I just read a critique of My Roommate is a Vampire, and one of the commenters mentioned that they thought Octavia was out of character in the story.
Is that possible? Can Octavia be out of character? I mean, as long as it's consistent within the story?
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Well, it's canon that she plays bass/cello in Canterlot, and has done so at more than one fancy gig. So, she could be out of character relative to the show if she said something like "I'd rather eat my bowtie than be seen in the company of nobility" or something. I can't come up with much beyond that, though.
Of course, that's with your caveat in the last sentence. She could definitely be out of character relative to herself in the rest of the story; sounds like that's not what the critique was talking about, though.
Which story if I might ask?
2618210 Funny that you should jump in. I was referencing your review of My Roommate is a Vampire. Whoever had the last comment at the bottom said she was a bit OOC.
2618218 It was My Roommate is a Vampire. I was reading the review on Chris's One Man's Pony Ramblings blog, and one of the commenters said that they thought she was a little out of character in the story.
Was she neck deep in Vinyl poontang? No? Then she's out of character.
2618230 Vinyl Poontang is my new band name.
Just took a quick glance and saw it was written in first person from Octies perspective but looks like it mostly talks about Vinyl without really fleshing out Octavia herself, I think that might throw some people right off the bat. Admittedly I didn't read much further than the first couple parts but then neither will a lot of commentators I've found.
That's a bit of a tricky thing with characters that have little to no presence in canon, but who are adored in the fandom. Octavia Melody, as portrayed by fans, is a pony who is high-class, talented, and a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. Now, there can be variations of how much of a stick-in-the-mud she is or how much she's willing to come out of her shell for the sake of those she cares about *cough*Vinyl*cough*, but as long as you focus on those basic building blocks the fans made for her, you won't get that many complaints.
In canon, however, Octavia has one line in one movie. Oh, and a scene in the comics where she's arguing with her compatriot, Parish Nandermane. The point is that she's so ingrained in the fandom consciousness that people can measure how "in character" she is in any given portrayal. This fandom can be pretty strange sometimes.
Could also be the reader has a semi-to-specific mental picture of Octavia and expects the fan fiction they read to adhere to that with anything else being out of character.
2618233 And then you became world famous.
Anyways, I believe that you can't actually be out of character with a background character. But, to each his own.
Well... Octy is... weird in that story. She borrows elements from many characters. It's less characterization and more she becomes a bastardization of memes and a very basic fanon veneer. For what it's worth, she is consistant within the story... which is to say consistently written by a man whose aim is less story and more baysplosions and vampires are inherently sexy.
I'm surprised to find myself kind of -- kind of --sympathetic to the idea that background ponies can be OoC, actually. Yes, they don't have canonical characterizations, but their fandom characterizations often provide enough to work with that a deviation would be strange, or worse, if it didn't seem to improve on the fanon or be both a strong characterization and informed by whatever canon there is. On a related note, while I can't claim to care very much about this, some people could see it as a sort of "false advertising" or bait-and-switch to promise a beloved fanon character and deliver, essentially, an OC.
There's also the fact that fanon, even though it goes deeper than canon and in weird directions, still comes a lot from canon. Octavia is a classical musician who hangs out at swanky parties, wears a tie, and has a more upright posture than some houses I've been in. That's canon! The fanon goes farther than that, but it's of a piece. You don't have to say she's in a relationship with Vinyl, or a snob, but if you want a gray cellist mare who hates stuffy parties and only listens to alt-rock, why not just write an OC?
Still, people get really possessive of their ideas about background ponies. No one's gonna get hurt if you write Vinyl "wrong" by having her prefer phat beatz to dirty wubs, or whatever the kids are into these days. It's far more important to end up with a character worth reading about.
Plus, it can be a lot of fun to go in surprising directions with fanon. For example, Derpy in Harpflank and Sweets isn't quite like the usual characterization of her, but she's an interesting character and still fairly consistent with her canonical appearances. She's still informed by fanon, but that can be a basis for deconstruction or just alternate perspectives, too. (And of course H&S is mostly background ponies, but it's Derpy who seems the most out there.)
What's important, as with OCs, is whether the characterization stands on its own four hooves. I actually don't find the fanon around Octavia very interesting in and of itself, but there's enough there for a good author to make something interesting out of it -- and enough not there, since she has so little canon, for a pretty original characterization to still work if it's done well and consistently.
Sorry for the novella, and its low signal-to-noise ratio. Are you blogging more now that you're writing less, or is it just me?
2618932 I've been reading a lot more, both in terms of stories and other people's blogs, so that kind of prompts me to blog on my own. My blogging goes up and down here. I'll have months where I barely say anything, and then a two month spurt where I post something up every other day. It just really depends on how busy I am and how deep into MLP I'm feeling.