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

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[sholio]

Hmm...! See, I'm not sure if I agree, because I do know people who remain friends over the long term. I'm still friends with some people from college that I've known for ten or fifteen years, and while we don't see as much of each other now as we used to, when we do get together we slip right back into the same give-and-take that we've always had. I can see myself being friends with those people fifty years from now, particularly if we had a solid reason to stay in the same town rather than having jobs and other life developments take us to different places (a reason to stay, like, say, having an awesome job in a city in another galaxy ... XD).

Realistically, it's true that nothing stays the same -- not friendships nor romances. But I'm not sure if friendships are any less likely to be "lost" through the changes than romance. Friendships have their own unique set of stresses that marriage doesn't (mostly due to people's lives and jobs moving them to different places and hence losing touch with each other), but marriage has its own set of stresses that friendship doesn't. And they both change ... Here again, I guess, we go back to the fundamental problem that in my head, introducing sex into the relationship automatically sets into motion a series of changes that move it away from the friendship I fell in love with. The friendship might change over time anyway, but if it becomes a marriage, it will inevitably change. To me, that's as immutable as the "rule" for you that a friendship will inevitably drift apart and break up without sex as a binder.

And in a weird way, I don't even know if this makes any sense, but I think the fact that marriage (or equivalent state) exists in society as a built-in "binder" for a relationship makes it less special, less emotionally resonant, to me than a friendship that stays together simply because the people in it place that much value on it. I know that this isn't particularly rational because I know that making a marriage work takes just as much effort as making a friendship work -- if not a lot more. But there's something on a really deep, fundamental level with me that loves friendships precisely because of the element of free association that's inherent in them. You don't have to spend the evening with your friends; you choose to do it, because they're that important to you. Whereas it's sort of expected that you'll spend the evening with your spouse, at least if you have any sort of reasonably close marriage. That's actually the main quality I was thinking of when I was writing my response to velocitygrass above, but I couldn't quite think how to phrase it, because obviously marriage (which I'm using here to encompass all varieties of committed, long-term sexual relationships) is by choice, too! But it's much more, well, bound. There are social "rules" for how the two people are supposed to behave towards each other (a couple who maintain separate homes would be looked upon oddly, for example, and most people expect couples to do most things together), and there is the binding of shared property ownership, pets, and, sometimes, things like children or surnames. The fact that friends can just walk away at any time without uprooting their lives, and yet choose to stay anyway, makes friendship incredibly precious to me. And, see, I know that this is basically an irrational emotional response, like the way that I react to h/c, which has no real logical basis except just "I like that, it makes me feel good". But, well, I like that. It makes me feel good. XD

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Now I have to backtrack! I definitely know friends who maintain stable relationships over time - I just don't know any best friends, of the sort of closeness I see between, say, John and Rodney, who have stayed at that level of intimacy. I have quite a few friends who I see maybe once every other year, and I really enjoy spending time with them and we fall back into the same patterns when we do meet. But they are not the most important people in my life. And I know very few married people who consider their best friends to be more important than their spouses - usually, if they have to make a choice, their spouse will come first. That's the social expectation.

It does depend on the people. People who aren't that interested in a long-term romantic relationship can be fulfilled with friendships, and never marry; or else have the sort of unusual marriage you describe, like living in separate houses or not doing things together. But the majority of people in my experience feel lonely and deprived without an SO; friendship isn't enough for them.

Which means, in most fandoms, I see eventual romance as inevitable. (Doesn't help that most shows, if they go on for long enough, will pair up the characters and/or split up the partnerships/teams...) So slash is, hmm, a pre-emptive strike...

The fact that friends can just walk away at any time without uprooting their lives, and yet choose to stay anyway, makes friendship incredibly precious to me. And, see, I know that this is basically an irrational emotional response, like the way that I react to h/c, which has no real logical basis except just "I like that, it makes me feel good". But, well, I like that. It makes me feel good. XD

See, I get this! I love stories like this. There's an SGA future fic story that Elizabeth builds a house and they all move into it when they retire, living together, and I love love love that! It's got no pairings and I don't care a whit; I absolutely do not *need* romance to see the characters as content and fulfilled.

But there are almost no stories like this - in fiction or reality. And I've gotten resigned to this over time, have come to accept the arguably unrealistic mix of friendship and romantic love because it approximates what I want.

