So now, when I watch those episodes of SG-1, I get mad.
The first clash between Sam and Rodney is very clearly one of those fights where you have to take emotional sides- you're totally right about being mad on his behalf the minute you fall for him.
I didn't have to watch SGA to fall for Rodney- just that scene in the infirmary with Sam and Rodney, when he tells the story about his piano ambitions and says he's trying to bond. GOD. It pulls every sympathy-for-a-character string I have. Rodney is ME, a significantly more brilliant and therefore proportionally more fucked-up version of how I was at one point in high school. Socially inept and incompetent and disliked by everybody and desperately hurt by that and sticking up a wall of superiority to try to convince yourself you don't care. Knowing you're smarter than everyone around you, understand everything academic better than they do, but it's like they got some sort of secret instruction manual for social interaction and having friends that you never got to see and how is it right or fair that this is the only thing you can't understand? Oh, Rodney.
I can’t ship Rodney and Sam. Can’t do it. Because of all the fandoms I’ve ever been in, Sheppard/McKay is my true fax OTP.
I don't ever do OTP to the point where I can't ship them with other people. I'm perfectly capable of believing 27 completely incompatible versions of a character before breakfast- that's sort of the entire appeal to me. Especially slash pairings, which by nature are built on subtextual evidence that can be argued two entirely separate ways, with nominally heterosexual characters. I tend to really, really believe the slash pairing... and the het pairing just as much.
I believe Sam/Jack, and I believe Sam/Daniel (two different versions, natch) and I believe Jack/Sam/Daniel (whee!) and I love Sam/Janet, and I ALSO would love to see a version of Sam who can really make that kind of attachment outside the SGC. It would need to be with someone who knows about the Stargate- trying to keep her entire lifework secret wouldn't work so well- and it would need to be with somebody non-military, and with someone who she considers her intellectual equal, and with someone... not combative, exactly, but somebody who doesn't just melt for her the way all the assorted aliens have, who keeps her engaged and challenged and a little exasperated. In short, you know, Rodney. They're perfect.
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branchandroot
Re: Part 1, of 2
Date: 2008-04-30 05:31 pm (UTC)The first clash between Sam and Rodney is very clearly one of those fights where you have to take emotional sides- you're totally right about being mad on his behalf the minute you fall for him.
I didn't have to watch SGA to fall for Rodney- just that scene in the infirmary with Sam and Rodney, when he tells the story about his piano ambitions and says he's trying to bond. GOD. It pulls every sympathy-for-a-character string I have. Rodney is ME, a significantly more brilliant and therefore proportionally more fucked-up version of how I was at one point in high school. Socially inept and incompetent and disliked by everybody and desperately hurt by that and sticking up a wall of superiority to try to convince yourself you don't care. Knowing you're smarter than everyone around you, understand everything academic better than they do, but it's like they got some sort of secret instruction manual for social interaction and having friends that you never got to see and how is it right or fair that this is the only thing you can't understand? Oh, Rodney.
I can’t ship Rodney and Sam. Can’t do it. Because of all the fandoms I’ve ever been in, Sheppard/McKay is my true fax OTP.
I don't ever do OTP to the point where I can't ship them with other people. I'm perfectly capable of believing 27 completely incompatible versions of a character before breakfast- that's sort of the entire appeal to me. Especially slash pairings, which by nature are built on subtextual evidence that can be argued two entirely separate ways, with nominally heterosexual characters. I tend to really, really believe the slash pairing... and the het pairing just as much.
I believe Sam/Jack, and I believe Sam/Daniel (two different versions, natch) and I believe Jack/Sam/Daniel (whee!) and I love Sam/Janet, and I ALSO would love to see a version of Sam who can really make that kind of attachment outside the SGC. It would need to be with someone who knows about the Stargate- trying to keep her entire lifework secret wouldn't work so well- and it would need to be with somebody non-military, and with someone who she considers her intellectual equal, and with someone... not combative, exactly, but somebody who doesn't just melt for her the way all the assorted aliens have, who keeps her engaged and challenged and a little exasperated. In short, you know, Rodney. They're perfect.