Characterization, what is that?
5/25/11 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kateLeaving for Massachusetts tomorrow so I need to get all my work done today, but of course, I've got things on the brain. So, dwircle, let's chat about characterization.
I ask because I've got to write an AU fic that I owe for an auction. And I was thinking of possible things for John Sheppard to do, because the person wants a complete AU. And the thing is, I love complete AUs and there are a number of them on my SGA McShep comfort recs list, but there's a couple similarities to most of them.
One, Rodney is usually a physics professor or a physicist. Sometimes he's a professor of other things other than physics, sometimes he's another kind of scientist, but it's a pretty common thread to Rodney characterization. Now, there are AUs where he's a writer and an accountant and an inventor (But Wait, There's More! series bylavvyan, OMG), but that's the thing about Rodney. He's pretty recognizable as anything as long as you make him smart, competent, arrogant, and bad with people. There are varying degrees on all those things (and to make a sympathetic character, you have to play on the smart/competent part and also show that he has a heart and that he can grow (when SGA was good, they did this well - when not, welllllll...)), but Rodney's pretty easy to pick out, whether he's a cat or an ice cube. I don't worry about his characterization because I think there's plenty out there to make him recognizable, no matter what profession he's in.
Two, John is usually ex-military or current military or ROTC or a pilot. Do y'all see that as a sort of inherent part of his characterization? I mean, I get that, and it's not that I don't write the hell out of that when I write canon (and some AUs, too). But without it, is he still John Sheppard?
Especially the flying thing - can you imagine a John Sheppard that doesn't fly*? The thing is, I have a couple of AU John Sheppards that just can't have had the military background - it's not possible for that to have happened for where he got today. In one of them he's a pilot anyway (recreational); in another, his profession is analogous to the flying. In the one I'm contemplating right now, though, he'd just be a normal guy that went to college to do something he loves and now he's doing it.
There are other things that make him John Sheppard. I think there are themes that come out in any portrayal of him. A partial list:
~He's a fuck-up (to varying degrees - and usually for a noble cause).
~He's smarter than your averagebear human, though he's usually lackadaisical about it.
~He's special in some way (usually this relates to the ATA gene; sometimes it's skipped altogether).
~He has family troubles, and by extension most fics about him tend to include families of choice, whether it's a conscious theme or not.
~He is able to make the hard choices, and he is able to sacrifice (himself especially) - this can be missing in a lot of fics (especially AUs of this type because they just don't require the kind of situation that makes this characterization come to the fore - and it's only every spottily displayed in the canon).
And then we get into parts of his characterization that I find interesting. He has a couple of modes of operating, and some people tend to pick one end of the spectrum and stick with it. Other people make him as fluid as the show itself does (which is probably bad writing on the SGA writers' part, but it offers a lot of variety).
~He sometimes acts like a twelve year old (when he's happy or annoyed) and sometimes acts like he's responsible for the world (when there is something on the line - usually other people). This is interesting because if you take either side of this equation to the extreme, you get what I would think of as a remarkably OOC John Sheppard, but a little of either side (or a fairly large helping of both) and you get what I sort of think of as quintessential John Sheppard.
~He can seem remarkably well-adjusted, but it's made clear to us in canon that he isn't. How well-adjusted he is in fic varies wildly.
~He can be charming, but he is reticent about having real conversations. These two are not mutually exclusive to me, but I often see one side played up and the other side played down, in both directions.
~He seems to have an ease with casual relationships yet he never sees it coming (and in later seasons seems almost asexual (though this could be the stress of his life/job as military commander of Atlantis) and he has been married). There are several parts of this that are often used to show that John is in fact gay (a fair interpretation, I think, though not the only one). Characterization runs the gamut on this, from asexual to ladykiller to super-romantic to just bad with people he cares about. Honestly, as long as the rest of the puzzle that is John Sheppard fits together and the author sells me on his sexuality/relationship tendencies, this part doesn't bother me much.
There are others I'm missing in this section, I just can't think of them right now. I find this section is the reason that John Sheppard is so wildly diverse in fic; there is just a lot of leeway, and a dearth of information about his background, so we're freer to fill in the lines with whatever cocktail of John Sheppard traits we like.
Do you have a particular John Sheppard recipe? I can look at that laundry list and tell you what dials I turned up to 11 and what items I toned down for any given story of mine (and most of them are different from one another). I can also look at that and tell you THIS is why I'm having trouble feeling John Sheppard in Impromptu (and gives me a nice, easy way to go back through and strengthen his characterization, yay). John is not a given for me; his characterization is all over the place. Rodney is more stable but not completely unchanging. There are aspects of his personality that I will highlight that aren't always what most people think of as typical characterization. I'm curious if you have multiple John Sheppards or just one, and how you came to your current ideal, if it's just the one.
Also, since I'm thinking about how to make this AU work so I can get this auction fic off my plate, if John isn't military (present or past) or a pilot, what would you need to be sure it's him? Not just the hair and the drawl, but the John Sheppard cocktail. If he has a family of choice and has adrenaline-junkie hobbies, sleeps with a lot of people but doesn't get attached to any of them, is charming and laid-back except when you want to have a conversation about him, would that be enough to make it really feel like him? Does he also have to be a twelve year old about things that get him excited and have a heroic streak a mile wide, even for complete strangers? Am I missing some vital part of John Sheppard that would make him seem OOC for you?
