As seen on my flist, sort of

[sholio]

There's this meme going around, which goes: Name a character I've written about, and I will tell you three things that I think are essential to keep in mind when writing that character.

But when I thought about doing the meme, and what I might say about some of the characters that I write, I realized that I don't exactly operate that way. I tend to think about characters in combination with other characters; I don't really go around thinking about Rodney, for example, but instead I think about Rodney + Teyla, or Rodney + Sam, or whatever. I don't have just one set interpretation of the character; instead I have different ways of writing them depending on the kind of situation and who they're interacting with.

So here's what we'll do instead!

Give me a character relationship -- i.e. name two characters from a show/book/movie who have some kind of relationship in canon (friendship, coworkers, enemies, sexual relationship, blood relationship, whatever) -- and I'll tell you three things I believe about the relationship between those characters.

You can name characters from anything I'm into -- SGA, Avatar, Dresden Files, Sanctuary or Artemis Fowl would probably work best at the moment, since those are the ones that are most currently in my head, but you can also pull characters out of anything else I've fanned on, whether or not I've written for it. You can name more than two characters if there is a clearly defined relationship between all of them as a unit, like a group of siblings, a family, a group of people who work together, etc. I'm perfectly fine with people posting more than once, BUT wait 'til I answer before you go and give me another pair to write about. :)

ETA: Comments may contain spoilers for the canons being discussed. I'm trying to steer clear of HUGE spoilers but it's impossible to discuss some of these characters without spoiling things.

This entry is also posted at http://friendshipper.dreamwidth.org/313290.html with comments.

Comments

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. You've now made me think about it, and on thinking about it have come to realize that I'm kind of the opposite. I tend to get very focused on a single character - specifically their past, or possible past. For me, when I think about a character, a lot of times it's their pasts/possible pasts I tend to dwell on. I never really realized this before, but it's true. I'm a back story junky.

Anyway, on to the request. Hmmmm... So hard to choose!

I can't decide between Tesla and Henry, Sheppard and McKay or Harry and Murphy.

Surprise me ;)

Harry and Murphy

[sholio]

Just based on reading meta and fic and such, I'm pretty sure that it's quite common in fandom to be primarily focused on a favorite character or characters. But, though I do love and fixate on individual characters also, I've always been more about the relationships between characters (which actually is one of the things that's stopped me from fanning very hard on Sanctuary; there are individual characters I love, but no character relationship that really does it for me, hence no strong fannish bond).

Someone else is bound to ask about Sheppard and McKay (and if not, you can always request it again *g*), so I'll do Harry and Murphy!

1. They're each the other's best friend. Maybe that's too obvious to mention, but it was something that struck me on the re-read in a way that it really hadn't when I read the series the first time: how throughout the series, without anyone being so sappy as to actually utter the words "best friend", they are such obvious BFFs 4evah. *g*

2. This is something of a rarity for me, but I will be equally okay if the two of them get together or if they don't. Frankly I think it's almost inevitable that they will end up together eventually, but the series has surprised me before, and that may not be what Butcher's heading for at all. But, assuming that things don't go horribly south on them, I will be okay with it either way. I can totally see them as a couple, but I can also totally see them continuing to bicker and share confidences and insult each other's taste in girlfriends/boyfriends until they're 90.

3. And one reason why I'm okay with the idea of the romance turning out either way is because I do believe that what they have between them is deep and complex enough that it would survive a love affair going bad. I could even see them spending a book or two at odds -- not necessarily because of romance gone wrong, but because of a betrayal or something even worse, who knows what nasty turns Butcher has up his sleeve for his poor characters *g* -- and eventually finding their way back to the same depth of trust and love that they had before.

[sinaida.livejournal.com]

Rodney and Elizabeth, please. :)

Rodney and Elizabeth

[sholio]

Ooh, that's an interesting one! :)

1. He respected her from the beginning, which is a really extraordinary thing because this is Rodney we're talking about here -- he doesn't respect anyone, particularly not in the immediate post-SG1 era. And yet his relationship with Elizabeth has always been one of mutual respect and liking, and seldom became combative; it might actually be the only one of his close friendships that isn't a highly combative battle of snark most of the time. In fact, after she's gone, that's one of the things that's hardest for him to take. There haven't been very many people who just liked him.

2. They aren't confidantes; their friendship doesn't really seem to work that way. They don't have the sort of relationship where one of them would go to the other to confide or be counseled. For that sort of thing, they'd be much more likely to go to Carson or Kate or, in Rodney's case, John -- but not each other. And yet they've gotten to know each other pretty well regardless, though probably neither of them would be able to figure out how it happened; through the day-to-day business of running Atlantis, it just ... did.

