All things SWTOR!
Writing the 'Naughtier Side' of Fanfiction
A (hopefully not silly) question for those who include smut in their stories: can smut ever be 'out of character' for a given protagonist?
I've seen a few things/memes cropping up on my dash on Tumblr over the last while - namely that once a reader feels the smut they are reading is OOC for a particular character they are invested in, they will lose interest.
How much of that is subjective though?
If in the game, or in any other media of course, you never see the character participate in saucier activities, how can you truly know what might be 'in character' for them? Do people just infer that aspect of their lives from the personality etc that you are exposed to in the game/media? And therefore, if the fic piece doesn't fit their own headcanon for what that person would be like in that situation, they would consider it wrong/OOC?
As I said, I hope this isn't a silly question, and I hope I've explained the question adequately! I would be interested to hear if anyone has any thoughts regarding the above.




I think it can be, depending on the character and how they've been established, especially if it's a multi-chapter fic. Though of course that is inferred from what we know of the character, and that inference doesn't always hold true with people IRL, so it really is all subjective, I suppose.
Like, using Kryn as an example (though I know she's an OC), given her particular background with slavery and her reaction to any sort of slave collar being around her ("holy shit GET IT AWAY FROM MEEEEEEEEE"), I think if I wrote some scene where she's in one and totally subservient and ... bowing and scraping or some such (you should see the face I'm making typing this), I'd expect someone to go "'scuse me, Dee, but are you really sure this is IC?" Because while some people do use things like that to cope with trauma - and I'm definitely not saying they're wrong! - it isn't what Kryn would do, if that makes sense, and I think I've established who she is enough that it would be recognized as being OOC.
For in game characters and one shots and things of that nature, I think that really becomes up to the writer and the reader to decide if they agree on the writer's interpretation. I've read a few where I'm like "no, I can no way at all picture this character acting like this" and so it just threw me right out of the smut and I didn't finish reading it, especially when it felt like it was playing into sexist tropes that just put me off the story. But those are cases where it's like "I didn't like it, so I'm going to set it aside," while other people thought it was great, and my opinion wouldn't necessarily have been constructive criticism so I kept it to myself.
Now, "I thought this felt OOC because of X, Y, Z when they behave like A, B, C" could be constructive criticism, but it's still up to the author to decide if they agree or not, and sometimes it feels like fanfic has boomeranged from "if you put it online, you tacitly agree to any criticism, constructive or not" (part of why I quit publishing fic for awhile, because um, no thanks?) to "you can't say anything you don't like about this at all because you're mean, don't like don't read go away" (which has its own set of problems when, say, a fandom has big big problems with othering and racism and such).
Thankyou for the detailed response! I do understand and indeed agree with your points.
I will freely admit that I was curious about this, having written some saucier stuff myself - I saw the stuff on Tumblr and thought, oh crap, I hope my stuff isn't OOC! But that's probably my paranoia talking. I should remember that there is an element of subjectivity to it all. But you do indeed need to have a thicker skin to post stuff online at times!
I think one offs, or smut for smut's sake, or if you only write smut ... those can be as in or out of character as you like. "Transformative" fan fiction means you can change whatever your horny little heart desires.
But like Dee said, if you've gotten vested in a character's longform story but somehow in bed in Chapter 23 they behave the exact opposite of how they have in the first 22 chapters, and you the author haven't paved the way for that, then it's going to create a disconnect with the reader and they may or may not bolt.
After 50 Shades (the movie) came out, a wild discussion erupted on a friend's FB page, not about the film, as we all agreed it was abuse and not BDSM in any way shape or form.
But the discussion veered into one about initiating and control and someone said "Hey, this is TMI and you're all gonna freak the fuck out, but I run a staff all day, I come home and cook and deal with kids and by the time sexy times come around, I don't want to do squat, so I am happy to be probably more submissive and less of an initiator than anyone would ever suspect."
Jaws dropped around the country on that one, I tell you. But I got her point. She provided a bridge between two disparate parts of her personality that no one would have made otherwise.
But you're also not going to please everyone, no matter what you do. I do wish they wouldn't be such jerks about it, even given how much passion goes into fandoms.
I also think as a culture we've completely lost any idea of how to disagree, or that "argument" means presenting opposing views, not hollering at people to hurt their feelings. Way too many people on the Internet are hurtful because they're just posturing to shore up their own insecurities. And as a result, way too many people are too sensitive and immediately equate disagreement with hate. A lot of fandoms are these weird, unpleasant echo chambers ATM and it's not great, smut or no smut.
Very well said, I quite agree. Thanks for answering!