*Though I think that for all the initial super-pilot stuff they pushed on us in the beginning about Sheppard, that's not what he's really about. A lot of early fanon characterization was built on this because it was pushed pretty hard in the first season, but it dropped away pretty quickly when it became apparent that he wasn't going to save the day by flying shit all the time. You get the feel in Rising that Sheppard would have done anything to keep flying, but once he has Atlantis, that feeling goes away. And interestingly, later characterizations do tend to shift that impulse - the characterization of 'John Sheppard will do anything to fly' became 'John Sheppard will do anything for Atlantis.' So I think, while I said flying up there, what I really meant was his raison d'être - at first, flying, then Atlantis, and maybe mixed in with Atlantis, his family of choice (team and/or Atlantis personnel as a whole). Back to top.
I ask because I've got to write an AU fic that I owe for an auction. And I was thinking of possible things for John Sheppard to do, because the person wants a complete AU. And the thing is, I love complete AUs and there are a number of them on my SGA McShep comfort recs list, but there's a couple similarities to most of them.
One, Rodney is usually a physics professor or a physicist. Sometimes he's a professor of other things other than physics, sometimes he's another kind of scientist, but it's a pretty common thread to Rodney characterization. Now, there are AUs where he's a writer and an accountant and an inventor (But Wait, There's More! series by
lavvyan, OMG), but that's the thing about Rodney. He's pretty recognizable as anything as long as you make him smart, competent, arrogant, and bad with people. There are varying degrees on all those things (and to make a sympathetic character, you have to play on the smart/competent part and also show that he has a heart and that he can grow (when SGA was good, they did this well - when not, welllllll...)), but Rodney's pretty easy to pick out, whether he's a cat or an ice cube. I don't worry about his characterization because I think there's plenty out there to make him recognizable, no matter what profession he's in.Two, John is usually ex-military or current military or ROTC or a pilot. Do y'all see that as a sort of inherent part of his characterization? I mean, I get that, and it's not that I don't write the hell out of that when I write canon (and some AUs, too). But without it, is he still John Sheppard?
Especially the flying thing - can you imagine a John Sheppard that doesn't fly*? The thing is, I have a couple of AU John Sheppards that just can't have had the military background - it's not possible for that to have happened for where he got today. In one of them he's a pilot anyway (recreational); in another, his profession is analogous to the flying. In the one I'm contemplating right now, though, he'd just be a normal guy that went to college to do something he loves and now he's doing it.
There are other things that make him John Sheppard. I think there are themes that come out in any portrayal of him. A partial list:
~He's a fuck-up (to varying degrees - and usually for a noble cause).
~He's smarter than your average
~He's special in some way (usually this relates to the ATA gene; sometimes it's skipped altogether).
~He has family troubles, and by extension most fics about him tend to include families of choice, whether it's a conscious theme or not.
~He is able to make the hard choices, and he is able to sacrifice (himself especially) - this can be missing in a lot of fics (especially AUs of this type because they just don't require the kind of situation that makes this characterization come to the fore - and it's only every spottily displayed in the canon).
And then we get into parts of his characterization that I find interesting. He has a couple of modes of operating, and some people tend to pick one end of the spectrum and stick with it. Other people make him as fluid as the show itself does (which is probably bad writing on the SGA writers' part, but it offers a lot of variety).
~He sometimes acts like a twelve year old (when he's happy or annoyed) and sometimes acts like he's responsible for the world (when there is something on the line - usually other people). This is interesting because if you take either side of this equation to the extreme, you get what I would think of as a remarkably OOC John Sheppard, but a little of either side (or a fairly large helping of both) and you get what I sort of think of as quintessential John Sheppard.
~He can seem remarkably well-adjusted, but it's made clear to us in canon that he isn't. How well-adjusted he is in fic varies wildly.
~He can be charming, but he is reticent about having real conversations. These two are not mutually exclusive to me, but I often see one side played up and the other side played down, in both directions.
~He seems to have an ease with casual relationships yet he never sees it coming (and in later seasons seems almost asexual (though this could be the stress of his life/job as military commander of Atlantis) and he has been married). There are several parts of this that are often used to show that John is in fact gay (a fair interpretation, I think, though not the only one). Characterization runs the gamut on this, from asexual to ladykiller to super-romantic to just bad with people he cares about. Honestly, as long as the rest of the puzzle that is John Sheppard fits together and the author sells me on his sexuality/relationship tendencies, this part doesn't bother me much.
There are others I'm missing in this section, I just can't think of them right now. I find this section is the reason that John Sheppard is so wildly diverse in fic; there is just a lot of leeway, and a dearth of information about his background, so we're freer to fill in the lines with whatever cocktail of John Sheppard traits we like.
Do you have a particular John Sheppard recipe? I can look at that laundry list and tell you what dials I turned up to 11 and what items I toned down for any given story of mine (and most of them are different from one another). I can also look at that and tell you THIS is why I'm having trouble feeling John Sheppard in Impromptu (and gives me a nice, easy way to go back through and strengthen his characterization, yay). John is not a given for me; his characterization is all over the place. Rodney is more stable but not completely unchanging. There are aspects of his personality that I will highlight that aren't always what most people think of as typical characterization. I'm curious if you have multiple John Sheppards or just one, and how you came to your current ideal, if it's just the one.
Also, since I'm thinking about how to make this AU work so I can get this auction fic off my plate, if John isn't military (present or past) or a pilot, what would you need to be sure it's him? Not just the hair and the drawl, but the John Sheppard cocktail. If he has a family of choice and has adrenaline-junkie hobbies, sleeps with a lot of people but doesn't get attached to any of them, is charming and laid-back except when you want to have a conversation about him, would that be enough to make it really feel like him? Does he also have to be a twelve year old about things that get him excited and have a heroic streak a mile wide, even for complete strangers? Am I missing some vital part of John Sheppard that would make him seem OOC for you?