3. One of the more interesting things to me about Rodney and Elizabeth is that they seem to relate to each other differently one-on-one than in a group. Elizabeth, especially when she's around John and Rodney, falls very easily into the "den mom" role (which makes sense for someone who's spent her life settling disputes as her job). But while her one-on-one interactions with John do retain overtones of that -- the constant awareness of the discrepancy in their relative positions of power; the sense that they're always testing each other -- I really don't get that impression off Rodney and Elizabeth. Unfortunately we don't see them by themselves very often, so there isn't much canon to go off here, but they relate much more as peers and equals when they're by themselves than when they're in a room with other people.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Wellll, I really don't know who to pick. I love Zuko, so maybe Zuko and Toph, or Zuko and Katara, Zuko and Aang, Zuko and Mai, Zuko and Sokka, Zuko and Iroh, Zuko and Azula, Zuko and Ozai? Any of them really.

Or Rodney and Teyla, Rodney and John, Rodney and Ronon, Rodney and Carson or Rodney and Keller?

Any of these would be awesome!

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Also, er, this is a little off topic, but I've been looking for one of your fics and I can't remember the name. It's the one where John is somewhere in a beach (I think it was a beach, and maybe a cabin?) and he's waiting, and one by one the rest of the team come and join him. At the end, they leave through the gate. And I would say more but I don't want to spoil it in case anyone hasn't read it yet and the ending is a surprise. Can you tell me the name?

[saphirablue]

Um, may I too?

I would really love to hear your thoughts on the relationship between Jos Musley and Niko or Jos and Captain Arzacon.

Jos Musey and Captain Cairo Azarcon

[sholio]

Ooh, interesting choices! :D

1. The big thing about Jos and Cairo Azarcon, I guess, is that Jos reminds Cairo of himself. A lot. I think all the kids on the Macedon do -- misfits and broken people and troublemakers; it's what he does, collect troubled, angry kids like he used to be and shape them into adults -- but Jos is the one who went through the same hell that Cairo went through, even if Cairo didn't know it when he first took him on. I really hope that, if she does write more books in the series, she gives Cairo his own book, because I would love to see how Cairo managed to become the person that he did -- if a year with Falcone messed up Jos that much, I'm boggled (in a good way, though) that Cairo went through eight years of it and managed to put himself back together even to the extent that he did. (On the other hand, it might've been a different story if we'd seen Cairo at 15, which I do hope someday we will.)

2. The analysis/reaction posts that I've read for these books seem to interpret Jos and Cairo's relationship in a more paternal light than I do. I don't really see Cairo's relationship with Jos as a fatherly one; there is definitely an overtone of mentor/protector, but not really more so than the rest of the crew. More than that, I think he sees Jos as a peer, or maybe more accurately, a peer-in-training -- not an equal yet, but someone who may someday be. And Cairo really doesn't view very many people that way. He respects Jos, and that's unusual for him. Actually, pairing up Ryan and Jos is a good indication of just how deeply Cairo trusts and respects Jos, as well as being an interesting stab at trying to give Jos someone his own age to talk to who doesn't hate and resent him for being a sympathizer.

3. I think I have a pretty good feel for how Cairo feels about Jos (though that may change if we ever get a Cairo POV book), but I don't have a really good read on Jos's feelings towards Cairo, or even strong fanon opinions on it. I know he respects him and knows that Cairo's gone way out on a limb for him, but Jos is still so messed up, especially towards authority figures, that I'm not sure if Jos himself knows how he feels about Cairo. They have a good working relationship, but on a personal level, I think Cairo likes and cares about Jos, but I can't tell to what extent Jos reciprocates. I could see them being good friends in ten years, once Jos has worked his way through a lot of what's going on in his head right now. Or not. It's hard to say.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

How about Teyla and Elizabeth?

Teyla and Elizabeth

[sholio]

Hmm, let's see...

1. The first and biggest thing about them is that they are both leaders, and not only that, but the same kind of leader -- traders, diplomats, explorers. I think they have a deep understanding and respect for each other on a level that the other characters in their lives don't necessarily get. They butt heads in the first few episodes, but this has more to do with their respective social roles -- their responsibility to their people -- than with any sort of innate personality clash. Even in the early episodes I get the impression that they like and empathize with each other (like Teyla tells Elizabeth in "Suspicion", she would have acted similarly if she'd been in Elizabeth's position) but are divided by their respective loyalties and their duties to their people.

2. The handful of glimpses that the show gave us in later seasons definitely indicated that there was a strong friendship there ... albeit one that we rarely saw. Reading between the lines, my own take on it is that they would have had a lot of quiet times together: a cup of tea in Teyla's quarters, a breakfast in the mess hall in the first rays of the sun, a movie late at night after everyone else had gone to bed.

3. One of the neat things about Teyla is that she has a number of close friendships with other women -- again, virtually unexplored on the show, but definitely there in canon, even if only hinted at: Charin, Kate, her friend who dies in "Sunday." And Elizabeth, of course. For all that we saw it rarely, Teyla is a woman who nurtures friendships with other women, and Elizabeth is (or was) an integral part of her life. Elizabeth, on the other hand, doesn't strike me as a woman who had very many women friends -- she would have been the sort of girl whose friends were mostly boys and who set her sights very early on a political career. I'm certainly not saying she didn't have women friends, but I see Elizabeth focusing more on her career than on nurturing friendships outside the workplace, and most of the people she works with closely, on Atlantis and before it, are men. Teyla, and maybe Kate, are probably the only female friends that she has on Atlantis, and maybe among the few that she's ever had.

