So, OOCness...

[rainey_creek]

The other week I was reading a long fanfic, and it was one I'd periodically tried to read before but didn't immediately get pulled in. However, I'd seen enthusiastic recs for this story, and I kept coming back to it. And it focused on one of my favorite characters and had an interesting premise, so eventually I did read it. But the thing is, while it was interesting, I increasingly felt that the author had taken the characters' names, their physical appearance, some of their characteristics and the general setting, but put his/her own characters inside those skins. In the case of one character in particular, his background had been changed drastically, so it would make sense that he made different decisions, reacted differently than I thought the character should, and yet...

Does OCCness bother you in fanfic? At what point? Is it a deal-breaker? Where do you get your sense of what's in-character? Does it differ if you enter a fandom via the fic/show/movie/book/other? How?