Well, I'm not so sure about "native land". Nothing ever happens in mine. ("Why did the Canadian cross the road? To get to the middle!") I did write one little ficlet for the hometown challenge, but the whole point of that one was that it was totally dull and utterly routine, and Clint fell asleep at the end ... ;-) You find it in my ficlet collection on AO3 (http://archiveofourown.org/works/791165), under the title "All Quiet on the Northern Front."

What I do like to do, though, is writing them in places where I've been, and that I have strong feelings about. So I've written them in Tbilisi, a place that I adore regardless of how screwed up it is (Chapter 2 of "In the Service") and in Astana, which I cannot stand ("Warmth") and in my favourite bits of New York ("The Skies Over Manhattan"). By doing that, I can play with their reactions and -- however surreptitiously -- inject a bit of myself into the characters I love, make them mine just a little bit more. Not to mention offer sarcastic commentary from Clint's POV. :-)

I really enjoy stories about where the author has been or in-depth researched (like many of the ones you write!). You can really tell the difference, and it adds a layer of reality to the thing. I kind of feel the same way. Two of my three hometowns have absolutely nothing happening (which is why they were good places to grow up!).

You've pointed out something that affects my desire/ability to write fics about these two. My NYC knowledge is limited (though it's better now that it had been three years ago, when I hadn't visited NYC in decades) and my Eastern Europe knowledge is pretty much nil, so, no Budapest stories from me. I've relied on "fantasy setting that needs no background since you all know what a horse and a castle looks like" stories for so damn long, sometimes I feel kinda helpless to craft any plotty stories for these characters.

I have this as well. I've never been to America (a brief stint in Miami Airport really doesn't count) and I cannot think of a reasonable way for either of them to end up in the UK, as I personally feel that the UK would have their own SHIELD-esque agency that wouldn't require them to ship in agents from America. So really, I write about completely ambiguous places and occasionally just go "fuck it" and write about somewhere I'd like to go, but know nothing about. :P Like Buenos Aires.

While I can't supply detail like someone who's been to New York, or other cities, I don't refrain from writing about it... I mean I wrote a ton of pregnancy stories but I've haven't been pregnant yet. So, I guess, don't let it stop you? :D While familiarity with the setting gives a new layer to the fic, it's not the most important thing for a good story. :) Plot and characterization are what counts the most for me.

I'm with Nuna and Franzi. While it's nice to use local knowledge for layering and texture it isn't necessary - the characters are what counts. I've been to NYC rather more than I care to remember but that didn't stop me from making bits up, either! You can get what you need from the movies or watching Law and Order...

Yeah I get that. But this is "Caroline the geography student" talking, and not "Caroline the writer" (Caroline the writer is not actually a real person to me. :P). Geographical accuracy is pretty damn important to me. As is generally knowing things. I don't like to pretend to know things I don't. So I'll do ambiguous New York/where ever, but I'm never going to mention real places there because I don't know them. If I could manufacture reasons for them to be in London, or Bergen or Paris or Prague or Dublin or Spieghtstown, then I could do them. I know places there and how big they are and where you can go from there and how. But I can't do that with New York. Or Budapest or where ever. My use of Buenos Aires was problematic enough, because I had to use Google Maps and all that to work out if what I wanted would work. I have to be able to visualise it, and I can't do that if I don't know the place.

So yes, I agree that a good story is more important, or good characterisation. But if I'm going to write a lot about a place, I damn well want to do it properly. :P

Heehee, I can understand that geographical twitch! Ways around it that I can think of are AUs or getting in your head that you're talking about a comics/movie world where reality is suspended, but then if you're writing about something set in a specific place where you want that place to feature, to be detailed as if it were a character almost...yeah, tricky. Especially, for me, when I want it to have a sense of place as well and not just the details. Those times when you can write or read a fic or book where you can feel what it's like to be in a particular place, the atmosphere, I love that.

Yes! I know you would understand! Geographical inaccuracy makes my eye twitch. :P And AUs are a very good way of getting round this. But then I'd go off and make my own map and everything would go downhill from there. :P

If I have the focus on character development or interaction I don't really twitch, but when the place is almost a character itself or a character's background is involved, which invariably brings belonging to a place into the fray...yep, twitch!

