PJO & HP for Dummies

OOC

OOC means "out of character" and DAMN do people like to make characters OOC in Percy Jackson and Harry Potter fanfics. It's so annoying because the characters are so disgustingly unlike their canon selves. What's worse, is that when a female character is OOC, it's because the writer made them bitchy. Like wtf, it's always the female characters who become bitchy.

Writers who make characters OOC either over-exaggerate some personality traits a character has, or they make them ENTIRELY DIFFERENT.

So how do you make your characters in-character?

Well, to be honest, if you've read the books then you should already know what the character is like. It's more understandable if it was a minor character because minor characters don't show up as often, but major characters? You should probably know how to write them especially if they're the fucking narrators of their respective books (in this case, Percy and Harry). Like seriously guys, you've read about their thoughts, actions, and feelings in multiple books, you should be able to get them down decently enough without completely butchering their character.

But anyways, to keep your characters in-character, you need to actually get to know them. How do you do that?

The quickest way is to go and read their wiki articles. There's a description of the character's personality on there, so just read through that. There should also be a description about each of the character's relationships with other characters, so that should be useful if you want to know how they interact with people (their lovers, friends, family, enemies, etc).

That's the short way though. The long way, and what I believe is the more effective way, is to go back and read the books. Yes, I know, I know, that takes forever and shit, but you're probably gonna go back to the books anyways since you're gonna need it to help you write your scenes and shit.

Reading the books lets you to deeply analyze the character more then a wiki description allows you to do. You can read their thoughts and actions. Are they more polite towards certain characters? Maybe their attitudes changes, when does that happen and why? You can read their dialogues and maybe take note of how the speak—do they speak in a formal manner? Do they use slang?

Everything you need is in the books, but it's your job to analyze the characters enough to understand them.

This is really all I can tell you about how to keep the characters in-character.

Now I'm gonna start mentioning characters who people seem to butcher as an example of how NOT to write them.

I'll do Harry Potter characters first:

SEVERUS SNAPE

Before I start, lemme just barf cuz even his name disgusts me 🤮

Okay, now onto business.

Some delusional people... make Snape... good. 🤮 🤮 🤮 Like nice and shit, with the smiles and kind words and everything 🤮

Seriously guys, if Snape's "nice" in your fics then just label the entire story as an AU because this is not canon.

In these fics, Snape's terrible attitude was apparently just an "act". He was only pretending. He abused and traumatized a shit ton of students for the sake of his "act" because he didn't want the Dark Lord to think he's on the "good side". That's the excuse the writers give and I fucking hate it.

But IT GETS WORSE. Have you ever read a Potter Twin or Potter Sister fic? If the sister has red hair and looks like her mom, Snape is NICE to them just for those reasons. Sweetie, if you gotta make your OC look like their dead mom just so you can write about the nasty Potions Professor being "nice" to them, then there's already a bunch of issues for your fic. That's borderline pedophilia. Stop doing that shit.