(The more I think about it, the more I think part of my thing is that family kink I mentioned. I love cohabitation - in fact, the majority of my favorite fan series either have cohabiting characters (Jim & Blair, the Ghostbusters, and they're all basically roommates on Atlantis) - or else characters who have no home but travel together (Saiyuki, Supernatural) or work together, when their work is more important to them than their personal life (X-files, NCIS, SGA to an extent.) (Star Trek, GetBackers, One Piece fit into all 3 categories!)

I like 'ship and marriage because it solidifies this cohabitation thing. Which is one reason why I see sex as so optional - roommates and married people act awful similar, in my experience; sharing a life ultimately matters more than sharing sex.

...Not sure why that's a kink for me, or why it took me so long to notice, but it explain a lot about my personal tastes...!)

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[sholio]

Something which is really interesting to me -- though I didn't realize this last night; it came to me as I was drifting awake this morning, pondering the conversation -- is that you are actually saying *exactly* what Gero is saying, just using different words. The point of view you're defending here is that friendship is inevitably doomed to end, or at least to drift apart and become much less close. For Rodney to have someone forever, he needs a lover, not a friend.

Which is all Gero is saying too. The only difference is that, due to the characters on the show being presented (and, I gather, seen by their creators) as straight, this love would have to come from a woman, not a man. (I don't think that's necessarily *right*, but I do find it vanishingly unlikely that this particular show would portray two people in an openly same-sex relationship.) So the problem is *not* Gero saying that romantic love is more enduring than friendship love, because you're saying that too -- that friendship without sex can't endure! The problem is that he hasn't sold us on the idea that what Rodney has with Jennifer *is* that relationship for Rodney.

So, let's say that Gero agrees with the majority of slashers, that truly enduring love comes not from friendship but from a romantic relationship. He doesn't want to see Rodney lonely in the end. But due to some combination of network restrictions and how he personally sees the character(s), that person can't be John (or Carson), so he introduces a love interest so that Rodney won't be "alone" at the end.

See, to me, you are saying "friendship alone is not enough" and that's exactly what I have such a knee-jerk problem with! Because to me, it is enough, and saying "But without sex it wouldn't last" is devaluing the existing relationship.

I'm kinda working from both your comments and emails here, because I'm reading the latest email while I'm writing this comment. I should take the rest of this to email, really, because I do think I'm digressing a bit from your above comment, not to mention starting to argue in circles; I think here we're just running up against a fundamental difference in how fictional relationships *work* for us, on an emotional level, that is probably not resolvable. And I do agree with a lot of the rest of your comment, so ... I'll carry on with answering in another comment.

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Something which is really interesting to me -- though I didn't realize this last night; it came to me as I was drifting awake this morning, pondering the conversation -- is that you are actually saying *exactly* what Gero is saying, just using different words.

No, what I'm saying is that most people, to be happy, need romantic AND friendship love together. The ideal romance, to my mind, the one that will make most people happy (depending on the person, of course), is to have a lover and a best friend in one person.

There are exceptions to this rule, but of almost all the happily married couples I know in my acquaintance, this holds true. A romantic relationship that isn't based on friendship won't last either, in my experience. Friendship isn't enough to create the stable bond of commitment, because with most people, however good friends you are, your friend is going to want to get married, too. So no, friendship isn't enough.

But sex/romance isn't enough, either. Gero is saying it is - he didn't write Rodney & Keller as friends; no one's written them doing any friend things together, sharing interests, having fun, etc. Rodney's incredibly awkward around her, he won't relax and be himself as he is with his friends (e.g. John or Radek or Sam.) Lovers can become friends over time, but they haven't really known each other long or well enough to be close friends yet. So for Gero to say that romantic relationship trumps the friendship, when that romance is not a friendship itself, I find fundamentally wrong, a juvenile view of love.

ETA: Because I fear this point has gotten muddled - I'm not saying friendship doesn't endure, because it does. Rather, it's that a particular type of friendship, the cohabitating/partner/team thing that I am so hung-up on in fiction, almost never endures unchanging. In NCIS, the end of s5, the team is broken up - they keep in touch, but it's not the same; it's not what I want to watch or read about. Likewise, if Rodney moved back to Earth as he was saying he might at the end of "Brainstorm" (wtf??) I'm sure he'd still stay in touch with John, and they'd get along fine whenever they saw each other, but the break-up of the team would break my heart, and they'd have lost the particular closeness I love in them, that when they want to have fun, they go to each other, and are there for each other when losing their minds, etc.

So it's not that I don't think friendships can last, but rather a particular type of very intimate, partner-like, marriage-like, roommate friendship, that happens to be my particular kink, and what almost all of my favorite fictional relationships are - those relationships I have trouble seeing lasting, by the rules of society, as only platonic friendship.