...map. Oh for the love of all things, I still have your wizarding US email half replied to in my drafts, don't I? *head desk* I am so much better at comment convos that email convos. Probably the instantaneousness. Bah. Will dash that off now.

Which I why I avoid doing it. :P

Hahaha don't worry. That whole idea sort of ground to a halt, though I am SUPER PROUD of that map. :D I want to fix it up and then make everyone use it. :P (and then one day I will finish that story. Which, funnily enough, will probably end up being about Clint and identity. If I can get it right.)

I've tried it. Research was needed! And it flows far, far easier with British characters or places *grins* or at least places that I've spent some time in.

Well pants, because I just dug that reply out, finished it, and sent it to you :P Stories that are maybe-one-days are fine, I have lots of those lol, but it was a great idea, you should keep it :D

Haha thanks. :) And I am rather attatched to the idea so I'd like to finish it at some point. Just right now I stare at it for ages and then close it. :P

Research, google, imagination? We can't all travel the world, but research and imagination are main tools for writing... and I think 100% accurate descriptions of a location isn't the most important thing anyway. You also get to learn ton of interesting things about new places if you research. Just don't let it stop you :)

For Franzi: oh, please finish that Buenos Aires piece!

As for Nuna, I totally agree with you. I looked up a map of Abidjan for "In the Service" Chapter 3, so I could figure out how long it would take *them* to get from the fictional Presidential Compound (for which I used some government buildings) on foot or by car. For the visuals of the city, I basically used Kampala/Uganda where I've actually been. And then I looked at photos. But imagine my surprise when I found all that water that the g***n city is built on ... and then there were some pretty tall office buildings. Hello rewrites ...

Bottomline -- you can make up a fair bit of stuff, provided you know how to use Google and have a bit of an idea of the atmosphere you want to capture with your mission. :-)

Weeeeelll I did it twice. I mean, put them twice in places I feel as mine; Zagreb ( here (http://archiveofourown.org/works/716862)) and Dubrovnik (here (http://archiveofourown.org/works/466882). Writing about places you know is always special and different and you're just able to bring a different feel to the story. I had fun with shenshen77 few days ago and showed her places where one of these stories takes place. I even showed her the table on a cafe's terrace where Natasha was sitting when she first saw Clint (and also where Clint was sitting, I was able to imagine that when I was writing). Same with the other fic, I've been to most of those places and know exactly how they feel and look like and that definitely changes your perspective as a writer.

(I do think that you shouldn't limit yourself to places you *know*; research and imagination are amazing tools and they really help you with places you didn't visit personally.)

When you mention nationality, it makes me think of things beyond where I love or have lived, and how does it influence my writing. When Natasha says "I'm Russian or I used to be", it's something I can relate to a lot, since I was born in a country that, sadly, fell apart. What happened to lot of people who lived there was a huge change of identity; where you actively have to redefine who you are and where you come from and where you belong. It's something I see Natasha doing, and it's one of the reasons why I relate to her SO MUCH. Redefining yourself is a hard thing to do, it takes effort and courage and open-ness to new things and places and people which start out as unfamiliar and strange. it takes a lot of courage to embrace something foreign as yours, it's a process and when I think about Natasha, I see so much courage in her. I mean that line "I'm Russian or I was", she says it casually, because yes, she's playing Loki there, but I think she wouldn't be able to use it in that way if this was something she didn't resolve with herself. She knows who she is and where she belongs. And that's something I always have in mind when writing Natasha; she rebuilt herself from ashes. Whoever wrote that line (Joss? Joss.) did a brilliant thing and I heart it, and Natasha as well.

Sorry for the babble! I just ahve so many feels about this!

You just sparked a thought on Natasha for me there - I don't see here as having a particular nationality or culture, but rather, or more importantly, having her own...code. Below I was saying how arguably Natasha had 'Russian' imposed on her by the Red Room, and that I can play on that, I can read Russian history and books like Deathless and say that was the type of Russian ascribed to Natasha, rather than wondering how, say, a typical person growing up in Russia at that time might be, or consider themselves, Russian. But then I uproot her. Because she stepped away from that. On top of being this spy capable of being anyone to anyone. So that in writing Natasha whilst I have a hum of a particular type of Russian identity playing somewhere in the background, it's the sense of searching for idividual identity, the challenge of reinventing herself, of whatever it is that she does to find a place to plant her feet and stand...and that place is 'here be Natasha', not a particular national identity. That if she even does have a sense of shared national identity or culture of any kind left it's much less important that that island of self.