[tieleen.livejournal.com]

My brain somehow made enemies, sexual relationship into sexual enemies, and I had just enough time to think 'oh, fandom' before realizing that no, this time it was just me.

In a very sharp turn from that, I'd love to hear your thoughts about Teyla and Ronon.

Teyla and Ronon

[sholio]

1. They don't have as much in common as most Earth people think. Why would they? He's from an urban, Industrial Revolution-era society that's been entirely focused on a devastating war. She's from a small village on a pastoral farming world. This is pure fanon, but I like thinking that Teyla and Ronon disagree (in a generally friendly sort of way) on almost every political, religious and pop-culture point, but the specifics totally fly over their teammates' heads -- we're talking the Pegasus Galaxy equivalent of, say, John and Rodney arguing about the death penalty in Canada vs. the U.S., or talking about Batman villains.

2. Having said that, they love each other deeply and are always in each other's corner. Despite the differences they may have, when it comes to the fundamental things -- what it really means to grow up under the shadow of the Wraith -- there is no way that the Atlanteans of Earth could understand them on the level that they can understand each other. It's kind of like the way that, after living for a long time in a foreign land, sometimes you just have to get together with a fellow expat and talk about the old country, even if the two of you would have hated each other if you'd met on a street corner back home. Sometimes you just need to hear your language spoken with your own accent; you need someone around who understands.

3. Teyla's pregnancy brought them closer than they were before. There is a part of me that wants to write epic Teyla fic from seasons four and five, except it would be hard to work it into canon, because there's just enough canon from that period to be tantalizing but not enough to actually explore things in the depth I want explored. And really, there is SO MUCH to explore with all the changes that took place for her in that time period ... most of them bad, a few of them good. She lost most of her female friends, lost her people, lost her place on the team, had to deal with a host of changes in her position on Atlantis as well as changes in her own body. And the way that I see it, just based on that adorable little glimpse of them when Ronon takes her hand and teases her about naming the baby after him, Ronon was her rock during that time. Especially when she was on the outs with John, but it lingered afterwards and on into the post-Torren period. They'd always been close and they'd hung out together, but mostly they'd bonded over things like teaching each other new martial arts (or utterly failed attempts at meditating; heh). Now, as their lives changed around them, they'd become the sort of friends who have breakfast together or drop by unexpectedly to say "Hi, how are you doing, do you want me to watch the baby for a couple hours?"

[astridv.livejournal.com]

Oh, that sounds interesting. Hope I'm not too late to the party, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Rodney + Sam.

Rodney and Sam (pt 1)

[sholio]

Your wish is my command, and it turned out I had a lot to say about it! :D I could easily write a huge essay dissecting Rodney's view of relationships (or rather, my view of Rodney's view of relationships) and this turned into two comments, despite aiming for brevity.

1. She wasn't kidding: she really is attracted to him, and was from the beginning, even though she wonders what that says about her. Well, no -- she knows what it says about her; it says that she's the kind of girl who used to get crushes on her professors, because smart + confident is a huge turn-on for her, and even though "confident" in Rodney's case tends to assert itself as "arrogant asshole", she still can't deny the appeal. She is absolutely, 100% not going to try to hit that, for any one of a hundred good reasons, and she's actually sort of glad to have him safely tucked away one universe away, because dealing with him is exhausting and the harassment borders on "reportable" (but never quite crosses the line). However, it neither surprises nor disgusts her to discover that an alternate-universe version of herself married (and divorced) him. In fact, since that universe was a totally random one, she'd be even more surprised to find out that there weren't a whole lot more that turned out the same way, maybe even a few where the two of them were happy together. (One night, John tells her about Rod, and they have a good laugh about it -- but she's kind of glad that no one ever asked Rod if he was married. Given how weak in the knees she gets just thinking about it, she has a deep suspicion what the answer might have been.)

What surprises her on Atlantis, though, is how much he's mellowed and matured. She'd always thought Rodney would find it impossible to gracefully take orders from a woman, especially from her, but for some reason she never considered that he'd apparently had a good working relationship with Elizabeth, and she finds that the problems she'd worried about never materialize. She watches him with his team, and she thinks she knows where some of the change comes from, although she also thinks that Rodney really hasn't changed as much as she'd initially assumed -- the person she sees now is the person he always was, but he's settled, somehow, the pieces of his personality twisting and rearranging and snapping into a more solid configuration. By the time that he risks destroying his hands (second only to his brain in importance to his career) to save her and Jennifer, she's not surprised anymore. And when Jennifer asks her, rather shyly, for her advice ("I know what you're thinking, Colonel -- I'm crazy, right? It's Rodney McKay.") Sam tells her to go for it without a shred of hesitation.

