Team interviews: sabinelagrande
Name: sabinelagrande, also known as "that girl with the genderswap- no, no, not that one, the other one" and "who?"
Team: War!
Let's talk about: sabinelagrande!
1. How long have you been writing fan fiction and/or making fan art and/or whatever else (vids, knitted goods, pornographic gingerbread cookies)?
Um. Shit. It's hard to say. I've had a fic journal since 2003, and I had an ff.net account before that. The first time I ever sat down and consciously decided to write fanfic was in '03 (and it was GODAWFUL), but I wrote stuff that might be considered fic before I ever heard the term. I remember particularly that in the fifth grade, me and my best friends wrote a sprawling Star Wars fic with us and our friends replacing the characters.
I had to be the Ewoks. I was pissed.
More recently, I've gotten into doing crafty fannish things. I'm on a big cross-stitch kick at the moment, and I also do a little costuming.
2. Have you participated or are you participating in any other fandoms?
Child. What fandom am I not in? I kind of stumbled into online fandom as soon as I stumbled online, which was, good lord, when I was 9 and AOL 2.0 was the new hotness. And I made a lot of really embarrassing fansites for The Secret World of Alex Mack and Rocky Horror and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (before Drew's Line, TYVM) and Monty Python and thank god most of them no longer exist.
Anyway. Besides SGA, my other main fandom at the moment is Phoenix Wright, and I'm sort of still tangentially connected to the House fandom. Previously, I've been involved in Firefly, Smallville, Cowboy Bebop, Harry Potter, Hellsing, The Big Bang Theory, DC Comics, Jeeves and Wooster, and probably a lot of other things that slip my mind at the moment.
3. What fanwork are you most proud of? Or, what is your favourite of your fanworks? (links, please!)
Am I allowed to say a story that's not done yet? Because I think I'm most proud of my story for this year's sgabigbang, even though I'm only about 25000 words in. It's the biggest story I've ever attempted, both in terms of sheer length and in terms of scope, and it's totally self-indulgent but I think it's AWESOME.
So, um, favorites. I've written so many stories that it's hard to keep track, but my favorite SGA story is probably The House by the Beach, mostly because it turned out exactly like I wanted. I'm also terribly fond of Individually Wrapped; the funniest and hottest ones, respectively, are Not for Lack of Trying and Civilized Man. My favorite crossover (cause everybody loves crossovers) is definitely you will be my one last chance, which is John/Tony Stark, and which I still need to finish the sequels to.
Though, I have to say that my favorite fic of them all is either Still Standing or bigger, better (if you could only get there), both of which are Phoenix Wright stories.
(Hey, you ask for links, you get them!)
4. As far as creative processes go, what type of writer/artist are you? Do you create an outline/find photo references/make maps, etc., or do you jump in and go with the flow?
I write two different kinds of stories. The way I started out writing, the way I've always written, is all at once. I have an idea, I sit down and write it, I'm done. More recently, probably since I got into House fandom a few years ago, I've gotten into doing bigger stuff, stuff that requires planning and forethought and such. When I'm outlining a story, I vastly prefer to do it on paper first, then transcribe it and start moving and cleaning things.
I don't make maps, but I do make diagrams sometimes, because I find I make blocking mistakes if I don't. And I've only just realized that I make facial expressions commensurate with what's going on in the story while I write. It must be rather odd to watch.
5. Where can interested readers/viewers find more of your work? (homepage, LJ fic index, etc.)
My dreamwidth (sabinetzin) functions as a fic archive; there's nothing on there except (about 300, wtf, when did that happen?!) stories, so things are fairly easy to find through tags. I'm working on getting indices up, but there just aren't enough hours in the day, man.
6. Do you write original fiction (poetry, screenplays)? Do you create original art (comics, photographs, quilts, wedding cakes)? Care to share?
From time to time I write original stuff; the majority of it is urban fantasy. Right now, I'm working on a graphic novel about a cop who can bend time, who falls in love with a very strange psychic. I'm hoping to get it worked up in time to submit for the Prism Comics Queer Press Grant next year (baby steps, people, baby steps). My original fic journal is debitage- but I warn you, I never update.
Of course, my big focus right now is getting my academic work published. Eesh.
