Quick story rec

[sholio]

As I've mentioned occasionally, I really love stories about messy, complicated, unhappy relationships -- I don't think I'd want a steady diet of them, but it's rare in fandom to get stories in fandom that treat romance as the kind of messy, easily breakable thing that it is in real life, and I'm always delighted to stumble across them.

So I wanted to rec this story: And So the End by bluflamingo. It's post-season-five Keller/McKay (with blink-and-you-miss-it background John/Cam), and I went into the story very nervous, because it's rare to find a Keller/McKay breakup fic that I feel is fair to both the characters. But I really loved it -- the emotions ring true, and the sense of an existing world around the protagonists, with other characters' lives woven in and out of Rodney and Jennifer's unraveling relationship, is very well done. I recommend this one particularly to Keller fans; it's an excellent Jennifer POV and really rang true for her. :)

(Side note: I know I have a lot of fellow Rodney fen on my f'list so I feel that I should warn that this story throws a fairly unflattering light on Rodney's dubious relationship skills; personally, I think it's consistent with how he's shown in canon (not bashing, in other words) and I can see him behaving as he does in this story, but you may disagree, so I didn't want to send you in there unwarned! This is not a happy story, and it's not a story that's going to leave you warm and fuzzy about the pairing.)

ETA: Comments to this entry contain story spoilers!

Comments

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I don't know much about the author's leanings in that direction myself; I skimmed the first few comments, found them very offputting (in a way that the fic itself wasn't) and moved on. Anyway, if the author's okay with it, I'm not one to butt in. *shrugs*

I think the fic also made a pretty compelling argument against McKay/Sheppard, or, really, McKay/anybody -- pointing out as it does that Rodney's lack of emotional sensitivity extends to his friends as well as lovers. Which was something I liked about it, really; that it wasn't just that he's emotionally obtuse with Jennifer because they're "not made for each other", but that he doesn't do people in general. His lack of ability to supply emotional support is acceptable on the more casual level of a friendship, as least with people who are willing to put up with his self-absorption, but falls flat in a relationship, where a certain amount of selflessness is necessary. I think that my own love for Rodney makes it occasionally hard for me to write him in a way that's consistent with some of his behavior in canon, as this fic did.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

Ah, hello — we crossed timing in comments, I think. I do apologize for stirring up someone else's comment thread.

And I do get you that some of the comments, there or on any high-drama 'ship, can be profoundly offputting. (Hell, I've gotten comments trashing characters I positioned as antagonists but not evil, characters I actively like, and that's definitely awkward.) Some people absolutely do seize the chance to expound, in consideration of the author's viewpoint or not, and I need to remember that I run the risk of appearing the same if I pattern my comments similarly.

Yeah, I was actually one of the folk agreeing that Rodney would be difficult to fit into a working relationship. (I'm certain you know I don't like the pairing, but I don't place the "blame" for that squarely on Jennifer.) I do think there are rare odd ducks who wouldn't mind his canonical thoughtlessness even in a relationship; I might even be one of them (but then again, I'm not actually in a relationship myself and don't plan to be, which is probably strongly correlated). One reason I liked the story you rec here is that it's perfectly reasonable for Jennifer not to be one of those people, and that doesn't at all make her evil or wrong; it simply makes them incompatible, and that's okay. Of course, in that interpretation, I think I'm taking a rosier perspective on Rodney than the writer necessarily meant to convey, so I'm probably falling into the same "expounding" quicksand I was just decrying .... :>

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I don't think you were out of line at all. And I really didn't feel that the story was trying to make Rodney out to be a bad guy; just, as you say, incompatible with Jennifer. Sometimes people are! (Though granted, it's a less flattering view of him than one typically gets in SGA fic, at least in the areas where I run.)

Something I was talking about awhile back, referring in that case to the so-called post-Trinity phenomenon, was fandom's tendency to go to extremes ... characters are best-friends-for-life or can't stand each other; Character B is Character A's soulmate or else he's a total bastard who needs to be pushed down a mineshaft; a couple is MFEO or else they need to be broken up by chapter 2 in order to make room for their real soulmates. Fanfic doesn't seem to deal in ambiguity very often. Considering how prickly, flawed and in some cases traumatized the SGA characters are, I can't really see ANY of them ending up in totally happy, unproblematic relationships. Which are less interesting to write about anyway ...

I still hate it when authors break up couples with extreme prejudice in order to further a shipping agenda, though. Drives me nuts in every fandom in which it appears. Amicably writing a couple out doesn't bother me nearly so much -- perhaps it would be most accurate to say that I don't mind it on principle (because I recognize that if you, say, ship Spock/Kirk then the only way to write AOS fic is to do something with Uhura) but tend not to like to read it (much).