seperis | huh. squee range.

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huh. squee range.

Okay, so finally I sat down to sort through my bookmarks to read discussion on

cesperanza's new fic--because I have done my homework. (Really. I mean, not all! But you know, some random amount.) So I deserve a reward. And chocolate milk.

Except--um. Is anyone discussing it *not* a member of academia or just really conversant with the themes of that? This is odd--but this is the first time in fandom I've felt my sheer lack of a degree in anything this strongly, because I am seriously *not able to follow* or really get into any discussion I've seen so far. But mostly, I just don't get what's being discussed. Okay, it's more the 'why' of what is being talked about. But it's also the feeling that I'm reading something in German but in this case, even throwing it through the translators isn't helping, as I have no translators and seriously. What are you people talking about?

It's very--I don't know. I wish for squee, but no place is squeeing on a level of "oh my god this is so awesome remember the part with the chair room" but mostly on the "did you notice the dissertation and footnotes of the x, y, z, it reminds me of that time back when I was teaching Very Horrifically Difficult Literature..." I am on a different squee range.

Er. That's kind of an exaggeration, but mostly not, because I'm serious, ,I am seeing in otherwise accessible ljs this entire--I don't know. It's like I'm missing some huge chunk of context. I keep having to fight down the urge to ask "WHY ARE WE DISCUSSING FOOTNOTE FORMAT" or something, because oh my God.

If I ask for an explanation of the squee range, is that going to show just dreadfully my terribly non-high-literature-inclinations so much that all will lose respect for me or something? I'm seriously kind of dazed by how inaccessible I'm finding a lot of these conversations.

Help? I'm kind of moving from dazed to the 'frustrated and annoyed' place and that can only end in staring resentfully at my laptop and eating way too much haagen-daz.

ETA: I now have people doing threads of squee and non-academic meta discussion. I have found nirvana. Yay!

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Oh boy, the cheating really dampened my whole enjoyment of the fic. I still finished it, because I found it quite interesting and had read the end where it said something about John and Rodney's kids, so I had semi-confidence it wouldn't totally go John/Teyla, but yeah, that part was just...

And the thing is I feel bad about not liking that part, because I feel that it's just my OTP prejudice, but part of me keeps thinking that it just wasn't necessary.

It's a really interesting fic and it has some John/Rodney moments that I really loved, but I cannot break out in full squee over it.

I have real OTP issues, but in this case I feel like it wasn't just that that got me, it was that there really wasn't anything said about it after. It was just like Rodney going "Oh I so knew you were going to sleep with her lalala" and that was the end of it. Which was saaaaaaaad.
Its obviously a brilliantly written fic and the amount of work she has put into it is staggering, I am quite in awe, but yes, for all the lovely moments in it, its still not going to be on my list for zomg must read agains.

The stuff with Teyla didn't work for me, not because of OTPness, but because she'd painted John as being very gay and uninterested in women (despite having had previous heterosexual relationships), so I was just like...bzuh? Why is he suddenly all over her?

I was sort of in the "John realizes he married Atlantis and Pegasus" kind of, but the sex kind of threw me, too.

It wasn't necessary - I bought the political marriage thing. I didn't buy that totally in love with Rodney Completely Gay John suddenly had a hard-on for Teyla and didn't have enough sense to just walk away from that - especially since he KNEW Rodney was having a hideous time dealing with just the marriage thing.

Yes, exactly. Beyond the character assassination of Teyla--who I do think absolutely and in no uncertain terms would not do that to her friend, that was exactly my problem with it. John had just spent a great deal of time freaking out about Rodney's reaction to it, is written as very gay and as someone to whom sex had not been terribly important in general. And yet he's conveniently suddenly just having sex for reasons he never bothered to very much explain? I could buy Teyla and John maybe having a sudden unexpected moment of mutual attraction that they both had to relucantly say no to. I could even maybe have bought a kiss. But full on sex, no.

If she wanted the sex to be an issue she could have done away with the magic baby machine. If John had had to sleep with Teyla to produce a child for Atlantis it would have made the situation a lot more realistic and complicated. A bit squicky with the implications that Teyla has to be a baby machine herself, but a lot more realistic at the same time.

AHA! YES! You brought up the baby machine which is EXACTLY my other objection to "insert het sex scene with John and Teyla here". The having an heir with the machine thing is explained in great detail, played up over and over, and totally removes any reason for them to engage in full-on sexual congress AT ALL at any point. (Which is later underlined by the casually tossed out fact that John and Rodney later have children together using the same machine!)

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kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com - 2007-09-11 00:07 (UTC) - Expand

If she wanted the sex to be an issue she could have done away with the magic baby machine.