7. How are you so awesome?
It's very difficult. One must take lessons.
Let's talk about: SGA!
8. What do you enjoy most about SGA and/or SGA fandom?
I just really love the show. I love the design, I love the incredible sketchiness of everything Atlantis does, I love Sheppard and Teyla and Zelenka and Lorne and Ronon and Ford and Caldwell and Weir and Grodin and Woolsey and, okay, okay, I admit it, even Rodney sometimes. It fills me with unabashed glee.
The first three seasons, anyway.
As for the fandom, the fic is SO GOOD and there's SO MUCH of it. The fandoms I'm used to, it's either 1) everything is great, but there are like seven stories and I wrote four of them 2) the crap and the awesome come in about equal measures. But in this fandom, it's more remarkable to find a really bad fic than a good one. I mean, seriously, I have ~500 SGA recs on my delicious, and there are entire pairings and whole genres that I don't even read.
9. Why do you ship McKay/Sheppard? What draws you to the pairing, what do you like and dislike? Favourite scenes or episodes? Quotes? Screencaps? What other SGA pairings do you ship?
I like to say that I ship McShep not because they're doing it, but because they should be doing it. I want to see it work out for them, because despite all odds, they go together, and I love those sorts of stories.
Favorite things. Hmm. The Last Man and The Shrine, definitely, even though they hurt my heart. The episode where I decided they were totally hot for each other is The Brotherhood (which one of my favorite episodes, and all about Kolya and his inappropriate feelings for Sheppard's boyfriend). Because Rodney is over talking to traitor girl, and she's all, "Hey, doc, come up and look at my tapestries ;)" and Rodney's all "John, I'm going to bed, HINT HINT" and Ford and Teyla are all "LOL OTP".
Then of course, there's the bit about John and the Mensa test, which I really like just for Rodney's expression (by which I mean it looks like he's about to hump John's leg right there in front of god and everybody).
My dear love of McShep notwithstanding, I ship everything. Multishippers for life, yo. Right now I'm on a huge Weir/Caldwell kick (but honestly, I'll take Caldwell/anybody, cause Mitch Pileggi = UNF), and the secret pairing of my heart is Ronon/Radek. I'll write damn near anything, too- I've done everything from Teyla/Todd to Woolsey/Sheppard, and I'll probably do even worse in the future.
10. Why did you choose to join Team War?
Cause I'm not a damn hippy.
Okay, okay. Mostly because I thought writing for War would be the bigger challenge for me; humor is my default, so I'm more proud of the stories I've written that aren't fluffy and funny and happy. Bring the conflict, baby.
11. C'mon, you know you wanna! Just a bit of squee about your Match fic?
So, originally, I was writing a very, very different story. And it was very grand and sweeping and sort of strange, and it absolutely would not work no matter what I did. So round about August, I went, "Uh, uh, shit, PLAN B, PLAN B" and chucked the whole thing.
So what you'll be reading is Plan B and, OMG, so much better than what I planned originally. It's become a real labor of love kind of a thing; it's the kind of story I adore, and if it's not any good it's gonna be like having an ugly baby- I don't want nobody to tell me.
My favorite bit is probably the stupidest joke in the whole thing, but that's the way it always is.
12. What are your 'tells'? How can a fic of yours be spotted in the wild?
They're really atrociously filthy. Seriously. People (usually between two and four of them) are always just all over each other in very nasty ways. Often they're wearing collars while they do it. Or, at least, like, half of them are.
I also vastly overuse the semicolon; it's my favorite punctuation mark by far. I often find myself having trouble not using one in every single sentence. Oh, and parenthetical asides; I haven't used them as much in my SGA writing, but they're probably the most characteristic part of my writing in general (and especially in my conversational, non-fictional sort of writing). And I've only just realized I keep breaking binding rules, oddly.
...the linguistic ones, anyway.
And now, some additional questions provided by busaikko!
So, I'm exercising amazing restraint and not asking *anything* about Linguistics and Stargate.... [Ed. note: this did not last long.] Instead, I'm going to ask you about genderswap (you saw that coming, didn't you?). What would you say is the difference between writing Meredith and John versus, say, Jennifer and Rodney? Is there a different dynamic there?
