would you like a little RAGE with your RAGE?

[xparrot]

So Martin Gero made some comments on the most recent episode of SGA.

"For five years, we didn’t even know it, but all [Rodney] wanted was for someone to tell him that they loved him in an unconditional way."

I want to...I want to kick Martin Gero's head in with a big spiky boot. OF LOVE.

So the love of friends and family (because doesn't Jeannie love him, too? or was she lying when she said "I love you" in "Miller's Crossing" and faking her tears in "The Shrine"?) counts for snot, because it's not romantic, sexual love.

And unconditional love is quoting a guy's own brain-damaged love confession back at him (six months later), and then offering him sex on a plane to make him shut up.

I have no boyfriend! I HAVE NO LOVE! What do I do??? My life is empty! Meaningless!

*cue total fucking mental breakdown*

Okay, now I'm going to do my best to forget this episode ever happened. There's been other eps I haven't enjoyed, but this is the first one that's seriously in danger of spoiling my fanning. It pretty much ruined Rodney's character for me even when I was ignoring the McKeller (I swear, I'd've been almost as outraged if the ep had gone the same way only with John instead of Keller, though at least then I'd have some McShep making out), and now that I am meant to think that banging Keller on the plane is the most significant and important event of Rodney's life in the past five years - yeah. Someone tell me how to hold onto my SGA love, because I don't want to lose this fandom, but the show seems pretty determined to use its dying breath to drive me away.

ETA: I gotta say, SGA these days is really making me appreciate NCIS. NCIS has one s5 ep that is explicitly the 100% opposite theme as this.

Comments

[sholio]

I really *really* don't want you to think that *I* think slashers are deliberately setting out to ruin my time in fandom! That would be extremely silly and paranoid and just not true. But I am pretty sure that the "kicked in the gut" feeling that McShep fen are feeling right is pretty similar to the way I feel when I read a slash fic where one of the boys declares something along the lines of "oh wow, I was spending all this time with you because I was attracted to you" or when I run across episode reactions that describe John as "flirting" with Rodney when I just saw him enjoying his company and liking hanging out with him.

But of course I'm not going to say anything to them about it; it's someone else's journal and someone else's story, and I have absolutely no right to jump in and make their fanning experience less happy. If their fanning style is making me unhappy, then it's my responsibility to either not venture into areas of fandom that make me unhappy, or learn to be more tolerant and less bothered by views that conflict with how I see the characters.

And I try, I try like anything to do that! Knowing that a lot of the people who frequent and comment at my journal are slash fen, I try to keep my episode reviews and discussions non-slash-hostile. I don't jump into discussions and say, "My squee, it is harshed by this", because I think I'd be a complete ass to do that, when everyone else is having fun and on the same page; if my squee is that easily harshed, then I need to keep my squee away from places that harsh it.

Also, like we talked about earlier, there is a certain amount of anti-gay bigotry in gen fandom, and I really, really don't want to fall into that trap. The last thing I'd want to do is make the gay fen who read and comment on my journal feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.

And I know that no one is harshing my squee on purpose. Of course, neither is Gero; he's simply describing the show as he sees it, and in the process, causing a bunch of fans to feel what I'm pretty sure is the same dismissiveness that they (entirely by accident and with no malice whatsoever) have caused me to feel, on a lesser scale of course, but pretty much a constant since I've been in fandom, especially in this fandom because I associate more closely with slash fen and read more slash than has generally been true of me in the past.

Obviously, as quote-unquote "oppression" goes, this is absolutely as petty as it gets. XD It's just that after so many years of trying so hard to get along with people, and to not put down their fannish tastes even when I felt like they were invalidating my own, it's kind of startling and unpleasant to see this same demographic in the same situation that I've been in, standing up and railing against it when I've spent so much time learning not to feel those feelings so that I won't be tempted to do exactly that to them. If I'm not getting upset about the Gero quote (which I'm really not), it's because I've so thoroughly trained myself not to get upset at that particular sentiment, to avoid being angry all the time! Not just because of fandom, but because of society in general. (Er, sorry about all the edits on this one. CAN'T TYPE.)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. The "oppression" here is somewhat different, since this is fans railing against a creator, rather than one set of fandom railing against another. If a fan had said this about McKeller, I wouldn't have had this sort of rage; I'd have just rolled my eyes and moved along. But when it's the creator telling us how we're supposed to interpret his work, telling us that our interpretation is wrong - that's a different kettle of fish.