2. Rodney has a lot of regrets, but one of his deepest and most everlasting is that he didn't meet Sam Carter ten years later. This is one part guilt over almost killing Teal'c (the better he understands what he nearly did, the guiltier he feels) but about five parts knowing that he blew it with Sam in a way he can never undo. And the reason why this kills him is because he knew when he met her, and still knows almost a decade later, that Sam was The One. He's never met anyone who so neatly ticked off each point on his Perfect Woman checklist. (Yes, it exists. Or did, back in grad school.) Sam was The One, and even though he's played out that first meeting a million times since then, rewritten it over and over, he still turns into a babbling mess whenever he's around her. She was The One, and you only ever get One Chance, and he blew his, and even if it LOOKS like things are going well on the dating front, he's going to end up old and alone because He Blew His Chance. Sam, fortunately, has only the vaguest notion of the towering guilt/hope complex that Rodney's built up around her, and luckily for both of them, after a few years on Atlantis he's in a more psychologically healthy place and has managed to shelve a lot of his relationship complexes or at least drive them underground.

[tringasolitaria.livejournal.com]

I tend to think about characters in combination with other characters;

I'm the same way generally. :) There's a few exceptions, but usually I'm more focused on relationships than individual characters.

As for the question....er. I suppose I'll go for the obvious. :) John and Rodney.

John and Rodney

[sholio]

I figured someone was going to ask for them sooner or later. Which is great, because they're still my favorite character relationship on the show and thus, I love to talk about them. :D

1. I used to see them (and write them) as being closer than I do now. Or, maybe that's the wrong way to put it, because it's not seeing them as less close so much as less exclusive. As of season one and two, I used to write them as being the most important people in each other's world -- I think I understood intellectually that they had other important relationships, but emotionally, I wanted that exclusive bond. Interestingly, though, the more I thought about it and the more I saw of the show, the more the fact that they do have other friends and interests and loved ones, and are still friends anyway, came to be one of the things I loved most about them. They both have other people that they're just as close to, in different ways. (One of the things I love about John in particular is that he's equally close to all three teammates in very different ways.) But they still spend a lot of time hanging out with each other outside of work, not because they don't have other people to hang out with, but because they both enjoy their time spent together.

2. There is something about their relationship that's really hard to define. It's the little things: the way that Rodney never (well, rarely) calls John by his first name, in contrast to how he deals with everyone else; the way that John similarly singles Rodney out for teasing in a way that he doesn't do to other people; the friendly bickering and rivalry and one-upsmanship. It's just very hard to put a finger on their relationship and say This is how it works. In the first couple of seasons, it's hard to even unequivocally say that they're friends -- I think if they were pressed, they'd waffle and refuse to admit it -- even though the affection and enjoyment of each other's company is clearly already there. The closest thing that it reminds me of is a sibling relationship, and that's how I often write it: full of friendly insults and put-downs, with a rock-solid core of affection underneath. (I should probably add a caveat here: not all sibling relationships are like that. But most of the ones I've been around personally have been.) And I love that we've also seen them genuinely at odds, genuinely angry and hurting each other -- Trinity, obviously, but also in season four, with the Elizabeth-Replicator thing -- and then picking up the pieces and re-establishing the friendship afterwards.

3. They're possibly the two most socially inept/isolated people in the group, prior to Atlantis, which might explain a lot about the weird and contradiction-filled relationship that they have. Everyone else -- Teyla, Carson, Elizabeth, even Ronon -- had an established history of close, positive social relationship; they're relatively well-adjusted (well, by Atlantis standards). But Rodney is the abrasive, isolated geek of "48 Hours", and John is the guy who didn't have anyone back on Earth to send a message to when he thought he was going to die. With Rodney it was more that he'd driven people away, with John he'd had people and lost them and stopped allowing himself to get close, but in both cases, they came into Atlantis without a whole lot of experience at being emotionally close to other people. In the case of most of the relationships in their lives, the other, more well-adjusted person picks up the emotional slack -- basically teaches them how to be a friend. I see a lot of this in the Carson/Rodney and John/Teyla relationships especially. But with each other, they're pretty much just a couple of socially awkward people flailing at this whole "friendship" thing -- and yet, they like each other enough to try to figure it out, even though what they've ended up with is a unique sort of friendship indeed. It creates a really neat dynamic. :D

Rodney & Jeannie

[leesa_perrie]

I was going to ask for Rodney + Sam ('cos this fascinates me for some reason!), but astridv has beaten me to it!!

So, I'd like to hear your thoughts on Rodney and Jeannie - a brother/sister relationship that is deeply entertaining and of much interest to me! I wish we'd seen more of it!!

Re: Rodney & Jeannie

[sholio]

1. First of all, I love them. I really, really do. I was pretty nervous about Jeannie's introduction, because here's this character who's been built up in most fans' heads over two seasons, and there's already a ton of fanon about her; it could have been so disappointing. And instead, they hired Kate Hewlett and she was wonderful. Her interactions with Rodney feel so real and so very sibling-ish; you can see their real-life sibling vibe shining through. I do think the fact that they're real-life siblings adds so much nuance to the way they play the characters -- the body language and all the little fun things about how they deliver their lines.

