Out of Character

Out of Character, or OOC, means exactly what it sounds like: characters not acting like themselves. An extreme example of this is Harry Potter the Emotionally Four Years Old Transvestite Schoolgirl, but less obvious occurences are all too common. This is often as a result of a Mary Sue warping everyone in the story OOC. The 'Sue's Lust Object often suffers the worst, though it can happen to everyone. Arwen, for some reason, often becomes obsessed with doing the 'Sue's hair, and Boromir frequently becomes a misogynist or a rapist.

Some fanwriters insist that it is their right to warp characters OOC, on the grounds that it's their story and they can do what they wish with the characters. This is ignoring that what they're writing is fanfiction; it isn't really their story or their characters. There are also some who honestly don't realize that they're making the characters act OOC.