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[sholio]

Okay -- fair enough! This does make sense, and I really wasn't trying to be an ass (though I don't know if it came across that way), just trying to figure out where your and Gero's point of view was different on that particular point. And I think you answered that.

I think ultimately, though, it does come down to what pushes a person's particular fan buttons -- because while your explanation makes perfect sense for you, it doesn't make that fundamental kind of emotional sense for me; that is, I can accept it intellectually, and I think I understand what you're explaining, but I don't feel it emotionally. I'm willing to take friendships on faith, but not, generally, romance. You can take romance (friendship-based romance, I hasten to caveat *g*) on faith, in a way that I can't, but not friendships, in the way that I do.

I don't think either one of us is necessarily right or wrong -- or, rather, human behavior and human emotions are probably broad enough to encompass both situations and do so plausibly, but neither of us believes in the other scenario enough to prefer read/writing it. I can't add sex into the relationship without taking away what I like about it; you can't remove the roommate/partner aspect without taking away what you like about it (but I can; close friends being reunited after a long time apart, or staying in touch despite distance, is actually one of my fictional kinks).

It does give me a much better idea of where you're coming from with slash, and why you slash relationships, however. And I think it gives *me* a better understanding of why some slash/ship stories work much better for me than others.

Edited to add: I actually know some couples who are (apparently) happily married without friendship being present at all -- I'm thinking of my husband's parents here, who have about the most classic "traditional" relationship I've ever seen; he's a stereotypical guy, she's a stereotypical 1950s housewife, they seem to have nothing in common and don't even really seem to *like* each other most of the time, and yet, they've been married for 35 years and seem to do just fine at it. I would never in a billion years want to be stuck in a relationship like that, but for *them*, it's obviously satisfying.

I guess this is why I say that human nature is probably broad enough to encompass any conceivable kind of relationship and then some, including the ones you're talking about, where sex is quietly added to the relationship with no other significant changes -- and probably also lifelong, close friendships, as well. But different readers/writers will have a different tolerance for their ability to convey, and enjoy, different sorts of relationships...

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Sorry if I sounded a bit snappy in the last reply, it was something I thought I'd explained, so was getting impatient. But I didn't manage to word it clearly before, glad I was able to! (FWIW, I think that most of the slashers who responded negatively to Gero were coming from that viewpoint, if that helps you make sense of their reactions.)

And yeah, a wide variety of human relationships are possible; I'm just focusing on the ones I particularly like to watch/read about (which differs from fiction to fiction, but these are kinks specific to my Type B status quo fanfic fandoms...)

I'm willing to take friendships on faith, but not, generally, romance. You can take romance (friendship-based romance, I hasten to caveat *g*) on faith, in a way that I can't, but not friendships, in the way that I do.

I think this is it, yeah - because usually I do like friendship more than romance, and I like platonic friendships that last - I just have to be convinced they're possible, generally; as you say, I can't take it on faith that they will.

...Well. Hmmm. Actually, for me, I have to be convinced of writer intent. That's the difference between you and me, perhaps - when I read gen fic written by gen fen such as yourself, I find it utterly satisfying, because I know you are seeing the friendship as something meaningful. I don't need for you to slash John & Rodney for me to believe that you see their friendship as important and lasting. That I know you find friendship more important than romance means that I'm happy to take the friendships as is; and even if you write the characters as romantically involved with other people, you still consider their friendship just as/more important to the characters. (Um. This question of writer intent would be why I had that ridiculous meltdown over your Rodney/Keller/Ronon story ^^;)

But most writers put romance first - Gero being the current example, but most other people I know, too. So when they write romance, I'm suspicious that they're writing a romantic relationship to trump the friendships (especially if they then go and say that's exactly what they're doing!) While as if they're writing the friendship as the romance, then there's no question. Most TV writers, who are given to adding romantic subplots into everything, I tend to take as "guilty until proven innocent" - every time they write romance, I suspect that they're trying to supersede the friendships. (This is probably doing some of them a disservice, as Wright's writing definitely indicates he thinks friendship is more meaningful. And this is why I loved NCIS's resolution of Tony/Jeanne so much, because it made it clear those writers think like I do.)

For me, it's the relationship between certain chars that matters (my OTPs) and the significance of the relationship matters more to me than the nature of it - I care less whether their love is platonic or sexual than whether it's important to the chars; and the relationships I fixate on are nearly always friendship-based, whether or not they also include romance. But I get that for you, a platonic relationship is what you care about; a sexual relationship spoils it.