*Though I think that for all the initial super-pilot stuff they pushed on us in the beginning about Sheppard, that's not what he's really about. A lot of early fanon characterization was built on this because it was pushed pretty hard in the first season, but it dropped away pretty quickly when it became apparent that he wasn't going to save the day by flying shit all the time. You get the feel in Rising that Sheppard would have done anything to keep flying, but once he has Atlantis, that feeling goes away. And interestingly, later characterizations do tend to shift that impulse - the characterization of 'John Sheppard will do anything to fly' became 'John Sheppard will do anything for Atlantis.' So I think, while I said flying up there, what I really meant was his raison d'être - at first, flying, then Atlantis, and maybe mixed in with Atlantis, his family of choice (team and/or Atlantis personnel as a whole). Back to top.
For easy organization later:
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on 5/25/11 02:17 pm (UTC)If he doesn't fly, he has to do something that gives him, hm, an adrenaline-fueled sense of peace. In a couple stories it's riding a bike, which I believe. Climbing would be another thing, or certain kinds of music. Horse riding -- any kind of vehicle or conveyance, really.
Here's the core: John loves activities where you push really, really hard and fast, and then there's a moment when you cut free (mentally, emotionally, physically) and glide on high and untrammeled. That, for him, is the core experience of life.
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on 5/25/11 02:47 pm (UTC)It's interesting that's the spin you put on the flying; I can totally see that (and I know I've read some fantastic fics that characterize him that way), but it's not my go-to rationalization with the flying (I think
And for all that - I still do usually replace flying with racecars, bungee-jumping, horse riding, things that are exactly what you describe above.
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on 5/25/11 02:57 pm (UTC)And I can't see sub!Sheppard at all.
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on 5/25/11 03:05 pm (UTC)Interesting though - I've never considered John to be a control freak, and I don't read that about his flying at all. That's pretty diametrically opposed to my typical characterization, actually - which is more about John being able to roll with it, adapt to whatever a situation throws at him. People who need to have control in that way (which Rodney seems the type to me) seem (to me - I don't honestly know anyone like this) to be less able to adapt and more likely to fall apart when things don't go the way they want them to. (Which, again, is a feeling I get when I think about characterization with regard to these two characters, and doesn't speak to anyone IRL with any of these tendencies.)
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on 5/25/11 03:11 pm (UTC)(I really shouldn't discuss Sheppard characterisation. It's way too close to my heart, and the fandom hardly ever agrees with me. *sighs*)
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on 5/25/11 03:17 pm (UTC)But I totally get your characterization! I just needed more information. And sadly, it will probably never become my own characterization because it's so far from my own experiences (as I'm not into control. Of anything, normally). But that doesn't mean it's not valid! And neither does unpopular = invalid; just that people tend to see things from a different perspective, for whatever reason.
I don't know about you, but I am pretty open to new and interesting ways to think of things, and I think most of my dwircle is the same - I mean, I would never have even brought control up in the conversation, and now I have an additional vector from which to consider things. I'm *glad* you talked about it. But I'm sorry if I sounded dismissive of your ideas; that's not what I meant at all, just that I was coming from a different place (which, since I've said my piece, I probably should have shut up about anyway). <333
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on 5/25/11 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 03:43 pm (UTC)That's awful. :(
And for the record, I've never seen his as unquestionably gay. Usually it doesn't take much for me to queer him up (there's just so many opportunities in canon!) but then, you know, the fic I'm writing now, he's straight straight straightity straight, and it is an absolute bear to convince him otherwise.
Just looking at canon with an unjaundiced slasher's eye, I think there is a lot of room for a lot of different sexualities. I think you could argue for asexual (funnily, his interactions with Chaya ping me that way more than they do het), obviously with Nancy, Chaya, that Teyla-kiss, Larrin, you could go for het, as a sort of a guy who prefers casual relationships because he fucks up the ones with people he cares about (there are other ways to see the het, I'm sure, but that's the way it reads to me), and then there's the relationship with Rodney, which reads UST off the charts to me (but which is not exclusively gay, as the only guy he seems to have *that* sort of chemistry with is Rodney (though I'd prefer it not be an 'I'm not gay, I just love Rodney'-type thing, personally).
I'm sorry that happened, bb. That sucks. Sometimes people are unthinking about things, and they don't realize the kind of hurt they can cause. There is a difference between canon and fanon for a reason.
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on 5/25/11 04:43 pm (UTC)Personally I have a hard time buying any John Sheppard who never was even so much as casually attracted to any woman, ever, but beyond that you can sell me on practically everything. I tend to see him as bi, but then I tend to see most people as bi unless they explicitly tell me otherwise. *g*
as a sort of a guy who prefers casual relationships because he fucks up the ones with people he cares about
That's an interpretation that works very well for me, no matter what orientation he is. :)
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on 5/25/11 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 04:01 pm (UTC)Also I would never, never think of flying as fundamentally a control thing, but possibly that's because flying for me defaults to WWI-era technology where it is definitely not all about the pilot's skill!
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on 5/25/11 04:53 pm (UTC)I can see how that would make sense! He just never seemed that traumatised to me.
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on 5/25/11 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 05:16 pm (UTC)I feel like I'm missing some thought process in there somewhere.
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on 5/25/11 05:24 pm (UTC)My Sheppard tends to be pretty high on the woobie scale so just by default I assume canon!Sheppard comes with (family trauma + war trauma + sexuality trauma + misfit trauma + the weekly trauma that comes with starring in a genre show + a dose of extra manpain/poor little rich boy for fun) and he was in Antarctica because he needed someplace where he could be quiet and alone and had no expectations to worry about because that's how he deals, but not all of that is required. And to the extent he has control issues, it's a defense mechanism as a result of all that. But of course that's not the only reason somebody might need to be in control.