2. I think they are quite close, in the way of adult siblings who don't see each other much but slip easily back into their comfortable patterns of interaction when they do. Rodney's estrangement from Jeannie obviously bothered him; it had to have done so, the way it was weighing on his mind in season one. Despite their awkwardness with each other in McKay & Mrs Miller, there is still obvious love and affection there. I also think there's a neat (and believable!) progression from M&MM to the more relaxed and openly affectionate way they relate to each other by series' end.

3. I know it bothered some people in fandom, but I've always seen Jeannie's teasing and needling as playful and affectionate. After all, it's not like Rodney handles her with kid gloves, either! I think she's proud of her brother and happy for him to have found friends who like him and a place he fits in. And I think Rodney, too, has worked through his own issues to the point where he respects her life choices and no longer tries to push her to live the life that would make him happy -- I think he's learned to respect the fact that she's a different person with her own set of values. (Though it probably helps that she's doing some consulting work, keeping a hand in the physics world. This is another thing I really love about Jeannie; it's rare on TV, especially in a scifi/action show, to see a stay-at-home mom who has skills outside the home and uses them!)

[cynonymous.livejournal.com]

Radek and Lorne. What we got in The Game was hilarious, and I'd have loved to see more of the two of them working together as the seconds to Rodney and Sheppard.

Radek and Lorne

[sholio]

Ooh, this is a hard one, because I haven't written these two much, or thought about them much together, though I do love their bits together in canon. *ponders*

1. They're sort of naturals at working together since they're both the second-in-command to two of Atlantis's main command crew. They seem to click in a similar way to how John and Rodney do. And their respective jobs probably bring them into contact a lot more than we saw on the show. With John and Rodney offworld so much, and usually at the same time, Lorne and Zelenka probably deal with more of the day-to-day runnings of the Atlantis military and science divisions than their bosses do.

2. They're both a lot more easygoing and well-adjusted than John and Rodney, though, so they have a milder, friendlier sort of repartee. I think Lorne likes Zelenka a lot better than Rodney and likes working with him a lot better (there are probably quite a few people who feel this way *g*).

3. "Game" seems to suggest that they spend time together outside work as well. I can definitely see the two of them having a low-key friendship behind-the-scenes, meeting for lunch in the mess hall and comparing notes on their crazy CO's. It would have been really nice to see them end up on a planetary mission together somewhere, because it probably does happen, since they're the go-to guys when John and Rodney are not around.

[trobadora]

Aleksander and Seyonne? :D

Aleksander and Seyonne

[sholio]

Okay, this one might be hard because I haven't read the books in a while, especially the latter two. So please forgive me if I contradict canon here; I'm basically just going from my recollections of it. :D (Obviously I'm due for a re-read!)

1. Aleksander, I think, loves Seyonne selflessly and wholeheartedly. He's that kind of person -- the sort who puts his whole heart out there if he's going to. Seyonne is a little more conflicted towards Aleksander -- he definitely cares a lot, and they're friends, but I think he's more aware of the realities of their respective situations. He's had brutal experience with the inequalities between the two of them, and between their people, and that's something he can't entirely let go of. I think there's this worry in the back of his head that Aleksander might some day allow the power to go to his head, and become the sort of ruler that would need to be stopped. And Seyonne would be there to stop him. But that's one of the reasons why Aleksander relies on him: because Seyonne will always be honest with him, and will cut through the bullshit and tell him what he needs to hear. And this is another interesting thing about them -- that despite the initial nature of their relationship, Aleksander swings around fairly quickly and starts looking up to Seyonne in a sort of mentor/advisor/older-and-wiser role.

2. They respect each other a great deal as warriors, even though their fighting styles and cultural attitudes towards warfare are utterly different. I think this is something that starts coming out in the first book and becomes even more evident in the later ones, especially with *mumble mumble spoiler* in book 3. I liked that these books didn't seem inclined to split the characters simplistically into the peacemaker/soul/heart/magical one (Seyonne) and the warrior/physical one (Aleksander) -- they are both warriors of different sorts, and Seyonne is, in his way, a darker character than Aleksander, while Aleksander is something of an idealist.

3. Like we talked about, I really don't see this relationship in anything but a gen way. Aleksander is obviously in love with Lydia, but I wouldn't see it as being at all out of the question for either Aleksander as an individual or for his society, if he had a male lover on the side in addition to Lydia. If such a person did exist, though, I simply don't see Seyonne as that person.