Is it really just McSheppers flipping? Because as a strictly gen fan I swear I would've have the exact same meltdown; he's denying what I love most about the show. If anything I'm more offended on the gen side than the slash side; it's not just John/Rodney that Gero's denying, but also Rodney & team, and Rodney & Jeannie. The reason the slashers are flipping is because most slashers consider themselves friendshippers as well - they are responding to the same intensity of relationships that you are, they're just seeing them a bit differently. While as Gero is seeing entirely different relationships. Are all the other gen fen really okay with what he said?

That being said - I really am sorry that slash kicks you in the gut like that. I've not read many fics that state that John & Rodney only spend time together because of their sexual desire (barring AUs, most of the canon slash fic I've read with that idea are the early s1-2 ones, when their friendship was so scarcely established in canon that they needed the crutch of attraction to explain why they'd spend any time together.) It's not what I'd like to read, certainly.

Hmm...out of curiosity, does any of my slash give you that impression? (have you read any of my outright McShep?) As I said, I write from the perspective of seeing slash as an extension of the friendshipping, but I'm thinking what I write probably looks different if you see slash as a deliberate denial of friendship...

[sholio]

Hmm...out of curiosity, does any of my slash give you that impression? (have you read any of my outright McShep?) As I said, I write from the perspective of seeing slash as an extension of the friendshipping, but I'm thinking what I write probably looks different if you see slash as a deliberate denial of friendship...

I don't see it as a deliberate denial at all, just an indication of how the writer's priorities lie with regards to romantic love and friendship, with the latter being much less than the former. (Though, as you've pointed out, this is not necessarily true and something I'll try to keep in mind.)

I don't think I've read any of your McShep, though -- at least none that I can think of off the top of my head. I haven't been reading much John/Rodney in the last year or so; I've been leaning much more to reading gen and rare pairings in SGA. (I've developed a total love for Teyla/Rodney, which is too bad as there's so little of it out there!) With your fic specifically, to be honest, I really didn't want to read your McShep because I so enjoy your gen fic and I was worried that reading slash from you in the same pairing that I read gen from you would ruin the gen for me. (Oh, wait! I did read your John/Rodney Shrine tag, mostly because I was looking for Rodney/Teyla recs for ficrec -- and it will probably get recced over there if I ever finish up my monthly rec set. ^^ Because you labeled it slash, I read it from that perspective, reading John's hovering over Rodney in the infirmary as an "anxious girlfriend" sort of thing rather than a concerned friend. I know that may not have been your intent, especially from what you've said above, but I don't think I'm emotionally capable of seeing both at the same time.)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Ahh, it makes sense you'd avoid my slash, yeah. I don't see it as that different from my gen (truth be told I consider most of my gen-fics as borderline slash anyway; in a couple of them John & Rodney could actually be together, it just doesn't come up in the story itself. I don't really think of it one way or another...) But I wouldn't want my gen ruined for you! ^^;

John & Rodney weren't actually together in "The Shrine" tag; it was pre-slash, and the intimacy I was implying between them wasn't necessarily sexual; Teyla saw it as such, but it could've been something else. Though I admit to wondering what the difference is between an "anxious girlfriend"'s and a "concerned friend"'s concern! Amount of hand-wringing? (...seriously, I don't understand what the difference could be; this is how tone-deaf I am to romantic vs friendship love. As far as I'm concerned, slashing John & Rodney changes their relationship in the bedroom, nowhere else...that's the way I like my slash!)