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on 5/25/11 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/26/11 10:46 pm (UTC)I totally agree with the control thing. Flying isn't the great hunt for freedom, it's about being in mastery of yourself, your environment, and a few tons of sexy, incredibly expensive machinery. That's the rush. Conversely, losing control would be perceived as dangerous and/or fatal.
That's why I can't buy supersub!Sheppard.
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on 5/27/11 03:12 pm (UTC)(I've always thought too many people in SGA wrote flying more like falling ... or floating, maybe.)
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on 5/25/11 02:30 pm (UTC)That said:
The flying/Atlantis thing is the core of my characterization of him. I don't know that I find an AU Sheppard without either to be OOC exactly, but I generally don't find him interesting without either of those. (If there's other stuff that's going on that I would find interesting even in original fic I might still like it, but not because it's an SGA AU.)
That said, it doesn't have to be flying-as-flying or Atlantis-as-Atlantis. I connect them both to a Sheppard who has never felt grounded, who has always wanted to escape from everything including himself, who has never felt like any place on Earth was home. Flying gives him that escape; Atlantis gives him a home he doesn't need to escape from. If you replace "flying" and "Atlantis" with other things that mean "escape" and "home at last" it will probably still read as a Sheppard story to me.
There are other things that go into it to - I ship John/His Issues (whatever is it about him that made him feel out-of-place so long; that can vary by the fic but the effect is usually the same.) He's a very private person, or at least one who is used to keeping everything wrapped up inside, which is why there's so little we know about him, and a large part of his everyday personality is a front to fit in, but when he does choose to let something out he can be surprisingly open, and he is at heart a doofus. (An AU!John who has already found his Atlantis can be a lot more well-adjusted than this, but in that case I want to see the doofy side a lot more, too.)
Which is to say - I pretty much agree with everything you said but I emphasize certain parts a bit more.
Also: I think of Atlantis as one of the show's characters. So if you have an AU with John and Rodney and Teyla and Ronon and Elizabeth and Sam and Woolsey and Lorne and Zelenka and Keller and everybody but you don't have someone or something which stands in for Atlantis I feel like you've left out one of the main characters for no reason.
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on 5/25/11 02:56 pm (UTC)Actually, though I don't mind more variety in John than you do (or the flying/Atlantis thing toned down, though, obvs, the family of choice aspect of it (which is part of the Atlantis side) is key for me), you've totally hit things on the head with regard to the way I look at him. The flying/Atlantis dichotomy makes so much sense - and the more well-adjusted John needing to be dorkier, too.
I have to say that as much as I really love Atlantis-as-a-character fics, I don't see Atlantis as necessary in my fic (reading or writing) and tend to think of Atlantis (in AUs) as the thing that threads them together (in
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on 5/25/11 03:18 pm (UTC)Also I think what you mentioned about Boom Boom Room is key - if the AU only really features two or three canon characters, then I buy it as an alternate-timeline AU, if you know what I mean? That they still live in the same world, but things happened differently in the past and these two characters just chanced to meet up again, and you can diverge a lot more from the show's core and have me buy it. Whereas if you're recasting almost everybody, especially the non-Earthborn characters, then I want it to be more about re-telling the same stories in a different way, and I want Atlantis to be part of the story.
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on 5/25/11 03:34 pm (UTC)We are very much on the same page about most things, it seems. I have not much to add, except a sort of general *nodnod* kind of thing. :)
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on 5/25/11 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 03:00 pm (UTC)But in something like my diner fic, I don't know that John would've necessarily developed the dark edge, not in that way. I tend to think it's a combination of being able to make (and having to make) the hard choices and having the training to do so. Take out the truly hard choices and the training, and you... well, make him a little more average, I guess. At least in my reading of him. Hm. Will have to think on this more - something is niggling at me about it.
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on 5/25/11 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 03:20 pm (UTC)Because I think the darkness I see in canon is utilitarianism and self-sacrifice turned up to 11. He does the thing that will save the most lives (of those he cares about) and he does it the most efficient way he can (even if it means the lives of other people, not on his to-save list). That, I think, is where my training and hard choices come from.
But the self-sacrifice part, that... I can see from an inherent sense of unworthiness perhaps? (Or just, before you make anyone else do the hard stuff, you do it yourself - I have this tendency myself and I relate to it in John.) And I can see that coming through in even the most mundane of AUs. Is that what you're getting? Or is it something else?
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on 5/25/11 03:36 pm (UTC)I think a certain utilitarian mindset would surface in other circumstances as well, and the people-he'd-do-anything-for as well. (Even though it wouldn't turn into feeding someone to a Wraith for them, there's plenty of otherwise not-so-nice things a person could do to help out someone who means a lot to them.) Self-sacrifice is trickier, but I think this may be spot on:
Or just, before you make anyone else do the hard stuff, you do it yourself
I don't know if that's just me, but I think for an introvert it's always easier to rely on yourself than on someone else. (And Sheppard seems almost completely incapable of it in the pilot!)
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on 5/25/11 03:54 pm (UTC)And you're not wrong - I can see him doing things for people he loves in complete AUs too, I just think that normally, in that sort of situation, that sort of thing doesn't come up. If he runs a malt shop and Rodney's a customer, it just feels unlikely that the opportunity for John to do something dark in nature is likely to come up. Unless I'm still reading you wrong here? I mean, yes, there are chances it could come up (the scene in Junk Cheap where John takes down the kid who's threatening them, for example), but it seems less likely to come up in the more fluffy complete AUs.
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on 5/25/11 05:28 pm (UTC)Oh, agreed; he does learn - which is why I cited the pilot, because everything afterwards is a journey away from there. But in an AU in which he carries less responsiblity, or hasn't found his own little family yet, he might never have had cause to overcome that particular tendency.
