Busy Day, Busy People

[tielan]

Oh well. Never let it be said I don't bring the wank meta to the yard!

(teylafen for the clueless.)

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fic rec:

Messengers by shusu

Nicely mysterious, intriguing. Second time reading through, I found myself thinking: Is there a Sheppard/Lorne vibe in this, or am I going nuts? But it's not slash. I don't think. Then again, I am clueless in this regard.

art rec:

John/Teyla wallpaper from the S3 promo pics, by azangal_icons

I love the photomanip job - the best of a difficult couple of promo pics.

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I have my first major slashbunny for Atlantis fandom. As in seriously slashbunny. It popped up from the ground like Athena, sprung fully-grown from the head of Zeus, and began chowing down on my imagination. I am scared, people! It's sitting there giving me the eye.

o_O

It's been a while since I wrote slash. I got two stories into the Daniel/Paul Davis 'Spark In The Night' series and then Daniel bought the farm and that bunny died. Or possibly ascended like a fluffy little bunny-squid. But never descended again.

Man. I haven't thought of Spark In The Night in a while. *goes to dig out her old files*

Oy.

Teylaficathon first, then another Earthside challenge entry, then the slashbunny. Maybe.

Comments

[tielan]

I can practically guarantee that if you chat canon with me (and put up with my total cluelessness in the social sciences) you'll get fic.

I tend to skip the babelfish issue entirely, but the take on Atlantis (or the Stargates themselves) turning everything into a kind of universal spoken language is intriguing and I've never thought about how it works. (Rather like the producers.)

If you don't mind my asking, what do you mean by the statement that you've never learned your native dialects? Where are you from? (I'd guess an Asian country with an European-occupation history, but that's based on your username and the mention of lions in your author handle and could be very wrong.)

[shusu.livejournal.com]

It's a handy bit of fanon that I've seen used sparingly. Personally I doubt it's canon, but it's workable fanon. (One might even pull a DanielJackson and say the Tower of Babel was actually a stargate malfunction / sabotage designed to bring down a Goa'uld.) If it's believable, then anyone close to Ancient tech might be affected (the kid-planet didn't seem to use their well, but they had a ZPM-powered shielding thing)... and/or walking the stargate is a coming-of-age ritual. Otherwise it'd be hard to use the stargates for trade. There are multiple written languages too, per Coup d'Etat.

The side-stepping comes in when we go through Rising's panning shot and not everyone can understand each other. Then they walk the gate, and.... Zelenka can definitely still speak Czech, so there has to be compensation for that.

*
Heh, don't let the userpic fool you! My grandfather'd roll over in his grave if he knew I was using a Japanese handle. That's just a nod to my anime roots, and a well-worn username (Liondragon is actually from Harry Potter -- my non-anime fics all carry that handle.)

I was born in the Philippines, but though I lived there for a long time, I subsequently dropped multiple dialects (father's, mother's, national/school-taught) in favor of English. I was using English when I lived there, even; U.S. living just cleaned me out of everything else, though I can still follow conversations somewhat. This is *very* unusual for a Filipino, because I've been to gatherings in three countries and everyone can still speak their dialect plus Tagalog, including those not born there.

[tielan]

Then they walk the gate, and.... Zelenka can definitely still speak Czech, so there has to be compensation for that.

It's an interesting speculation on exactly when and how a multi-language translator device would work. Probably guaranteed to blow your brain, though, since continuity is not a writer's friend in this fandom.

*

I would have gone for HK, Singapore, Malaysia, or the Philippines anyway. :) Most likely HK since 'Shusu' sounds Chinese to my ear.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's to the point where I tend to be most accepting of actor-generated continuity, because at least then I know this one person was there the whole time.

Mostly I like to combat the North American bias in idioms. It's *funny*, but I'd like equal time, say, Ronon remarking like shooting slugs in a puddle, or something that puts our heroes on the receiving end. Sheppard at least is making an attempt -- learning and integrating sticks practice and uh, Ronon in his entirety, (that bit about chatting with an Afghan warlord), but it's still very... American G.I. stereotype. Well-meaning, imposing. For that story I really liked that they had never heard each other before (to parallel that John had never heard *Rodney* before either).


I -think- it's one of those borrowed Chinese words in Japan. A silk technique that's like satin. It's actually shortened from Shuzumi, red ink stick (also a Chinese thing), and yeah, I was having way too much fun messing with online dictionaries. Mostly I stick with it because it's short and no one else has tried to jack it (that I know of.) And my default with both names is one of my oldest icons, and I lost the original file XD

[tielan]

Mostly I like to combat the North American bias in idioms. It's *funny*, but I'd like equal time, say, Ronon remarking like shooting slugs in a puddle, or something that puts our heroes on the receiving end.

Someone commented that the best stories hinted at more background for characters without always going into the explicit detail. So 'alien' characters would make comments that aren't explained, families have in-jokes that aren't elucidated, and some concepts just don't translate.

It was more in the realm of writing fantasy fiction, but I think it definitely applies when writing alien cultures. Certainly, my main worry with writing alien cultures is the possibility of being Jossed at a later stage.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't take a lot of time to build alien cultures. I mean, I can write a whole lot of Rodney without getting into Canadian culture (to my detriment, I'm sure he'd say). At the same time, I guess I'm odd -- I wouldn't mind being jossed for a time-consuming alien culture as much as jossed for a character. As soon as I start constructing an alien culture it's such an AU-building exercise that I find it easier to shift to AU. Whereas I read, say, Jeannie McKay stories and just cringe wondering what'll happen to them.