starships

[lobelia321]

Okay, yet another SGA question.

To those who know a tiny bit more about this than I do:

Why is Sheppard/McKay the preferred OTP of choice for most of the fandom?

Why is there not as much Zelenka/McKay as there is Sheppard/McKay?

What is the essence of these two pairings?

This, remember, from someone who has no canon knowledge beyond drooling over people's icons.

Also, where are more Zelenka fics? There isn't even a community! *weeps* (How to glom onto an OTP without any canon knowledge, in three easy steps.)

Comments

[erilyn.livejournal.com]

::surfing by on friendsfriends::

A quick glib answer to there being more Sheppard/McKay than Zelenka/McKay is that Zelenka is a supporting character, and while his screentime has increased as the series has gone along (yay!), there's been more time on Sheppard and McKay interaction in the show, who are probably the two major characters in the show.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This makes sense. Thank you!

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

not a real answer but maybe a suggestion, see here

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Not a real answer?? That is totally the best answer!!! I burst out laughing and was immediately persuaded!

Also, heh, ask an academic a question, as they say, and you get a bibliography. It seems that if you ask an on-line fanademic a question, you get an LJ-link. *g*

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

LOL...glad my linking was useful :-) it certainly was a great post!

you really should give the show another try...it's not great tv but it's utterly enjoyable (i.e., unlike some shows i've been into, i don't feel like yelling at the screen half the time :-)

and i can watch JF for hours, of course :-)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

JF? Now what on Earth is that? Cathexys, when will you learn that every tig you post in my journal must be de-acronymed!!! Ack. I will try to watch it but our reception of Channel 5 is total crap so we will see if I even manage to get a fuzzy signal. And we don't have cable or satellite.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

sorry!!!!!

^ Joe Flanigan (see icon)

[marythefan.livejournal.com]

There's a Zelenka community at welovezelenka, but fic quality is not always stellar.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

See, I suspected something like this. Sometimes the rare pairing attract phenomenal writing because they are rare and weird and this is self-selecting in terms of quality. Otoh, sometimes rare pairings simply attract trash.

Wherefore and why? I know not yet but it shall ponder.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

What, you mean like welovezelenka and wondergeeks?

And, when you see the show, you'll see why Sheppard/McKay is the fandom OTP. It's canon. Well, it's not canon that they're sleeping with each other, but it's damn close. Zelenka, on the other hand, is only occasionally on the show and doesn't have a lot of the same types of "moments" with McKay that Sheppard has. But there is some cute geeking out where they complete each others' sentences.

[improperlydone.livejournal.com]

And, when you see the show, you'll see why Sheppard/McKay is the fandom OTP. It's canon. Well, it's not canon that they're sleeping with each other, but it's damn close.

See, I find that to be very interesting because that is not the impression that I came away with at all when I watched the show. I actually had to ask people if there were parituclar episodes and scenes because I just wasn't getting the 'vibe' that everyone else was getting. I'm also rather subjective when it comes to slash so whatever it is that makes most people (in this particular pairing's case) tick obviously doesn't work for me.

I've often wondered the same thing myself, but I just figured - to each his own. I have the pairings that I like and that feel more plausible to me so I manage to keep my head in that corner of the universe.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Interesting, interesting, interesting.

*is getting steadily more clueless*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I do not understand why these communities did not come up when I typed 'zelenka' into the LJ interests search!! Hrmph. But thank you though I'm told by another tigger that the fics' quality can be less than stellar. Hrmph, again.

Completing each other's sentences? *faints*

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I have two theories about Sheppard and McKay.

First, the show has them positioned as Hero and Sidekick. This means that they get a lot of screen time together, and that the writers perceive their relationship as significant. (For instance, after Trinity, John is the only one we actually see Rodney apologizing to; a lot of other apologies are implicit, but that's the only one they consider important enough to show it to us.)

After Season 1, I read an interview with Joe Flanigan, and when they asked him about episodes from the coming season that he was excited about, he kept describing them as "Me and McKay do this ... me and McKay do that other thing ..."

Now, you do see McKay and Zelenka together, and their interaction is incredibly cute, and certainly supports some friend-and-annoying-colleague slash -- but there's not nearly enough of it.