I don't think it's any secret that I'm a big Rodney-torturer. I honestly don't like him very much, and I'm constantly putting him in situations where he has to grow as a person or change in some way (which is why Tao of Rodney is one of my favorite episodes). I'm afraid writing him as a girl is just an extension of that; society rewards guys like Rodney and punishes girls like Meredith. I often find Rodney's behavior to be misogynistic, so it's almost like giving him a taste of his own medicine.
Which is kind of unhealthy and mean, but at least I'm honest about it.
I've tried to write girl!John/Rodney several times, and I keep stalling out on it. There is something different about it, certainly. I think part of the reason for me in particular is that the reasons I have for making Rodney into Meredith just don't apply to John at all. One of the very first things that we learn about John is that he treats women like human beings; so if he's a girl, then, y'know, whoop de doo. Don't get me wrong- there are points in the series where he acts like a total pig, but they're so few and far between that they just come off as bad writing (I'm looking at you, Whispers) or, occasionally, as proof of his attraction to dudes (Inferno, anyone?). And there are stories that deal with him as a woman and do it really well- Rosemary for Remembrance and Ardhanarishvara (oh dear, I think I just pimped somebody from Team Hippy, AAAAH) leap to mind- but I think you really need a story that big to pull out how they're different. Given the length I'm usually working with (that's what she said), you put him in a skirt and you're halfway there.
Mmm. John in a skirt.
...And I wrote this whole response before I realized that Jennifer was a character on the show and not a female version of John's name. I R SO GOOD AT GATESTAR. But anyway, I kind of talk about that in the next bit.
Do readers (in your opinion) read Meredith as still being male and therefore excluded from a lot of the baggage of women in canon? Or is this an apples-and-oranges comparison?
I think part of the good thing about genderswap, particularly of the temporary/Ancient-induced variety, is that you can just throw off so much of the baggage and write without considering the broader social ramifications of, say, tying a woman up and coming on her face (which is uncomfortable even to type, and I like being tied up). We know, deep down, that it's okay for John to throw Meredith against walls and ravish her and things, because we know Rodney can take it. We couldn't necessarily say the same thing about, say, Elizabeth.
I often find that genderswap stories are more sensual than het stories for this reason- and by that I don't mean that they're hotter, but that there's more (and dirtier) attention paid to the female form, the sex is rougher, etc- though, admittedly, I don't read much SGA het (and none of it with Rodney or John), so I may not be making fair comparisons.
Then again, my main motivation for writing this genderswap verse, which I will never get around to properly naming, is to load Rodney up with baggage and see what he does with it. So, yeah. I think they do, but that's not necessarily a negative thing.
And then there's this whole other kind of baggage- I know that most of my readers will receive a story about Rodney and John in a completely different way and with a much more positive attitude than a story about, say, Rodney and Jennifer or Sheppard and Weir; people really, really like Rodney, in a way they don't usually like the female characters. I'm into telling people stories that they'll like; so if I can still do what I want, which is this pretentious conceptual gender thing, and still give people what they'll enjoy essentially unreservedly, which is Rodney/John, why shouldn't I?
What I'm trying to say is that we're very fanservice-y around here. ;D
And I notice that you signed up for the DVD commentary thing *g* What fic would you be real excited to get commentary on? (or, what would you cringe to get commentary on?)
I would both love on and cringe at someone who did commentary for Get Away, because I would very much like for someone to tell me where that story went wrong and how. And anybody who did commentary for The House by the Beach would be my favorite forever.
Do linguists find Daniel Jackson a hero of their profession, or do they just want to kick him?
I like to tell my students he's the linguist's answer to Indiana Jones, but sadly, Daniel Jackson just isn't that well known in the linguistic community. Even people like Mary Bucholtz, goddess of my world, who do research on nerds, are very rarely nerds themselves. And plus, as a linguistic anthropologist like myself, he falls into the crack between disciplines, and few people are willing to cross it. He'd make a pretty poor hero for, say, a theoretical phonologist. Maybe the philologists like him better (since that's what he was to start with), but most of them seem to not have TVs.