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

Helen Magnus and Kate Freelander (or, if you're like me and really struggling with figuring out where Kate fits and why Helen let her into the Sanctuary so easily, despite everything, Nikola Tesla and Henry Foss)

Helen Magnus and Kate Freelander

[sholio]

1. I really wish we'd seen a longer adjustment period for Kate, and the Sanctuary crew getting used to Kate. But it doesn't really strike me as odd for Helen to have offered her a place there, because it seems to fit very well with the way that Helen deals with semi-dangerous Abnormals. I'm not sure if Kate would like the comparison, but I like to think, at any rate, that Helen thinks of them much the same way! (Because I hate the thought, much as canon supports it at times, that Helen draws clear lines in her head between humans and "Abnormal" sentients. Kate's made mistakes, but in much the same way as an Abnormal that accidentally hurt someone by acting according to its nature, like the boy in the first episode -- Kate didn't really know, and once she did know, she started helping them instead. I don't think this is 100% what happened in reality, but I think this is how Helen sees her.) Helen strikes me as both an idealist and a good judge of character, and while she's gotten burned a few times, I think her default position is that she'd rather give people a chance and risk it. Kate is her newest project. There's something a teeny bit paternalistic about it, but, well. Helen is Helen. *g* And it's not that she's trying to fix Kate so much as she sees a great deal of potential in her and would like to give her an opportunity to develop it.

2. It's a little harder for me to get a good read on how Kate feels about Helen. (It would certainly help if they had more scenes together!) Like all the other younger people at the Sanctuary, I think she looks up to her. The interesting thing is that you'd expect Kate to be less in awe of Helen than the others, since she's been almost totally on her own and has only been with them for a short time, but I think she actually looks up to her more than the others do -- I think Helen is a role model for Kate and that Kate identifies with her, even though she fights to assert her independence and would probably never admit it. Words of praise from Helen really affect her. And in Hero II we saw how much Kate trusts and respects Helen; even when no one else can get through to her, Helen can.

3. I think Kate is a person who's been very alone for a long time. She's very self-confident and self-sufficient on the surface, and I don't think it's just skin-deep, but, at bottom, she is very lonely. Helen offered her a safe place and it takes her awhile to figure out that it really is a safe place, that it's not going to be yanked away again. This isn't true across the board, but in some superficial ways the relationship between Kate and Helen reminds me of the one between Ronon and Sheppard: the way that Helen took her in, the way that she walks an uneasy line between settling into her new home and still continuing to be the totally self-sufficient person that she's been all her life.

[black-raven135.livejournal.com]

I'll play...........in order
Sheppard
Ronon

Sheppard and Ronon

[sholio]

Sheppard and Ronon it is! (Also, pretty icon. :D)

1. I think Ronon is the most comfortable person on the team for Sheppard to be around, because he doesn't push Sheppard out of his comfort zone. John is very much in his comfort zone when he's with Ronon. The friendship that he has with Ronon is a lot more like the ones he's had in the past with most of the others he's been close to: Mitch and Dex and Holland. Not only does Ronon get him on a military level, but with Ronon he can just kind of ... be, whether it's hanging out and drinking beer, or working together as a smooth well-oiled machine in the field. I'm not saying he's closer to Ronon than to the others on the team -- I think he's equally close to all of them, just in different ways -- but that comfort level, their easiness with each other and ability to work together smoothly, is what characterizes their relationship in my head.

2. Which is not to say there's no potential for conflict. Actually I think there might be a greater potential for them to seriously butt heads, though in practice it almost never comes to this, because they're both experts in the same areas. With Rodney or Teyla, the differences are mostly philosophical ones, or a matter of whose skills need to be used at a given moment, and John is the one who's in charge in a military situation, so they defer to him whether they want to or not. But the way he tends to run into conflict with Ronon is sort of like the way that Rodney and Zelenka clash: it's a matter of two equally smart and skilled people running into a difference of opinion in their area of expertise, and because they're both good at what they do, they're both, on some level, right. With John and Ronon it doesn't come up all that often because they tend to think similarly in a field situation, but when it does (like when they disagree over how to handle the Wraith and Todd) it's hard to resolve.

3. Sheppard is the person on Atlantis that Ronon is closest to. And okay, yeah, the show never shows us much of Ronon's personal life, so it's quite possible he has other friends on Atlantis -- besides the ones we know about: he's good friends with Teyla, also friendly with Carson, Elizabeth, sometimes even Rodney. But John's a very unique person in Ronon's world. He's Ronon's touchstone on Atlantis, the rock at Ronon's back. To some extent I think this is because Sheppard fills a specific cultural role for Ronon: that of "taskmaster", which seems to be sort of a combination of commanding officer/mentor/big brother. I think that the relationship he has with John is a lot more equal than what he had with Kell, but I do think that the fact that he has this very important, meaningful paradigm from his culture that he can fit John into -- even if John isn't a perfect fit, even if Ronon isn't doing it consciously, it makes the relationship stronger and more meaningful to him. We -- humans I mean -- like to pin things down and put them in boxes that make sense to us. The fact that Ronon has this mental "box" from his culture and John fits into it, I think, is one of the things that makes his connection to John more powerful than what he has with anyone else on Atlantis. Obviously, they like and care about each other deeply as individuals, also, and it's been cemented through all these years of saving each other's lives; I certainly don't want to dismiss the friendship. But the way that each of them is getting aspects of it filtered through their own cultural lens ... that's really interesting to me.

[alessandriana.livejournal.com]

Harry and Thomas! Or else Sokka and Zuko.

