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Oh shit, my knee hurts (not unexpectedly. I walked at least a couple of miles yesterday, between visiting the Rodale Institute farm and doing the loop at Trexler Park while waiting for the kid to wake up and get moving on his day, and then I drove three hours home). So I'm icing after mulching (respectively, the knee and a garden bed, which I hope was obvious).
Subject line not because of knee but because I got thinking about swearing as it relates to character analysis. Whether someone uses bad language, and what words they choose under what circumstances, is one of those things I always consider when building characters from scratch (and one of the most fun parts, along with the ever-popular Who Calls Whom What When), and it's also interesting to think about in a fic context, especially when you're working from a network TV show where most swearing is verboten. I've got wide variation on this aspect among original characters: for example, George swears pretty freely when he has the chance, though he's perfectly able to keep it under wraps or change the language choices when playing roles, and he doesn't say "fuck" in front of Olivia for the longest time (and he's drunk when he does); Olivia sometimes gets literary but is usually blunt (though always choosy); Beatrice, the devout Catholic, hardly ever uses bad words at all, and can't say "damn" without commenting on the context; Janet only swears in languages-not-English; Simone swears mostly in French but knows perfectly well that George finds her "shit"s more charming than her "merde"s; and both Charles and Wilfrid manage to be deadly without the least obscenity. Et cetera (I also get to play with characters from the past saying things like "damn the devil black"). All that mostly grew organically, but sometimes I did think and craft ahead of time.
Because I have, ahem, been reading and writing a bit of "Person of Interest" fic recently, I've thought about this aspect of the show's characters - which is really a lot more interesting than considering the expletives of most fanfic universes, because here for the most part the non-cussing of the in-this-sense-clean American network TV carries over. I seem to be in agreement with most fic writers in this sense, but here's my personal list: Finch, no bad words, just can't see them coming out of his prissy mouth, but if so it would be with intent; Reese, not-so-surprisingly clean-mouthed (this may be Caviezel-bleeding-in, but I think it makes sense), though I bet Kara squeezed a few "fuck"s out of him along the way, and he was in the Army; Fusco, totally potty-mouthed; Carter, totally not; Shaw, quite expressive and no self-censoring; Root, again with the prissy mouth if totally evil with it; Nathan, one of the boys, but not because he likes it; Elias, not swearing is part of his mystique. Aside from one "Holy shit" from Fusco, I don't think I've written anything more PG than Grace saying "Screw you, Harold" (and that would be about as bad as she gets), which is... just really amusing to think about, because I may not write a lot of explicit sex scenes but I have no problem with expletives as appropriate. But here I just can't.
Other examples? Opinions? Am I the only one who finds this fascinating?
Subject line not because of knee but because I got thinking about swearing as it relates to character analysis. Whether someone uses bad language, and what words they choose under what circumstances, is one of those things I always consider when building characters from scratch (and one of the most fun parts, along with the ever-popular Who Calls Whom What When), and it's also interesting to think about in a fic context, especially when you're working from a network TV show where most swearing is verboten. I've got wide variation on this aspect among original characters: for example, George swears pretty freely when he has the chance, though he's perfectly able to keep it under wraps or change the language choices when playing roles, and he doesn't say "fuck" in front of Olivia for the longest time (and he's drunk when he does); Olivia sometimes gets literary but is usually blunt (though always choosy); Beatrice, the devout Catholic, hardly ever uses bad words at all, and can't say "damn" without commenting on the context; Janet only swears in languages-not-English; Simone swears mostly in French but knows perfectly well that George finds her "shit"s more charming than her "merde"s; and both Charles and Wilfrid manage to be deadly without the least obscenity. Et cetera (I also get to play with characters from the past saying things like "damn the devil black"). All that mostly grew organically, but sometimes I did think and craft ahead of time.
Because I have, ahem, been reading and writing a bit of "Person of Interest" fic recently, I've thought about this aspect of the show's characters - which is really a lot more interesting than considering the expletives of most fanfic universes, because here for the most part the non-cussing of the in-this-sense-clean American network TV carries over. I seem to be in agreement with most fic writers in this sense, but here's my personal list: Finch, no bad words, just can't see them coming out of his prissy mouth, but if so it would be with intent; Reese, not-so-surprisingly clean-mouthed (this may be Caviezel-bleeding-in, but I think it makes sense), though I bet Kara squeezed a few "fuck"s out of him along the way, and he was in the Army; Fusco, totally potty-mouthed; Carter, totally not; Shaw, quite expressive and no self-censoring; Root, again with the prissy mouth if totally evil with it; Nathan, one of the boys, but not because he likes it; Elias, not swearing is part of his mystique. Aside from one "Holy shit" from Fusco, I don't think I've written anything more PG than Grace saying "Screw you, Harold" (and that would be about as bad as she gets), which is... just really amusing to think about, because I may not write a lot of explicit sex scenes but I have no problem with expletives as appropriate. But here I just can't.
Other examples? Opinions? Am I the only one who finds this fascinating?
no subject
Date: 2013-04-28 06:41 pm (UTC)From:Interesting example with Dr. Bashir - I'd think you'd have to know more about his cultural background in the context of that world to know what words he'd use, and it's not something you could get from the show, so... hm. But then again a more American style of cursing would sound weird coming out of his mouth.