Time for another segment of Interesting Bear Facts, the topic this time around will be the new OCs that I've either created or adopted from others. I won't go into full detail about each one, will probably save that for another journal series talking about the OCs. As most have seen, I've recently created some new OCs or have adopted them from people that didn't have much use for them anymore. When I first joined the fandom, I only had my fursona Beary and never did think about having others. As time went on, the idea of more OCs did come to mind but I wasn't serious about the idea as I often use characters of the artists for the commissions that I purchased. With the commissions, some were easy to get but for others, I had to find different ideas as the characters that I wanted commissions with were off limits or the artist doesn't do commissions that much limiting the availability of their characters. It was tough as I had these ideas with the characters that I admire but probably most likely see the time of day, or so I thought. This also ties in with a journal that I wrote about self-love and expectations.

With the friends that I've made in the fandom, I've noticed that a good majority of their OCs were inspired by characters that they like. The more I chatted with them, the more it got me thinking "I do like this character a lot, maybe I should make my own OC based on them". Working with a good friend of mine, we were able to make some OCs using a game that we play whenever I help them make OCs. It is fun as I can decide what traits I want to keep from the original while deciding what new features to include where the OC is still their own person. It's a nice way to honor the original source showing how much you admire the character and that you want to have your own version of said character. I do have a list of other characters inspo OCs that I do want to make in the future, currently figuring out who to work on first and how many characters to have as I don't want to overwhelm myself with too much.

With the adoption of OCs, I've seen this as a big trend in this fandom. It does work in two different ways, first, where the person makes the OC strictly for adoption, and second, they made this OC for themselves but no longer have a need for them. I never participated in these as I wouldn't know what to do with said characters who used to have a previous owner and I wouldn't know if changing their personalities would be okay. My thoughts on that recently changed after adopting a few OCs, what helped changed my mind was that these were characters that I liked a lot and would often enjoy seeing new artwork of them. Some of these designs were either filler for something else or the design was completely scrapped going for something new. Hearing about it, I decided to adopt the OCs and give them new homes with me and my other OCs. A nice way to show how much I respect the original creator of these characters is by giving them more time in the spotlight.

It is a lot juggling multiple OCs at once, I don't know how others manage. I'm still working on their personalities along with some lore of how Beary even met them in the first place. Hope you all enjoyed this segment of Interesting Bear Facts, if you ever decide to make a new OC or even adopt one you should definitely go for it. It will be like making your own big family of characters that you like.