A/N: Something fun, check the genre.
Ruby refreshed the page then rolled onto her stomach with a groan and buried her face in her pillow. Blake, who was re-reading Ninjas of Love, looked up at the noise and raised a brow.
"Are you okay?" she asked to be polite. (She would later regret it.)
"No!" Ruby shot up and nearly slammed her head into the ceiling. "There's nothing new to read on fanfiction dot not!"
Was that really so? There were thousands of stories on the site, with hundreds of them updating on the hour. "What fandom?"
"Ninjas of Love," she motioned to the book in the other girl's hands.
Both brows raised at that. Ninjas of Love was the second most popular fandom on fanfiction dot not, owing in part to the lack of concrete ships in the canon of the series (in other words, a shipping free for all). But she couldn't find anything to read?
"Well," she slid a bookmark between the pages. "What sort of stories are you looking for?" Blake had a meticulously curated favorites list for the fandom and her Timblr was full of rec posts sorted by character, genre, and completion status.
"Ooh you read fanfic too?" Ruby's eyes lit up like sparklers. "That's so cool! Anyways, I've been really into OC fics lately and-" Blake couldn't stop the way her nose scrunched at the mention of original characters. "-Whaaaat's with that face? Do you not like OCs?"
"Er no, they're… fine," she forced the words out.
"Blake!" she slammed her hands on the bed and leaned forward. "Blake don't tell me you're one of those snobby people who hate OCs for no reason!"
"I'm not snobby," she huffed. "I just, have a more… mature taste that's all."
Ruby gaped at her. "You are!"
"No I'm not," she protested, maturely.
"Yes you are!"
"No, I'm not!"
"Well if you're not then you can tell me why you don't like OCs," she nearly fell off the bed but managed to right herself at the last second. "And don't just say they're all Mary Sues!"
Blake felt her first argument die on her tongue. "They're boring."
"Boring how?"
"Everything always works out for original characters. They never have to struggle or if they do, it's glossed over like the author's paying lip-service to having 'conflict' in their story," long repressed irritation bubbled up in her gut. "And they always steal the show- sometimes to the point where the main cast becomes useless or might as well be useless for all they do in comparison."
"You just described a Mary Sue!" Ruby protested. "And not every OC is like that!"
"Most of the ones I've seen are," Blake crossed her arms. "All of them, actually."
"Well you're not looking hard enough," she pulled out her Scroll and frantically button mashed to her faves list on fanfiction dot not. "There's a lot of really cool, creative OCs out there. How many OC fics have you honestly read or tried to read?"
She shifted uncomfortably. "… A few."
"Aha!" she leapt down from her bunk and threw herself onto Blake's. "Have you read 'Night Flowers'? It's about this girl who falls asleep in our world and wakes up in that one meadow where Yuki met Menma. Then, because no one knows who she is and how she knows so much about them, she joins them-"
Blake sighed. "See? That's exactly what I'm talking about! Why don't the main characters kill her on the spot or think she's a spy and capture her? Why do they just take her along with them?"
"There'd be no story if they just killed her!" she protested. "And besides, they're curious; who is she? Where did she come from? How does she know them? It's a mystery!"
She frowned. "Let me guess, this girl has some magical ability that even Yuki can't compare with? And someone important falls in love with her with little to no build-up?"
"No- well, yes, but!" she cut off her teammate before the other girl could complain more. "She doesn't get her power until the last part of the story and the author puts in hints about it so it's not completely random. A couple people have a crush on her, but it's because she's so caring and really listens to them, not just because."
"Okay so that's one story out of what, a couple thousand?" she countered. "And I already read the books, I don't want to rehash the same story with a few tiny little changes- which is what a lot of OC fanfics end up being."
"Well you're not all the way wrong, but there are lots of different types of original character stories," she scrolled down the page. "Some of them start out with the same plot as canon but after a few chapters they take a new turn, or they start out with a new world to begin with. Then there's some that explore canon events but from a completely new side- like this one!" She made her Scroll project the screen.
"Life was hard enough for Twila, but then she died and woke up as Akihito's spirit wolf and she knew that things were only going to get more difficult from there," Blake read.
"See? You could miss out on cool stories like this one if you turn your nose up at OC fics!" Ruby nearly bounced with glee. "Then there's others one like where the OC adopts Yuki or one of the side characters, or where the OC is a normal person who befriends one of the canon characters and helps out in an unexpected way."
She frowned and pulled out her own Scroll. While Ruby compiled a list she thought Blake might like, Blake looked through the most popular ones and couldn't help but to feel that her assertion was right; most of these had similar premises or, judging by the summary, were pure power fantasies for the author which she assumed weren't as fun to read as they were to write.
"I don't know Ruby," she said and picked up her beloved copy of Ninjas of Love.
"Try a couple chapters before you decide," the younger girl demanded cutely. "Who knows, you might love them!"
She doubted it, but nodded anyways. Never say never and all that.
-[-]-
Two weeks later, Team RWBY was gathered in the cafeteria alongside Team JNPR for a lively dinner- except for a certain cat faunus. While Blake was physically present (Yang had flicked a few kernels of corn into the other girl's hair just to make sure she wasn't a ghost) her mind and soul were firmly fixed on the six hundred thousand word fanfic in her hands.
Ruby snickered and swiped Blake's dessert, reassuring their friends that the quiet girl was perfectly alright and that no, they didn't need to taze her, Nora. She was just busy reading a good story.
(Later that night, Blake Belladonna assaulted her team leader, Ruby Rose, in an uncharacteristic fit of rage. Eyewitness accounts detailed how the faunus girl shrieked about "not updated in three years" and "cliffhangers! Three year old cliffhangers!" while her team leader screamed and laughed. No charges were pressed, though Blake was given two day's detention with Professor Goodwitch.)
A/N: We've all been there Blake. For more OC-centric in character discussions, check out my fanfic Popular! (I Wanna Be Popular!) where Penny and Ruby talk abuot what the most popular OC fanfics are on FFN.
Hope you have a nice day!