[What is it about the military/soldiers that draws you?]
Many things? I mean, I grew up on Redwall, which was all about swashbuckling heroism, and Star Trek, which was steeped in hierarchy and discipline and working together as a well-formed unit. And I'm a sucker for discipline. And for people who have to exist outside the normal bounds of civil society. And for people being pushed past their limits, and the precision of mechanisms of war, and building up people to be beyond what they thought they could be. And the idea of people taking on a burden so other people can escape it – you know, the soldiers-fight-so-we-don't-have-to thing. And force. Force is intriguing to me. Force in the name of justice especially so. And ideas of honor and such.
Also, uniforms look awesome, okay.
And that's really the sort of high-level, more idealistic/narrative-dramatic edge of things, and fails to take into account many, many real-world problems with real-world militaries, like how sexual assault is endemic in many of them, or how they're all made of people and some of those people will be assholes or serial assaulters or whathaveyou, and let's not even get into the treatment of vets or the ways in which militaries are deployed. But, you know, it's the shiny stuff that draws me.
[What are some major themes that you find compelling, either to write or read about?]
Hurt/comfort is always a big one. Someone taking great care around someone else's broken pieces while still pushing them/leading them onward. And the entire concept of an ordeal master is completely awesome to me – someone who will drag you through dark and difficult places, and make sure you get out the other side. Sacrifice is a big thing, especially in all its flavors of self-sacrifice; sacrificing one's life, one's ideals, one's comfort, etc, etc. Giving oneself over to someone/something else; surrender. Painful truth-telling. Facing one's own death or the death of things one holds dear. (Which is why I really, really want to read The Last Policeman. Signification – that is, the ways in which meaning is placed upon a person, or a thing, etc. Trust, intent, things needed but not wanted. Authority and the burden of authority, especially the responsibilities/duties/posture (to use an Agency term) of being in command over someone. Worth, nobility, noblesse oblige. Transformation, in a raw physical sense. Serving as an avatar of something. Vindication, poetic justice. Having preconceptions knocked down and blown open. Power dynamics. Interplay and evolution of ideas, languages, cultures, etc. Extremely well-systemetized teams, etc. Resourcefulness. Struggle. The truth of people put on display and recognized, understood, respected, acknowledged, addressed, accepted. Standing against impossible odds. Intimate, non-sexual, non-romantic relationships. Science being awesome and not something which will lead us all to ruin. People having the capacity to address issues and improve on things instead of being on a helpless social avalanche toward ruin. Complexity. Moral gray. Finding the edges of people, relationships, cultures, and parking right on the edges of them.
...and some other stuff.
[Which character do you most identify with?]
Gonna go with Sam Carter on this one. Because she is, in my braincanon, a highly-introverted asexual INTP, perpetually preoccupied with her own perceived failures and awkward around people she doesn't know (as well people she does know and respects, and, er, most other people, tbh). ...though Sam Carter is smarter than me and she could also kick my ass.
[Which character do you look up to the most?]
Ooh. I'll say Dmitri Lang, because she is absolutely tireless in the face of challenges and the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge, she can speak snatches of just about every language she runs into, and she can whip out exclamations like "Ganesh dancing mambos on a melancholic mouse" and extemporaneous treatises tying together recent Chicago politics and the discovery of the Templo Mayor on a moment's notice. Dmitri is my hero.
[Which character have you learned the most from?]
Jack Harkness. Because he's my diametric opposite in a lot of ways, as well as being – as Dmitri puts it – a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a RAF coat. He and Khor managed to completely rework my perception of "human" as "boring unmarked generic state," he almost single-handedly made my understanding of power dynamics and morals and such 50x as complicated as most people's needs to be, and he was a better educator in the area of sexuality than, oh, pretty much the rest of Western civilization. He's a constant source of new snarls and perspectives and bizarre adages. He's also a really great guy. If you can deal with, y'know, a few things.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 06:39 am (UTC)[What is it about the military/soldiers that draws you?]