(Perhaps oddly, I have OTPs that are strictly platonic, that I don't want to see as sexual, for whatever reasons. So I understand that feeling, as far as it goes. The difference is that I simply avoid reading slash/ship and stick to gen for those pairings, and if I do read slash, I appreciate that the writer is seeing a significant relationship, just as I do; I don't feel like the slash is undermining my friendship reading, just giving it a different spin. Fics that 'ship against my OTPs bug me, even though I totally understand the other fan means me and my pairing no harm; but I've never had that feeling that slash is breaking my friendship OTP, even if I don't read the pairing that way myself.)

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

close friends being reunited after a long time apart, or staying in touch despite distance, is actually one of my fictional kinks

I know, I know, I just keep going!! I will stop soon, really, I'm just finding this discussion way too interesting...!

Reunion after separation is one of my kinks, too, but I do it differently...I have a thing for co-dependency, for relationships that are so strong and meaningful that when they are broken it has a lasting effect on the characters. So I love writing long-term separation stories, but the theme of those stories is that the characters need to get back together, that neither of them is quite as happy apart. Likewise, I like staying-in-touch stories (such as John & Rodney calling each other during "The Return") but only if there's the expectation that eventually they'll be together again, and that no one else is taking their place as best friend.

As far as I can tell, this taste is due to the temperament of an individual. I know with deathfic stories, some people prefer the kind where the surviving characters are strong enough to move on and find happiness again, while as other people prefer the characters to always be a bit broken. My preference is definitely for the latter. ("Freedom's Just Another Word..." managed the trick of doing both endings at the same time, which I think is why it satisfied so many people...) I think it's because I'm an OTPer; ultimately I care more about the relationship itself than the characters in it. (Which is why I get a bit weird when real life and realism is brought into discussions about fic, because in real life I put people first, but in fiction, yeah, it's the relationships that I get invested in.)

...And I have now managed to get 100% off-topic! Shutting up! (...for now...)

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[sholio]

No need to apologize, it *is* an interesting topic, though I think I'm starting to burn out on this particular iteration of it ...! (But I'm really not upset anymore, and actually feel quite silly for reacting as I did, so I guess it really does help to talk things through ... XD)

Anyway, I focus on relationship above character too -- it's rare for me to enjoy just one character, particularly to the point of getting fannish, if there's not another character around that I like, and a relationship between them I find interesting. But I think I'm 180 degrees removed from you in that I don't like co-dependent relationships; I like people who are complete in themselves, rather than needing another person to complete them. So I actually enjoy moving-on type stories, especially when they come full circle by having the two people come back together, but as more complete and independent people than they were when they left, if that makes any sense.

But, you know ... personal preference, and all of that. With the SGA bunch, I get the impression that you enjoy their codependent aspects where I enjoy them more for their independent/prickly aspects. So I don't really want to see them become more interdependent than they already are; when I first started fanning on the show, at the end of season 2, I actually did want that, and tended to push that in my fic, because in canon they weren't really all that close yet. At this point, they're as close as I would ever want to see them become, if not TOO close (I'm not all that fond of how so many of their major extra-team relationships -- Elizabeth, Carson -- have been whittled away, just leaving them with Team as the be-all and end-all of their existence) so I find myself wanting a little more distance between them, so that I can see them separate and come back together; I want to explore extra-Team relationships a little bit, since canon (and fic) are giving me all the team I want. But after having me a little bit of not-Team, I want to come back to Team again; I think perhaps part of the reason why this show has been able to hold my interest as long as it has is because there is so much potential in canon for both kinds of story, the long-arc, dark sort and the "status quo" sort, and they both interest me for this show, so I've been shifting back and forth between them as I write. I don't recall that I've done that in a fandom before, at least not to this degree; usually I lean pretty heavily one way or the other.

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm getting a little burned-out too...as I've said, I find such analysis fascinating, but if I peer too closely into the black box of my own tastes I tend to impede my enjoyment of them...

I think I get confused when SGA-fanning with you because you have been shifting like that - sometimes you come across like a team OT4-er, sometimes you want more, and I keep trying and failing to pin you down! ^^ I'm more used to approaching a fandom from one perspective or another, and if I decide I want something else, I'll just find a new fandom to satisfy my new craving. So with SGA I do like the interdependency aspect (though I like some other relationships too, e.g. I'm really enjoying Woolsey's interactions with them this season, and I love that Teyla got to keep Torren and Kanaan) - but then I also love Doctor Who, which doesn't have any constant relationships, but a lot of shifting characters. I don't have any Who OTPs, which is why I've never been inspired to fic for it, but I enjoy the heck out of watching the show, enjoy meeting new characters and watching their relationships develop and change.