John having sex with Teyla didn't bother me, but the combination of baby machine + having sex with Teyla threw me for a loop because my first thought was "So there will be two children? Does this mean we get a war of succession or what?"

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kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com - 2007-09-11 00:06 (UTC) - Expand

The cheating stuff I just found bizarre. Teyla would have known John's relationship with Rodney if Ronon did. I just categorically don't believe her capable of sleeping with John when she knew Rodney was already depressed about the wedding business. Add that to the fact that I agree with the above poster who said John was written as more the gay end of the scale and there was just no point to it other than to make Rodney once again the martyred victim. And then there was no consequence to it. You could have removed it and the following scene and had basically no impact on the rest of the story.

Now that you mention it, yes: I guess the part of Teyla contributing to knowingly hurting Rodney and endangering John and his relationship is something that I did not quite understand.

Mainly because I (everyone) tends to think of Teyla as the epitome of kindness and understanding and I have trouble going with a lame explanation like she was overwhelmed by the whole thing too, just as John was.

That's the beauty of a character like McKay: it was obvious before, during and after that this wedding was profoundly hurtful to him, so I do not understand how Teyla could have been selfish enough to miss it. It's simply not her. John I can see: he is really really stupid when it comes to such things and he is the type to let circumstances overwhelm his better judgement. But Teyla? Hm.

Then again, the structure of the story meant that we missed an awful lot of the context. For instance: upon re-reading for the third time or so, it occurred to me that John and Rodney probably separated/broke up after the wedding and were only reunited after the assassination attempt; it would explain John being incapable of looking at Rodney when he goes to visit him in the infirmary as well as other little details.

In fact, I would love it if someone would write an offshoot of the story that deals with that period of their life and explains/shows their reconciliation.

It definitely was a great story and worth any amount of squee of the OMG type, and not just the literate type -though that was very cute- becuase it is indeed a lot less accessible for non-academic types.

For instance: upon re-reading for the third time or so, it occurred to me that John and Rodney probably separated/broke up after the wedding and were only reunited after the assassination attempt; it would explain John being incapable of looking at Rodney when he goes to visit him in the infirmary as well as other little details.

Hmm. I hadn't thought of that. I thought their reconciliation was in the morning after, where Rodney thought (and I agree, with qualifiers) that the sex was less about John and Teyla and more about the hugeness of John committing his life to (aka marrying) Atlantis (and Pegasus).

Intereting. I need to read it with that in mind and see.

Please do: I'd love to see if I am completely off my rocker or if this is an instance where we can measure how much this narrative method hides from the reader. I think this could be a 'show/don't tell' demonstration from Speranza so that we can empathize with all those historians trying to make sense of events to which they were not direct witnesses and for which they are missing so much context they have to rely on complete guesses.

Also, let's take into account this is Speranza, who just recently posted about the validity of various readers' interpretations vs. the the central storyteller's own intent. And the way she introduces the story by telling us how important it is to her personally.

Therefore I find fascinating but unsurprising that it highlights various second-hand interpretations of real events which are not shown with an omniscient viewpoint at anytime.

Does any of this make sense?

:)

And as an additional question for the reader: are there other instances where we can infer events/conflicts which are not referred to directly at all?

Most importantly, would anyone volunteer to flesh out these missing episodes? Please? Pretty please? Third person omniscient POV would be fine by me, truly!

Well. See, this is where I get a little--conflicted.

I can see the value of creating the political alliance, as well as the fact that the symbolism aspect was brought up earlier in regards to the army (and implied by the thing in the marketplace) but I honestly wasn't sure--I think I needed more context. I would have *loved* the scene where Ronon introduced it, just to see the arguments pro and con, adn everyone's initial reaction, and the reaons it needed to be done so quickly (this was like, only a few months after secession?). So that kind of confused me. I just wasn't entirely sure of the context of that choice.

(I'd also like to know when Dex and Teyla broke up; I thought it was after the diplomats were thrown out, but the historical stuff implied that she was involved with her second command *before* they left, so I wasn't sure what was with that one. And the dogtags; I originally thought they were talking about Rodney wearing John's, except the timeline was wrong for that, too, but argh. I am so overthinking.)

I read the sex as not so much John/Teyla, but more John/Atlantis using Teyla's body, but that could be just me.

That last post got a little screwed up, so here's the readable version.

