[ SECRET POST #335 ]

[degrees.livejournal.com]

⌈ Secret Post #335 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

I'm not actually around, Semagic is doing the work for me, so you guys do the name that fandom! :D

Also... the amount of not posted secrets today worries me. Perhaps some of you could do with a refresher on the rules and regulations?

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 47 secrets from Secret Submission Post #048.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 ] broken link, [ 1 2 3 4 ] not!secrets, [ 1 2 ] not!fandom, [ 1 ] WTF?, [ 1 ] Teal Dear Rant Sans Secret But Amusing Enough To Make A Seperate Category For Because Of The Tattoo.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Friday, December 7th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

BK Anon here

[(Anonymous)]

:/ This is how things go in multifandom RPs usually. If you don't have a deep idea of the canon, you're usually labeled as a nitpicker for picking on characters you don't even know the canon for.

Re: BK Anon here

[(Anonymous)]

That would pretty much invalidate criticism from anyone who doesn't play from/watch/read the canon, though.

Re: BK Anon here

[(Anonymous)]

But sometimes, isn't it normal to get a gut instinct that so and so character shouldn't be inviting everyone to his/her bed, for example?

Well, that's a very loose example, but not knowing the canon instantly means you really have no say? What if 95% of the RP doesn't know the canon?

Different McAnon

[(Anonymous)]

That's pretty much exactly the point I was trying to make! It's a little unfair to be called out as a "nitpicker" or whatever if you're playing with someone from a canon you don't know much about (or have viewed in a different media, as tends to be the case with a series like Trinity Blood) and something just doesn't seem on, right?

Which brings me back to my original point; the OP thought the cast of that RP were OOC based on their perceptions of a canon they're at least somewhat familiar with. And I don't think that that person's concerns are any less valid for not having access to as much canon as those players have.

BK Anon

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed! That actually got me thinking, and this is not connected to the previous topic at all, if people were automatically called "nitpickers" for not having direct access to the canon etc., then that might giving a free pass to the characters from very obscure fandoms. Not saying that players of characters from obscure fandoms are automatically people who purposely pick obscure characters to avoid negative comments, of course.

RP is serious business...

Re: BK Anon

[(Anonymous)]

Heh, I totally see where you're coming from! I can see where someone would be a little more uneasy about questioning the play of someone from a way obscure canon, or a canon that isn't available to them -- if a player was inexperienced or just plain :( then it'd be way easy to lie about what kind of character they're really playing.

Old McAnon had a Farm...

[ruxi.livejournal.com]

...slight disagreement based on one particular issue: you can accuse character inconsistency, a lack of character voice or general self-contradiction without knowing the canon. OOCdom, though? Not really, I'd think.

Everyone can pick up on, say, if you have your char support an ideal today, its opposite tomorrow, and the convenient third alternative next week -- all with the same kind of sincere enthusiasm (so you don't even allow that they're hypocritical) This is when anyone with eyes to read can go, "LOL THAT IS INCONSISTENT."

Same, if you're going on the idea that there is no practical character development, you can throw a nice label of, "STAGNATION FTW."

But in the absence of knowledge of the exact canon of characters' provenance? I'd - personally - say that you can't claim OOCdom. There are a lot of other accusations you can bring forward based on actual play development, rather than canon interpretation... but yeah, I wouldn't, myself, say you can claim OOCdom.

Granted, I come from a background of some acquaintance with the players this secret concerned, so I'm not sure whether you'll want to take my argument into account. Nonetheless, putting it forward.

[sir-hellsing.livejournal.com]

I was going to say: "How do you know how they characters are supposed to be or act unless you know the characters? o.O" But I prefer to not say it in case it was "condescending."

There are plenty criticism to give and doesn't involve characterization at all (my English, being not native, isn't the best and I'm aware and I try to improve. Sure there's LOTS of grammar issues). Your basis is my own, Ruxi.

[(Anonymous)]

NICE JOB AT MISSING THE POINT THERE

[sir-hellsing.livejournal.com]

What point? They were accused of OOCness, not inconsistency and stagnation (at least IN the secret - what the OP explained is another matter. Anons said characterization which you can't know for a "gut feeling"). Those? Aren't quite the same.

[(Anonymous)]

I meant my point about being condescending, actually! But it was a potshot at sounding like the mature individual here, I can respect that too.

And it's a secret, I wouldn't expect the anon to go into super fine detail and thought about whether or not s/he cared about the characters' OOCness/stagnation/inconsistency/whether or not they dine at Arby's. I imagine s/he didn't one hundred percent expect some kind of, you know, well. Spanish Inquisition. I mean, you certainly don't see all the people gushing over that Trinity Blood cast's talent getting argued point for point at every turn -- what with all that undying adoration over there, I figure you needn't get all up in arms over a single person, or a scattering of people as it were, simply. Disagreeing with your depiction of the characters.

[sir-hellsing.livejournal.com]

Wasn't the secret condescending too?

With words like: "How can ic you can be if you've never read your own canon?"

By stating those words should have had like a background support. This is why I return it with: "How do you know how they characters are supposed to be or act unless you know the characters? o.O" or rather "how do you know if they are ic or ooc or if we read or not when your own reading is not that broad?"

Do you see?

I, in fact, thanked the person for bringing poings I HOPE I can improve. Such as put abone. However, I disagree with the criticizing without knowing canon as personal basis for my own critiques, not just this case. It's another topic completely.

BK Anon

[(Anonymous)]

Disregarding the characters featured in secret 36; lately, even if not everyone is in the Death Note fandom, for example (Death Note might be too big a fandom to use as an example), almost everyone has an idea what the characters in it are like, isn't it?

