I slowly stopped playing the game and following the lore. I still love some fanfiction of my ship to this day, but I needed something else. Something that aligned with my wishes. So I made my own characters loosely based on Dottore and Pantalone.

Harvey Burne is a chemist/engineer who adores science ever since he was a child in foster care. He was able to push through his depression and manage his unfulfilling job while studying to make it where he is now. Harvey is knowledgeable but egotistical, and he likes a few other things like puzzles, growing moss, and gear collecting. He is just mostly consumed in his job, leading him to often neglect his physical and mental health.

Robert Hilton is a financier who enjoys his wealthy life and is far from his past, homeless self. Despite having to abandon his twin brother, Robert was able to work his way up the corporate ladder and achieve his dreams. Robert is charismatic but manipulative, and does hobbies such as coin collecting, writing, and antiquing. Robert continues to work hard, wanting to gain more and more, leading him to overwork himself.

The two are forced to work together, leading to a slow burn, enemies to lovers situation. One that I to not have the ability to write.

Forgive my rather long post, I just wanted to share this. In summary, I made two OCs based on a ship I liked and I will never use them beyond roleplay, short stories, and daydreams. Have I answered over 250 character profile questions for these two character? Yes. Have I re-did their entire character profiles three times now? Yes. Have I answered a 250 plus character interview in character for each of them? Well, only for Harvey, but you get the point. I believe I made these characters two years ago, and my interest has not gone away. Faded, yes, but it still lingers.

This turned into a rant, I suppose. Let's get back on topic, do you have any OCs you have made that you are mostly just using for solely your own enjoyment?

 

[Naomasa298]

No. I don't create characters without a purpose.

 

[Madman Starryteller]

I have a lot of history and stuff to fill in in my universe. Therefore I enjoy creating random characters that can take up those spaces. I give them a short biography and history and a name, then let them loose on the timeline.

My only issue is that I don't have one common place where I stash these characters in my files. I have some on my phone, some on a computer, some on another computer, one on a Facebook post. Damn I have no order what so ever.

 

[Luxuria]

I have written fanfics and I only really make ocs, because they are needed. Some ocs have become original characters in their on original works. But I don’t create ocs with a need.

 

[Trish]

Hmmm... yes and also no? I don't do fanfics, never have, and I don't create characters with character sheets and questionnaires or anything. That's never been how I work. I imagine a character, and then all the other stuff populates in my head as needed. I will note it down in an extremely basic way on a character sheet in novels (for consistency as a back up), but characters appear as fully formed individuals in my mind.

Because of this, I create characters a LOT. Driving down the road, my gaze meets someone's in the next car over, and BAM, I have a whole personality for them and where they're going and whatever. Not everyone, not all the time, it's just a curiosity thing, and my brain builds a world for them. And then it goes away. I don't keep them around or fixate on them or anything. If I had two characters that I was that attached to, they would absolutely have their own stories and not just be for me.

 

[Stuart Dren]

Technically, if tabletop games count?

In the longest DnD game I played, I roleplayed as the only human. We used stones to track our characters' locations in combat. Mine was a white one with no particularly flat side. My overweight character had an uneven gait from being trampled by a horse. I appropriately nicknamed him Wobbly.

The other players were a mix of timid and trying to roleplay long awkward conversations and flirtations, so Wobbly ended up being a bit on the impulsive side. I'm not talking about disrupting a five-minute conversation. I'm talking about escaping the occasional twenty-to-thirty-minute detour where one player tries to persuade, then romance, then persuade again (and of course nervously laughing the whole time. Bless, they were wonderful people to game with though) one NPC who's just trying to feed us a freaking quest.

There were homebrew firearms, so he always shot first and asked Batman-style rapid interrogative questions shortly thereafter. That was sort of his collaborative contribution: he jumped to every conclusion, which let the other players be voices of reason.

He worked well in 5e combat because it encouraged employing the scenery to gain advantage or give someone else disadvantage. He flipped over a lot of tables, tried to leap on chandeliers, and grappled with the squishy ones. Lowest point of his career was shooting a child for just being the only person in a ghost town (it turned out to be a shapeshifter). Peak Wobbly form was using some item or other to make himself invulnerable long enough to survive being fired from a catapult. Walls be damned he got inside that fort.


The stuff of my daydreams will end up making it into stories one way or another, so I don't really count those.

The two are forced to work together, leading to a slow burn, enemies to lovers situation. One that I to not have the ability to write.

Well, you will one day if apparently not now. Though I can see with how much time you've spent on them it may be hard to feel like you're doing them justice.