Here for the tea (rant book)

OC theft is not okay plus some other things

alright alright alright

over the past few years that I've been on this platform, there's been a fair share of how other's in the Riddle School community have used mine, my friends' OCs and so on

And boi it is not great

let me start with quick examples of peeps that have handled OCs well in my personal experience

OddlesOfNoodles

Unless you're new, ya'll now how tight Liv and I are certainly when it comes to writing and using each others OCs

We started crediting each other but it got to a point where we basically came to the agreement that we could use each other's OC and sorta forgot to credit, I know I credit vaguely but we probs should still do it even in 2020 lmao

Pinkninja0014

This is lowkey a similar situation but a little more mildly if u get what I mean, I helped with one of her early chapters and got credit for it, then she made an OC child of my OCs Eliza and Dan, and I borrowed her to use as the main character in AWNR and credited ofc (and for future use), plus a few other next-gen OCs

But both of these peeps know how to ask, and respect an OC that isn't their and I hope I've done their OCs justice in the past :D

The key things needed to use other peeps' OCs are(and in more or less this order):

Asking Permission

Crediting Correctly

Sticking to The OC's Roots

and let me explain those key things in case it isn't clear enough

Asking Permission

think of it like this

You ask your bf/gf/somepersonidk for their consent for sex, if they said no, would you go ahead anyway? Well if you did that would make you a rapist

its pretty much the same thing, if the OC owner tells you can't use their OC(s), then you can't, and if you do, you're an OC thief

You can't get anyway with a no response answer either

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY

Not asking at all is automatically OC theft

The short answer is if you don't get a yes from the creator that's OC theft

Crediting Correctly

After gaining permission to use the OC(s), you just credit them in your story, this can be done in different ways, in the description of the story, in the first/last chapter, in every chapter, or a mixture of all

and make sure you spell their name correctly, especially if you're tagging them for WP (despite their tagging system being broken)

for example:

"Stella Cats, Faith Sundae, Gabrial Eggtree and Biz (pink) belong to @pinkninja0014"

I can kinda understand getting the cap letters wrong, but completely misspelling the username is a no no (people spell Liv's name as OddlesofNoodles when it's OddlesOfNoodles sometimes but you still know who made it)

also, if there's an OC that the person u asked used and isn't theirs, go ask the original owner and once u get permission use THEIR NAME, not the first person you asked

(and i say this to the people that have use OCs and get asked about OCs we don't own, if they haven't seen your credit note, state to them you don't own the OC and give their contact)