And absolutely, the more fluffy the fic in general, the less opportunity for darker stuff will come up.
(But the Junk Cheap scene is a great example - not the least because it offers that excellent comparison between lazy slacker and dangerous badass, which is the Sheppard contradiction in a nutshell. *g*)
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on 5/25/11 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 05:31 pm (UTC)I don't think the pilot/military thing is necessary, but the ability to do one thing extraordinarily well is.
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on 5/25/11 06:16 pm (UTC)And definitely true - the man is not about "stuff."
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on 5/25/11 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/26/11 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 06:24 pm (UTC)I agree - there are definitely self-loathing tendencies, and I tend to pick those up myself, in my characterization (has to do with the nature of the fuck-up, I think). Any more thoughts when you're feeling less shrunk always welcome. *hugs*
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on 5/25/11 06:32 pm (UTC)After that, everything falls into place. The flying, or whatever takes its place, is sort of a reenactment of his freeing himself from the prison he was in or the pattern he thought he was locked into. He has trouble trusting other people because he's always worried they'll want to make his decisions for him (and notice how he hates that in canon and in fic- which makes him the kind of soldier who only follows COs who have earned his trust, which gets him in trouble). He creates his own quirky family of fairly odd people because he loves breaking patterns, now that he can, and he is all about helping other people to break out of theirs (taking Rodney on a hike, for example). He depends on himself because he trusts himself- he got himself out of whatever it was, and therefore he can do whatever this is.
Breaking free was his character-defining moment, perhaps his first truly autonomous decision as an adult, and it informs everything after that. He likes being good at math but he doesn't base his ego on it, and he likes breaking patterns so he's a guy who both surfs and goes to scifi conventions. (And I think that when he does have a dorky/scifi side, that's often the thing that was his mini-rebellion, as a kid, and helped him prepare to finally break free later, and taught him at a very young age that he was okay with being different, which is why he doesn't have a problem with it now.)
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on 5/26/11 01:22 am (UTC)I have to say I find it really interesting, the things people pick up about Sheppard's characterization. I mean, you have a compelling argument (like Dora does above), but it's not what I see right off. Fascinating how many things he pings in people. I guess this is why Shep is so popular. :)
So - what about an AU Sheppard, can you imagine him without flying? What part of the narrative with breaking free is the thing that speaks to you, and how do you think that translates into, say, the accountant AU?
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on 5/26/11 02:33 am (UTC)His defining element is that he doesn't believe in going along with the herd when it doesn't suit him, or when he thinks it hurts people. I could see him as an accountant in the daily numbers crunching grind, but not so much in the abiding by the IRS laws part, or in the telling needy people the government can't do anything to help them part. (Accountants aren't evil, but they make their job by knowing the rules, not by making or changing the rules.)
All of this is bound by his sense of justice- the reason he broke free was because he eventually realized that not only did he not want to go along with his dad, but that it was *unjust* of his dad to demand he be miserable for the rest of his life in order for his dad to be (marginally, superficially) happy.
I'm actually not very good at writing him- unless he's in ProtectRodney!mode, which is just fun. I'm fonder of Rodney, and identify much, much more with him. But I admire John's lack of intellectual elitism (which Rodney lost over time in Atlantis- at least somewhat- I really can't stand the fics that posit that being brilliant means always being right, ethically), his sense of justice, and his drive to be a decent person, even when that means going against his first instincts. (He might want to say some of the stuff Rodney does, but he doesn't.)
Wouldn't want to be married to him, though. Oy.
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on 5/26/11 03:38 am (UTC)I also never gave two thoughts to his history (growing up, breaking out, the whole sitch with his father and brother). Which you'd think would stunt my characterization but I don't think it has (I hope it hasn't). I just... I know the way he is (which is different from story to story) but I don't know why he's that way. Soemtimes reasoning will come out in the fic, but mostly not. I guess that's a lot of what I see about Sheppard too - I don't see him being someone that dwells on his past, so while it may have formed him somewhat, I think a lot of his characterization comes from the choices he makes right now, you know? Which is, of course, my bias because that's mostly how I live my life.
I am just loving this whole conversation. It's really giving me a lot to think about with John and how people see him and why. Thank you. :D
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on 5/26/11 05:50 am (UTC)This really articulates something I felt about John but hadn't nailed down for myself in any coherent way. It's awesome to see it spelled out so well. Thank you!
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on 5/25/11 09:52 pm (UTC)In my head (or possibly heart), the life John leads on Atlantis is his baseline, the ultimate benchmark. I'm not sure if it's just the fact I'm a fan who loves the show but even more so loves John Sheppard the character as portrayed on screen, but deep down I can't help but assume that, for John at least, this is the best of all possible worlds -- fucked-up as this undoubtedly is in many ways. Any alternate universe version of him is a deviation.
'course, I love deviations, and deviants! So that's not saying much. ;)
I've also written a drabble set precisely on this theme, so I too have given it some thought. It's interesting to re-read, actually; after this comment has been typed out, I'll upload them to the AO3...and resist the urge to tinker with them again.
Do y'all see that as a sort of inherent part of his characterization? I mean, I get that, and it's not that I don't write the hell out of that when I write canon (and some AUs, too). But without it, is he still John Sheppard?
The writers' characterisation of John Sheppard has always been haphazard, to put it mildly, and it doesn't -- well, it does! -- help that Joe Flanigan, God bless his lumberjack shirts, took his cues and ran into the exact opposite corner with them half the time. The few elements that have been reiterated and make sense thus tend to stick, and this one more than the rest, you're right. At the same time, is it essential? I think not (with the above caveat), but then again I AUs are a passion of mine precisely for the creativity and canon-affinity authors can actually show through a completely different setting.
