What would we call a quince

[minoanmiss]

In a galaxy far, far away?

I'm thinking of writing some Pepper-Jack Cheese fic.

I hate to give the misogynistic bullies* at the self-described "Protectors of the Plot Continuum" any hits, but they have the best description of the Pepper-Jack cheese thing. Which is to say: a fanfic writer once was fond of both pepper-jack cheese and Hermione Granger, so she gave HG her fondness for the cheese even though it's not at all the kind of cheese found in England.

And you know, WD gave me two quinces (I gave one away) and we just bought two more. And people need to eat in the Star Wars universe. Why shouldn't I write this tasty, unusual fruit into a story?

*: I personally believe that much more harm has been done to fandom and to fanfic writers by the castigation of every remotely interesting female character as a "Mary Sue" and the bullying "Sue Hunters" engage in, than was ever done by wish-fulfillment and self-insert fanfics. But there's no way to measure lost creativity, private pain and tears, unwritten stories, and people who gave up on writing, so I can't actually prove it. Anyway, I am fortyish going on fifteen and no so-called protector of their particular view of fandom will daunt me. [anymore]

Comments

[sugarandlime]

oh! oh! I know this one!!!
Based on precedent set by none other than Timothy "The Great" Zahn, who canonically introduced hot chocolate into the expanded (novel) universe as Luke's favorite drink in like, the second chapter of Heir to the Empire, (I'm not even remotely kidding), you are 100% in the clear to use quinces in a story :)

ETA: just to clarify, you would be 100% in the clear to use quinces in a story regardless of the above, because obviously the whole pepper-jack cheese thing is nothing but a particularly asinine bit of squee-harshing. But in this particular instance, any mary-sue related bullying would have an extra layer of bullshit to it because it's something that's already been done a lot in canon, deliberately and for fun!

[minoanmiss]

Chocolate is essential to any galaxy, though I'm not sure why a desert kid wants to drink something so thick and sweet. It does get cold at night in the desert, tho.

Interestingly (nerdery incoming) Yavin IV is based on Guatemala, so Space Cacao could totally be a crop there. This is a story idea! \o/

[annonynous.livejournal.com]

There was a ST / OT Giant Novel where Spock (or perhaps Sarek) casually talks about how pizza is available on most UFP planets.

Ann O.

[minoanmiss]

And who can forget flarn, aka swedish meatballs, all across the Babylon 5 galaxy...

[sugarandlime]

additional earth foods/beverages in those novels: Thrawn himself drinking high percent ale out of a mug while very much on duty, various whiskeys consumed by various characters, and pregnant!Leia drinking warm milk to help her sleep. And that's just what I remember off the top of my head at 10 pm on a Wednesday.

[kore]

I personally believe that much more harm has been done to fandom and to fanfic writers by the castigation of every remotely interesting female character as a "Mary Sue" and the bullying "Sue Hunters" engage in, than was ever done by wish-fulfillment and self-insert fanfics. But there's no way to measure lost creativity, private pain and tears, unwritten stories, and people who gave up on writing, so I can't actually prove it.

I WISH TO SKYWRITE THIS IN FUCKING NEON AND FIRECRACKERS ACROSS THE ENTIRE U.S. SKY

[amaebi]

So yes.

[cereta]

I agree, and I'm more than a little embarrassed at some of the things I wrote about it in my early fanfic days.

[kore]

Also, motherfucking MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL, to the extent where I saw A PRO PUBLISHED ARTICLE OF 'MPDS THROUGH THE AGES' THAT SAID HOLLY GOLIGHTLY WAS ONE

SO
FREAKING
WRONG

[minoanmiss]

Oh my forgotten goddesses, I could write a whole post -- a whole thesis -- a whole DISSERTATION -- about the terms that may once have had some actual meaning but are now used primarily as weapons to discourage anyone from putting a female character at the center of a story, letting her have an effect on another person's life, or be exceptional in any way.

Or, why yes, I so agree about the criminal overuse of the term MPDG.

[kore]

Oh yeah, and we can add "Strong Female Characters," "Kickass Heroines" and the more sneering "Awesome Ladeez" to that list. Altho when I was younger the putdowns of heroines like Xena were simpler, as "men with tits."

[julian]

I shouldn't be shocked by that Xena bit, and yet, I am. Oy.

[kore]

"Guys with tits" was a really, really common criticism for early comics/movie action heroines. I still see less crude variants of it in the "kickass women" criticisms.

