I'm probably not typical - I'm usually not typical - but I've done this (depending on how you define "extremely") because I wanted to explore what would happen if a character's life had been different in a way that made them a different person. So I would use recognizable notes of the canon characterization mixed in with some major elements that were, by canon definition, really OOC. I've also started a story about characters I'd only seen in trailers whose personalities hadn't actually been revealed yet, and then kept the story going after getting Jossed, which I suppose counts as deliberately and completely OOC.
...is it fucking 2000 or whatever the fuck again? Jesus. WE MUST RETURN TO THE DAYS OF "IS SLASH DON'T LIKE DON'T READ!!!!11"!!!1".
I like writing universe swaps (like Humanstucks for Homestuck, or arcanaswaps for Persona series, or "what if Harry was actually raised by a decent fucking human being for like 10 years of his life?"), which by it's nature can be pretty OOC. Not out of intent, but because if you change enough elements of a character's backstories, they're going to look and act fairly different. There's still the core internal reasoning, but desires, needs, and worries can change at the drop of the hat (If Yukiko was raised in the city and her family only inherited the inn when she's in her teens, she no longer has as tight of a tie to the workers or the hometown. Does she still eventually decide she wants to continue the family business? Or does she consider the 'family business' something else and the inn a side venture? Or does this not matter, and she has no desire to remain in Inaba because this is not her home?) Also, I will admit a lot of my willingness and tolerance for OOC fanfic does come from responses to a friendship going really poorly in the past.
when 2 characters get together and other canon characters are watching them fool around and comment on it in any way other than 'oh my god why are you doing that where other people can see, please stop immediately'
I don't really mind that sort of thing but then I don't really view that as OOC, per se. But more taking a character and placing them in a different circumstance and trying to see what the result is. So game Yukiko and this au Yukiko are still both Yukiko on some fundamental level. However they aren't the same Yukikos. But they are still recognizably Yukiko for me. These Yukikos, when done well, are more like the various personalities of comic book characters in different runs or even continuities, basically. OOC Yukiko would be something else entirely for me. A horrible beast that bears no resemblance to Yukiko in any fashion.
This, so much, though I feel there are levels of OOC-ness as well. Kinda running the gamut from "okay, I get where you're coming from but I really can't see them doing this," to "this character feels completely wrong," to "I am 99% sure you just made up an OC and slapped a canon character's name on 'em." And of course, one must take the source work into account as well. Amethyst swearing profusely? Never gonna happen in canon, because SU is a kids' show, but I would argue that it would be pretty in-character for her to do so, especially in a different setting. Pearl swearing profusely, on the other hand, would have a far higher chance of coming across as OOC. (even if i do absolutely think she should say fuck.) With AUs, it's like...for all I thrive off of writing them, I'd argue they're a lot harder to do well than canon-setting fics. (Note: I am not claiming to do them well.) You have to look at the character and go, "okay, they're like this in canon because (X), but if this AU takes place in a setting where (X) couldn't/didn't/wouldn't happen, why would they be the way they are?" And they will inevitably vary at least slightly from their canon counterparts in full-fledged AU settings, simply because characters, like real people, are gonna be affected by their surroundings in some way. For instance: going back to my SU example, there's no exact real-world counterpart to Amethyst's experience in the Kindergarten (none that would result in a fairly functional and lively human being, anyway--completely feral children don't end up like Amethyst), so I tend to write her as coming from an abusive and neglectful home and having been adopted relatively late into her childhood by a loving family, which works out to an experience that is quite different from canon!Amethyst's, but a resultant character that is roughly as close as I can get. She's not going to be identical to canon!Amethyst, though, because their experiences are fundamentally different. I'm probably not making perfect sense here, but...yeah.
That is why I love AUs. But also why I'm picky about a lot of them. I have no idea if I myself do it well, though the few people I've shown the ones I do have liked them? Well the ones who are familiar with the source material. I've shown the fics to people who aren't and they've been like yeah that was nice but it just isn't the same if you have no fucking idea who these assholes are. I get to sit there and think about and find out how someone would end up differently in another life. Like canonically Tori is remarkably independent just because he fucking had to be. It was that or probably actually fucking die. In the Star Wars au though given that his family life was far, far, FAR better and he wasn't forced from day fucking one to survive an abusive hell home he's a bit stunted in that area comparatively. His exact reasons for hating his sister also vary, with Star Wars Tori being notably more envious than book Tori. Who is envious of Jame. Don't get me wrong. But a good bulk of his hate in the books is just having absorbed the bigotry from his father. It is an interesting exercise.
