Characterization, what is that?

[kate]

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.

Comments

[mecurtin]

I think I have to see his dorky side for me to believe it's Sheppard. Interestingly, in Harlequin-type stories where Sheppard is The Guy, this part is almost always left out, so the characterization feels flat and OOC.

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.

[melannen]

My John Sheppard is heavily influenced by the first few seasons, because I only watched patchily after that.

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.

[kate]

I love the dorky part of Sheppard too, and overly-serious fics (unless the situation demands serious Sheppard for the duration) feel OOC to me too.

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 melannen hits more on the reasoning for me below, with flying = becoming free of whatever is holding him back and Atlantis = the thing that is home that doesn't hold him back). It makes perfect sense, though, and interestingly, for NC17 stuff, I can totally see that characterization with regard to kinkiness (and thus why sub!John makes sense to me but top!John less sense (and when top!John works for me, it draws from the more serious side of his characterization)).

And for all that - I still do usually replace flying with racecars, bungee-jumping, horse riding, things that are exactly what you describe above.

[trobadora]

*ponders* For me, the bit that few stories manage to truly nail is Sheppard's dark edge. I find most stories either overplay or erase it, but it's pretty fundamental to my understanding of his character.

[kate]

Yes, exactly! You have hit upon what the flying/Atlantis thing is for me. Definitely.

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 cesare's Foster bakery AU, it's the bakery; in my Impromptu 'verse, it's the music), and not necessarily a character that's instantly recognizable. I think, though, that I'll start looking at that closer. I was rereading Pru's Boom Boom Room the other day, and the most notable thing to me was that John and Rodney were the only Lanteans there (and there was absolutely nothing representative of Atlantis, in either of our ways of thinking of it). I know some people like that. I'm more of the mind that I want to populate places with the characters and see what happens; soleta gets bothered by that because she can't imagine such various people ending up in the same place if it's not Atlantis. *shrug* This stuff is endlessly fascinating for me.

[trobadora]

Heh. The way I see it, the flying is a control thing, where everything only depends on his own skill. (So if it's replaced with something, it should be something that requires significant skill.) Sheppard's a control freak.

And I can't see sub!Sheppard at all.

[kate]

It is for me in canon, definitely, and anywhere he's got a military background (and I think that's why it's such a common thread to AUs, even complete AUs).

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.

[kate]

Oh, see, I totally get the flying=freedom thing, which, when headspace is written as that, as a release, makes sub!John totally make sense to me. Dom!John takes a lot of work for me to believe - he's just so lackadaisical in canon and that inner dorky twelve year old just... I can't see him being toppy, and unless it's actually addressed, I can't seem to get past it (thus why most dom!John PWPs don't work for me).

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.)

[trobadora]

I think John and Rodney are both control freaks, but it manifests in completely different ways because one of them's an introvert, and the other an extrovert. Extrovert Rodney wants to control the world around him; introvert Sheppard wants to be in complete control of himself. He can roll with the punches so long as he's secure in himself. He may be socially maladjusted, but I think he's actually pretty much at peace with himself, which gives him all the grounding he needs.

(I really shouldn't discuss Sheppard characterisation. It's way too close to my heart, and the fandom hardly ever agrees with me. *sighs*)

[trobadora]

Hm. For me, it really is a fundamental part of his character. Without the military or a similar background, I think it would simply manifest in different ways. *ponders*

[kate]

Oh, huh. Okay - see, I could totally buy that. But I would never have thought of it on my own; the canon we see, interpreted through my life experiences, just doesn't say that to me. (As I have blathered on above about what it *does* say to me.)

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

[melannen]

In a lot of the profession!AUs (though I can't recall if I ever read cesare's in particular) the business can work for me as the altantis!stand-in - the bakery or coffee-shop or design firm or whatever, even if they don't carry over the name. Having something that they all come together around to protect and build is close enough. I'll also buy a fic that doesn't necessarily have that but has a hint that Atlantis is waiting for them somewhere else - there have been a few fics where, say, John has a strange artifact he bought at a yard sale that lights up when he touches it, or Rodney drops hints about a secret government project that's trying to recruit him, or Lorne once encountered a life-sucking vampire in the desert, or whatever, without it ever being a central part of the story, and that's enough for me. (I realize that not everybody feels so strongly about the city as fundamental to the story though.)

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.

[kate]

Okay - wait, let's take that a step further.

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?

[trobadora]

Heh. I'm glad it makes sense to you! This is what I see on screen; it's always been. I know other people get other things out of it, and that, as you say, is fine - in fact, it's totally fascinating. And no, you didn't sound dismissive - I'm just rather oversensitive due to - well, let's just say I got out of the habit of discussing characterisation in SGA after I got honest-to-God laughed at for daring not to see Sheppard as totally, completely, unquestionably gay.

[kate]

Ah, yes! Yes, that's totally it, I had not put those things together, the difference between alternate timelines of that universe and retelling of the Atlantis story in another venue. I read both, and I enjoy reading both, but I mostly write the latter (except where I wrote an extensive series of alternate timelines all in one fic). And you're right - just something that draws them together probably works okay for that, though honestly more sentient!Atlantis characters in complete AUs would be made of AWESOME.

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. :)

[trobadora]

Utilitarianism, self-sacrifice, and that core attachment to people he'd do absolutely anything for, yeah. :)

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!)

[kate]

D:

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.

[kate]

Ah, and see I have that too! But I'm not an introvert. I just have this sort of mindset of, 'you don't ask someone else to do something if you're not willing to do it yourself.' And yes - not just the pilot, but a lot of first season feels very much like this with John. 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 (and I think that probably haunts him more than more straightforward actions, like killing Sumner).

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.

[melannen]

Hmm, you know, I can see John as a control freak now that you brought it up, but I never really saw it in canon! I get some control issues from him, but I think of it more as a response to trauma than a core character element - he tries to keep control of the little unimportant things because he knows he can't control the big ones. (Though I have to admit I'm with Kate in having trouble with Dom!John - I don't necessarily read him as sub, and I can see some versions of him domming if that's how a particular relationship worked out, but I really don't see it as an overriding preference for him.)

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!

[trobadora]

Thank you! Yeah, it's never fun when people start to think their own interpretation is the only possible one.

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. :)

[trobadora]

but I think of it more as a response to trauma than a core character element - he tries to keep control of the little unimportant things because he knows he can't control the big ones

I can see how that would make sense! He just never seemed that traumatised to me.

[melannen]

I suspect a lot of disagreement over Sheppard characterization comes down to relative woobification levels!

[kate]

I don't know why I didn't list bisexuality outright; maybe because that's also a default for me? I mean, in general I tend to make Rodney bi automatically, I guess, but John sort of... previously het or bi and now vaguely asexual? Kinda like he's given up on it, I guess, or... I dunno, actually, I'm going to think on that bit some more, that's fascinating.

[kate]

Ahahaha, YES. :D

[kate]

And now, hang on, I need more there: why would that first statement lead you to think of that characterization as traumatized?

I feel like I'm missing some thought process in there somewhere.