Many things? I mean, I grew up on Redwall, which was all about swashbuckling heroism, and Star Trek, which was steeped in hierarchy and discipline and working together as a well-formed unit. And I'm a sucker for discipline. And for people who have to exist outside the normal bounds of civil society. And for people being pushed past their limits, and the precision of mechanisms of war, and building up people to be beyond what they thought they could be. And the idea of people taking on a burden so other people can escape it – you know, the soldiers-fight-so-we-don't-have-to thing. And force. Force is intriguing to me. Force in the name of justice especially so. And ideas of honor and such.
Also, uniforms look awesome, okay.
And that's really the sort of high-level, more idealistic/narrative-dramatic edge of things, and fails to take into account many, many real-world problems with real-world militaries, like how sexual assault is endemic in many of them, or how they're all made of people and some of those people will be assholes or serial assaulters or whathaveyou, and let's not even get into the treatment of vets or the ways in which militaries are deployed. But, you know, it's the shiny stuff that draws me.
[What are some major themes that you find compelling, either to write or read about?]
Hurt/comfort is always a big one. Someone taking great care around someone else's broken pieces while still pushing them/leading them onward. And the entire concept of an ordeal master is completely awesome to me – someone who will drag you through dark and difficult places, and make sure you get out the other side. Sacrifice is a big thing, especially in all its flavors of self-sacrifice; sacrificing one's life, one's ideals, one's comfort, etc, etc. Giving oneself over to someone/something else; surrender. Painful truth-telling. Facing one's own death or the death of things one holds dear. (Which is why I really, really want to read The Last Policeman. Signification – that is, the ways in which meaning is placed upon a person, or a thing, etc. Trust, intent, things needed but not wanted. Authority and the burden of authority, especially the responsibilities/duties/posture (to use an Agency term) of being in command over someone. Worth, nobility, noblesse oblige. Transformation, in a raw physical sense. Serving as an avatar of something. Vindication, poetic justice. Having preconceptions knocked down and blown open. Power dynamics. Interplay and evolution of ideas, languages, cultures, etc. Extremely well-systemetized teams, etc. Resourcefulness. Struggle. The truth of people put on display and recognized, understood, respected, acknowledged, addressed, accepted. Standing against impossible odds. Intimate, non-sexual, non-romantic relationships. Science being awesome and not something which will lead us all to ruin. People having the capacity to address issues and improve on things instead of being on a helpless social avalanche toward ruin. Complexity. Moral gray. Finding the edges of people, relationships, cultures, and parking right on the edges of them.
...and some other stuff.
[Which character do you most identify with?]
Gonna go with Sam Carter on this one. Because she is, in my braincanon, a highly-introverted asexual INTP, perpetually preoccupied with her own perceived failures and awkward around people she doesn't know (as well people she does know and respects, and, er, most other people, tbh). ...though Sam Carter is smarter than me and she could also kick my ass.
[Which character do you look up to the most?]
Ooh. I'll say Dmitri Lang, because she is absolutely tireless in the face of challenges and the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge, she can speak snatches of just about every language she runs into, and she can whip out exclamations like "Ganesh dancing mambos on a melancholic mouse" and extemporaneous treatises tying together recent Chicago politics and the discovery of the Templo Mayor on a moment's notice. Dmitri is my hero.
[Which character have you learned the most from?]
Jack Harkness. Because he's my diametric opposite in a lot of ways, as well as being – as Dmitri puts it – a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a RAF coat. He and Khor managed to completely rework my perception of "human" as "boring unmarked generic state," he almost single-handedly made my understanding of power dynamics and morals and such 50x as complicated as most people's needs to be, and he was a better educator in the area of sexuality than, oh, pretty much the rest of Western civilization. He's a constant source of new snarls and perspectives and bizarre adages. He's also a really great guy. If you can deal with, y'know, a few things.