--I really should've thought about Who sooner, because a lot of what you say you like - characters parting and coming back together, getting lives on their own and changing their relationships because of them - is exactly what so appeals to me about the characters in Who. I didn't particularly like that Rose hadn't moved on, and I like that Martha is; and I loved Donna & the Doctor being platonic and didn't want any sex between them. So a lot of the kinks I talk about aren't general or consistent, but specific to particular fandoms; I relate to different characters/relationships in different ways, depending on...I have no idea what, actually! It's a puzzlement...

ETA: (I gotta stop mulling...) I think you and I might see "co-dependency" a little different, too...when I talk about my OTPs, I don't meant a relationship that means everything to the characters, that all they need is each other to be happy and they cannot be at all happy apart. Rather, I like two people being something special to one another, who are something to one another that no one else can be. Unhealthy relationships, where the characters need to be together at all times, like those mated-for-life gazelles that never stray more than ten feet apart - those can creep me out (sometimes I'll like them, but as sort of a dirty kink, not a happy ending...) I ideally want my OTPs to be healthy and happy, which means that sometimes they'll fight and sometimes they'll do their own thing apart, have their own friends and their own jobs and their own hobbies. But I like the idea that if they lost the other person, they're losing something irreplaceable; that no one else could quite be the best friend/lover/whatever that the other person is to them, and they're always going to miss them on some level, even if they're mostly happy otherwise.

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[sholio]

Ha, that's probably why I *am* hard to pin down, and it's not even something I'd thought about, but I do move back and forth between the two extremes in SGA to a much greater degree than in most of my other fandoms. My first big fandom, Trigun, for example, was very definitely a "fanning on changes" sort of fandom, and even my stabs at cheerful, fluffy fic in that fandom were fairly dark and weird.

SGA, though -- it draws me both ways, and I find that after I've been focusing on one thing for a while, I'll get burned out and swing back in the other direction ... but still within the same fandom. I guess this is where it's really coming in handy that the fandom itself is so huge, because it is possible to find gloomy apocafic, or non-con, or really dark torture-fic, or fluffy teaminess, or cheerful, goofy slash ...

I *have* noticed that, for its size, it's really not as diverse as you'd expect (the majority of fic in the fandom is one pairing and kind of self-similar in tone), but it's SO huge that it's usually possible to find something in almost any style, with almost any characters. And it seems to lend itself to more diverse possibilities for writing than any other fandom I've been in. AUs work fantastically well, especially since they're technically canon. You can do star-spanning epics, or quiet little set-pieces; you can build societies from the ground up, or set a story on Earth if you want to. Stylistically, you can do it as a space western, as a comedy of manners, a farce, a gloomy metaphor for Western colonial ambition, a complicated tale of political espionage, a happy romance, a frontier society-building tale, a murder mystery; you can even introduce quite a lot of fantasy elements before you get outside the realm of canonical possibility, considering that telepathy, psychic healing, and dead people coming back to life are totally canonical. You can also cross it over with pretty much any show set in present-day Earth. As far as the range of story possibilities, it's kind of hard to beat.

But I know what you mean, about wanting different things from different fandoms; SGA is just a bit unusual for me in that I seem to be able to do the mental twist required to get the show and/or the fanfic to supply my different needs. I'm not able to do that in most fandoms, and I suspect it's probably more me than the show itself. I don't blame you for not wanting to view the characters in the fandom from certain perspectives, though, because it's probably the same reason why I'm not that interested in reading your slash (and, fyi, you're not the only gen author whose slash I don't read -- I hadn't thought about it, but I can think of a couple of others, too, who write both, and I seem to prefer sticking with one or the other view of the characters from them, and not getting both from the same author).

(And, wow, are we ever off topic now!)

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[sholio]

I started my answer before you added your ETA. ^^

I think you might be right about "codependency", though from everything you've said about character relationships that you fan on, I do think you like them more entwined than I do. But having said that ... I think that our tastes in that area are probably closer than they seem when we talk about it, as evidenced by the fact that we often fan on the same things...

