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

[sheron]

It's interesting that you characterize this story as Rodney not being good at relationships, when it seems to me that he's pretty good at keeping the relationship that's most important to him. The thrust of the story (or at least the last scene) seems to be not that Rodney's relationship with Jennifer didn't work at all, but that his relationship with his best friend was just more important. /imho.

In fact, I'm not entirely sure this story shouldn't be characterized as John&Rodney rather than "Keller/McKay", when lines like "They're not sleeping together. He just… cares about him more than me." make an apprearance :)

[sholio]

Well, yes, but the story also points out that Rodney is equally bad at relationships when it comes to John -- even Keller, who barely knows John, notices that he's suffering and picks up on the reason why, whereas Rodney, supposedly his best friend, doesn't even have a clue! It just doesn't matter as much with John because John isn't looking for deep emotional closeness with Rodney; he just needs someone to race toy cars with, and generally blow off steam after a hard day at the office (so to speak). Whereas Jennifer wants an emotional commitment.

Having said that, though, one of the things I really loved is that this story shows the almost claustrophobic tightness of Sheppard & McKay's friendship, as it's generally written in fandom, but from the outside -- and really gives you a lot of sympathy for what it would be like to try to deal with that as a third party. I mean, I'm obviously quite a huge fan of the Sheppard and McKay friendship. But I loved that this story basically deconstructed both the limits of their bond (Rodney's completely obliviousness to Sheppard's emotional state, for example), and the fanonical fixation on the two of them spending all their time together (and note that I am entirely guilty as charged in that area *g*).

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

Having said that, though, one of the things I really loved is that this story shows the almost claustrophobic tightness of Sheppard & McKay's friendship, as it's generally written in fandom, but from the outside

I didn't notice this as I read bluflamingo's story, but you're absolutely right! And it's what I found so interesting, having the story told from Keller's POV when so much of the McKay/Keller and McKay/Keller/Ronon triangle was told from McKay's POV. (I think Ronon got less POV time than even Keller.) It's fun and (b)romantic when you're firmly in Sheppard and McKay's POV, and fandom can provide you with hundreds and hundreds of stories to support your perspective, but from the outside/minority opinion it's not quite so pretty. Especially if you're the supposed fiancee.

Btw, I apologise if my comment about McKay/Keller was offputting! I actually don't mind McKay/Keller as a background pairing, but I don't 'ship them and I knew bluflamingo didn't 'ship them either.

[sholio]

I don't think it was any one specific comment, just the gestalt of them. Though I really do appreciate the apology, I don't think you've done anything that needs to be apologized for! Everyone is entitled to their opinions. :)

And I hadn't realized until you pointed it out that the whole triangle was basically presented from McKay's POV -- but yeah, that's an excellent point which I had not noticed before, and obviously it has quite an effect on the overall handling/bias of the plot arc.

It does get a bit awkward for me in these discussions because, well, it's kind of like asking a Jack and Daniel shipper, "Hey, don't you think there was way too much Jack and Daniel in the show?" Because on the one hand ... yeah, probably. On the other hand, it *was* the reason why they watched the show in the first place... and that's pretty much where I am with Sheppard and McKay. Both show and fic supplied a ton of the specific thing I wanted; it's the first time in ages I've been in a fandom that did that, since I have a tendency to go for sidekicks and second bananas, the quirky oddball characters who either fare badly in the show or in fic or both. On the other hand, I'm acutely aware that me getting what *I* wanted out of it means that a lot of other fans didn't get what *they* wanted. And since I pretty much liked everyone on the show and did really hate how some of them were ill-served on the show (Teyla and Ronon) or in the fic (Keller); I really like seeing fic writers break that mold and give the other characters their due for a change.

(Edited for typos.)