Someone else has linked to The Giant McShep AU List, right? A few of them are favourites of mine, and not in a Hey-As-AUs-They're-Great way but as fantastic fanfiction getting John Sheppard.
Do you have a particular John Sheppard recipe? I can look at that laundry list and tell you what dials I turned up to 11 and what items I toned down for any given story of mine (and most of them are different from one another).
This depends more on the concept of writing than on John Sheppard, maybe? I don't tend to write like this but merely envision the character doing things, talking (God, my fics: always so talky, even the SGA ones), although just like you, my John shifts with the story, tone and tale, as obliging as he would be with any alien princess dragging him off to her bedchamber...
Am I missing some vital part of John Sheppard that would make him seem OOC for you?
Some writers will spend a million days writing John Sheppard, and he will never ring true to me, not even a little, but you're not among them. I think writing John (as opposed to writing Rodney; like all of us, my inner Rodney voice always audible when I listen in) requires not so much work as a patience and a rewatch? Before writing fanfic, I tend to watch episodes that feature the core character or pairing I write about, and that allows me to pick up on a million half-remembered and now re-visualised elements.
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on 5/26/11 02:50 am (UTC)Actually, I don't think about it when I'm writing - it's only after the fact where I can look at something and say, 'oh, huh, that's what I was going for there.' I rewatched some episodes recently - first time in a couple of years - and realized there was stuff I couldn't watch outright anymore; fandom has ruined me for the canon.
In general, there's a Sheppard in the back of my mind, no matter what story I'm telling. He's just there, doing what he's doing, and if he loses the way, I have to go back and see where that happened and see if I can figure out why. The thing I was thinking about this morning is that with the AU I want to write (the fluffiest, most innocuous AU in the history of the universe), it hit me that not only did I have absolutely no source of conflict, I wasn't really sure how to make Sheppard seem like Sheppard if he wasn't military, a pilot, and was mostly well-adjusted. I mean, I'll probably just sit down and write the thing and see how it goes, but. I dunno. It's interesting, and it's been an interesting chat with everyone, that's for sure. :D
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on 5/26/11 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/25/11 09:56 pm (UTC)Having said that, my own characterization of him was very fluid over the early seasons. Specifically, I think in retrospect that I tended to downplay both his dark edge and his insecurities. Especially the latter -- up until season three or four, I'd generally seen and written Sheppard as fairly comfortable in his own skin, and the Sheppard-as-a-seething-mass-of-insecurities thing was something that I'd seen as fanon woobification. Until canon made it impossible to ignore, that is. *g* Same with the darker side, which I had mostly seen as a situational thing in the first couple of seasons; he fights because it's his job and to protect people, but it's not something that I had seen as really being a part of him, any more than any soldier or cop or anyone else in an occupation of that nature. I'd always considered dark!Sheppard stories as fairly OOC and antithetical to the way I saw the character. It was Miller's Crossing that changed my mind on that, and ... I don't know, I found it harder to like the character after that episode and in light of certain later developments (like the way he shuts out Teyla when she's off the team). I think Sheppard, increasingly as the seasons go on, is a guy who gives off a very strong feeling of "us" and "them" mentality, and having seen it in later seasons, I can see it in earlier seasons as well, like his refusal to help Teyla save her friends in "Letters From Pegasus" or the way he's willing to risk the lives of everyone on the Daedalus to get Ronon back in "Sateda". I think this made it a little more difficult for me to write the character (because I was used to writing him in a certain way, and I no longer see him in that way), and made it suddenly harder for me to read a lot of authors that I used to like, because now I need to have that darkness acknowledged and included in order for the character to read as Sheppard to me.
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on 5/26/11 03:27 am (UTC)You know, the thing that I find most interesting about Shep's characterization is that you can, with canon, justify any old thing. From off-his-rocker dark (I'm writing that) to utter dork to devoted to his chosen family to a complete romantic and every combination therein. And I've seen people argue about things (god, the Last Author Standing comms, have you read any of that? if it's not dark and tragic, it's OOC, like, hello, SGA was a comedy half the time, geez) that they are utterly convinced of. Even though whatever characterization anyone comes up with, I can come up with a canon moment that shows the exact opposite characterization. I mean, I'd have to rewatch to find some of them, but I'm betting I could do it.
When it comes down to it, for me as a reader, I need to be sold. I'll buy almost any characterization if it's sold to me. The only ones that read 'off' are those where the author contradicts themself or doesn't give a solid basis for the characterization.
This was a really insightful comment - thank you for that. :D
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on 5/25/11 10:01 pm (UTC)So I don't see that his control issues (need for competency) are necessarily a result of being traumatized; it could simply be that he knows he sucks at feelings, but mastery of skills is something he excels at. And from there, you can extrapolate that it's not that he necessarily wants to sacrifice himself, but he is aware that he's the best (most competent) person for the job (though Ronon's not afraid to call him on that and say "you don't need to do everything yourself").
Someone had a theory that I read somewhere that John's just really not that introspective: he doesn't talk about feelings because he's just not that full of them. Not shallow, but more WYSIWYG. I thought that was an interesting (and possible) interpretation.
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on 5/26/11 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
on 5/26/11 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
on 5/26/11 03:32 am (UTC)I love that theory, man. I could totally buy into that theory, actually. I write him that way sometimes, even.
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on 5/26/11 03:43 am (UTC)But by the same token, going by his behavior, John seems like maybe he expects people to be receptive to him on a superficial level, but hostile to any deeper thoughts or emotional expression on his part, which might explain why he finds it so agonizing to share those things.