I will say, however, that Daniel Jackson is ten times better at both linguistics and archaeology than Indiana Jones has ever been. And he (apart from Mary Bucholtz, obvs.) is my hero. <3
Puts in a vote for the scholarly article about the Canadian accents of SGA.
Actually, I think it might be more interesting and relevant to my research to examine why everybody thinks Sheppard is a Southerner. There's some great linguistic ideology work to be done right there. I have plans for corpus studies. ::steeples fingers::
How does the Stargate wooooork? How does it translate so well? (And why? Didn't Daniel have to translate in SG1? Why is Pegasus different?)
Short answer:
IT DON'T
Long answer:
IT REALLY DON'T
I know the Ancients figured out how to make wormholes and travel through time and shit, but that is child's play compared to trying to create an online (ie, real-time) translation system like that one. And it's inconsistent- how can it translate Athosian to English, but not Czech?! It would be more realistic to say that magical fairies do the translating with pixie dust.
The only ways I could see it possibly working are:
1) It's a cover for the fact that, actually, the Ascended are doing the translating, which they could do cause they're dei ex machinae (is that how you pluralize deus ex machina? I do New World languages, idk);
2) Instead of taking your spoken language and reencoding it into the hearer's language, what it actually does is rewire your brain so that your actual production happens in some Pegasusean lingua franca or holding state, but your comprehension is affected, and- you know, as I was typing this, I realized that it would never, never work, and you'd get a situation where language acquisition processes would completely break down. I think 1) works so much better.
I'm sorry to say that the linguistic stuff got less and less accurate as it went on. The movie's depiction of language contact and change is actually quite realistic; SG-1 was kinda okay until they just stopped caring, Daniel's superhuman translation abilities notwithstanding; in Atlantis, they didn't try at all.
What are the most frustrating parts of the SG universe, linguistically speaking?
Daniel's plenty frustrating, but mostly because he really is preternaturally good at languages, in a way that I will never, ever be. So it's professional jealousy. :D
I find Teal'c and Teyla's speech patterns- and the use of Spock Speak by people other than Vulcans and groups like the Tollan- to be incredibly problematic, for reasons that get a little tl;dr. Suffice it to say that it's not a good idea to show that the dark-skinned aliens are good guys by making them sound hyper-white. But, I think that's just a piece of a larger problem with the depiction of the Jaffa in general. It's not as bad in Atlantis, because the Athosians are multi-racial (which is a whole nother rant, but an anthropological one), and then there's Ronon, who's non-white, good, smart, and not hyperstandard- but, yes. It's a problem.
And then there's the Vancouver problem. There are varying levels of American accent competence among the cast(s)- Kavan Smith, in particular, is so good that I didn't know he wasn't American till I looked it up- but Torri Higginson is far and away the worst at it. It's like she's not even pretending to try to do an American accent; I think it's especially noticeable to me because 1) she's such a good actress 2) Weir's nationality is highly salient.
But the one that really fills me with LINGUIST RAGE is a scene from McKay and Mrs. Miller. So it's the part where Sam is talking to Rodney and Jeannie by satellite on the Daedalus, and there's this bit, which I have cleverly copied and pasted from the GateWorld transcript:
JEANIE: I solved your problem in my spare time ... with finger paints.
McKAY: Here we go.
JEANIE: I just can’t imagine how you’re surviving the humiliation.
McKAY: Look, if it wasn’t for my work, your little theory would be useless ...
CARTER: Whoa, whoa! Siblings, please!
McKAY and JEANIE (simultaneously as they turn back to the screen): Sorry.
(Sam ducks her head, unsuccessfully trying to hide a smile.)
McKAY: What?
CARTER: Well, it’s just that you both said “sorry” in that cute little Canadian way, and I ... [etc.]
As written, it's fine, because Canadians tend to tense and back that vowel, where Americans drop and front it, and it does sound very cute. But, see, here's the thing: NEITHER OF THEM SAID IT. In this instance, despite the fact that Hewlett tenses that vowel all the time, both of them pronounced it exactly like Americans. And I don't even know how that made it in, because it's so obvious, and EVERYONE IN THAT SCENE IS FROM CANADA. HOW DID THEY NOT REALIZE. IT IS IN THE DIALOGUE.