I think.

(Huh, I'm wordy tonight *grins*)

"This is me" or "here be Natasha" is something I find monumentally important for her. i eman, it's a large thing in my Natasha headcanon - she was made, like yous aid below, other people decided what she was supposed to be like, she had to go everywhere, fir everywhere, pretend she liked this or that and then she has the chance to decide "but this is me. this is what I like. this is the place I call home" - code, country, nationality (I don't see her having a nationality - i used my experience mostly to paint a parallel) - important thing is, it was her choice. And incredibly hard work, it had to be. So, like you're saying below, she is flexible and writing her as American or Russian or whatever isn't really a barrier. What matters is that she ends up as a person of her own making and I love that about her. That idea really influences how I write her in any story or any 'verse. :)

Similiar thought process: check ;D Do you think Natasha would have had a national identity or culture prior to...claiming independence, as it were? Or just a nationality as imposed by the Red Room? Hmm, and how does this effect an AU Natasha? Because I've just been saying that I see Natasha's nationality pre-independence as imposed, a creation of nationality rather than true or at least typical nationality, so then what am I saying about Natasha when she's in an AU...more or less Russian? Does it fall back on her being a spy? (Although I still see her fight for self being the big factor, the most important, what's the background, y'know?)

Heeeee, okay. I think she had a sense of "I was born in Russia" (was she? was she born someplace else? my headcanon has her born in Russia)- and I think red Room took that and imposed what being a true Russian means on her, and also forced her into loyalty and on the other side of that was fear for her life, because I see them as "you either listen and obey or you die" type of organization. I thinks he gets rid of all of that, all those bad things when she chooses "this is who I am", and keeps "I used to be a Russian" like... faded childhood memories before everything went wrong.

Hmmmm, what kind of AU? I have AUs where she was born in US but her parents were from Russia. So there's a connection to Russia.

As for being a spy... I think she has to be able to pretend she is from all kinds of places. So while being forced-loyal to RR, she couldn't hold her Russian or any other identity too close to her heart, because she had to pretend really really well that she belonged someplace else.

Fight for herself in one form or another is my most important thing about Natasha. if we're talking about AU it doesn't have to be related to nationality - Natasha fights for herself, for some aspect of herself.

If we go off comics she was born in Russia *grins*.

I have AUs where she was born in US but her parents were from Russia. So there's a connection to Russia. Yeah, but if the Red Room imposed being 'true Russian' on her, so not actual Russian, not what a typical person growing up in that country at that time would be but rather a specific type of Russian, does that effect/how does that effect her when she's in an AU? Because then even if we place her in Russia she will have grown up Russian. Not made-up-this-IS-Russia.

Ooo, interesting. So even when the Red Room want her loyalty - and that would be to them, to their ideal of Russia and not the actual country - then they wouldn't be able to make that, what, fundamental? if it would inhabit her ability to become someone else as part of being the perfect spy...

Am I hitting the language barrier here or what? :D

Okay, i think RR uses some kind of "ideal Russian" or "model Russian" identity they impose onto their girls not because they believe in ideal Russia but because it's a tool that gets the job done. National identity is a strong thing, you identify with a group, "they're my brothers" sort of thing, you're ready to die for them and your country. It's what helps convince soldiers to go into war. I've sadly seen how it affects people, and how it makes people hate everyone who belongs to some other group. Us against them kind of mentality, and it's very toxic, where someone convinces you that you're X and that you should have everyone who is Y because Y is wrong, evil, they're an enemy. So I think RR would use that as a tool to ensure those girls are loyal to them and do their work for mother Russia. Their ideal Russia is, I think, what nationality ideals are to any tyrant who wants innocent young people to go and fight a war in their place. To anyone who wants to convince large number of people that they should hate someone and go and kill them. While the idea of Russia would be something central to the girls, I think it doesn't matter all too much to those who run RR. They just want their pawns faithful, manageable and willing to die if they have to. (Up close experience with war is probably something that also affects me as a writer).