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on 5/26/11 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
on 5/26/11 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
on 5/26/11 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/26/11 03:38 am (UTC)I definitely see that in John, and I think J-Flan sometimes played it that way. In "The Last Man" after finding out how things went to shit without him, and Rodney dedicated 25 years to get him back, John's dialogue just before going into stasis is "In the past twenty five years, did you happen to notice who won the Superbowl? Stanley Cup? World Series?" And J-Flan says those lines with such a look on his face, like he's just got no idea what to say in the face of everything Rodney's told him, so he's following some kind of regular guy script in his head and trying to make the words mean something else. Rodney says he doesn't know, and John says "Right. Had to ask." in a tone more suited to a funeral than a question about sports.
It's one of my favorite of J-Flan's many offbeat line readings.
I also think that J-Flan's choice to drink his family's beer, Budweiser, as John's beer of choice contributes to this interpretation of John, since you'd think a guy who grew up that rich wouldn't pick a cheap beer unless he was following a script, trying to fit in, trying to project an image of a regular guy.
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on 5/26/11 03:45 am (UTC)So much good stuff, Sheppard.
PS
on 5/26/11 03:46 am (UTC)Re: PS
on 5/26/11 03:49 am (UTC)I don't generally think about these details - at least, on their own. Sometimes things come out while I'm writing and I'll think, do I really think that? and I guess I do, I mean, I wrote it. But I don't think about the little details like that in a meta sense until something catches my eye, and then I try and think up as many ways of explaining it as possible. :D
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on 5/26/11 12:29 pm (UTC)I don't understand how he can just not look at the seething feelings roiling about under his skin even as he is feeling them. His younger siblings are far more self-aware. Personally I'm of the 'analyse it six ways from Sunday' style of emotion management! :)
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on 5/26/11 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/26/11 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/26/11 01:40 pm (UTC)Hm, this has been a long tangent, I guess, but I just wanted to say thank you - for providing this insight, both on Sheppard, and on my own lack of understanding in this area.
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on 5/26/11 01:34 pm (UTC)Also - I have to say that it took me a long time to get into what I was feeling more than the immediate, happy or sad, satisfied or not, bored, sort of things. Complicated feelings were tough for me, and I tended to pick the happiest emotion and run with that (led to some pretty poor relationship choices). I'm still not one to analyze my own feelings, though I'm getting better about it. I think the thing I lucked out on was being a bit of an extrovert (I can talk through things with people (or on the internet) and get a group analysis, or at least more things to think about). I think having difficulty with your emotions *and* being an introvert would be tough as all get out. My happy thoughts for your son and for you, in finding ways to communicate with him.
And yes - I can definitely see this reading of Sheppard more clearly now. thank you for that!
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on 5/26/11 06:56 am (UTC)no subject
on 5/26/11 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
on 5/26/11 12:09 pm (UTC)I think you can make a case for Sheppard having a 'false self', stemming from his messed-up childhood and/or adolescence. Depends when you want to imagine he lost his mother, who isn't mentioned in canon really. If he lost her early he's going to potentially have some quite dysfunctional defences and maybe have a veneer of coping when things are good, that can fall apart to soem degree when bad stuff happens. If he lost her later, say early teens which seems to be fairly popular in canon (and had a good r/ship before then), he might be less fundamentally fucked-up but with some neurotic oedipal issues and issues about losing people he loves, worsened by his father's attidue to him (invalidation, trying to force him into the company, not seeing who John really was).
The seriously messed-up Sheppard would have the potential to appear highish-functioning, and to have learned to behave that way as that's what people around him want and what gets him what he wants, but internally to be pretty mistrustful of close relationships, and to tip over into paranoid projection when stressed. I'd see him as being pretty schizoid and avoidant in close relationships. He'd dislike himself and be insecure, fundamentally, while maintaining the false social self which would alter depending on what the person he was with wanted him to be (like sports and Bud with the guys).
Even if you buy the above (and I don't know that I do, although it makes a nicely dark AU), I would still see his physical and military competence as a core redeeming and mitigating feature and as a positive defining factor in his sense of self. Without it I really think he'd fall apart into self-destructiveness or despair. He might have been attracted to the military for some messed-up reasons (outlet for rage, acting out via risk-taking in fighter jets, giving Dad the finger) but the structure of the military probably 'held' and helped him to a degree, despite the need to repress aspects of his character. And again, the need for a false self for the military, and another for Nancy (which didn't work), and another on Atlantis at first when he's thrust into being military commander and literally has to fake it. I think we see him growing once in Atlantis - his 'specialness' to the city would have boosted his self-esteem, and then there are the developing real relationships esp. with his team - the real 'reparenting' experience for him that allows him to become more integrated and whole. I don't think the writers really followed this through at all consistently of course, as they needed him to go on being the slightly mysterious loner/hero who never gets the girl, for the purposes of maintaining the series. They do show his developing closeness to the team especially, although I think his relationship with Elizabeth is more neurotic - a mix of idealisation and treating her as another authority to rebel against. Teyla is the real Mom for him (with interesting oedipal hints of attraction there of course, huh, wonder if his reaction to her pregnancy could be read as sibling rivalry? *g*), and Rodney and Ronon are the brothers he never had (yeah, us slashers all write incest-fic!), given the fucked-up real relationship with Dave. Interestingly, the older male figures are all negative like his real father - Sumner he rebels against then has to kill (oedipus!) and Kolya is perpetually the bad father - controlling and sadistic. Woolsey isn't portrayed as strong enough to be a real father figure although he's definitely benign. I like good fic where Woolsey has that role more for John - a good-father, reparenting figure, like in 'Slide'.