GAH.
::cough::
So, yes. That's me, generally speaking.
Team: War!
Let's talk about: sabinelagrande!
1. How long have you been writing fan fiction and/or making fan art and/or whatever else (vids, knitted goods, pornographic gingerbread cookies)?
Um. Shit. It's hard to say. I've had a fic journal since 2003, and I had an ff.net account before that. The first time I ever sat down and consciously decided to write fanfic was in '03 (and it was GODAWFUL), but I wrote stuff that might be considered fic before I ever heard the term. I remember particularly that in the fifth grade, me and my best friends wrote a sprawling Star Wars fic with us and our friends replacing the characters.
I had to be the Ewoks. I was pissed.
More recently, I've gotten into doing crafty fannish things. I'm on a big cross-stitch kick at the moment, and I also do a little costuming.
2. Have you participated or are you participating in any other fandoms?
Child. What fandom am I not in? I kind of stumbled into online fandom as soon as I stumbled online, which was, good lord, when I was 9 and AOL 2.0 was the new hotness. And I made a lot of really embarrassing fansites for The Secret World of Alex Mack and Rocky Horror and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (before Drew's Line, TYVM) and Monty Python and thank god most of them no longer exist.
Anyway. Besides SGA, my other main fandom at the moment is Phoenix Wright, and I'm sort of still tangentially connected to the House fandom. Previously, I've been involved in Firefly, Smallville, Cowboy Bebop, Harry Potter, Hellsing, The Big Bang Theory, DC Comics, Jeeves and Wooster, and probably a lot of other things that slip my mind at the moment.
3. What fanwork are you most proud of? Or, what is your favourite of your fanworks? (links, please!)
Am I allowed to say a story that's not done yet? Because I think I'm most proud of my story for this year's sgabigbang, even though I'm only about 25000 words in. It's the biggest story I've ever attempted, both in terms of sheer length and in terms of scope, and it's totally self-indulgent but I think it's AWESOME.
So, um, favorites. I've written so many stories that it's hard to keep track, but my favorite SGA story is probably The House by the Beach, mostly because it turned out exactly like I wanted. I'm also terribly fond of Individually Wrapped; the funniest and hottest ones, respectively, are Not for Lack of Trying and Civilized Man. My favorite crossover (cause everybody loves crossovers) is definitely you will be my one last chance, which is John/Tony Stark, and which I still need to finish the sequels to.
Though, I have to say that my favorite fic of them all is either Still Standing or bigger, better (if you could only get there), both of which are Phoenix Wright stories.
(Hey, you ask for links, you get them!)
4. As far as creative processes go, what type of writer/artist are you? Do you create an outline/find photo references/make maps, etc., or do you jump in and go with the flow?
I write two different kinds of stories. The way I started out writing, the way I've always written, is all at once. I have an idea, I sit down and write it, I'm done. More recently, probably since I got into House fandom a few years ago, I've gotten into doing bigger stuff, stuff that requires planning and forethought and such. When I'm outlining a story, I vastly prefer to do it on paper first, then transcribe it and start moving and cleaning things.
I don't make maps, but I do make diagrams sometimes, because I find I make blocking mistakes if I don't. And I've only just realized that I make facial expressions commensurate with what's going on in the story while I write. It must be rather odd to watch.
5. Where can interested readers/viewers find more of your work? (homepage, LJ fic index, etc.)
My dreamwidth (sabinetzin) functions as a fic archive; there's nothing on there except (about 300, wtf, when did that happen?!) stories, so things are fairly easy to find through tags. I'm working on getting indices up, but there just aren't enough hours in the day, man.
6. Do you write original fiction (poetry, screenplays)? Do you create original art (comics, photographs, quilts, wedding cakes)? Care to share?
From time to time I write original stuff; the majority of it is urban fantasy. Right now, I'm working on a graphic novel about a cop who can bend time, who falls in love with a very strange psychic. I'm hoping to get it worked up in time to submit for the Prism Comics Queer Press Grant next year (baby steps, people, baby steps). My original fic journal is debitage- but I warn you, I never update.
Of course, my big focus right now is getting my academic work published. Eesh.
7. How are you so awesome?
It's very difficult. One must take lessons.
