To be honest, I didn't like the McShep of ACaDL as much as a lot of other fic, because they didn't have as solid a relationship as I like. The love confession at the end wasn't totally out of the blue, but it wasn't as satisfying to me as a slash relationship based on a firm friendship.
Hmmmm~! It would be really interesting to compare notes with Naye on the thought processes that led us to decide, independently but simultaneously, that the story would work better as slash -- and I wonder (though I *really* don't want to attribute thoughts to her that might not be her own, since she's not here to defend herself) if her opinions on romance/marriage might not be more closely aligned with mine than yours, at least when it comes to writing it. I know that for both of us, the story was simply not working as friendship, and when we flipped the switch to "John and Rodney are physically attracted to each other", suddenly everything made sense (which is why I incorporated that line at the end, even though it kinda flies in the face of how I see their relationship in canon). I think you're right that the friendship in the fic isn't as deep as it is in canon (it just hasn't really had a chance to become so, since we started at the beginning) so in order for the characters to be acting the way we wrote them, there needed to be a motive other than friendship there. Adding physical attraction turned out to be just perfect; suddenly behavior which was unconvincing and slightly nonsensical in platonic friends who don't know each other very well made perfect sense for two people dancing around a burgeoning physical attraction.
(Although everyone's mileage varies on this; I remember getting one reaction -- though I can't remember if it was in a review to the story or just something she said afterwards -- from a gen fan who felt that the story was 100% gen up until the last scene. Whereas I had thought that we were writing them very different from how I normally write them as platonic friends, and that the attraction was being blatantly telegraphed! But obviously, different people see different things when they read.)
And I know, intellectually at least, that friendship and romance are not mutually exclusive, but I do think they engage me in very different ways. I relate differently to a relationship if I know it's meant to be romance and not friendship (see below with my comment about your Shrine tag). I have noticed that the characteristics I most enjoy in friendships are, often, characteristics that either fail to engage me or actively turn me off a romantic pairing. Classic example of that: I really dislike bickering, mutually antagonistic couples -- which is why I so thoroughly hated Tony/Ziva on NCIS when I thought the show was going in a romance direction with them -- but I really like that particular dynamic in a friendship. So, if you offer me a clip of two people having a fight, I'll relate to it very differently if I think that it'll end with the two of them in bed, or going out for coffee as platonic friends.
Like I said in another comment, I write romance in order to engage with the characters in different ways than a friendship story lets me get away with. It's not necessarily that I feel the romantic emotions I'm writing are stronger or deeper; in fact, I think a lot of the romance that I write carries the implicit assumption that the nonsexual relationships in the characters' lives are actually more fulfilling and long-lasting than their romances. (I think this is especially true of my original fiction.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
winterfish
no subject
Date: 2008-11-25 08:27 pm (UTC)Hmmmm~! It would be really interesting to compare notes with Naye on the thought processes that led us to decide, independently but simultaneously, that the story would work better as slash -- and I wonder (though I *really* don't want to attribute thoughts to her that might not be her own, since she's not here to defend herself) if her opinions on romance/marriage might not be more closely aligned with mine than yours, at least when it comes to writing it. I know that for both of us, the story was simply not working as friendship, and when we flipped the switch to "John and Rodney are physically attracted to each other", suddenly everything made sense (which is why I incorporated that line at the end, even though it kinda flies in the face of how I see their relationship in canon). I think you're right that the friendship in the fic isn't as deep as it is in canon (it just hasn't really had a chance to become so, since we started at the beginning) so in order for the characters to be acting the way we wrote them, there needed to be a motive other than friendship there. Adding physical attraction turned out to be just perfect; suddenly behavior which was unconvincing and slightly nonsensical in platonic friends who don't know each other very well made perfect sense for two people dancing around a burgeoning physical attraction.
(Although everyone's mileage varies on this; I remember getting one reaction -- though I can't remember if it was in a review to the story or just something she said afterwards -- from a gen fan who felt that the story was 100% gen up until the last scene. Whereas I had thought that we were writing them very different from how I normally write them as platonic friends, and that the attraction was being blatantly telegraphed! But obviously, different people see different things when they read.)
And I know, intellectually at least, that friendship and romance are not mutually exclusive, but I do think they engage me in very different ways. I relate differently to a relationship if I know it's meant to be romance and not friendship (see below with my comment about your Shrine tag). I have noticed that the characteristics I most enjoy in friendships are, often, characteristics that either fail to engage me or actively turn me off a romantic pairing. Classic example of that: I really dislike bickering, mutually antagonistic couples -- which is why I so thoroughly hated Tony/Ziva on NCIS when I thought the show was going in a romance direction with them -- but I really like that particular dynamic in a friendship. So, if you offer me a clip of two people having a fight, I'll relate to it very differently if I think that it'll end with the two of them in bed, or going out for coffee as platonic friends.
Like I said in another comment, I write romance in order to engage with the characters in different ways than a friendship story lets me get away with. It's not necessarily that I feel the romantic emotions I'm writing are stronger or deeper; in fact, I think a lot of the romance that I write carries the implicit assumption that the nonsexual relationships in the characters' lives are actually more fulfilling and long-lasting than their romances. (I think this is especially true of my original fiction.)