Benton Fraser Is (Probably) Not a Puppy Kicker

[brynnmck]

Hi! This is my first time, so please forgive any lack of expertise/finesse. ;)

I'm here to blather at you regarding the following question: "How do you manage to keep the guys in character when they keep wanting to develop personalities of their own?" (I'm going to focus primarily on the characters' behavior here, since the lovely sageness already

Comments

[sageness]

Back! Now with 80% less headache! :P

Again, this was fantastic! I'm nodding and nodding all through this. And omg, what you say about RayK vs. Billy Tallent is so true. Especially when it comes to the use of the word "buddies". RayK uses "buddy" a couple of times, but Billy and "That's not buddies" go hand-in-hand. I guess it's such an important part of HCL that it throws me out of DS fic when I see the word used more than once.

And god, inconsistent canon makes me SO SAD. Like, Stella in Strange Bedfellows rocks my socks. We see her home. We see her being conflicted and smart and stupid and annoyed with good reason. We see all this wonderful history that she has with RayK and her struggle to be friends with her ex-husband. I love THIS Stella. I don't love other appearances, where she's bitchy/cruel without cause. So, in my head, Strange Bedfellows is the real (complicated, multi-layered) Stella. And when she's unaccountably bitchy, I figure she's stressed out, having a rotten day, is swamped with cases, has cramps, Ray's a convenient and habitual target who she can unload on and trust not to take it too personally (as one does with someone one has known for 2/3+ of one's life).

But this is also because I was in DC Comics fandom before DS, and in comics fandom, you HAVE to pick and choose your canon (because periodic retcons make "canon" fluid).

[brynnmck]

Thank you! Thanks for the opportunity to do this. :)

That's funny, because I associate "that's not buddies" pretty strongly with Kowalski, too--probably because that's where I first heard it, and I thought it was hysterical, and then only realized in HCL that maybe it's a CALLUM thing--but in a different way than I associate it with Billy. (I'm trying to remember if I've ever used that in a Kowalski fic. I can't remember.) But you're right, especially with Kowalski, I think there's a definite tendency to sort of cling those external signposts of his character--the verbal and physical tics--and leave something wanting in the character motivation. Because Kowalski and Billy are definitely using that phrase in entirely different ways and for entirely different reasons.

And YES YES YES about Stella. I do this same thing with Frannie, and with Thatcher (I love you, Paul, but you don't tend to do so well by female characters). I feel like they all get screwed by canon to a degree, and they start out with this potential and complexity that isn't really realized, but I feel like, as writers, we're... I don't know... we're within our rights, I guess, to choose one interpretation and go with it when the canon characters change pretty drastically (and without any apparent reason--this is very different, to me, than the gradual shift in Fraser over time, or even the less-gradual shift between partners, because Vecchio and Kowalski are two very different guys and of course Fraser is going to act differently around them).

Thanks again! :)