Let's talk about: SGA!
8. What do you enjoy most about SGA and/or SGA fandom?
I just really love the show. I love the design, I love the incredible sketchiness of everything Atlantis does, I love Sheppard and Teyla and Zelenka and Lorne and Ronon and Ford and Caldwell and Weir and Grodin and Woolsey and, okay, okay, I admit it, even Rodney sometimes. It fills me with unabashed glee.
The first three seasons, anyway.
As for the fandom, the fic is SO GOOD and there's SO MUCH of it. The fandoms I'm used to, it's either 1) everything is great, but there are like seven stories and I wrote four of them 2) the crap and the awesome come in about equal measures. But in this fandom, it's more remarkable to find a really bad fic than a good one. I mean, seriously, I have ~500 SGA recs on my delicious, and there are entire pairings and whole genres that I don't even read.
9. Why do you ship McKay/Sheppard? What draws you to the pairing, what do you like and dislike? Favourite scenes or episodes? Quotes? Screencaps? What other SGA pairings do you ship?
I like to say that I ship McShep not because they're doing it, but because they should be doing it. I want to see it work out for them, because despite all odds, they go together, and I love those sorts of stories.
Favorite things. Hmm. The Last Man and The Shrine, definitely, even though they hurt my heart. The episode where I decided they were totally hot for each other is The Brotherhood (which one of my favorite episodes, and all about Kolya and his inappropriate feelings for Sheppard's boyfriend). Because Rodney is over talking to traitor girl, and she's all, "Hey, doc, come up and look at my tapestries ;)" and Rodney's all "John, I'm going to bed, HINT HINT" and Ford and Teyla are all "LOL OTP".
Then of course, there's the bit about John and the Mensa test, which I really like just for Rodney's expression (by which I mean it looks like he's about to hump John's leg right there in front of god and everybody).
My dear love of McShep notwithstanding, I ship everything. Multishippers for life, yo. Right now I'm on a huge Weir/Caldwell kick (but honestly, I'll take Caldwell/anybody, cause Mitch Pileggi = UNF), and the secret pairing of my heart is Ronon/Radek. I'll write damn near anything, too- I've done everything from Teyla/Todd to Woolsey/Sheppard, and I'll probably do even worse in the future.
10. Why did you choose to join Team War?
Cause I'm not a damn hippy.
Okay, okay. Mostly because I thought writing for War would be the bigger challenge for me; humor is my default, so I'm more proud of the stories I've written that aren't fluffy and funny and happy. Bring the conflict, baby.
11. C'mon, you know you wanna! Just a bit of squee about your Match fic?
So, originally, I was writing a very, very different story. And it was very grand and sweeping and sort of strange, and it absolutely would not work no matter what I did. So round about August, I went, "Uh, uh, shit, PLAN B, PLAN B" and chucked the whole thing.
So what you'll be reading is Plan B and, OMG, so much better than what I planned originally. It's become a real labor of love kind of a thing; it's the kind of story I adore, and if it's not any good it's gonna be like having an ugly baby- I don't want nobody to tell me.
My favorite bit is probably the stupidest joke in the whole thing, but that's the way it always is.
12. What are your 'tells'? How can a fic of yours be spotted in the wild?
They're really atrociously filthy. Seriously. People (usually between two and four of them) are always just all over each other in very nasty ways. Often they're wearing collars while they do it. Or, at least, like, half of them are.
I also vastly overuse the semicolon; it's my favorite punctuation mark by far. I often find myself having trouble not using one in every single sentence. Oh, and parenthetical asides; I haven't used them as much in my SGA writing, but they're probably the most characteristic part of my writing in general (and especially in my conversational, non-fictional sort of writing). And I've only just realized I keep breaking binding rules, oddly.
...the linguistic ones, anyway.
And now, some additional questions provided by busaikko!
So, I'm exercising amazing restraint and not asking *anything* about Linguistics and Stargate.... [Ed. note: this did not last long.] Instead, I'm going to ask you about genderswap (you saw that coming, didn't you?). What would you say is the difference between writing Meredith and John versus, say, Jennifer and Rodney? Is there a different dynamic there?
