by definition of the in game story being what defines canon
I think this is were the disagreement is coming from. From a "what is canon" after the fact (post-hoc), yes, what has already been written is the canon. What hasn't been written is AU.
However, before the fact (ad-hoc), absent of any further clues, the exact same scenario is judged based on how well it potentially fits.
I'm not talking about whether the scenario (regardless of officiality) is defined as canon post-hoc. I'm talking about whether the scenario feels reasonable ad-hoc.
The mental state of the audience going from Belobog to Luofu is no less drastic of a shift than going from canon to AU fanfic. The only reason the later is rated as "actually AU" is purely due to a single variable: it isn't official.
What I'm trying to point out is that officiality shouldn't be used to judge whether the writing is in-character. If everything official is automatically IC, then that means no one can criticise the official writing for being out-of-character. This is patently false. The audience is capable of judging characterizations as OOC, even in the original work. This is because characterization is set up at the beginning of the story, and when the story (canon) fails to properly develop a character arc, the character (fictional construct) becomes OOC.
However, it seems like you are arguing that it is impossible for canon to write a character OOC because as long as it's canon, then it is by definition IC. I can only say that I disagree with that definition and that is not at all how IC vs OOC is judged. At least not in fandom (nor in lit crit) where bad canon is called out for character OOCness all the time.
that's the point at which people who don't like the direction the canon story is going is going to drop out of the game, and potentially the fandom.
Except for how that's not what happens at all. Extremely large chunks of fans stick to fandom by simply ignoring the canon they disagree with. This is the reason why canon deviation is a large fraction of fanfic. That doesn't make those AU fics OOC, it just makes the fic AU.
They're AU premises that are very popular with writers & readers, but no one claims it's not AU.
Again, I'm not talking about whether the story is AU. I'm talking about the false equivalence of canon with IC and AU with OOC. Just because something is canon doesn't automatically make it IC.
But if it's a corporate espionage story, for example, then I wouldn't be interested, because such a story would lack the sci-fi elements and scale that comes with the HSR background.
But your lack of interest in this case has nothing to do with IC vs OOC. That's what I'm pointing out. The setting not having HSR elements doesn't make the characters of the fanfic OOC.
no subject
I think this is were the disagreement is coming from. From a "what is canon" after the fact (post-hoc), yes, what has already been written is the canon. What hasn't been written is AU.
However, before the fact (ad-hoc), absent of any further clues, the exact same scenario is judged based on how well it potentially fits.
I'm not talking about whether the scenario (regardless of officiality) is defined as canon post-hoc. I'm talking about whether the scenario feels reasonable ad-hoc.
The mental state of the audience going from Belobog to Luofu is no less drastic of a shift than going from canon to AU fanfic. The only reason the later is rated as "actually AU" is purely due to a single variable: it isn't official.
What I'm trying to point out is that officiality shouldn't be used to judge whether the writing is in-character. If everything official is automatically IC, then that means no one can criticise the official writing for being out-of-character. This is patently false. The audience is capable of judging characterizations as OOC, even in the original work. This is because characterization is set up at the beginning of the story, and when the story (canon) fails to properly develop a character arc, the character (fictional construct) becomes OOC.
However, it seems like you are arguing that it is impossible for canon to write a character OOC because as long as it's canon, then it is by definition IC. I can only say that I disagree with that definition and that is not at all how IC vs OOC is judged. At least not in fandom (nor in lit crit) where bad canon is called out for character OOCness all the time.
Here's an article talking about how original writers keep their own writing IC and avoid writing OOC characters. As you see, even in canon, the characters can become OOC.
Except for how that's not what happens at all. Extremely large chunks of fans stick to fandom by simply ignoring the canon they disagree with. This is the reason why canon deviation is a large fraction of fanfic. That doesn't make those AU fics OOC, it just makes the fic AU.
Again, I'm not talking about whether the story is AU. I'm talking about the false equivalence of canon with IC and AU with OOC. Just because something is canon doesn't automatically make it IC.
But your lack of interest in this case has nothing to do with IC vs OOC. That's what I'm pointing out. The setting not having HSR elements doesn't make the characters of the fanfic OOC.