Things I Am Crotchety About, Rant #2

[cesperanza]

So my last mega-fandom was SGA, and the thing is, I could pretty much go anywhere with SGA, because in a way, the characters were paper thin: you tell me John Sheppard is a robot, I say sure! A dogwalker? Fine! A barista--with that hair, absolutely! He wears lingerie under his uniform: makes perfect sense. And Rodney--you could do anything with

Comments

[catalenamara]

I'll settle for just a little minor research on the part of some authors. Such as the one who had Steve saying something along the lines of "back in my day we only had 10 channels on TV."

But yeah. Pasting modern attitudes on historical characters has been a pet peeve of mine for decades.

[china_shop]

Such as the one who had Steve saying something along the lines of "back in my day we only had 10 channels on TV."

LOL!

[cesperanza]

Ahahaha. Oh my god, okay, I never even got within a MILE of a story that bad! I'm talking about characters having, IDK, anti-authoritarian attitudes, or slackerish vibes, or anachronistic vocabulary, or dealing much better with rock and roll music than they ought to. I can't even deal with the 10 channels on TV thing. *falls over laughing*

[catalenamara]

Anachronistic attitudes - of any kind - are a huge speed bump in stories for me. I feel the same way, in SF stories, about people who assume that because "it's done this way right now" it'll be be done exactly the same way.

Example: Did you ever see Blake's 7? A future dystopia where the government keeps the citizens drugged into complacence. One of the characters, Vila, was always drinking. I'll always remember the LOC someone sent to a letterzine proposing, seriously, that Vila join an AA program.

Or Star Trek TOS. I remember someone wrote a letter to a letterzine back in the late 70s taking issue with something some author had done because "the military just doesn't work that way". It had to do with certain procedures for treating soldiers who had PTSD (IIRC, that term was just coming into use then; I remember my father referring to it as "shell shock".) And of course now the military works the way that letter writer was certain would *never* happen.

[esteefee]

I remember that feeling. I only wrote one AU for Starsky & Hutch, and that was pretty much a crack tentacle fic.

Sorry, babe. :)) OTOH, it is a mega fandom, so there must be more properly curmudgeonly characterizations if you dig deep enough. Are there reclists or storyfinder comms?

[cesperanza]

Oh man, yeah, I bet SH would have its own issues--even now more than at the time, now that they're more distance and more clearly of a period.

But yes, there's plenty of stuff! - and more than that, it's driving me to write (possibly too much in the other direction, but I can't help it, I write what I like! :D :D)

[esteefee]

That's it, baby: show them how it's done. :D

[killabeez]

Oh, hai, welcome to my world. :D

[cesperanza]

LOL--all those things my friends were saying as they were drinking hard, they finally make sense!!! :D

*drive by smish*

[winter_elf]

now you are making me miss SGA something fierce. With all the AU's and the wonderful writers *sigh* the good 'ole days.

[cesperanza]

SGA was really really wildly special, IMO - it gets even more special for its absolutely MAGICAL combination of exactitude and crazy. DS was a great fandom too, but IT was specific in its own ways and had its own tropes with the wolf and the shack and the Mountie uniform porn, but SGA was one of a kind, especially for a science fiction fandom. SGA had everything and if it didn't have it, we brought it (unicorns! girl scout cookies!)

[flaming_muse]

I so get it. I soooo get it.

I remember once having a conversation with a fandom friend about how the more specific and well-written and well-grounded canon is the fewer choices it feels like there are to be in character. I'm having something of an SGA renaissance in my reading these days, and there's a great joy in the fact that John and Rodney can be 'themselves' in so many settings, while so much of what makes the Cap/MCU characters themselves is exactly what happened to them. Rodney can be cranky anywhere, but if you take Steve out of the movie 'verse then a lot of what makes him Steve starts to drift away. Adding that to anachronisms and attitude shifts that the writers might not even be aware of because they don't have the perspective of how times have changed.... it's hard to stay true to the characters if you aren't working hard.

Oh, but when people get them? Oooooh, the bliss!

[cesperanza]

John and Rodney can be 'themselves' in so many settings, while so much of what makes the Cap/MCU characters themselves is exactly what happened to them

RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT. That's it, you totally nailed it. Counteragent told me this too--she was saying that a world in which Steve doesn't step up in Steve's incredibly brave way of stepping up, then he's NOT STEVE. He's a pretty nondescript blonde guy. And then yeah, the anachronisms and contemporary obsessions on top.

OK, obviously the fact that I am writing a story atm where Steve is reading Bertrand Russell and is obsessed with International Brigade socialism probably means I have crawled out too far in the other direction, but I'm sorry, Steve doesn't quote song lyrics from the 1980s, even in his mind. :P