I don't think it's any secret that I'm a big Rodney-torturer. I honestly don't like him very much, and I'm constantly putting him in situations where he has to grow as a person or change in some way (which is why Tao of Rodney is one of my favorite episodes). I'm afraid writing him as a girl is just an extension of that; society rewards guys like Rodney and punishes girls like Meredith. I often find Rodney's behavior to be misogynistic, so it's almost like giving him a taste of his own medicine.
Which is kind of unhealthy and mean, but at least I'm honest about it.
I've tried to write girl!John/Rodney several times, and I keep stalling out on it. There is something different about it, certainly. I think part of the reason for me in particular is that the reasons I have for making Rodney into Meredith just don't apply to John at all. One of the very first things that we learn about John is that he treats women like human beings; so if he's a girl, then, y'know, whoop de doo. Don't get me wrong- there are points in the series where he acts like a total pig, but they're so few and far between that they just come off as bad writing (I'm looking at you, Whispers) or, occasionally, as proof of his attraction to dudes (Inferno, anyone?). And there are stories that deal with him as a woman and do it really well- Rosemary for Remembrance and Ardhanarishvara (oh dear, I think I just pimped somebody from Team Hippy, AAAAH) leap to mind- but I think you really need a story that big to pull out how they're different. Given the length I'm usually working with (that's what she said), you put him in a skirt and you're halfway there.
Mmm. John in a skirt.
...And I wrote this whole response before I realized that Jennifer was a character on the show and not a female version of John's name. I R SO GOOD AT GATESTAR. But anyway, I kind of talk about that in the next bit.
Do readers (in your opinion) read Meredith as still being male and therefore excluded from a lot of the baggage of women in canon? Or is this an apples-and-oranges comparison?
I think part of the good thing about genderswap, particularly of the temporary/Ancient-induced variety, is that you can just throw off so much of the baggage and write without considering the broader social ramifications of, say, tying a woman up and coming on her face (which is uncomfortable even to type, and I like being tied up). We know, deep down, that it's okay for John to throw Meredith against walls and ravish her and things, because we know Rodney can take it. We couldn't necessarily say the same thing about, say, Elizabeth.
I often find that genderswap stories are more sensual than het stories for this reason- and by that I don't mean that they're hotter, but that there's more (and dirtier) attention paid to the female form, the sex is rougher, etc- though, admittedly, I don't read much SGA het (and none of it with Rodney or John), so I may not be making fair comparisons.
Then again, my main motivation for writing this genderswap verse, which I will never get around to properly naming, is to load Rodney up with baggage and see what he does with it. So, yeah. I think they do, but that's not necessarily a negative thing.
And then there's this whole other kind of baggage- I know that most of my readers will receive a story about Rodney and John in a completely different way and with a much more positive attitude than a story about, say, Rodney and Jennifer or Sheppard and Weir; people really, really like Rodney, in a way they don't usually like the female characters. I'm into telling people stories that they'll like; so if I can still do what I want, which is this pretentious conceptual gender thing, and still give people what they'll enjoy essentially unreservedly, which is Rodney/John, why shouldn't I?
What I'm trying to say is that we're very fanservice-y around here. ;D
And I notice that you signed up for the DVD commentary thing *g* What fic would you be real excited to get commentary on? (or, what would you cringe to get commentary on?)
I would both love on and cringe at someone who did commentary for Get Away, because I would very much like for someone to tell me where that story went wrong and how. And anybody who did commentary for The House by the Beach would be my favorite forever.
Do linguists find Daniel Jackson a hero of their profession, or do they just want to kick him?
I like to tell my students he's the linguist's answer to Indiana Jones, but sadly, Daniel Jackson just isn't that well known in the linguistic community. Even people like Mary Bucholtz, goddess of my world, who do research on nerds, are very rarely nerds themselves. And plus, as a linguistic anthropologist like myself, he falls into the crack between disciplines, and few people are willing to cross it. He'd make a pretty poor hero for, say, a theoretical phonologist. Maybe the philologists like him better (since that's what he was to start with), but most of them seem to not have TVs.
I will say, however, that Daniel Jackson is ten times better at both linguistics and archaeology than Indiana Jones has ever been. And he (apart from Mary Bucholtz, obvs.) is my hero. <3
Puts in a vote for the scholarly article about the Canadian accents of SGA.