Nope, I don't think so? :) Just the way you phrased being born in Russia as 'having a connection to Russia' and some other things I could tell you might be thinking similiar things to me but still something different to me and I want to know what, because fascinating, so I rephrase and repeat to dig *grins*.

Because I got this: that we meant the same thing be a sense of 'ideal' of Russia being imposed, and as part of an 'us against them' mentality, but whilst your brain was analysing what that means for Red Room mine had gone off on what that meant for AU Natasha, who wouldn't have that Red Room sense of being Russian, so what type of Russian would she be? I guess whatever a typical Russian girl growing up at that time would be. (Unless she was part of a maffia or other background with some imposition within that AU, which I know I tend to do, to have some mirror to the hardships she had in her (comics) youth.)

And on the back of what you said there, you've just made me think about the fact that that was imposed on more than one person, on a group, so that Natasha would have a sense of loyalty to the imposed Russian ideal, to Red Room, and perhaps also to the others she was with maybe?

I don't think of RR as being a Russian-based organization in anything other than the geographic sense. Ideologically they seem more Soviet (in the sense of "the collective before the individual", not necessarily attached to a Government) but their sense of identity seems more global, as in transnational organized crime or other assorted interests. I may be off the mark here, since I haven't read the comics, but that's the head canon I tend to go with.

I took the line literally...when she said she used to be Russian, I thought she was born in Russia, but now is an American citizen. SHIELD is an American organization, right? I'm so out of the loop when it comes to canon here!

OT...but which country are you from Anuna???

Edited 2013-06-15 04:22 am (UTC)

Zagreb is the capital of Croatia, I'm Croatian. ;)

How my nationality and culture influences how I write, specifically for these two, hmmm...

The first time I think I actually stopped to think about this kind of thing was when I wanted to write X Men fanfic and found it really difficult to think myself into doing that. Yes, because I don't know New York or Westchester, I don't know how US transport systems work, what brand labels might crop up, I'm not familiar with American-English - all the details that I couldn't just reach out and incorporate when I wanted to, unlike with British based fandoms. But it was more than that too. There's something in the writing, in the tone, that's different between American based and English based creative works, and I can't put my finger on it but I know that it's there. And I didn't feel that I could write it. I still mostly don't.

I actually wonder if one of the reasons that Clint and Natasha were the first Avengers (and still the main Avengers) that I've written for is because of their flexibility when it comes to sense of place. We know hardly anything about movie 'verse Clint, but he's American, if only because the comics and general consensus say so. But to me he's American more as a mirror to Natasha than actually American. (If that makes sense, bare with me.)

Natasha was made in Russia, pretty literally if you consider her to have a Red Room history, but then also if you take into account her Red Room history she's almost a stereotype of Russian-ness imposed on a person. I take my knowledge of Russian history and books like Deathless and the Watch series, then I uproot her. Because fandom and comics say that she's been everywhere. And then somehow ended up at SHIELD. (On top of which I don't think we've had confirmed as being an American or International or something else agency yet in the films?) So I don't feel that being of any particular culture or nationality myself is a barrier to writing Natasha, because she is and/or can be all things to all people, the perfect spy, and herself was arguably given a nationality and culture in the first place rather than growing with one.

Then there's Clint, who in the movie-verse we really know nothing about, but fandom tells me he's from the US, lots of different parts of it, and a circus/carnivale, and foster homes, and the military, and... Clint has become in my head a wanderer, someone in whom many aspects of Americanism can be represented. And is often only American in fics in response or or as a mirror to Natasha being Russian. As in we see Clint being American so that Natasha can learn about the US, or to show something different to Natasha's experience of being Russian. And so he becomes (at least in my head) American in the same way as she is Russian - he's from there, but he's made up of all parts of it, and then he became a spy and part of an organisation not necessarily associated with America.

(One of the reasons I love writing circus/carnival fic, besides the fact that I love circus/canirval fic *grins*, is that the characters in that setting have a flexible sense of place. They're embedded in a subculture rather than a national culture, or on top of or as well as. What's important is the circus part, which is often compromised of many nationalities and backgrounds. I feel more comfortable trying to capture a subculture rather than a national culture I guess.)

