kate | Characterization, what is that?

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Characterization, what is that?

Leaving 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 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 ~~bear~~ 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.

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I was the one who brought up trauma?

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.

Ha, yeah. The less woobie, the better for me. *g*

But see, that's where the chosen family comes in for me - as he develops his relationship with the team, that part of him softens a little bit, also, I think, there's the fact that he's the military commander of Atlantis; sometimes he just doesn't get to make the suicide runs anymore

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*)

I do have one thing. He's not about "things". His personal possessions on Atlantis appear to be that Cash poster and War and Peace.

I don't think the pilot/military thing is necessary, but the ability to do one thing extraordinarily well is.

melannen called it a response to trauma ...

I wanted to reply to this after I got back from the pshrink's office (I had lots to say about John's penchant for self-loathing, which we see in a couple of eps and which Cate I think caught beautifully in the Finn stories) but, well, I just got back from the pshrink's office and I'm shrunk. To about two millimeters. Sorry.

Oh, wooooooobie! :D

Yeah, I just realized I missed that in the convo somehow - probably because I'm skimming this all at work, narg, and trying to have an intelligent conversation. AND THEN OMG WTF MY DAY. D:

I do LOVE that about Junk Cheap. OM NOM NOM. And yes, I like the contradiction part too; that's one of my favorite things about Sheppard. :)

Mmm, do you have a competence kink? Because I do, so my characterization always includes that (because the only characters I'm attracted to writing are competent, you know?).

And definitely true - the man is not about "stuff."

<333333

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*

*laughs* You think? Competency is a big deal.

In regards to the whole seeking freedom through flying or whatever, thing, I think that part of his backstory has to be that he was once under someone else's control- and he thought that was the way things were supposed to be, for awhile, and then he realized he hated it, and then he realized it didn't have to be that way. In canon it's his dad trying to make him inherit the company (or however that worked, I haven't actually seen Outcast or really any episodes after the first two seasons, I'm working from meta and fic here)- he's a kid, he thinks his dad must be right because he's his dad, he grows up and realizes he doesn't want to do that, he realizes he doesn't have to, and he screams a lot at his dad and joins the AF.

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.)

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?

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.

I really like your point about Sheppard having continuums to his characterization, and different writers dialing up one end or other of the spectrum. That's a good reflection of what I've seen in both the fic and the show, and also why some writers' versions of Sheppard work for me and others don't. I think you're right that Sheppard doesn't really have a fixed and indelible characterization in the same way that Rodney does, and the contradictory mix of traits is a big part of what makes him Sheppard for me. I don't think he reads correctly as Sheppard if all the bits aren't in there -- I'm as put off by a Sheppard characterization that doesn't include his dorky side as one that doesn't acknowledge his pricklier parts.

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.

I think for me I can roll with a bunch of Sheppard characterizations, but I'd say being an introvert (and shy) defines him a lot. He isn't good with words or feelings, but he has a lot of coping mechanisms and scripts that he uses for work and for recreation (stereotypical guy-stuff like watching football, comics, dorky TV shows). He's very good at becoming physically competent and learning physical skills (running, sparring, freeclimbing, surfing, shooting, flying, etc.) and I think he thinks that should be enough (I have a feeling that in his marriage, he'd keep the drains clean and the lawn mowed but never say "I love you"... er. I may have written that fic.) He doesn't need stuff because what he carries with him is what he can *do*. (And I say this as an tongue-tied shy introvert who thinks that the day I stop learning new stuff is the day I die, so, um, *hands you a big grain of salt*)

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.

Edited (English: I can write it!) 2011-05-25 22:02 (UTC)

Indeed it is. Sexy. :D

Hm, you've taken a decidedly different spin on him than I have, though I get some of the rebellion, definitely. Outcast was pretty vague about stuff, as I recall, but I haven't seen it in a while.

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?

It doesn't have to be flying, it can be anything he finds release in- probably with either himself or someone he trusts deeply in control. Kink could do it- but I suspect he'd have a non-kinky alternative when it wasn't available, if he wasn't in a long term relationship or didn't have a really excellent relationship with a professional. (Rodney as a professional dungeon owner... has that been done?) He could go top or sub, really, he'd be after the endorphin rush. Rollercoasters, biking, paragliding, surfing, any of it could work- and on a darker side, if he was introduced to the concept slowly and never wanted to be a pilot, I could see him as a drug addict, actually.

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.

So in terms of the Five Love Languages, the one he speaks the best is Acts of Service? I can see that.

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

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

Oh, that's... yes. I saw the darkness pretty clear as early as season one (putting up the shield in The Storm and killing those 50 men), so Miller's Crossing just really vindicated me (I'd had arguments with people that he wasn't a hard man, a cold man, that he was a big ole softie - and I do think he's a big ole softie, too, but that doesn't mean he isn't a killer, and that he won't kill especially anyone threatening one of his own - though it's interesting that while we both attribute that to his job, I feel it's also a part of himself). I generally block out the way he treats Teyla in season 4, it makes me so sad. And even though I thought Sheppard had an innate darkness to him, I never wrote it, not until much later. There's more to be thought on there, will have to ruminate on that during the drive tomorrow.

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

Interesting - I can totally see Sheppard as an introvert, but you know what, that's not set in stone for me. I could write him as an extrovert, I think. I also would have never picked up on that particular bit of his characterization, but it does make sense of the conflicting superficial charm/inability to have a conversation about feelings thing (which is a favorite of mine, as John characterizations go). The things people see in their characterizations, where they come from - it's all fascinating, I tell you. I was waiting for your comment, I was wondering what makes John characterization for you.

I love that theory, man. I could totally buy into that theory, actually. I write him that way sometimes, even.

Hm, me too, most definitely.

he has a lot of coping mechanisms and scripts that he uses for work and for recreation (stereotypical guy-stuff like watching football, comics, dorky TV shows)

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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Characterization, what is that?

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