What are your thoughts

[shester]

on the strength of you characters?  Do you think that you have to make one character weak so the other one can appear strong?  Or do you think you can have two strong characters at the same time?  I haven't really noticed that you weaken one but was wondering, I guess, more how you write so that they both can be strong in their own right and yet still have their problems.  Make sense?

I guess where this came from was a story I read where the author made  Aeryn this strong, emotionally capable person and  John a weak, whining, unable to cope person.  I stopped reading it way before it was done.   I felt like it was way off canon for one thing and that will stop me from finishing a story more than anything.

How do you find that balance when you write?

If I have asked this already just ignore me. 

Sybil

[Eirenne]

I am curious to Crash's answer as well.  I wonder if in this case the author identified strongly with Aeryn and saw her as this strong and emotionally sound person?  And with John he/she saw him the way he/she wrote him, not that I agree.  I have to think when you are writing fanfic you really need to put yourself in an "objective" frame mind in order to capture the true spirit of the characters.  Just my two cents...

[KernilCrash]

  Not ignoring you!

I've been away over the weekend.  I'll try to put together a coherent answer tomorrow (Tuesday).

The simple answer, however, is that I agree that there's no need to weaken or diminish one character (i.e. John) in order to make Aeryn appear stronger; that it is poor characterization; and the way I deal with it is to simply watch Farscape, pay attention to those two very realistic, complex, often flawed people on the screen, and do my best to put my personal issues and/or agendas aside when I write. 

[shester]

No rush.  Take your time.


Sybil

[KernilCrash]

After a PM to get a better grasp on this question ... I'll take a stab at the "how do I keep John and Aeryn balanced" part of the question.  Unfortunately, this has more to do with my love of Farscape and what I like most about it and less about writing.

While I'm a confirmed, die-hard Benaholic, I don't believe that I actively dislike any of the characters.  I admit that I don't understand what motivates Noranti, Jool, and a few others, which makes it almost impossible to create three dimensional characters on the page, but that doesn't mean that I dislike them or exclude them from stories because I don't want them "on the set".  If I leave someone out it's because I don't know what to do with them.    If you listen carefully to some of the people in the fandom, you can tell that they really don't like one character or another ... or perhaps like a single character to the exclusion of all else.  What I like is FARSCAPE, with all its nuances and complexities.   

Actually, now that I've thought about it a bit, I'd have to say that my stories are skewed by my personal preferences ... because what I enjoy most about Farscape is when John and Aeryn are working as a couple.  I adore the 'Butch and Sundance' mode, when they are cooperating in a snarky, ball-bustin' kind of way, each of them contributing their strengths and knowledge to the situation, and acknowledging the things that they don't know or can't handle.  And since I like the Butch and Sundance kind of cooperation, what I see are two equally capable, strong, loving, and without a doubt flawed human beings on the screen.  My future fics probably reveal my bias the best.  I envision Aeryn and John as having a pretty typical successful marriage, which to me means having to work at it, occasionally having problems, fights, disagreements, tragedies, and then all the good times.  In order to see it that way, they've both got to be balanced, fully-functional human beings, not some half-developed caricature of a person. 

So my balance comes from what I want John and Aeryn to have, and from simply watching Farscape.  If my betareader says my characterizations are off, the solution is to go back, watch more Farscape, and to simply listen to those incredibly real people. 

Does that answer the question? 

[shester]

Yes that answers it very well.

I love Farscape too as well as being a Ben fan.  Most people think I hate Aeryn.  I don't hate her.  I just don't like a lot of the things she does to John until season 4 when she finally, to me, gets it.  It being, that to have a relationship with someone you can't make all the rules.   You have to compromise and you have to put their feelings ahead of yours many times, not all the time but I have found in a relationship that when you make the other person happy that they in turn bend over double to make you happy.  It can't be one sided which is what I think Aeryn does until she realizes in season 4 that it can't be about her wants and needs all the time.  That she has to see John's needs too.  And I think by John pushing her away, because he is damaged, she understands this.  John has a lot of patience.  He allowed her to make the rules so she could catch up to him emotionally.  But even he got tired of it as he tells her in GEM. "It is always about what you want." 

I like the Bunch and Sundance aspect of their lives too, which is probably why I love your stories the best of all I have read.  You do that balance very well.


Some of the characters weren't fleshed out as well as I would have liked especially Noranti.  I am so curious as to why she was there other than to be the "dr" when someone was hurt.  I always felt there was another reason but we didn't get our season 5.

Sybil

[KernilCrash]

I think what you're saying about Aeryn is why I enjoy writing future fic so much.  I don't get as frustrated or angry with her prior to Season 4 because she's SO damaged, and struggling SO hard to catch up emotionally that I hurt for her.  I hurt for John, too, but I think I don't get quite as frustrated with her behavior as you or some other people.  The way I view her development, I think by the end of PK Wars that she has a good grasp on what she wants, and understands that she still has a distance to travel before she gets the whole relationship/emotions thing nailed down.  John and Aeryn weren't static during the show; I don't expect their personalities to stop developing at the moment PKWars ends.  I think they'll continue to grow, annoy each other (which might explain why I keep having John throw his dirty clothes in the corner in a number of my future fics ), fight, and grow closer -- just like any other human couple.  And they're more fun to write since they're not torturing each other.  The circumstances may cause them enormous pain (thinking of The Changeling), but it's not like the source of the problem is the other person. 

I would have liked to find out why Scorpius wanted Noranti, and what purpose the writers had in store for her.  *sigh* 

[shester]

I don't see her as much, damaged, before season 4 as just someone who doesn't want to deal with emotional things.  She hasn't gone through the things John has as far as being tortured and having the clone driving him nuts and so on.  Yes, she died but I think that was much harder on John than her.   Zhaan dying to save her had to make her feel guilty.  (Although she threw that back in Zhaan's face when she denied John at the end of SOD.) 

I think part of the reason I don't feel for Aeryn's "pain" is because I came in when she was plotting with TJ to go to Earth and not telling MJ and the way she treated MJ when she got back to Moya.  She knew that he was there and treated him abominably. If she was going to leave anyway, she shouldn't have come back just to treat him the way she did.  So when I went back to watch all the seasons I had missed, the Aeryn I met first  stuck with me and I couldn't muster any sympathy for her.  Maybe if I had started at the beginning I would have had more sympathy for her.  First impressions are hard to get rid of I guess.

And yes, like you I think they will still have trials during their lifetime.  They will struggle with many things (having children for one) I think and will always have difference of opinions on how things should be done.  But that's the fun of it right? 

I want my season 5.  Comic books are nice as are webisodes but nothing is as good as 22 wonderful episodes.

Sybil

[Eirenne]

Crash, I agree with you as seeing Aeryn as having her own issues. It clearly muddied the waters when it came to how she dealt with the feelings she had for John but more importantly the inability to convey those feelings.  Having found Farscape late and actually getting hooked by watching the PK Wars my experience is different than yours and Sybil's.  But I feel for both of them.  Actually for all of them.  As much as sometimes D'Argo would anger me at how he would treat John I also understood who he was.  It's the entire story that you have to embrace and you need to put your place in their shoes.  At least that's always been my approach.  It's the Libra in me....