On the other hand both Steve and Tony are instrinsically American to me, even if they represent different facets of American and eras and so on. Bruce, again, is a wanderer, but I think not in the same way as Clint and Natasha, since he was almost forced to become one or became one in penance, perhaps is still attached to a culture or identity he no longer has...I think if I were to write more of him I'd need to read about the places I think he's been and how he might have absorbed them. Wereas with Clint and Natasha, especially Natasha, I think they would, as spies, become parts of those places, and then leave those identities behind. Kind of thing.

Thor stumps me. Damn off-worlders lol.

I guess none of which says how I think my nationality and culture influence how I write our Master Assassins, meh. Except that I'm concious when I'm from a different nationality or culture to the characters that I'm trying to write, and I find that more difficult to think my way into than writing for, say, the Harry Potter or Torchwood fandoms.

Except that I'm concious when I'm from a different nationality or culture to the characters that I'm trying to write

This! I always have this in mind. And I'm curious about other cultures, and American isn't all that unfamiliar because we're exposed to ton of american things - food, music, TV, movies, books.... American culture has become part of my culture, so it's not unfamiliar. (Not native, either, but some of my US friends were impressed that husband and I could count all 50 states, or 20th century US presidents or things like that). Cultures themselves are flexible things and almost like living organisms, they adapt and change and adopt bits from other cultures.

I guess I can listen to all Springsteen songs ever but can't write like a native American writer, and that's okay. Writing means learning and changing and exploring and that's why it's so much fun. It's a free ticket to any place or time you can imagine.

I actually think the convergence points of US culture with my own makes it more difficult, because I feel, I know, that the UK and the US are different (when I read things like the Avengers Assemble #15 comic which is written by Americans and is meant to be British, believe you me, I know) but it's often difficult to definitively say how, to pinpoint it. I could use Xaviers and Hogwarts as a example, compare two schools, but I know that Hogwarts is a particular type of mostly outdated school system within the UK that evokes particular images and emotions to Brits, and I don't know how Xaviers is to people in the US but I'm guessing there's something specific there too.

But, as you say, we can immerse ourselves in another culture to a greater or lesser extent. Which I can work with, because I see SHIELD agents as doing that, learning all about a country and culture before they dive in, before they take on a role there, so since they're pretty much doing the same thing as me I feel that I can attempt to write that :)

*nods nods nods* I totally get what you mean!

I try not to get discouraged, you know? :) I mean, I can do ton of research and there will still be things I won't know or be able to know because I'm not from there. So I try to do the best as I can, and when I need some kind of detail, I go ask someone who's from "there" (wherever "there" is) which is so awesome about fandom. :D

Oh, no, I don't mean it as a discouragement kind of thing, just that for me it's more difficult, and that even then not that I shouldn't do it, just that it's different. And therefore fascinating :)

I think...what you say above about never having been pregnant but still writing pregnancy fics? It's the whole putting yourself in someone else's shoes. Empathy. Well and good. For me when it comes to a sense of place, so if we're talking nationality and national culture not collective culture like circus, musicians, sports, but belonging to a place and creating the atmosphere of a place, it's like the place itself is another character I have to empathise with, and I find people either. (That make more sense?)

I...always assumed you were American. So I think that you can write like one? Except maybe better. ;)

I have really really good betas and I'm one of those freaks who learns languages very easily. Thank you, hearing that I could pass for an American based on my language skills is a huge compliment.

I think Natasha goes from being Russian to being European, that's the languages she knows and where a lot of her missions have taken place (in my headcanon). What you were saying about subcultures is pretty interesting, as Clint to me is American, but slightly out of place at S.H.I.E.L.D. because he's from the Midwestern part of the US (with the traveling carnival spending most of it's time there), and S.H.I.E.L.D. is very coastal in attitude.

