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

[wneleh.livejournal.com]

I'm still trying to figure out my thoughts and feelings about this ep; McKeller in general; life, love, and relationships IRL and in fiction of various sorts; and what I can say to people to make them stay in the fandom through January and beyond.

And, really, I've got very little.

A couple of thoughts, based on what little I could read of the Gero article, this post, and the comments:

(1) There's really no such thing as unconditional love, except, if you're lucky, what you feel for your children when they're not actively poking you with sticks, IME.

(2) How Jennifer treats Rodney? That's "I love you, now change." Nothing unconditional about it. BTDT, didn't work, ever.

(3) Slash vs. friendship fic vs. smarm vs. ?: My big issue w/ slash (and romance in general) is that, in it, love, actually fixes anything. And, it doesn't, or not much. The thing is, friendship doesn't really, either. But that doesn't mean that life isn't full of moments of grace, courtesy other people; those are what I most like to read; well, when I'm not gobbling up slash or gooey smarm.

(4) There *is* something more to a sexual relationship than it being merely the logical extension of another sort of relationship, else people would have a lot more sexual partners concurrently than they tend to.

(5) Rodney and Keller are welcome, in my book, to do whatever on the plane they want. I don't think it's going to much affect how I write team!fic into the future, unless TPTB manage, in the next four episodes, to convince me that there's something fundamentally there.

(6) A lot of the fun of fanfic, for me, is taking the illogical bits - like, why DIDN'T McKay try harder to stop the bridge? - and making them make sense, even if it comes down to, people just aren't always on top of their games, or maybe someone was pumping in stupid!gas.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Heh - my feelings on romance and relationships in fiction have pretty much zero bearing on my feelings about them in RL, oddly enough. I don't have much interest in realism in my fiction!

I want reasons to stay in the fandom, though...I love SGA fandom (like a friend feels about another friend! or romantically! whichever!) The show's making it hard for me, though (if you can come up with a good reason why McKay didn't try harder to stop the bridge - please, let me know! That's the part that drove me nuts about the episode, the part that Rodney was so very much not the Rodney McKay I adore that I started to dislike him.)

(4) There *is* something more to a sexual relationship than it being merely the logical extension of another sort of relationship, else people would have a lot more sexual partners concurrently than they tend to.

Hmm, I'm curious what this is a response to - Gero's ideas, or my comments above, or something else. If it's to my comments, I don't actually see sex as a "logical extension" of friendship, but more a possible extension. There are romantic/sexual relationships that aren't based on friendship; however the kind of sexual relationship I most enjoy reading & writing is that with a solid base in friendship. And I like the way adding a romantic/sexual component to a friendship can provide a new framework for the friends to express their love, or give a friendship a more permanent, settled family aspect.

My views on sex are somewhat atypical, however, for personal reasons. What it comes down to is that I like reading/watching friendship, with or without a romantic component; I don't really like romance unless it has a friendship component. So McKeller, lacking sufficient friendshipping, fails for me, and I find Gero putting that relationship above all the relationships that do work for me immensely frustating.

[wneleh.livejournal.com]

Heh - my feelings on romance and relationships in fiction have pretty much zero bearing on my feelings about them in RL, oddly enough. I don't have much interest in realism in my fiction!

Yk, I have never, ever considered this as a possible POV! There are lots of ways fiction, and SGA both in canon and in fanfic, isn't like reality (space vampires? solving complicated problems in 44 minutes? Non-repetitive dialog?) but for me fiction is a reflection of reality; a conversation with it.

This is my main problem with slash/het. I go from "okay, let's assume X would be attracted to/interested in a man/woman/energy being" to "okay, what sort of man/woman/energy being would he go for" - I don't think Rodney would necessarily fall for either John or Jennifer, nor do I necessarily think relationships with either of them would work, long-term. I think of the more ambitious people (esp. physicists) I know, and what relationships actually work for them, and they tend to couple best with people with no ambitions of their own or with people very, very much like themselves. So, either Chuck or Zelenka. And since I don't want to write Rodney/Chuck or Rodney/Zelenka, it dies there.

As friends, though, I can see John and Rodney (or Jim and Blair :-) ) orbiting each other for a long, long time.

What upsets me most is being thrown out of a show or a story by sloppiness - a poor choice of a guest star (like with Larrin) or getting simple science wrong (global warming isn't going to turn Earth into a barren rock - gravity is not about to stop working, we're not going to vent our atmosphere and oceans) or giving a character backstory that doesn't make sense (pretty much any science backstory of any character in the SG universe). OOC behavior only really, really bothers me if it makes me think there's a plot reason for the OOCness and there isn't. Otherwise, it's food for fanfic.