Harry Dresden and Thomas Raith

[sholio]

Oh, Harry and Thomas are so much fun. :D

1. Family is very important to both of them -- Thomas is bone-deep loyal even to his creepy homicidal relatives. And Harry, of course, is an orphan who always craved a family of his own. So it's not surprising that they pretty much threw themselves headlong into this "brother" thing. I remember being surprised when I read the books for the first time that there wasn't more conflict at the beginning -- that they settled so easily from uneasy kinda-friends to siblings. But re-reading it, it made perfect sense for both of them, because of who they are and the attitudes they've expressed towards family in the past. Going along with that, they're ridiculously protective of each other. Thomas, of course, has the protective-big-brother thing going on, but it's rather adorable how strongly Harry reciprocates. Given the events of the last few books, there's no telling how things are going to shake out in the future, but personally I believe that the protectiveness and love is still there on both sides; it's just taken a few hits.

2. But they also have their separate lives, and there is a lot that they don't talk about. This is another thing I found interesting on the re-read: how much Harry conceals from his loved ones, even those he's really close to. No one actually knows EVERYTHING that is going on in his life, though Thomas probably comes closer than most. And we know Thomas hides things from Harry, canonically and repeatedly. I'm thinking that trust is something they both have issues with, and no matter how many times they have to rely on each other, no matter how many times they open up and are met with understanding rather than scorn, they both have trouble believing that the next time won't be the time they'll be rejected. (Oh, boys.)

3. This is going to sound completely out there, but despite the fact that I don't do incest pairings (really, REALLY don't do them), Harry & Thomas is perhaps the only non-canon incest pairing I've run across that I could actually see fitting with canon. I still don't want to read it, because it is SO my squick, but given Thomas's sex-vampire powers and general messed-upness and the canon bisexuality of most White Court (even with canon incest, not just Lord Raith and his daughters but also Lara and Madeline) ... even the fact that Harry keeps commenting IN CANON that even he has trouble not noticing how sexy Thomas is ... it's not canon, but I think it treads the borders of it. I would actually be surprised if Thomas hasn't thought about it. On the other hand, I can't imagine that he'd actually go there in Butcher's world, because I don't think he actually wants it and I think he'd fight his own worse nature to the end rather than do something that would fuck up Harry that badly.

[fitzwiggity.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...so many choices!

I'll pick something from Sg1 since no one's done that yet-Vala and Teal'c, because their interactions are quite amusing, the way Vala's always calling him 'muscles' and teasing him. Though Vala and Daniel would be pretty good too, I might add. I think I'd much rather have Vala and Daniel now that I think about it, because the two of them together have been seen a lot more often on the show and there's a lot more interaction between the two.

[fitzwiggity.livejournal.com]

I just looked up above and realized you didn't mention SG1, but since Daniel HAD gone to Atlantis, perhaps I should rectify that into Daniel+McKay off of that Season Five episode...I don't remember the name, but I do remember that it was a two parter.

[writerjc.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I'll play, how about Sheppard & Radek?

Sheppard and Radek

[sholio]

They're kind of difficult ... *muses*

1. The reason why Sheppard and Radek are sort of hard for me to characterize together is because I don't really think they have a clearly defined relationship beyond "likes each other, gets along well". I think Sheppard tends to see a great deal more of Radek than of the other scientists in Rodney's department because Radek's a recurring character Rodney's 2IC, so he takes on the leadership role when Rodney is indisposed or otherwise occupied, as well as just being friends (more or less) with Rodney and thus a peripheral part of Sheppard's group. They are friendly with each other, although I'm not sure if I'd call them friends, at least not close friends -- it's the sort of distant friendship/acquaintanceship where they might sit together in the mess hall but probably wouldn't tell each other their problems. (Well, to the extent that Sheppard tells anyone his problems. *g*) I think Sheppard likes Radek and finds him comfortable to work with, but I'm not sure if it goes beyond that.

2. I think Radek feels a little left out of the tight bond that the team shares. Not to the extent where he's sitting around glooming about it or anything, but it's got to be difficult to be friends with a group of people who basically live in each other's pocket and not feel that way sometimes.

3. I don't think he's intimidated by Sheppard, though, which I imagine a lot of people on Atlantis are, especially the civilians and the newer people -- Sheppard seems like a guy who'd have a mythos built up around him ("Did you hear? He killed sixty Genii! With his bare hands!") but Radek, having been there since the beginning, is more or less immune to it; he remembers Sheppard when Sheppard was new and unsure and just starting out, and he knows Sheppard as a guy rather than an object of speculation.

[hajimebassaidai.livejournal.com]

I would love to see your thoughts on Rodney & Carson. The last scene from "Sunday" is an obvious point but their obviously established bickering from Carson sitting in the chair in "Rising" which continued throughout moving onto Carson 2.0.
Also Rodney & Radek - confrontational yet friendly and affectionate. Finishing sentences for each other and recovering from the damage of "Trinity". The lack of canon for "The Shrine" between these two is a crying shame!