I was onboard with the political alliance. I really liked the idea of it. In fact, while I completely sympathized with Rodney and wasn't angry at him, I did think he needed to grow up a little and realize that this was something that needed to be done and was not all about him. Yes, he agreed to it, but considering that both John and Teyla were making a not-small sacrifice here by giving up a big chunk of their personal lives in order to take on these fairly oppressive life-long roles, I did want him to realize he wasn't the only one paying for this. And for him to have more faith in his friends who deserved to be trusted because they'd never betray him like that, except, oh, they did. So instead of Rodney realizing that they'd taken on something huge here and having to let go of some his earlier hurt over past relationships, he got to play the noble and ultimately forgiving victim.

I agree with you that the whole political alliance thing was rushed, but I found the whole story part rushed.

And if Atlantis really was influencing the whole John/Teyla hook-up then the both of them were just arguably date raped and I am a little horrified that they then had to apologize for that.

No, I don't think that Atlantis was--though huh. If you connect it back to the chair, now that makes an intersting concept.

It was more--and here we enter deeply into Personal Jenn Reading Interpretation. So believe me, disagreement is pretty much expected:

John's first marriage was a failure, he married her, presumably becuase he thought he was supposed to, and it failed spectacularly. But I also read it--at least from John's thoughts--that it also failed because he didn't connect to her for wahtever reason, which could have been the gay aspect but also may have to do with the non-connection aspect. So it didnt' mean anything to him, the marriage--he said he never thought about it, and he probably doesn't.

But hte marriage to Teyla was significant, which he hadn't expected, because his marriage was to someone he *did* have a connection with in a personal freind sense (Teyla), but what overwhelmed him was the meaning for them both. Not that they were John and Teyla who got married, but that they were Pegasus and Atlantis, getting married, even though Rodney's teh one to articulate it. In that sense, the sex was kind of symbolic of the joining of the City of the Ancients, John, with Pegasus, Teyla, which was pretty much what the ceremony was all about. (If you think about it in terms of marriage as defined by consummation, not just the ceremony.)

OTOH, it's not like I didn't twitch, too.

(I do like the fact that the marriage is, at least fairly soon after this, acknowledged to be the joining of the symbols and not people, if it was common knowledge that John was involved with Rondey and Teyla wiht her second in command. I was wondering, rather curious, if the Pegasus natives saw it as other than the symbolic joining of Pegasus and Atlantis; I got the feeling from the text that if they didnt' at teh marriage, they did fairly soon after. I coudl be wrong.)

I like the idea of the whole thing being symbolic, but it was already that without the sex *G*. That neither Teyla or John seemed to realize what kind of further kick in the head that was to Rodney just didn't work for me. And I tried reading the story the second time deliberately skipping the post wedding sex scene and the story still worked the same, so why have it in there in the first place?

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seperis.livejournal.com - 2007-09-10 01:11 (UTC) - Expand

And the dogtags; I originally thought they were talking about Rodney wearing John's, except the timeline was wrong for that, too, but argh. I am so overthinking.
Yes! I thought that when that scientist (Bender) mentioned Rodney wearing dogtags, they were John's (which would also explain Rodney blushing), but John only gave them to him before the wedding, which is after the first wave of people left. At first I thought that maybe Bender was one of the six diplomats from operation Snow White, but he wasn't and yes, confused.

(hope you don't mind me butting in)

No no feel free! I was trying to decide if maybe the team had them already, you know? I'm kind of sitting in that place.

(there is no butting in during discussion! There is only discussion!)

(And still squeeing on the chair sex and politics and etc.)

I was trying to decide if maybe the team had them already, you know? I'm kind of sitting in that place.
Maybe? But what about flushed!Rodney? :D At first I thought that maybe he associated the tags with the dirty, dirty things John did to him when he gave Rodney a pair of his own tags, but that also doesn't make sense, because I got the impression that Rodney kissed him for the first time after Elizabeth's announcement. ??

(God, the multiple orgasm chair scene. I was making tiny whimpering noises, because Ces was feeding my John/Atlantis kink LIKE WHOA with that part).

And I'm having a great time reading the 'John/Teyla Sex: yea or nay?' discussion, because that part bothered me as well, but I can't put my finger on why exactly.

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seperis.livejournal.com - 2007-09-10 00:23 (UTC) - Expand

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aurora - 2007-09-10 00:33 (UTC) - Expand

That confused me too. My current interpretation is that the dogtags mentioned in the beginning are Rodney's own, and that he's blushing because they suggests that he's abandoning the scientists in favour of the military contingent. I'm not saying that that's what they really mean, just that Rodney knows that that's what his colleges will think. In a way it is true too, because he doesn't belong with the other labrats anymore, he's team.

