Acronyms dictionary
OFC
or original female character
What does OFC mean?
OFC, short for Original Female Character, refers to a female character in a fanwork that doesn’t exist in the source material, and is instead invented by the creator of the fanwork.
Where does OFC come from?
Examples of OFC
“I once had a panel on OFC & Mary Sue, & spent half of it reassuring writers that their OFCs weren’t dreaded Mss”
Tish Wells @TishWells14 Twitter (March 23, 2017)
“And I loudly second the Mockingbird rec. The OFC is one of the best I've ever seen.”
liptonrm Livejournal (January 17, 2008)
“Better yet, you can use this graphic the next time you write your own original female character and wonder if she’s a cliché or not.”
Shawna Mlawski, “The Female Character Flowchart,” Overthinking It (October 11, 2010)
Who uses OFC?
This use of OFC is not to be confused with the use OFC as a texting and internet abbreviation of course.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of OFC like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of OFC that will help our users expand their word mastery.