What I find offensive isn't that some people dislike OCs. Some people do dislike OCs and that's a fact.
What I find offensive is that on the list of "standards" you have lumped OCs in with bad grammar and spelling, as if using OCs were the equivalent of TyPing liek Dis and a sign of poor writerly standards. The two matters really ought to be separated, because one of them is a matter of fact and the other a matter of taste.
If you can't spell and punctuate, you can't write, period.
The number of OCs that should appear in a story, however, is a matter of taste. In stories that centre upon the time period, exact location and subject matter of canon, then the number of OCs acceptable is a matter of taste. In stories which are set in a different time, a different place, or just told from a different point of view, OCs are a necessity. Some people aren't interested in stories like that but many people prefer to RP in settings of this nature so that they're not yoked to someone else's ending for their RP.
By equating OCs with SPAG errors as a question of writing standards, you're kind of saying that any fic that's not about people the original creator spent a lot of time on is the equivalent of an unbetaed, ungrammatical, misspelling-laden sugar high piece of shit on FFN.net, and that's not true.
Amy wasn't equating OC's with SpaG errors. Why would she do that? She writes many OC's herself.
She was lumping those things together to demonstrate an specific attitude held by some fandomers -- an attitude that she, herself, does not hold.
Sadly, there are my fandomers who do equate OC's with SpaG errors, probably because they spend too much time on FF.net. Amy is not one of those people.
I'm actually very pro-OC myself. I have friends who write OCs, I have written OCs, and I have a whole satire fic on how I feel OCs are stigmatized.
The poll was just that - a poll. I wanted to include people who may or may not have disagreed, because I respect that point of view. Just as I expect people who ships ships I really don't think are remotely plausible to deal with my opinion.
And by the way, there's people who feel watching for even the most minor of spelling errors and Americanisms is snobby. Everyone has different views on these things.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 07:30 pm (UTC)What I find offensive is that on the list of "standards" you have lumped OCs in with bad grammar and spelling, as if using OCs were the equivalent of TyPing liek Dis and a sign of poor writerly standards. The two matters really ought to be separated, because one of them is a matter of fact and the other a matter of taste.
If you can't spell and punctuate, you can't write, period.
The number of OCs that should appear in a story, however, is a matter of taste. In stories that centre upon the time period, exact location and subject matter of canon, then the number of OCs acceptable is a matter of taste. In stories which are set in a different time, a different place, or just told from a different point of view, OCs are a necessity. Some people aren't interested in stories like that but many people prefer to RP in settings of this nature so that they're not yoked to someone else's ending for their RP.
By equating OCs with SPAG errors as a question of writing standards, you're kind of saying that any fic that's not about people the original creator spent a lot of time on is the equivalent of an unbetaed, ungrammatical, misspelling-laden sugar high piece of shit on FFN.net, and that's not true.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 07:50 pm (UTC)She was lumping those things together to demonstrate an specific attitude held by some fandomers -- an attitude that she, herself, does not hold.
Sadly, there are my fandomers who do equate OC's with SpaG errors, probably because they spend too much time on FF.net. Amy is not one of those people.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 10:37 pm (UTC)I'm actually very pro-OC myself. I have friends who write OCs, I have written OCs, and I have a whole satire fic on how I feel OCs are stigmatized.
The poll was just that - a poll. I wanted to include people who may or may not have disagreed, because I respect that point of view. Just as I expect people who ships ships I really don't think are remotely plausible to deal with my opinion.
And by the way, there's people who feel watching for even the most minor of spelling errors and Americanisms is snobby. Everyone has different views on these things.