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seperis.livejournal.com - 2007-09-10 13:34 (UTC) - Expand

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aurora - 2007-09-10 19:51 (UTC) - Expand

This is really interesting - I had the opposite reaction. I think I would have felt slightly cheated if there hadn't been that physical acknowledgement of John and Teyla's bond. I think that was why John sleeping with Teyla then going back to Rodney worked for me, actually - because if that hadn't happened, Rodney would constantly have been waiting for John to get with Teyla - not because Rodney didn't trust John, but because Rodney didn't trust himself and has a tendency to compare himself in attractiveness to other people, and canonically is very aware of Teyla's attractiveness and general awesomeness. But because John and Teyla slept together in a post-nuptial whirlwind, which I saw as the natural result of all that tension and energy and a one-off, physical cementing of their emotional, political and genetic bond (and also, perhaps, helping them both to feel more comfortable about the weirdness of creating children with so little ceremony, by sticking their fingers in a machine - their kids deserved better, and I think they both felt that), then John *still* came back to Rodney and told him he loved him and made it clear that that was that, Rodney could accept the marriage and wasn't worried about it anymore.

I'm also pretty bewildered by people calling it 'cheating' to be honest, but maybe that's because I'm coming from a very team!love kind of place. I tend to think that their bond, as a group, is so strong that it wouldn't count as cheating in the same way, kinda. And because Rodney loves Teyla too, he could totally understand John sleeping with her, because I think he'd know that he would, in the same situation. And he was clearly slightly satisfied - "You married Atlantis, you dumb fuck!" or whatever he says - despite everything else, that he'd been right and John had been wrong - that he, Rodney, had understood the meaning of this marriage more than John had, and I think that once John understood it too, Rodney felt better about it all, because he knew that John knew exactly what he was doing and wasn't doing it through some confused desire for Teyla.

Obviously any interpretation is valid; that's my reading of how the scene could work without being unfair to Rodney, though.

Rodney would constantly have been waiting for John to get with Teyla - not because Rodney didn't trust John, but because Rodney didn't trust himself and has a tendency to compare himself in attractiveness to other people, and canonically is very aware of Teyla's attractiveness and general awesomeness.

And this precisely was another one of my problems with it. John had to grow u and accept the very trappings of responsibility that he usually avoids--and often avoids with unattractive consequence. So I thought it was time for Rodney to grow up a bit too and realize he isn't eighteen years old anymore and John is not April. Him not trusting his friends not to lie to him about their feelings to him is a problem. Having that feeling validated does not fix the problem. And what was the point of repetitive episodes like GUP and M&MM and Tao if not for Rodney to finally realize that his friends do value him where it counts and would not betray him?

I tend to think that their bond, as a group, is so strong that it wouldn't count as cheating in the same way, kinda. And because Rodney loves Teyla too, he could totally understand John sleeping with her, because I think he'd know that he would, in the same situation.

But if it's not that big of a deal and Rodney knows he'd have done the same thing, then why was he so upset?

I tend to think that their bond, as a group, is so strong that it wouldn't count as cheating in the same way, kinda. And because Rodney loves Teyla too, he could totally understand John sleeping with her, because I think he'd know that he would, in the same situation.

I have to admit I especially hated that part. Because now is Rodney not only the martyred victim, he's the martyred victim that everyone should have listened to all along. Certainly, yes, differences in personal impression do make a big difference. I myself really disagree with the version of fanon Rodney who'd have more insight into what's going on on a personal level here than even Teyla has when in canon I think he has the worst grasp of those things by a mile. Possibly if I could agree with the super-insightful version of Rodney I'd have had less problem with that scene.

That's pretty much exactly how I felt about the John/Teyla parts, except you phrased it much better than I'd ever be capable of. :)

The whole story was very high on the team love, and the fact that the love became physical in some instances felt natural.

"We should get smashed later, too; what do you say?"

"Oh, yes," Teyla replied seriously. "Absolutely," and the truth was, he loved her more
than any woman in the world.

I genuinely believe that Sheppard loves Teyla (as a friend loves another friend) and vice versa, and I don't have any difficulty imagining that the combination of that love and the enormity of the moment made a physical union happen. It didn't really feel like cheating either, because, well, they're team.

I would totally be behind this interpretation if she hadn't gone out of her way to portray him as v v gay and not interested in women...

Your OTP prejudice is my OTP prejudice. *g* Pre-ship maybe, but--yeah.

I was kind of odded out by the sex. The marriage had some political thing behind it, but I wasn't really that sure about the sex after, even if it was symbolic more of John/Atlantis. But I can go with that.

(My OTP goggles are good at filtering out what I do not wish to see.)

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