impasse
Despite my brain being eaten by the KA-Pros fusion (AKA, the Kevlarverse), the OZ-KA fusion is still there, simmering, in the back of my mind, and I'm still finding myself without an answer to one of the most basic issues of writing fic that places people radically outside of their given time, which is the question of what in the hell you do with their names. At least, I can't find an answer I'm happy with.
What am I going to do about all these late 20th-century U.S. names in Romanized Britannia? I mean, I can make Miguel Alvarez an Iberian from Hispana, and it actually works in a really neat way, because, as alinewrites pointed out, that makes him both Roman and Iberian in a way that he was both American and Latino in the show. But I somehow doubt that he'd be called Miguel Alvarez at that point. And how do I deal with Tobias as a Sarmatian name? How do I Romanize Tim McManus or Sean Murphy? Or do I? Is this the jump for this story, the one that the reader just has to make with you, the willing suspension of disbelief, sort of like not demanding the physics and biology of Elijah Wood waking up as a girl or Justin Timberlake laying a clutch of eggs? Or, you know. Wingfic or something. (Note to self: Write the Cyril wingfic, dammit.)
It feels different, somehow, though, because the OZ-KA (title, dammit?) isn't placed in a magical realist or surrealist context and framework, so it seems like it needs to fit the time period.
Response to the Kevlarverse question has been to not fuck with the names - don't be mucking around changing Gawain to Gavin and calling Lancelot Lance, and stuff like that, largely because the names seem to be transparent, in the same way that "said" is transparent and doesn't need to be replaced with $10 words like "opined" and "pronounced" and "uttered." The idea of having to create a mental map to keep track of which known characters are called by which new names seems to break the soap bubble of the fic universe more readily than the fact that I've got guys named Galahad and Lancelot running around modern-day London with guns and kevlar. (OK, wait. I've got to take a moment, now ... mmmm. Kevlar. Dagonet, in his white T-shirt and his kevlar vest, laces pulled tight around his sides, kicking in a door, Sig P226 at the ready ... ... ... :cough: OK, I'm fine. No. Really, I'm fine.) And while doing this to two or three characters might be manageable, I wonder if there's a tipping point for being able to reasonably manage the name shifts in a reader's head, and I suspect I'm way past it, with the number of Oz characters that are potentially in this cracktasm of a story.
And yet, it still seems less jarring - to me - to just leave the names alone in the Kevlarverse, because there are ways to frame them as more realistic within the timeframe - Arthur and Tristan and Gareth and Perceval work fine, Dagonet and Bors and Launfal can be surnames, Lancelot and Galahad can be nicknames, Gawain and Caradoc are a bit old-fashioned but still plausible ... I think .... particularly as regional possibilities. Well, I'm not sure how to explain Dinidan, I have to admit.
Sean Murphy is not a Roman general's name. Just. Not.
:headdesk:
I'm going back to the undercover hooker scenes, man.
What am I going to do about all these late 20th-century U.S. names in Romanized Britannia? I mean, I can make Miguel Alvarez an Iberian from Hispana, and it actually works in a really neat way, because, as alinewrites pointed out, that makes him both Roman and Iberian in a way that he was both American and Latino in the show. But I somehow doubt that he'd be called Miguel Alvarez at that point. And how do I deal with Tobias as a Sarmatian name? How do I Romanize Tim McManus or Sean Murphy? Or do I? Is this the jump for this story, the one that the reader just has to make with you, the willing suspension of disbelief, sort of like not demanding the physics and biology of Elijah Wood waking up as a girl or Justin Timberlake laying a clutch of eggs? Or, you know. Wingfic or something. (Note to self: Write the Cyril wingfic, dammit.)
It feels different, somehow, though, because the OZ-KA (title, dammit?) isn't placed in a magical realist or surrealist context and framework, so it seems like it needs to fit the time period.
Response to the Kevlarverse question has been to not fuck with the names - don't be mucking around changing Gawain to Gavin and calling Lancelot Lance, and stuff like that, largely because the names seem to be transparent, in the same way that "said" is transparent and doesn't need to be replaced with $10 words like "opined" and "pronounced" and "uttered." The idea of having to create a mental map to keep track of which known characters are called by which new names seems to break the soap bubble of the fic universe more readily than the fact that I've got guys named Galahad and Lancelot running around modern-day London with guns and kevlar. (OK, wait. I've got to take a moment, now ... mmmm. Kevlar. Dagonet, in his white T-shirt and his kevlar vest, laces pulled tight around his sides, kicking in a door, Sig P226 at the ready ... ... ... :cough: OK, I'm fine. No. Really, I'm fine.) And while doing this to two or three characters might be manageable, I wonder if there's a tipping point for being able to reasonably manage the name shifts in a reader's head, and I suspect I'm way past it, with the number of Oz characters that are potentially in this cracktasm of a story.
And yet, it still seems less jarring - to me - to just leave the names alone in the Kevlarverse, because there are ways to frame them as more realistic within the timeframe - Arthur and Tristan and Gareth and Perceval work fine, Dagonet and Bors and Launfal can be surnames, Lancelot and Galahad can be nicknames, Gawain and Caradoc are a bit old-fashioned but still plausible ... I think .... particularly as regional possibilities. Well, I'm not sure how to explain Dinidan, I have to admit.
Sean Murphy is not a Roman general's name. Just. Not.
:headdesk:
I'm going back to the undercover hooker scenes, man.