As you know, I definitely do fixate on characters who are tremendously important to each other, and I like to see their relationship as somehow unique -- which is one of the big things about Sheppard and McKay that appeals to me, because "brothers" is about the closest word I can think of to describe how they act, except they're not related so they don't have the shared family history and other weirdness that goes along with being flesh-and-blood siblings; it's a very unique, hard-to-pin-down relationship, and even if they aren't each other's everything (which I actually prefer them not to be), if they ever lost the other, it would be impossible to find someone else with whom they could have a similar relationship. (Actually, in their specific case, that's one of the reasons why slashing them does change the relationship to something that's less special to me, because suddenly all the indefinable weirdness collapses into a relationship that *can* be described and easily qualified -- "boyfriends" -- and that makes it less interesting to me than when it's this extremely odd something that even they don't seem to know how to define.)

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I've said it before, but I do think if I stayed in SGA as long as you have, that I probably would switch, would be able to view it as either type of fandom. Though I don't know - I think it's more likely I just won't keep it that long, or at least not this invested. I'm already cheating a bit with NCIS, and though SGA still satisfies me as that and most other fandoms don't, and I see myself coming back to it, I don't know how much longer I'm going to stay...(I'm not OTP myself with any fandom! XP)

(Actually, in their specific case, that's one of the reasons why slashing them does change the relationship to something that's less special to me, because suddenly all the indefinable weirdness collapses into a relationship that *can* be described and easily qualified -- "boyfriends" -- and that makes it less interesting to me than when it's this extremely odd something that even they don't seem to know how to define.)

Hmmmm - I hadn't really considered this, but it's true for me, too. "Uniqueness" is one of the defining features of an OTP for me, and that explains why I particularly like McShep in which their relationship is something unique even if they are having sex - I don't exactly go for "they're not gay they just love each other," but I do tend to like stories in which it's their first gay relationship, or their first real relationship (John was married but it went so badly, and while I don't see Rodney as a virgin I tend to see him as mostly inexperienced with sex)...that "boyfriend" for them is still is a weird and inexplicable relationship. Same as you can define them as "teammates" or "best friends" and it describes what they have for the most part, but not quite. John & Rodney are both so weird about relationships - all relationships, friendships or romantic - that adding sex would either not change much or would complicate things; I don't see it as simplifying anything, at least not right away. Sleeping together would not make them any better at communicating, at least not right away (though yeah, I have read slash fics that it does, but those always seem OOC to me...put it this way, I've got my one slash fic that's about 50K words now, with long-term established McShep, and neither of them have actually said "I love you" to the other in the course of the story yet. But then, gen h/c fics are often about the characters coming together and expressing that they love each other platonically, so much gen, too, has the characters moving towards defining their relationships.)

And that's why I wouldn't want to see McShep go canon, because these writers are not good at subtle, and the only reason they write John & Rodney as well & interestingly as they do is because they don't really know what they're doing; they don't have it figured out. And sometimes it does seem to be played almost sexually/romantically...I sort of feel that saying their relationship is strictly platonic, that there is no subtext, is as limiting and qualifying as making them boyfriends; it's denying some of the mystery! (Which is why some of my favorite fics are those gen-ish stories which don't make a point of it one way or another, that don't try to define their friendship as romantic or platonic but leave it open to anything.)

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[sholio]

Hmmm... let me see if I can explain this. While I *do* see what you're saying about defining the mystery, on a totally illogical level (which is, of course, the level where we're operating when we fan *g*) it's usually profoundly uncomfortable for me to write or read sex in the context of a relationship that gives off a strong family vibe for me; it trips my incest squick like whoa. I don't have a moral problem with consensual incest and I can even write it if I try (there's canon incest in two of my original stories, actually) but it's still something that squicks me, and though I know "adopted" siblings aren't the same as flesh-and-blood siblings, it still trips the same wires in my head. I've dealt with it in SGA by trying not to overtly think of them as family when I'm reading ship fic ... in fact, come to think of it, I think that's why I've been downplaying the "family" thing in general over the last year or so, both in my fic and in my head -- my preferred mental model for them used to be family/siblings, but it's more like dorm-mates or roommates these days. I can do family; I can do sex; I can't do family having sex with each other, at least in anything other than a profoundly messed-up kind of way. And I've been reading a fair amount of pairing (in different combinations) and OT4 with the team. Innnnteresting ...! Maybe that does explain it, actually, because I had kinda wondered about that; when I typed "brothers" for the John/Rodney relationship, above, it reminded me that back in season three, I used to *love* thinking of them that way, and I really don't/can't anymore. I think this is directly attributable to reading slash; it means that "family" is no-go territory for me now with them, at least in a warm-fuzzy sort of way rather than a weird/screwed-up way.

And I know that this is irrational and just a matter of the sort of boxes where I put things in my head, but when it comes to gut-level emotional reactions to things, it doesn't matter.. Maybe that's one of the big reasons why it's really hard for me to relate strongly to a couple on both a gen and sexual level at the same time.