Actually, I think it might be more interesting and relevant to my research to examine why everybody thinks Sheppard is a Southerner. There's some great linguistic ideology work to be done right there. I have plans for corpus studies. ::steeples fingers::
How does the Stargate wooooork? How does it translate so well? (And why? Didn't Daniel have to translate in SG1? Why is Pegasus different?)
Short answer:
IT DON'T
Long answer:
IT REALLY DON'T
I know the Ancients figured out how to make wormholes and travel through time and shit, but that is child's play compared to trying to create an online (ie, real-time) translation system like that one. And it's inconsistent- how can it translate Athosian to English, but not Czech?! It would be more realistic to say that magical fairies do the translating with pixie dust.
The only ways I could see it possibly working are:
1) It's a cover for the fact that, actually, the Ascended are doing the translating, which they could do cause they're dei ex machinae (is that how you pluralize deus ex machina? I do New World languages, idk);
2) Instead of taking your spoken language and reencoding it into the hearer's language, what it actually does is rewire your brain so that your actual production happens in some Pegasusean lingua franca or holding state, but your comprehension is affected, and- you know, as I was typing this, I realized that it would never, never work, and you'd get a situation where language acquisition processes would completely break down. I think 1) works so much better.
I'm sorry to say that the linguistic stuff got less and less accurate as it went on. The movie's depiction of language contact and change is actually quite realistic; SG-1 was kinda okay until they just stopped caring, Daniel's superhuman translation abilities notwithstanding; in Atlantis, they didn't try at all.
What are the most frustrating parts of the SG universe, linguistically speaking?
Daniel's plenty frustrating, but mostly because he really is preternaturally good at languages, in a way that I will never, ever be. So it's professional jealousy. :D
I find Teal'c and Teyla's speech patterns- and the use of Spock Speak by people other than Vulcans and groups like the Tollan- to be incredibly problematic, for reasons that get a little tl;dr. Suffice it to say that it's not a good idea to show that the dark-skinned aliens are good guys by making them sound hyper-white. But, I think that's just a piece of a larger problem with the depiction of the Jaffa in general. It's not as bad in Atlantis, because the Athosians are multi-racial (which is a whole nother rant, but an anthropological one), and then there's Ronon, who's non-white, good, smart, and not hyperstandard- but, yes. It's a problem.
And then there's the Vancouver problem. There are varying levels of American accent competence among the cast(s)- Kavan Smith, in particular, is so good that I didn't know he wasn't American till I looked it up- but Torri Higginson is far and away the worst at it. It's like she's not even pretending to try to do an American accent; I think it's especially noticeable to me because 1) she's such a good actress 2) Weir's nationality is highly salient.
But the one that really fills me with LINGUIST RAGE is a scene from McKay and Mrs. Miller. So it's the part where Sam is talking to Rodney and Jeannie by satellite on the Daedalus, and there's this bit, which I have cleverly copied and pasted from the GateWorld transcript:
JEANIE: I solved your problem in my spare time ... with finger paints.
McKAY: Here we go.
JEANIE: I just can’t imagine how you’re surviving the humiliation.
McKAY: Look, if it wasn’t for my work, your little theory would be useless ...
CARTER: Whoa, whoa! Siblings, please!
McKAY and JEANIE (simultaneously as they turn back to the screen): Sorry.
(Sam ducks her head, unsuccessfully trying to hide a smile.)
McKAY: What?
CARTER: Well, it’s just that you both said “sorry” in that cute little Canadian way, and I ... [etc.]
As written, it's fine, because Canadians tend to tense and back that vowel, where Americans drop and front it, and it does sound very cute. But, see, here's the thing: NEITHER OF THEM SAID IT. In this instance, despite the fact that Hewlett tenses that vowel all the time, both of them pronounced it exactly like Americans. And I don't even know how that made it in, because it's so obvious, and EVERYONE IN THAT SCENE IS FROM CANADA. HOW DID THEY NOT REALIZE. IT IS IN THE DIALOGUE.
GAH.
::cough::
So, yes. That's me, generally speaking.