Drink on missions
Aug. 7th, 2011 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI've been reading a bunch of Stargate fanfic in a row, and I somehow hit a string of stories where every single one of them involves getting drunk on missions. The local specialty is wine, or beer, or it's the only safe thing to drink - which is plausible for much of human history so would be for much of the low tech Stargate galaxy. And it is bugging me. You go to other planets and get drunk? That's getting drunk on duty! But, can you do diplomacy without getting drunk? ... well, almost certainly yes, but, here's all these stories where the answer is no.
Also, of course, then there was sex. Sex on missions also bothers me. If they think they're not coming back, that's one thing, but if they're supposed to be defending the universe, it does not to me sound like the appropriate time.
But whatever. I do not demand plausibility in sex scenes. The genre does not call for it.
Alcohol though? That bothers me.
Also it bothers me because alcohol bothers me in general. I have seen my ancestors and I choose not to drink. A lot of people choose not to drink. Alcohol is not an invisible default setting. Except, of course, when it totally is. Like culturally, in many English speaking places.
It bugs me worst when it's characters who we've seen choose to drink water in a very not-drinking-alcohol way. There's characters for whom drinking alcohol is a major choice, a life event, and some people just don't seem to notice that.
I guess most people's experience of alcohol is you drink some socially and have a happy fuzzy evening. Or you drink with meals because that's what goes with the meal. I don't even know.
But I don't like alcohol getting all over my stories.
Also, of course, then there was sex. Sex on missions also bothers me. If they think they're not coming back, that's one thing, but if they're supposed to be defending the universe, it does not to me sound like the appropriate time.
But whatever. I do not demand plausibility in sex scenes. The genre does not call for it.
Alcohol though? That bothers me.
Also it bothers me because alcohol bothers me in general. I have seen my ancestors and I choose not to drink. A lot of people choose not to drink. Alcohol is not an invisible default setting. Except, of course, when it totally is. Like culturally, in many English speaking places.
It bugs me worst when it's characters who we've seen choose to drink water in a very not-drinking-alcohol way. There's characters for whom drinking alcohol is a major choice, a life event, and some people just don't seem to notice that.
I guess most people's experience of alcohol is you drink some socially and have a happy fuzzy evening. Or you drink with meals because that's what goes with the meal. I don't even know.
But I don't like alcohol getting all over my stories.