Two funny (well interesting-funny *grins*) things from that - Russia is in a position geographically and because of how huge the country is that it's been, or can be, part of Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, East Asia, and South-East Asia, all depending on what international relations standpoint you're taking, what part of history you're discussing, and so on. So when you say that Natasha goes from being Russian to being European...well, technically she already was. And in some sense I see her as having been Eastern European because of the whole Red Room being tied in with USSR being part of the Eastern Block and how Europe was in that time period. Which is possibly why all the stories of Natasha effortlessly blending in in any part of Europe feels natual to me.

Then on the different attitudes within the US, that isn't something I'm really aware of, even though on our tiny isle people can be vastly different from one part to another and the US as hugely bigger must have even more variation, heh. So Midwestern vs Coastal or anything else, I think maybe I pick up bits on that in other people's fanfic, but it isn't something I'd ever conciously write into my own.

Oh, I definitely see Russia as part of Europe (though it does occupy an ambiguous space both geographically and conceptually). I see Natasha as moving from Russian to generally European, like you said, blending.

Well-put, I can see this! He seems kinda..cowboyish? Like not literally, but...not as lofty, elite as some of the other characters from SHIELD.

I think this idea of their nationalities and identities being flexible is part of the reason I feel I can write them. I think you're right here. Which is possibly the reason I felt I could write Supernatural fic as well. While Sam and Dean are also very American, they're wanderers, and therefore not fixed and open to interpretation somehow.

Also the identity of "not being American" is also difficult. As in, for me. Because you're right, for two countries that speak the same language we are seriously different. And in a way, that makes it harder than us being completely different to start off with.

Characters that are very much from a place I have trouble writing in particularity of place. Like I can do Rogue interacting with others, for example, but if I was to try a Rogue (X Men) character study thing, or anything that takes a look at where she's from, I'd struggle and never feel like I nailed it. But then give me an intrinsically English character, possibly even Welsh, Irish, or Scottish, and I can give that a go.

Heh, I just wrote something along similar lines to anuna above - I think it's easier to write a completely different culture, that you look at from the outside, where you can pinpoint differences, rather than a culture that has so many convergence points with your (our, heh) own and yet is still so very different.

Yeah. It's like a minor disconnect between the two, and that throws you off more than if it was all totally new.

One thing to note wrt the "nationality" thing is language. Yes, Clint is American born and bred -- even as a circus nomad hed be functioning in a mostly American cultural context, with some colourful influences thrown in (Mongolian acrobats? Italian highwire artists?).

So. I was once chastised for using the word "bloody" in Clint POV speak, on the grounds that made him sound too British. We use it here in Canada, so I never thought about it. Interestingly, I find myself occasionally stumbling over one particular British phrasing in Avengers fic: "he was sat ..." as opposed to "he was sitting."

So maybe there are bits of a writer's nationality that might need to be taken out of the equation in fic writing? Just throwing that one out for discussion.

Oh very good points! I have noticed that in fics as well! Its kinda jarring for a moment.

Can I please bring up the "Buda-pesh"/"Buda-pest" pronunciations again? Still love it.

Ok, to answer the question...I have never written any fic (althought I want to...I get ideas in my head but no idea how to execute them. And also my ideas are usually based off of other Clint/Nat fanfics I read), but I think I would have a good grasp on the US stuff. Watching the Iron Man movies is always fun because I live in LA (used to work in Malibu). I'm originally from the midwest though, have traveled to New York and a bunch of other states, so I would feel very comfortable writing most US places. Other places in the world? Not so much. I've never even heard of some of the cities mentioned in fics.

NITPICKING. Oh sigh people. That's just plain ol' nitpicking. next time I'll let one of them use croatian curses just because I can and because they speak lot of languages.

I always assumed Red Room was a government organization...everything in this country is called Red something...and so depending on how old you think Natasha is, she might have been raised to think of herself as more Soviet than Russian. And actually, how old you think she is ( if she's the age she appears be or if -she has been science experimentted) would effect how she thinks of herself as Russian ..younger Russians (those who don't really remember the USSR) have s different attitude.

I'd love to write fic set here in Russia. Maybe I'll take a stab at it now that it's summer and I have more time.

I've written stories set in California, which is my home state, at least, and I've spend my share of time in San Fran. But the vast majority of the action happens in places I've never been, as I'm not particularly well-traveled, so I owe a lot to Wikipedia, travel websites, and Google Maps.