Team Building with Jack Landors (SPD, A Squad, #5, T)

[starandrea]

characters: SPD's A Squad (Rose/Charlie)
prompt #5: dead last
word count: 3100
rating: T (for language)
summary: Charlie, like every Red Ranger before her, has trouble with downtime. Rose understands.
author's note: Ruby appears with written permission of purplestripe66 and my love ♥

Comments

[rosabelle]

Ooh, okay, now I'm totally in love with your A squad. They're all awesome and cuddly! (And because I've hardly watched SPD, like, at all, did you make up their names?)

[starandrea]

♥! That makes me so happy! They totally ARE awesome and cuddly! ::champions A Squad!::

Charlie was named in the credits, though not during the course of the actual show ::nods:: She was the only one. There was a thing that went around Rangerboard, I think, where a group of people agreed on names for the other members of A Squad, but I didn't like them. (The names, not the people!) So I made up new ones :)

[rosabelle]

I was wondering. :) When I first started reading fanfic, PRiS was the only season that I'd seen all the way through. It still might be the only one, but I hadn't seen any episodes of Turbo at all. So when there were people that showed up all the time in stories and I had no idea who they were, I thought they'd shown up in one episode of PRT never to be heard from again. I finally asked a friend about it. "Oh, I think they're all Starhawk's."

[starandrea]

::laughs:: I love it! I will sprinkle characters like... those little sprinkly things on spritz cookies! Expand our universe through community creation! ♥

In all seriousness, I find that when I go to write fanfic, I just can't do it with only the characters who were on the show--not because they're not good enough, but because there must be so many more people in their lives, you know? I feel like one of the great advantages we have with text, as opposed to video, is this ability to introduce and develop unlimited numbers of "classmates" and "next door neighbors" and "that guy you see on the bus everyday" without having to maintain the biggest payroll in Hollywood ♥

[rosabelle]

In all seriousness, I find that when I go to write fanfic, I just can't do it with only the characters who were on the show--not because they're not good enough, but because there must be so many more people in their lives, you know?

This. I played in my own little corner of the fandom for a really long time before I ever ran into the attitude of "no, original characters are bad and you must not write them ever because they are bad." Right, so this little corner of the fandom was pretty much only other fifteen year olds with their own original characters, and I know that my characters were all "Sue-ish," but if you don't write some bad ones first, how are you ever going to write some good ones? And I'll just agree with everything else that you said before I start ranting. ♥

[starandrea]

I know exactly what you mean ♥ And I know that everyone likes to think the rules don't apply to them, but I find that in fandom, the best thing to do is assume that the "rules" don't apply to you ::grin:: I think people get the teensiest bit self-righteous about spellcheck and "OOC-ness" and whether relationships are or aren't plausible, and once you get done obsessing about all of that, who has time to write? o.O

If it's bad, it's practice for the next time, that's what I say. And if it's good, it's practice for the next time! I heard some famous author say that writers are the only people in the world who think they don't have to practice to be good at their craft. They should just be able to write down whatever they think of, whenever they think of it, and have it be great. Everyone else knows you have to practice to get good at things, you have to get up at four in the morning and go to the pool and swim meaningless lap upon lap before you ever do something that someone else will want to see ^_

[lttledvl_writes]

Write what you know!

Thank you! I tried telling that to other people once and got lots of 'well, that doesn't fly because have you ever been through a stargate?', 'when were you last chased by life-force sucking aliens?'.

They couldn't seem to get it. I wasn't talking about events, I was speaking in terms of applying real-life experiences and the subsiquent emotions we have as a result. No, I don't know what it's really like to be on alien planet. Yes, I *do* know what it's like to have a twisted emotional relationship with a parent.

It's not the fictional events that we're lending our experience to, but the core root of what makes us human. Even if that human happens to be of an alien species.

[starandrea]

YES! I don't understand why people think "writing what you know" has to mean "I will only ever write an autobiography." (In some ways, perhaps, all of our work IS an autobiography ::amused:: Regardless.) Let's see, I haven't stepped through a Stargate, but do I know what it's like to be in foreign territory with nothing familiar and only a single point of contact with the world I left? Yes! Who doesn't

[lttledvl_writes]

Interestingly, someone once asked me why I write so many straight characters when I'm gay

And I write gay characters though I'm straight. Hee! Go fig.

In some ways, perhaps, all of our work IS an autobiography

Yes, those bits and pieces of ourselves that we put into our works. *nods*

"because gay and straight relationships aren't so different,"

True! Either relationship has the potential to be loving, full of romance, simple yet caring, boring, no passion, twisted, manipulative all the way down to abusive. The body types involved don't matter. Gays and straights can equally be kind folks or douchebags. ;)