My second theory is a little more tenuous. I think that John and Elizabeth represent the pov of "the show" -- what I mean is that when they express an opinion, we're expected to agree with it, and if they take something seriously, we're expected to take it seriously. (As one example, Elizabeth and John find Caldwell annoying, and so all the show's signals suggest that we too should find him annoying, even though he usually turns out to be right.)

So those of us who love Rodney -- well, we want him validated. We want him proven right, we want him taken seriously. (Think how many stories you've read in which he really does go into shock from eating citrus -- see? Didn't he tell us it was really serious? Even though actually on the show he's pretty much treated like a hypochondriac who likes a lot of attention. The slashers take his disorder a lot more seriously than the show does.)

Thus, we want John to want him, because John = the show, and John's approval would cement his importance.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what after Trinity means except that it gets mentioned a lot in Headers as a spoiler-warning, *g*.

I like your second theory, the pov-of-series theory. And the validating the one who's not dominant pov theory. I know nothing of SGA canon but I do know something about fannish desires and the workings of the slashy mind, and this rings true.

Heh, after this exposition, do I need the canon??

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Trinity was the Rodney Screws Up Big-Time episode, which has great relationship significance.

You need to hear Rodney's voice, and to see John lean and loll and mosey, and to see Ronon and Teyla express, in their own varied facial expressions, the opinion, "These earthlings are insane."

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I only have terrestrial TV and SGA is on a weird channel called Channel 5 which mostly is very, very, very fuzzy. But I will tune in on Friday and peer at the hurrying electrons and listen to the fuzzy voices. Perhaps it will even be an episode with Zelenka in!!!!!!!

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

see, that brings me to my biggest curiosity, though, which is where *we* are as slashers. i'm pretty simple here...i'm a mathematician, pretty geeky, not that well built...of course i'll identify with rodney (plus i've been crushing on flanigan for years)...

so to me it is a clear i want to get the cool guy and the fact that he's valorized within the show (nice reading!!!) is the icing on the cake...

what i don't completely ge are the many, many rodney as hot sentiments i see all over fandom. b/c that'd mean to me that i'd have to identify on some level with john (which i can't) or just appreciate the general pretty boy and geek (which i tyotally can and will, of course :-)

not sure this made any sense but lobelia...read the fic, enjoy it, and try to get to see the show!!!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I get the first part of your tig but not the second one. Where is the logical sequitur? Because people find Rodney sexy, you cannot identify with him??? Because this means you need to identify with John?

And anyhow, how does this 'identifying' work? I don't believe what we glom onto in fandom can be as easily described as simply calling it 'identifying'. I don't think this is how any cathecting and suturing and interpellation and whatnot work in film or literature or any art, not on a fannish level and not on a non-fannish level (er, do such levels exist, then?). It's not the Laura-Mulvey scenario at all, and especially not in slashdom where the MarySue interests nobody (which is, I suppose, on a crude level, the fannish equivalent of 'identifying' although even there I'd have to backtrack on my own sentence because I have very complicated notions on the MarySue, too, as you know) but it's more of a both scenario. Isn't it? Otherwise it's not slashy. It's the combination. Anyway, it's the combination for me, and not the 'identifying'.

The deep and cathected obsession I have with some characters I'm writing works on a different level as well. Have you ever read any Bakhtin? I've only just discovered him. I'll do a post one of these days; the man is phenomenal. Exotopy! But why do these English always have to translate everything so complicatedly? As in, hahah, cathexis. Whatever happened to good old homespun Besetzung? I must find a German translation of exotopy.

*goes off googling*

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

Zelenka is great fun, but he's still technically a recurring character and not a regular. He just isn't on the show enough for viewers to know that much about him - especially in the first season when the fandom started up.

Although some people may argue that Sheppard and McKay have a very slashy relationship, and others may argue the contrary, either way you look at it the fact of the matter is that they are canonically friends and canonically care about each other's fate and opinion. Mutual snide comments and hurt feelings aside, they usually seem to get along very well.

Everything in the previous paragraph *also* applies to McKay and Zelenka. The only thing is, we see less of Zelenka. Ergo it is not surprising that there is fic about both pairings, in something near the ratio of their respective screen times.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Serial fandom is a strange animal, the way it evolves week-by-week and the now-you-see-him, now-you-don't Zelenka character dependence. Given the reported rareness of Zelenka on-screen, the chemistry between him and McKay must be really sizzling to support the fanfic there is! It's not much but it's something, and it's phenomenal! Thanks for this. It makes total sense to me. :-)