fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3057 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3057 ⌋

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

01.

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02.

[Polandball]

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03.

[The X-Files]

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04.

[Nick Lea/Krycek]

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05.

[Plague Inc Evolved]

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06.

(Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

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07.

[Grimm]

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08.

[Discworld]

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09.

[Magi the labrynth of magic]

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10.

[The Clangers]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 052 secrets from Secret Submission Post #437.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think that often there's a bit of a blurred line between actual OOC and fanon. I would cite John Winchester as an example of that. Part of characterization in fandom is also consensus about how to view certain scenes and situations, and there's a lot of people feeding into each other (for example, in Attack on Titan there are two camps of Levi characterization - "Levi is a horrible abusive asshole" vs. "Levi is sassy, gruff, and misunderstood". imo #2 is a *bit* closer to canon, but people generally butcher his personality in a lot of creative ways.)

I think that identifying "true" ooc as opposed to not-fanon-consensus characterization can be tough.
In one of my fics, a pretty long WIP for FMA, I made a decision to take Alphonse Elric's characterization in a different direction. It was an AU on the end of the series, but I also tried to deal with some darker aspects, and most importantly - I didn't portray him as a sweet ball of sunshine, which is fandom consensus. (in this case, he has lost his memories, nobody will tell him the truth about what happened to him and his brother, and he feels very disconnected. I characterized him as becoming a bit obsessed with finding his brother, mistrustful of everybody, and insisting on doing everything himself. This is a very bare-bones description, though). I got people criticizing me for writing him OOC, and while I accept it to a certain extent, I will (and have) defend the characterization as believable for the character. Anyway, over time we see him grow up a bit and grow closer to his "natural" state of being.
It was very controversial for a while there, though, haha.

I do hate how nowadays it seems that ~everything~ is IC because ~that's just how I see the character, tee hee~.

On the opposite side, in another fic (Attack on Titan, this time) I had to write a situation where the relationship between two characters was almost reversed from how it was in canon (disenfranchised vs. enfranchised, experienced vs. newbie, 'monster' vs. 'hero', etc), and trying to write them while keeping them IC was incredibly challenging. It demanded a LOT of thought about 'core' characterization and relationship dynamics, and some very careful writing. In the end, though, readers said it worked - so I guess I can count that as a win.

It's been a long time since I read any FMA, but your portrayal of Al strikes me as a pretty good example of how to develop a character in an alternative universe. I'm thinking about how he behaved after the "Two Guardians" episode where that one suit of armor ("Barry the Chopper"?) suggested to him that he wasn't...well, him. And he became a little obsessed with his identity and whether there was an actual Alphonse inside that armor of his, and he lost his trust in Ed and eventually they had a fight? So I think Al is capable of being obsessive and mistrustful. The insistence on doing everything himself even sounds fairly Ed-like, actually.

I think that often the fandom will reduce a complex, multifaceted character to one note, one quirk, and ignore all the rest of their canon characterization, and when an author doesn't do that, they're told the character is OOC when they're really not.

I think that often the fandom will reduce a complex, multifaceted character to one note, one quirk, and ignore all the rest of their canon characterization, and when an author doesn't do that, they're told the character is OOC when they're really not.

Yeah, that's exactly it. Fanon characterization in a nutshell :|

Regarding Al - that's exactly what I was playing off of! Al has some darker moments, it's just that people don't often write his characterization in that direction. Al is mostly the kitten guy.
In this case, another element of his development was that after Ed vanished and everybody was sure Ed was dead and Al was sure he wasn't, Al wanted to keep Ed's memory alive. So some of what he did was to dress like Ed, and act in the way that he thought Ed would approve of - but he was basically emulating the version of Ed from newspapers and from people's stories. Very exaggerated and over-the-top. Then, when Ed actually did show up, Al was kind of shattered and confused and had to start figuring out how to be *himself* and not an Ed-knockoff.

I'd read the hell out of that.

Well, if you actually want to - the fic is Mirrorworld.

A few notes about it, though:
1. The fic is a post-2003 anime Ed/Alfons Heiderich pairing. The main plot is how Ed convinces Alfons that he truly is from another world, and Alfons starts getting into helping him open the Gate to go home. It basically ignores the movie and goes from there.
It's a romance, but there's a lot of plot, and later on a whole bunch of characters get characterization too. Most of the Al stuff is in his two interludes, and in the 3rd story arc (which is about 100k).

2. The fic literally gets better as it goes along. I began it years ago, and you can watch my writing develop chapter by chapter, haha.

3. It WILL be completed. There's only one chapter to go.

If you still want to read it, enjoy XD

[ SECRET POST #3057 ]

sorry for the tl;dr at this late hour

Re: sorry for the tl;dr at this late hour

Re: sorry for the tl;dr at this late hour

Re: sorry for the tl;dr at this late hour

Re: sorry for the tl;dr at this late hour