Badfic - OOC
First of all - when did green eyes become unusual?
Ok. I was reading a fic and a couple of pages in, it slapped me with it's bad-fic-ness. Did I stop reading? No.
But it did get me thinking about what made this fic bad. Thanks to some wonderful writers, I have found the joy of crack fic and I have been known to read such prior squicks as mpreg and even the occasional het (gasp). With this fic, the main thing that kept pinging was that the main characters were totally OOC and there was no conflict or tension in either of them. If you switched out the names to Sam and Joe, the fic would have felt one dimensional. Even tooth-decaying fluff has recognizable characters with emotions and thought processes.
Then I started considering my complaint about OOC-ness. I have plenty of favorite fics where the characters end up OOC. But that is the trick - end up. There is a journey. There is something recognizable about them to begin with and there is at least a hint of what brought on the change. So by the end they don't feel OOC.
For example - Snape is never going to be a fluffy bunny (transfiguration aside). He is never going to do something nice, just because someone else asks him to. Not without seeing what is in it for him and not without grumbling.
Despite my love of Snarry, I don't see Harry just turning to Snape and seeing him as a nummy treat based on a comment from another character. With or without considering HBP, there is much these two need to overcome before they get groiny. Shoot, same goes for Draco. I could see hate!sex happening without much explanation, but not fluffy/lovey!sex.
Ok. I was reading a fic and a couple of pages in, it slapped me with it's bad-fic-ness. Did I stop reading? No.
But it did get me thinking about what made this fic bad. Thanks to some wonderful writers, I have found the joy of crack fic and I have been known to read such prior squicks as mpreg and even the occasional het (gasp). With this fic, the main thing that kept pinging was that the main characters were totally OOC and there was no conflict or tension in either of them. If you switched out the names to Sam and Joe, the fic would have felt one dimensional. Even tooth-decaying fluff has recognizable characters with emotions and thought processes.
Then I started considering my complaint about OOC-ness. I have plenty of favorite fics where the characters end up OOC. But that is the trick - end up. There is a journey. There is something recognizable about them to begin with and there is at least a hint of what brought on the change. So by the end they don't feel OOC.
For example - Snape is never going to be a fluffy bunny (transfiguration aside). He is never going to do something nice, just because someone else asks him to. Not without seeing what is in it for him and not without grumbling.
Despite my love of Snarry, I don't see Harry just turning to Snape and seeing him as a nummy treat based on a comment from another character. With or without considering HBP, there is much these two need to overcome before they get groiny. Shoot, same goes for Draco. I could see hate!sex happening without much explanation, but not fluffy/lovey!sex.