What I think is happening here is, one of the things that makes fiction work is giving the reader an understanding of the characters. So the experience for the reader if the author breaks or betrays that understanding is very different from if the author builds a new understanding by presenting the character with a different background or whatnot. Even though both are technically "OOC" in the sense of being importantly different from the canon characterization, they're going to cause very different reader reactions.
*sobs* person is back, asking me what I mean when I say none of the folks I know of do different xeno anatomy for these robots based on sex/gender. english is a second language and all that, and they were very polite about how they guess everyone has their own tastes, but this means now I need to write a reply about how Spoiler: vaguely nsfw more often I see fics where Optimus Prime is just rocking a valve, or where Megatron is just rocking a valve. There are SO FEW WOMEN in this franchise, and even fewer in the most emotionally-loaded parts (which is what I care about) that I can't remember a single time where I've seen someone specify that the ladies are the only ones with vaginas and the dudes are the only ones with dicks. It's more often I've seen people doing extra handwavium to get their robots extra erogenous bits, also regardless of gender. Robot assholes? We've got you covered! Want to build a clit stimulator into your dick to pleasure your partner even better? We can do that too!! Vibrating dicks? HA, I can vibrate mine in patterns. I've even seen some handwavium lately for robot boobs that I didn't hate (overflow fuel tanks), and those were done on, surprise, a guy robot! (it was a getaway+tentacles fic, for anyone who might be curious, ping me over in the robot thread if you're curious and I'll dig up the link) I just honest-to-god don't know how this person has spent much time in this fandom's porn and still come away not understanding so much of the basics. I literally don't know of any artists or writers who can get them what they're looking for. They're so uncomfortable with most of the major ships they can't even read stories about them, and they want a genital configuration so rare I haven't actually seen it in the wild. They've been unfailingly nice and polite, so I'm going to respond helpfully, but I just don't understand
My fan fiction gripe: somehow the more I'm on this forum, the more I want to read giant robot smut. Why. I don't even go there (maybe this is more of a Kintsugi gripe :b )
@spockandawe Re: Robot anatomy >_> Spoiler: more vague nsfw If you go back like, ten years? or more? there was a decent amount of girl robots = valves boy robots = spikes and like, Optimus/Elita vanilla het sex. Starscream would also frequently be 'secretly' a femme to give him a vag analogue. There are still some remnants floating around ff.net but I think most of it was hosted on geocities or similar and has since been lost to time. Your askbox fan might be a really old fan who was expecting the old fanfic tropes and is utterly baffled about where their preferred porn went.
It's surprisingly addictive. I'm even more into it than I was with homestuck. Probably part of it has to do with everyone being naked all the time (except when people decide to put their robots in lingerie, which is its own flavor of fun), extra-flexible anatomy, size differences galore, and whole new swathes of xeno opened up by whatever inventive thoughts you have about machinery and what these robot bodies can handle. I could write out a massive list of I-never-ever-expected-to-read-that-but-it-was-kind-of-super-hot. The long history of the fandom probably helps too, because people have had so long to play in it and push the boundaries of what's been done out further and further. The current author of one of the ongoing series has a novel-length fanfic he wrote when he was young that isn't smut, exactly, but revolves all around robot biological reproduction. This fandom has the most fun, inventive porny art/fic I've ever seen, hands down.
Ahhhhh, this makes sense!! Thank you! I've still been in the fandom less than two years and haven't done much delving into the distant past, and this is the kind of trend that seems like a relatively recent development, hahaha. The person's url has 1970 in it and they sure type like they're almost 50, so I'd definitely believe they're an old fan confused by the new status quo.
hey it's me again, here to be petty and uncharitable!! there are a few TF writers on ao3 who, as far as i can tell, EXCLUSIVELY write m/f. one of them is particularly baffling. think, like, extreme heteronormativity. super straight porn for super straight folks. once i tried to give a story of theirs a chance (it was.... i think cywhirlgate?? it was cygate+someone) and the amount of no-homo going on was just. staggering. tailgate was a girl, cyclonus was a guy, other person was also a guy, they were engaged in a threesome, and they were super careful not to let the dicks touch. it felt like reading the fanfic equivalent of a mainstream straight porn video. i can only imagine that on FF.N, where it is still common practice to mark m/m stories with 'WARNING: CONTAINS SLASH/YAOI!', this sort of thing is not unusual. maybe even the norm?? and that's the standard your fun person is probably used to.
also me again, being petty and rude, again, that is one sentence. also, it is in the transformers tag for some reason??
no i don't think this is the kind of story where dicks touch it is in fact m/f 'author/Yang Xiao Long', who i had to google, and whose name is followed by 'sexy' and 'hot' in the related searches. god bless
It's probably a crossover with the RWBY verse - Yang Xiao Long is a character there, and the setting has a moon that looks like it's broken into pieces.