But your saying this about sex being part of their strangeness makes me think that it might be very interesting to write them that way -- if occasional sex was just more of their weirdness and the undefinability of their relationship; in other words, they'd still be seeking relationships with other people, but also having sex with each other, and trying to explain *that* to people outside the relationship ... I'm very intrigued by that possibility, actually.

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yup...I can get this to an extent; I think the difference is that "family" has multiple meanings to me. So I love siblings, and sibcest can squick me (though I sometimes like it as a twisted kink; I can't see it as warm & fuzzy but as a fucked up obsessive relationship I sometimes go for it.) But for me, an important part of family is the parents: marriage (or the equivalent thereof) is at the foundation of a family.

This, definitely, has a lot to do with internalized definitions of "family"; my experience with happy marriages means that I see them as, if not absolutely necessary to a family, then at least a common element. So I can see chars as brothers sometimes, but if they're not actually related I'm just as likely to see them as a married couple. And, as mentioned, I see a happy marriage as a best friend + sex relationship, so it's not that far a mental/emotional jump for me to make. (and probably why I tend to prefer happy-fuzzy McShep slash, as I see their relationship as pretty healthy to begin with, for all they're weirdos...)

in other words, they'd still be seeking relationships with other people, but also having sex with each other, and trying to explain *that* to people outside the relationship ... I'm very intrigued by that possibility, actually.

Hmmm. I'm intrigued by polyamorous relationships in general, though I admit I have a hard time seeing it with John & Rodney - mainly because I don't see either of them as having particular strong sex drives; the "Kirk" reading of John always strikes me as OOC, and I read Rodney as the kind of guy who wouldn't really get much out of sex outside of the context of a close relationship; he's not interested in sex itself so much as the intimacy (that's just my personal fanon take, not anything canonical!) (And that's another reason why I don't have trouble slashing them; I don't see sex as that important to their lives. At the same time, it helps to slash them in that I do see them as sexually compatible - "my" John is borderline asexual, and Rodney likes sex on occasion but is easily distracted by other things...

Cohabitation and such

[sholio]

The whole cohabitation/family-of-circumstance kink is definitely one that I share in a major way, as you probably have noticed. ^_^ And I think this is exactly why -- because it, basically, keeps the characters pulling in the same direction. It is quite possible that on some level I do agree with you that friendships are -- okay, not doomed to fail necessarily, but extremely hard to keep together in the modern world. I mean, the cohabitation thing with marriage probably is one of the major factors keeping a marriage together; there are certainly some marriages that survive when the two people maintain separate households or are apart for long periods of time -- human beings are so varied that somewhere out there, there's probably someone who is happy in pretty much every conceivable variation of relationship that there is! But it's not usual and it's not standard, and most marriages can't survive that.

So my favorite fictional friendships (for fanning on, that is; I read and enjoy lots of things that I don't fan on) seem to be those with some element of "bonding" that isn't marriage -- usually above and beyond the norm of partners, co-workers or even siblings. Atlantis is a good example of that, because they're not just partners at work; they also all live together in what's basically a big dorm, PLUS they're stuck together in another galaxy fighting overwhelming odds. (Dormitory ... IN SPACE!) Combined with the general adorableness of the characters, it just took a big wad of my fictional kinks and rolled them together into a big katamari of cute. ^_^

It may be that the reason why such relationships appeal to me is because I'm able to indulge my freedom-of-association kink while appeasing my inner skeptic by giving them a reason, other than sex, for everyone to spend their lives together.

I'm also pretty sure that I don't have quite the same status-quo kink that you do. As a matter of fact, SGA is one of the few things I've fanned on where I haven't been more interested in things changing than staying the same -- in other words, in most other things that have an enduring fan-interest for me (e.g. Death Gate), the point of fan-fixation is where things change ... it's the transition process of enemies becoming friends that I like in that book, not the status quo afterwards. SGA is kind of unusual for me in that I like where they are now so much that I'm not all that interested in going back to the early days when they were just becoming friends, which normally would be the part that I most want to explore and to see explored on the show.

I think this one of the big reasons why I become bored in fandoms fairly easily and wander along to a new shiny -- the changes intrigue me at least as much, if not more than the end product. (And NCIS is following a very typical fan trajectory for me -- a few months of active fanning, slowly tapering off.)

Hmmm ... maybe one of the reasons why slash is often not my cup of tea is because it teases me with something that I want from fic -- exploring the changes in a relationship over time -- and then fails to deliver? Which makes my little whine that kicked off this whole conversation even less defensible, really.