Rodney and Carson

[sholio]

1. The way I see them is this: Carson was the first close friend that Rodney ever had. Carson's the first person Rodney could be himself around, the first person he could banter with and do things with. He was friendly with Elizabeth from the get-go, but he was friends with Carson. I'm pretty sure that Rodney stuck the "best friend" label on Carson because he had never had anyone else before Carson who fit his mental checklist of what a best friend is supposed to do: someone who likes you, listens to your problems, etc. I think it's less an objective definition of the relationship and more an attempt by season-one Rodney to characterize his relationship with Carson using terms that made sense to him. I'm not saying they aren't close, just ... I really believe Rodney is a labeler, and, when he thinks about other people at all, he tries to figure them out by fitting them into these tight little boxes. Being quite bad at understanding people, and possibly a bit Asperger's, it's the best way he has to know what people want from him and how he's supposed to relate to them.

2. Carson is a little uncomfortable for Rodney to be around because he doesn't just accept Rodney how he is -- he encourages Rodney to open up and to be a better person, because he really believes that Rodney can be that person. (I see Teyla and John's relationship in much the same way.) So you have Carson doing things like trying to get Rodney to go fishing with him, or getting upset when Rodney isn't able to reciprocate his goodbye in "Return". The thing about Carson is that unlike most of the other important people in Rodney's life -- John, Elizabeth, Zelenka -- Carson wants things back from the relationship. It isn't enough for him to have some of Rodney's time on the infrequent occasions when Rodney wants to give it; Carson has emotional needs too, and he leans on Rodney for them. Carson needs Rodney in a way that his other friends don't. I think Rodney mostly views this in a negative light -- as Carson pestering him, maybe coming on a little too strong in the friendship department -- until Carson is gone, which is when he realizes the uniqueness of what he's lost. One thing that's neat about season five Rodney and Carson is how Rodney's trying to overcome this and be a better friend to Carson than he was before.

3. I don't think I have a good mental handle on what drew Carson and Rodney together in the beginning beyond just "they liked each other". (Of course, that's true of Rodney and most of his friends. *g*) They don't have much in common and they continue to not have much in common as the series goes on. It's easy to see what Rodney and Zelenka or Rodney and John might do when not at work; not so easy to see with Rodney and Carson, and I doubt they hang out all that much. And yet they obviously "clicked"; their easy rapport and comfort with each other is visible even in their first interactions, which is really neat.

[leesa_perrie]

Okay, you say we can ask for another one? Cool!

Rodney and... Hermiod!! *g*

[sholio]

Oh, wow, a challenge. :D

1. I'm pretty sure Rodney doesn't care or even notice most of the time that Hermiod is an alien. Part of it is that he's used to working at the SGC, and part of it is that he's Rodney -- he probably wouldn't notice if half his staff came to work painted blue, as long as they got their work done. I really don't think he cares at all what someone is, or who they are -- he's a lot more interested in what you can do. I was talking about this in one of the discussions above, though I can't remember which one: I think Rodney would be more likely than most people to rattle off insults/stereotypes based on someone's gender/ethnicity/other surface traits, mostly because of his lack of a brain-to-mouth filter *g*, but deep down, I really don't think he thinks about it -- what he's interested in is whether you're smart and can get your work done, and as long as conditions 1 and 2 are true, he frankly doesn't obsess over what the outside equipment looks like.

2. I'm not sure if Hermiod finds Rodney more or less irritating than most humans, but I'm pretty sure that he does notice Rodney's smarter (though, for Hermiod, that's probably sort of like discovering an especially bright dog -- sure, it picks up new tricks easily, but it's still a dog!). If he needed to rely on a specific human, I think he'd probably go for either Novak (because he works with her a lot and she gets him -- not to mention being able to understand at least some of what he says) or Rodney (because he knows Rodney would get where he was going at a faster rate than most humans). Which probably constitutes friendship for Hermiod; I'm not sure. :D

3. I'm ... having trouble coming up with a #3. *g*

[ladysorka]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on Rodney and Teyla. Alternately, Katara and Aang.

[sinaida.livejournal.com]

Although you haven't mentioned Being Human in this entry, I remember that you really liked it (at least season 1). May I ask for Annie, Mitchell and George? *g*

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

Okay, a choice. Either Rodney & Ronon (though your previous theories here have made me sad) or Rodney & Richard Woolsey (challenge!).

Rodney & Jennifer

[scarym1.livejournal.com]

What do you think about them?

I think this is a more honest, healthly relationship than he had with Katie.

Re: Rodney & Jennifer

[kho.livejournal.com]

I second this request because of the fics I've read of Jennifer, yours (friendshipper's) have painted the best picture of Jennifer that's true to character and doesn't skew the same way that this fandom at large seems to, which is to paint Jennifer as a whiney bitchy little girl that wants Rodney to CHANGE. Like, come on people, can we not harp on that one issue that was barely brought up?

[blacklabs2.livejournal.com]

I know you've written in this fandom and since it's a favorite of mine, Vinny and Frank from Wiseguy.