[julian]

I think I was just insulated, is all, particularly regarding Xena. I heard that specific phrase about, say, Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. (Where it bounced off my brain due to awe.)

But yeah, it definitely still exists. Sigh.

[kore]

The nineties sure were fun, yes! A lot like "Eighties Backlash: The Sequel."

[cereta]

Some of that phrase probably had its origin in '80's and '90's RPG circles, wherein male players liked to play female barbarians in leather bikinis who either enacted the players' fantasies of beautiful women, or were considered essentially indistinguishable from male characters, neither of which fits either Xena or Sarah Connor. Even then, something bothered me about the phrase, even though I didn't really care for how my guy friends played women when they played them.

[amaebi]

How well I remember being one of a group of women instructed in how to play a female role online, by a man, in #callahans .

[cereta]

Yyyyyyep.

[bikergeek]

Why wouldn't HG have found some pepper jack cheese in England? There are shops in England that sell "things from America" primarily to USA expats who want a taste of home.

I can believe that there are farming planets in the Empire that grow fruits and vegetables and all kinds of good things, natively, in the soil. Why not something like a quince?

[caitri]

^^Seconding this. Like, Hermione Granger is the daughter of Muggles and the most brilliant witch of her age and saves Harry Freaking Potter on a regular basis in canon, LET THE GIRL HAVE SOME CHEESE.

[kore]

OMG I love this. If there can be thirty disgusting flavours of bertie bottle's whatever beans Hermione can find some goddamn common cheese. It's not Narnia with the beavers but it's not like Wizarding World cuisine is completely unfamiliar, either.

[caitri]

Are the quinces for Rey, Finn, or Poe? That's the REAL QUESTION.

[acelightning]

And what about all the stories in which characters in distant galaxies drink some equivalent to coffee, largely because the authors couldn't imagine sentience without coffee ;-)

[cereta]

I'm almost happier when they just call it coffee and have done with it. Which kind of gets to my answer to the post: why not? I've done the dance of "grains and root vegetables" in D&D campaigns (although interestingly, all the meat is from recognizable animals, which I would find less probable in SW), and I kind of wish they'd just call it quinoa and carrots ;). Quinces seem quite suitable to SW.

I also wish I knew where to find quinces 'round here, where they are nearly as exotic as pepperjack cheese in England apparently is, although I'm not sure I'd know what to do with one if I did.

[annonynous.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The Pern universe had a morning hot drink called klah, iirc, which was basically coffee.

Ann O.

[acelightning]

I believe the Klingons drink kah'veh...

[redbird]

Also, if it's not really/precisely a quince, that's okay, because the people eating it aren't really/precisely human. If convergent evolution to bipedal, warm-blooded sapient species makes any sense, you might also get convergent evolution to trees that produce sweet fruit in bright colors and with interesting scents, so animals can find them and spread the seeds. (This week's fun fact: studies in Madagascar suggest that ripe fruit smells good so mammals can find and eat it; when the seeds are spread by birds, the fruit is bright-colored but has little or no scent when ripe.)

So why wouldn't a quince of another galaxy taste, to the people there, the way a quince tastes to people here? (Usual disclaimer about being able to know that a quince tastes the same to someone else as it does to you, even when it's the literal same piece of fruit.)

[amaebi]

Prune juice.

That is all I have to say right now about this.

[minoanmiss]

A warrior's drink! BWEE

(But, Star Trek includes our Earth in its background, so it's a bit different.)

[amaebi]

Ah, yes. You're right.

Many other universes clearly need ambassadors from ours.

[princessofgeeks]

People eat in space! Go for it!

[petra]

I can understand people getting thrown out of an HP story by Americanisms much better than I can people getting thrown out of Star Wars by Earthisms. The former is a potential break in setting; the latter is a thing to get over.

To rename a quince for science fantasy purposes, I'd go with either a Midsummer Night's Pun or a pun on Terms for Five. That said, if you carefully and faithfully described a lot of terran fruit, like a buddha's hand citron, it would sound at least as weird as blue milk.

[thistlerose]

Space quince! Why in the world not?? I mean, you could describe a quince but never actually call it that.

And YESSSSS regarding the Mary Sue thing. Let people write that they want to write! If you don't like it, don't read it!

[cellio]

Oh, huh. I thought this was going to be fiction about the pepper-jack romancing the gouda, only to be spurned in favor of the luscious soft tones of the camembert, or something.