(Comment limits, I hatessssss them...)

The rest of that comment

[sholio]

(Does everyone find the LJ comment limit stifling, I wonder, or are we just unusually long-winded?)

I definitely have a knee-jerk DO NOT WANT reaction to romance. But the more I scrape the surface, the more complicated it gets; romances tangential to what I see as the "main" relationships on the show are more palatable to me (I'm much more tolerant of Rodney/Keller than John/Teyla, for example). You mentioned Tony's relationship with Jeanne above, and, see, I liked that subplot; I find romance kind of uninteresting for its own sake, but I like it as a catalyst for other things -- I like the way that it reveals new facets of a character's personality, and if it does it without impacting the other relationships on the show, then from my point of view that's just so much the better. (My sister, incidentally, hated the Tony/Jeanne arc, but not because of the romance -- she thinks he's been presented as polyamorous on the show and found it wildly OOC that he'd suddenly switch to monogamy for a season. At the very least she thought he should've been seeing other girls at the same time.) But one of the reasons why I've been wanting to write romance fic in SGA lately is to explore those other aspects of the characters and see how romance changes them; I just don't want to risk "pushing" the relationships that are most important to me in that way.

I think the biggest trouble is that romance as a happy fantasy doesn't work for me (it brings up too many bad memories) so I generally want a more realistic and darker view of romance, which puts me a bit out of step with fandom and the culture in general. (I think I'm dealing with the rosy glow of romance on SGA by viewing it in a more nuanced way even if that's not how it's presented on the show; I think it presents a lot of intriguing story ideas, and due to my particular worldview being what it is, I find it less of a "threat" to the relationships I love than a relationship within the team would have been.)

I'll have to think about this some more. Thank you for the interesting discussion, though -- I really appreciate you (and your f'list, apparently) not getting upset with my rather inflammatory comment that kicked off this whole thing.

Re: The rest of that comment

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Random responses:

Status quo kink: It's not that I only like things that don't change. I like status quo in my Type B fandoms, the ones that have characters and relationships I like enough to want to fic them - if I like them that much, I don't want them to change. (and often especially don't like change if I am ficcing them, as Jossing is annoying!) In Type A fandoms, development and arc are usually part of the draw for me (so I loved the evolution of relationships in DeathGate).

And the thing is, my status quo fandoms do bore me quickly; like you, I move on after less than year, usually. (I don't see NCIS lasting more than a couple months, for me.) I just like to know that if I did go back to the fandom, it would be as I left it.

As far as romance in shows goes, I tend to like it better when I know it's being done to advance the characters, rather than trying to establish a permanent romantic partner (e.g. I didn't mind Rodney/Katie Brown because I thought it was doomed; I was generally bored by the Tony/Jeanne but if you read my comment I'm actually really glad it happened, because I like what it did with Tony's character. ...also I never saw Tony as polyamorous; he's never dating women at the same time as far as I can tell. Though I was interested that the only reason he actually did settle with Jeanne long enough to fall in love was because of his job. And I also liked that it took him a while *to* fall in love; it was believable to me when he finally said it, unlike Certain Other Shows. And yet their love wasn't based on friendship, since she never knew the real him, and the show presented it as a relationship that couldn't really work, no matter how much they romantically loved each other...)

Authorial intent plays a role - if I feel the writers are just writing the character in an interesting relationship, I'll tend to be more tolerant of it than if I feel the writers are trying to write She's The One. When a character (almost always a female character) is introduced primarily to be the Romantic Partner of the lead, that gets to me.

Which is why I'm reacting so badly to SGA now. I can understand romance happening quickly, but a real, meaningful relationship - one that leads to commitment, one that will last - I want to see develop slowly, I need to see a strong friendship as well as romantic love, for me to believe it or enjoy it. (Thus my distaste for most UST, because characters USTing will never be comfortable enough around each other to develop a real friendship, so any romantic relationship between them falls flat for me.) Though SGA really couldn't make me happy writing the romance that way, either, because of my OTPing - and this is why I tend not to like canon romance, because I prefer the freedom of deciding for myself which relationships are meaningful, rather than having the writers force it.

Re: Part 2 (edited)

[wneleh.livejournal.com]

But there's something on a really deep, fundamental level with me that loves friendships precisely because of the element of free association that's inherent in them.

YESYESYES!

And, see, I know that this is basically an irrational emotional response, like the way that I react to h/c, which has no real logical basis except just "I like that, it makes me feel good". But, well, I like that. It makes me feel good. XD

Nods.