This again? meme and fanfic thoughts.
Hmm. So, sdwolfpup tagged me for this: Explain your LiveJournal name and its meaning. When you're done, tag as many people as there are letters in your name.
Sugargroupie stems from the domain name I've had since 2002: sugar-water.com, which I blatantly stole from a song by Cibo Matto. Since the username 'sugarwater' was already taken, and I admit to having a love of sugary sweet things, I added the groupie part on the end because I think it's oddly fitting for fandom. I'm not really a groupie of sugar, but I think it's cool and I've gotten many compliments on the name. However, I'm not really sure anybody knows me by sugargroupie, since I go by a variation of my real name online. Always have, too late to change that now.
My flist is too small to try to spell out my username, so anyone who wants to take up this meme can have at it.
No appropriate segue at all -
I've been meaning to post about my tealc_ficathon assignment, writing slash, characters of different races, and owning your pronouns. For me, Molasses (ah, shameless pimp) was an exercise in what I intentionally try to avoid writing, and things that I should avoid using in the future.
1. Writing fics where the only characters involved are two men, the obvious difficulty is pronoun usage. If I've written a paragraph where both characters are interacting, and then I say, "he ran down the corridor", well who the hell is 'he' referring to? Inserting the character's given name only works so many times before a noticeable pattern starts to form. I tried to mix it up a bit by referring to Cameron as "the colonel", but I felt extremely uncomfortable calling Teal'c "the jaffa", which is why I never used it.
Just as I'd never refer to Teal'c as "the dark skinned man" or "the black warrior", because as a reader I don't need to be told that Teal'c has dark skin, or that he is the lone character of color in a sea of white folks. Kind of obvious, isn't it? Every single time I've read an SG-1 fic where the author calls Teal'c, "the black man" it's thrown me out of the story. There are so many different elements that distinguish Teal'c from the others, and yet his skin color is something that needs to be pointed out? Do you call Daniel "the white linguist"? I don't understand the logic there.
This ties in to knowing your audience. The majority of your readers are already familiar with the characters of your fandom, what they look like and how they sound. Unless Teal'c's skin color is somehow relevant to the plot -- and if there is such a fic out there please link me -- then there's no need to bring it up. Another example would be if the other characters called him "big black guy", which I don't recall ever happening, but my knowledge of SG-1 canon is spotty. In Farscape, Crichton is constantly referred to as "the human", so I feel comfortable calling him that in my fic as well.
Reading over what I've written so far, this has less to do with slash and more to do with general writing peeves. Regardless, this is something that's always in the back of my mind when reading fics about COCs, and even more so now that I've taken an interest in writing Teal'c.
I wonder how Teal'c views racism on earth. Is it something he's had to deal with during his times away from the SGC, again, hanging around nothing but white folks. How do other black people treat him? Should I even ask if there is fanfic that touches on this?
I think my fascination with this topic is going to eventually lead me to write up my thoughts on why Aeryn Sun could be coded as a black woman. Or perhaps Chiana. Any thoughts on this?
Sugargroupie stems from the domain name I've had since 2002: sugar-water.com, which I blatantly stole from a song by Cibo Matto. Since the username 'sugarwater' was already taken, and I admit to having a love of sugary sweet things, I added the groupie part on the end because I think it's oddly fitting for fandom. I'm not really a groupie of sugar, but I think it's cool and I've gotten many compliments on the name. However, I'm not really sure anybody knows me by sugargroupie, since I go by a variation of my real name online. Always have, too late to change that now.
My flist is too small to try to spell out my username, so anyone who wants to take up this meme can have at it.
No appropriate segue at all -
I've been meaning to post about my tealc_ficathon assignment, writing slash, characters of different races, and owning your pronouns. For me, Molasses (ah, shameless pimp) was an exercise in what I intentionally try to avoid writing, and things that I should avoid using in the future.
1. Writing fics where the only characters involved are two men, the obvious difficulty is pronoun usage. If I've written a paragraph where both characters are interacting, and then I say, "he ran down the corridor", well who the hell is 'he' referring to? Inserting the character's given name only works so many times before a noticeable pattern starts to form. I tried to mix it up a bit by referring to Cameron as "the colonel", but I felt extremely uncomfortable calling Teal'c "the jaffa", which is why I never used it.
Just as I'd never refer to Teal'c as "the dark skinned man" or "the black warrior", because as a reader I don't need to be told that Teal'c has dark skin, or that he is the lone character of color in a sea of white folks. Kind of obvious, isn't it? Every single time I've read an SG-1 fic where the author calls Teal'c, "the black man" it's thrown me out of the story. There are so many different elements that distinguish Teal'c from the others, and yet his skin color is something that needs to be pointed out? Do you call Daniel "the white linguist"? I don't understand the logic there.
This ties in to knowing your audience. The majority of your readers are already familiar with the characters of your fandom, what they look like and how they sound. Unless Teal'c's skin color is somehow relevant to the plot -- and if there is such a fic out there please link me -- then there's no need to bring it up. Another example would be if the other characters called him "big black guy", which I don't recall ever happening, but my knowledge of SG-1 canon is spotty. In Farscape, Crichton is constantly referred to as "the human", so I feel comfortable calling him that in my fic as well.
Reading over what I've written so far, this has less to do with slash and more to do with general writing peeves. Regardless, this is something that's always in the back of my mind when reading fics about COCs, and even more so now that I've taken an interest in writing Teal'c.
I wonder how Teal'c views racism on earth. Is it something he's had to deal with during his times away from the SGC, again, hanging around nothing but white folks. How do other black people treat him? Should I even ask if there is fanfic that touches on this?
I think my fascination with this topic is going to eventually lead me to write up my thoughts on why Aeryn Sun could be coded as a black woman. Or perhaps Chiana. Any thoughts on this?