Oh - the flying. Re all the above, I'd see it both as a (mostly functional) escapist defence against the bad stuff, and as a real competence that helps hold him together as a person. He probably sublimates repressed sexuality into the rush of flying, and it would express his need to rebel and get free from controlling authority figures. His dorkiness/nerdiness is also a more functional defence - a small rebellion against his Dad's conservatism which becomes a real part of his core self (humour, quirkiness, competitive games).
And now I'll shut up with the psychobabble!
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on 5/26/11 02:06 pm (UTC)Even if you buy the above (and I don't know that I do, although it makes a nicely dark AU)
Actually, that's the read I get on canon itself sometimes, and some dark canon stories. And I like it and can buy it, too - I think there's enough support in canon for it.
Interestingly, though, my AUs are generally not dark. AUs are my ridiculous, fluffy, happy place, and thus I think why I put so much stress on the military and his choices being the reason he's dark-ish in canon. I can see the other interpretation, but for AUs I don't want to (for the most part). Interesting.
I think his relationship with Elizabeth is more neurotic - a mix of idealisation and treating her as another authority to rebel against. Teyla is the real Mom for him (with interesting oedipal hints of attraction there of course, huh, wonder if his reaction to her pregnancy could be read as sibling rivalry?
Oh, you REALLY hit on some of my issues with John and women here, you pretty much explain my reaction to Elizabeth and why John/Elizabeth just really doesn't work for me; there's such a maternal vibe to the way they interact that it squicks me out. Not all the time - the rewatching I did made it obvious where John/Elizabeth shippers draw their inspiration, so that was kind of nice to see (even though it's still not going to be my ship). For Teyla (and this is because of the nature of my own familial setup), I've always thought of her as the older sister, guiding and kind and seeing through his bullshit, but never really having to be the authority figure (that was on Elizabeth). I always read the kiss between John and Teyla as being completely separate from their friendship. The virus was making him more animalistic and Teyla is an attractive woman, one John has feelings for. Not being able to separate platonic love from physical attraction feels like it's an issue of the virus, not some long-held back longing for Teyla (which is never really indicated in any other situation, that I saw in my rewatch, anyway). And that bit about sibling rivalry for how he treats her during her pregnancy? I think that's genius, and even though it's probably not what the writers were going for, I think it really does explain his bizarre behavior.
Oh - the flying. Re all the above, I'd see it both as a (mostly functional) escapist defence against the bad stuff
Ah, interesting. I think, if I had gone beyond my initial analysis of 'John loves flying. It's part of who he is,' this is the explanation I would have come out of it with.
and as a real competence that helps hold him together as a person. He probably sublimates repressed sexuality into the rush of flying
And both of these read as absolutely true to me too, though I wouldn't have thought of them.
it would express his need to rebel and get free from controlling authority figures
This one never occurs to me, and always makes me look sideways at things. I can get it, I mean, I can objectively see where it's coming from, but it doesn't resonate with me for some reason (even though clearly Sheppard has a problem with authority figures). I'm guessing that's just my personal bias coming in there, something I'm lacking in experience for, so there's nothing for the idea to resonate with.
I love your psychobabble, feel free to come on over and do it any time!
Also, on a complete tangent: I've been listening to a bunch of podfics lately, and I have to say that several of your readings are on my faves list. I'm going to do a rec set soon and you will most definitely be on there. :D
Another thought
on 5/26/11 01:27 pm (UTC)On Atlantis the scientists - and Rodney in particular - validate John's intelligence, a key part of the real self he hides.
Re: Another thought
on 5/26/11 02:12 pm (UTC)That's. Um. Really disturbing.
This is very personal, so, uh, if you don't want to read beyond here, I totally get it.
I'm adopted. And I've spent a lot of time reading about adoptees and the nature of their relationships and how they deal with the world and blah blah blah, but the thing is... I've always felt that the person I am is constructed. I've only told this to two people, and they never understood, so I never brought it up again. I've come to think of the construction as basically me; being the sum of your choices, as it were. But it is still a construction, and sometimes I worry that if I peeled it all back and found whatever was beneath it all (no idea what this is anymore, it's been completely buried), that no one would ever like me. That no one could ever like me, because even my own mother didn't. It's not rational, I know that, and I've developed my coping mechanisms (which work remarkably well), but then every once in a while, something just hits me to the core, like this.
I'd love to get the name of that book, if you remember. I would very much like to read it, because I have never shared that construct idea with anyone, and it has felt like I am very alone in that. It would help to have validation.
Re: Another thought
on 5/26/11 02:29 pm (UTC)I'm adopted too, BTW and very fortunate in that my adoptive family is wonderful - but there were times growing up when it was really obvious that I was just a complete mystery to them!
Re: Another thought
on 5/26/11 03:33 pm (UTC)And I had an amazing adoptive family too, don't get me wrong. They never made me feel anything but completely loved and part of the family - there was no distinction for them between adopted kids and biological ones. But I've always carried this with me, my own irrational way of dealing with the situation, one at odds with how everyone treated me. I don't know if I can explain it any better than that, but I'm going to try because I think it's time for another adoption post.
Thank you very much - and I look forward to getting my hands on a copy of that book. :D
Re: Another thought
on 6/10/11 02:46 pm (UTC)I haven't been able to find the book I was looking for - I might have lent it to a friend - however this is a very good article, I think.
http://www.sengifted.org/articles_social/Gross_TheMeBehindTheMask.shtml
It's really late, here. Goodnight!
Re: Another thought
on 5/26/11 02:15 pm (UTC)And this! THIS is something that is SO KEY to the relationship between John and Rodney that if it's not in the fic in some sense, I feel like they're missing something. Thank you for pointing this out - I cannot tell you what a light bulb moment it was.
Also - this is why Rodney and Daniel Jackson joking about John's 'coulda been Mensa' in that one episode broke my heart. SGA writers, totally missing the point all the time.