(4) There *is* something more to a sexual relationship than it being merely the logical extension of another sort of relationship, else people would have a lot more sexual partners concurrently than they tend to.

Hmm, I'm curious what this is a response to - Gero's ideas, or my comments above, or something else. If it's to my comments, I don't actually see sex as a "logical extension" of friendship, but more a possible extension.

It was in response to one of your early comments on this post, but I've read what you've written further about it and I see where you're coming from.

Personally, I *like* love and marriage and being part of a couple and the adventure of raising children together. I was struck by friendshipper's feelings about compromise - I can see how they can seem oppressive, but for me they're part of the fun. (It helps that I'm married to who I am.)

But... for me, friendship-in-the-context-of-romance stories aren't as interesting as other types of stories. Kindness and support within a romantic relationship is just part of the deal, IME; I get a jolt out of kindness and connection in unexpected places. IRL, this would be a friend who remembers what type of chocolate my child likes best, or drops everything to help when we're all sick, or something. In fiction, it's everyone in The Shrine :-), and it's the sort of fanfic I try to write.

"Forever" isn't important to me. And, again, I think this is because, IRL, I see some friendships lasting for years, some ebbing, some ending. I'd hate to not have the close friends I made in my 30s, not to make new friends now, even if it meant I had held more tightly to the people I adored in my 20s that I've drifted away from. It's just... life, and it's largely good.

So I'm not looking for New Best Friends for John and Rodney et al., but emotionally I'm okay if they get them.

RE: Slash as permission to stick together... I'm still working my head around that one, but I think this distills a lot about slash I don't get. (It being permission for emotional intimacy is something it took me a long time to realize.)

- - - - -

I'm greatly enjoying the conversations going on in response to this post, btw! And wish I had the time, and the talent, to participate more.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

but for me fiction is a reflection of reality; a conversation with it.

Thinking this over, I misspoke myself when I said my feelings on romance in RL have no bearing on my feelings in fiction. I was dead wrong about that. However, what I like in my fiction is not what I necessarily like in reality. Rather, my fictional tastes are a distorted reflection of certain ideals and impressions about reality.

So I often have favorite characters that are nothing like the people I like in real life, characters that I'd never even want to meet, but adore reading and writing about. (Current example, my favorite character in NCIS is Tony, but if I were actually going to meet or befriend one of the characters, it would be McGee. McGee is much like my real friends, the kind of person I like to know, but Tony is the kind of char I like to read about.) And I sometimes like relationships that are nothing like the kind of relationship I have or would want to have in real life. For example, I have a kink for dysfunctional, obsessive, co-dependent relationships (not all the time; this is not, for example, how I like to see McShep written; but some of my anime fandoms had some twisted stuff I loved, and Clex can be like this) - in reality, I see such relationships as unhealthy and get very upset if my friends find themselves trapped in one; but in my fiction I can find such to be incredibly compelling. I'm not sure why I have this kink, though I suspect it's because I like/appreciate devoted friendship/love in reality, and on one level am fascinated by the absolute obsessive proof of devotion in fiction where it's "safe" and there's no real people to be hurt by it.

So when I look at John & Rodney, I'm not comparing them to anyone I know in reality, but rather an ideal of friendship/love. (Though it kind of amuses me that you see Rodney doing best with an unambitious partner, because that's actually one of the reasons McShep works for me - I see John as quite laid-back and unambitious in most areas; he doesn't feel competitive with Rodney's brilliance, and Rodney's successes wouldn't hurt his ego...)

A healthy real life is a balancing act between many competing urges and needs and ideals; while as fiction can focus on a particular trait to the exclusion of others, and I enjoy that focus. I like my fiction to reflect certain aspect of reality, but don't need or want it to be an exact mirror image.

The "forever" thing is the same deal - in reality, I am one of those sedentary people who hates change. Change can be very good for me, and I need it sometimes; like anyone I can get stuck in negative ruts. But change is uncomfortable for me. So in fanfic and fandom, which I go to for comfort and relaxation, I prefer a status quo, relationships that stay largely unchanged - that might advance by becoming closer, but that don't split up or end. In real life, I like making new friends, and I'm not totally heartbroken by losing old ones - but I don't want the same for John & Rodney; they're a comfort place for me, in their fictional world, and I want them to remain the way I like them. While as some people love change, love new things, and find the idea of a fixed relationship or life unsettling and stifling, in reality or in fiction.

--

Glad you've enjoying the conversation, and thanks for contributing - your thoughts helped clarify some things for me!