Would a passing knowledge, or second-hand knowledge of the character from supposedly more knowledgeable sources, be enough basis then to crit a character?

[sir-hellsing.livejournal.com]

It isn't enough in TB case because the characters are vastly different depending the source.

Novels present a darker side.

McAnon

[(Anonymous)]

Case and point re: being canon blind and still being able to spot inconsistency and stagnation versus OOCness! Technicality, but I agree, even beyond where this secret is concerned. In which case I'd say it's fortunate that the OP has a degree of canon familiarity.

[ruxi.livejournal.com]

No, definitely - one concern for me (and I realize this is going too far on a personal tangent) has always been the idea of making a character your own. There are a thousand and one ways to interpret given canon material, and let's face it - RPing, or writing fic? We work on estimations. No one will get a character as well as its creator. Hades, that's sometimes never accomplished even by the original creator in succession. I want a penny for every manner of inconsistent character development that I've found in graphic novels and general literature insofar.

Then I want a candy-house outta it. Make that, a neighbourhood.

This is something that people can and should spot - the fact that your handle of a char is forced, or that you're going in one thousand of directions at once, or that there just seems to be no feeling behind your character.

But again - I wouldn't think that's a question of OOCdom.

Different Anon!

[(Anonymous)]

I am a new anon! HI! Re: making a character your own.

There's a difference between character interpretation and steering completely away from canon. To use an example unrelated to this whole thing, let's take Goku from DBZ. You could argue and maybe it would be a valid interpretation to say that he's secretly emo over Picollo being Gohan's father figure. And maybe you could explain why and show canon instances or what not. But if you're RPing Goku crying his heart out to his closest friend, you're OOC regardless of the justifications. Because Goku doesn't do that in canon.

Re: Different Anon!

[ruxi.livejournal.com]

Hey ~ ! Anons seem to wish I STFUed already like me, or some such. *pettum!*

Yenno, I don't know DBZ - I do think maybe you could find an extraordinary circumstance and get the fellow to. Er. Cry. Maybe? But yeeeeeeah, for most of us, extraordinary circumstances =/= valid excuse of making a particularly OOC habit.

Making a character your own shouldn't be the same as making an OC out of them, coincidental name and physical appearance similarity excluded. I find that to be the most troublesome deal with AU fanfic, myself.

I know this is asking a bit too much - but would you mind logging in, or giving me something to call you by? There're a lot of anons here, and this is frankly a very fascinating discussion at least for me. Because I have no life. Woe.

BK Anon

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, coming in with my two cents a bit here. After reading the newcomer anon's comment concerning Goku up there, I think I'm seeing his/her point. In that, even as a good writer, while you can make Goku cry his heart out in a friend's shoulder (somebody could wish it to the Dragon Balls, for example? Just for fun?) and make it believable, no matter how WTF-like... it doesn't mean you should. It could alienate the other players?

Re: Old McAnon had a Farm...

[suzuran-lily.livejournal.com]

. . . I don't know! I think you can judge a lot just . . . based on vague or incomplete knowledge of a character. Like, if what you know about a certain character is that they're completely maidenly and chaste, and someone is RPing them as the village bike, without completely knowing the canon you can still sense something's off, y'know?

Just my two cents o/

[ruxi.livejournal.com]

Well, see, that's... debatable. Following on your example: you know a char is maidenly and chaste. Suppose they're only that way because they want to land a good marriage, and virginity's still prized in their home world - if they were to, say, get thrown into a place that they clearly can't escape, or somehow assured they could never get their marriage proposal anyway? Maybe they'd say, "fuck this, deprivation is pointless," and go ahead and be the.... village bike. *laughs*

Or maybe they're maidenly and chaste due to religious beliefs - but then suddenly something happens that convinces them that, 'lo and behold, their God? All too fake, religion is pointless, let's go completely against it because they're just that disappointed etc, etc, etc.

I think that if you're making an assessment on OOCness, you need the same amount of familiarity with the given canon as the person playing the particular character. Otherwise, you're prone to error based on "why/how/where/when" particulars.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree on the small font! It works with fanfics. Anything goes as long as the writer can work towards it/and or make it believable!

[ruxi.livejournal.com]

GO GO TEAM OPTIMISM. *__* b

[suzuran-lily.livejournal.com]

I think that a major part of . . . being the character is in their canon beliefs! In the situations you mentioned, if the character was that type of person to begin with, it probably would have been . . . specifically mentioned in the canon. Like, say, "Sally was so excited for her upcoming wedding and she wanted to be pure at the wedding" would suggest that Sally becoming the village bike wouldn't be IC for her, but "Sally wanted her wedding to be over and done with so she wouldn't have to worry about being a silly maiden anymore" would suggest it was?

That was tl;dr and kind of a tangent but I think my point is! A character basically has a ... sort of personality core, and once you get enough why/how/where/whens to change that core, you're playing a completely different character, so that's OOC, even if people only vaguely know the canon.

... I forget what I meant to say XD I guess maybe I don't think of even the most well-developed characters as being as realistic as a live person- a lot of them are at their base archetypes, and to have them straying too far from the archetype seems strange? But I'm rambling now.

[ruxi.livejournal.com]

Well, yes - but if you know how a specific character was in canon, then you... know the canon beyond a very loose familiarity with it? That's already fairer game, and a position you can assume to comment on OOCdom.

Naaaaaw, I think I see what you mean - the Nabokovian three obsessions, right? A character has to have three core reasons that apply in hierarchic succession to every damn one of his or her decisions? That's something I go by, myself, in char construction - but I know a lot of people disagree with the premise.