original character

plural original characters

1. slanglifestyleA fictional character created by an author or artist, either for an original story or a preexisting canon.

   The genre of the Mary Sue similarly deals with subjectivity: in this often-derided genre, an impossibly beautiful original character, an avatar of the author herself, inserts herself into the narrative and saves the day.

   2014, Karen Hellekson, “Fan fiction”, in Marie-Laure Ryan, Lori Emerson, Benjamin J. Robertson, editors, The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media, The Johns Hopkins University Press, →ISBN, page 189

   2 more examples

   I currently have a document of My Little Pony story ideas that is, at the time of this writing, over 250 pages in length. It consists of over 400 premises for stories categorized with more than thirty-five different color-coded tags, a timelime of events spanning over 400,000 years and fourteen pages, over 49,000 words of headcanon, and forty-one original characters.

   2013, Peter Berg, "Hobbyhorsing", in Anne Jamison, Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World, BenBella Books (2013), unnumbered pages

   What must be remembered also is the K/Sers' penchant for "making do": when asked why they do not create original characters who could be women as well as men, they most often respond that they are just "working with what's out there."

   2014, Constance Penley, “Future Men”, in Karen Hellekson, Kristina Busse, editors, The Fan Fiction Studies Reader, University of Iowa Press, →ISBN, page 178

   Synonyms: OC

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see original, character.