random thoughts you have when you've been up since 4:30 am

[lobelia321]

When you drive people to the airport and then get back again at 6:30 am you can't really go back to bed but have to sit at the breakfast table and read beautiful fic (see other post) and then you get to post random thoughts, inspired by commentage.

1. OTP or OTcharacter.
I tend to have one character whom I love, and then I will love seeing that character paired with as many other people as there are. This is because each pairing draws out a different aspect of a character, and if I love a character I want to see all those aspects. In SGA, this is Rodney McKay. Some McKay pairings jump to mind when watching certain episodes; other pairings are more difficult to contrive but if a fic does the contriving well and manoeuvres some unlikely person into bed with McKay in a convincing way, then I love that.

McKay is for me the pepper of SGA. He goes well with anybody. In lotrips, Dominic Monaghan was my pepper. He added spice to any pairing whatsoever, even to characters I usually didn't like (I remember a handful of Dom/Viggos: spine shiveringly good -- and I really didn't like Viggo).

I'm trying to think how OTP works for me. This is normally tied not to fanon or canon but to what I am writing. Once I got into the endless K/D epic in lotrips, I couldn't make my mind fantasise about anyone besides Karl/Dom. And with the HP opus, that's become Draco/Dudley, with a little side-helping of Draco/Harry, although the Draco/Harry is more of the spice variety. I do like Draco a lot but he's not a spice that goes with just anybody (for me); e.g. I don't like him paired with his father or with Snape. He goes with an awful lot of tasty dishes, though.

2. Men at work.
I am married to a workaholic. Maybe that is why I glomp onto McKay with such readiness because here is another workdriven maniac. How they fit in sex is an interesting mystery. *g* They need it, though, to fuel their work, so they tend to like it in bursts in between working.

Comments

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Was that the Readership interview? I'm sorry. I screwed up an interview for a good job in the UK myself back in March, and gave myself a hard time afterwards, even though I'd not been wild about the department when I met them (it?), and the job went to a much more qualified and senior person with two books more than me. But I still gloomed into my soup for days. I survived by emoting at the only two colleagues who knew about it, and who earned their places as dear friends of the heart for being patient and nice, and also by going for endless powerwalks along the sea at the crack of dawn.

It occurs to me I may be appending this comment to the wrong LJ entry, but you get the picture. Thanks too for your prompt replies to my question. I am going to go and read one of your recs right now, as I am emoting because I am leaving my beloved little house here (in the Work Place) and cannot have it back after my sabbatical, because the landlord is from hell...

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, feel free to emote away. We need an emote-free-for-all zone. Going for jobs is a dreadful business; going for jobs you don't even know you want with people you loathe is even worse; it made me feel worthless, and then feel worthless for feeling worthless. They gave the position to a person whom they've only just hired. I feel colossally pissed off. I have been passed over for some new appointment; I cannot believe it. They are slapping me in the face. But I feel more robust about it today; yesterday I was really quite low about it. Powerwalks by the sea sound really nice.

And I am sorry about beloved little house. :-(

[nymphaea1.livejournal.com]

1. OTP or OTcharacter.

I didn't really realize this until I got into SGA, but I am extremely OTC. In retrospect, I've always been that way, but it wasn't so obvious for me until I got into SGA. Even with The Sentinel, which I'm about as OTP as I can get, I always found myself wishing for more stories where Blair would hook up with an original character--and stay with that character.

With SGA it's definitely John and by a mile. I sincerely have a lot of affection for everyone else, so I'll generally quite happily watch an episode about someone else, but for fic like 90% of the time it's a John pairing I'll go for. Part of that though is I only see eight pairings having any chemistry whatsoever, and half of those involve John. The other four (Elizabeth/Radek, Carson/Laura, Ronon/Teyla and Rodney/Carson) I'll very very occasionally read (except for Rodney/Carson just because that's too much concentrated neurosis in one place for me) but I'm always happier if John's in the mix.

I think part of the reason why I am happy in SGA is that I am so OTC and the fandom lets me be. McKay/Sheppard is a pretty dominant force and I do love it, but I can read John paired with other people and therefore get a slightly different look at him if I'm in the mood. It keeps me a lot more interested in the fandom in general.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I totally understand the OTC thing (is that actually an acronym? I like it) but I am amazed at how different your take on SGA fanon is! *g*. Elizabeth/Radek? Wow. I'm doing a double-take here! Carson/Laure: okay, I can see that in canon but I am myself so completely unconvinced (this is because I need Cadman to be with McKay, *g*). Ronon/Teyla: yes, I can see that but Rodney/Carson? And now I am curious: who are your four John pairings? Sheppard/McKay is obviously one but the other three??

I find John difficult to write and very puzzling to figure out as a character. I am at the moment writing him (when not side-tracked by April Bingham); it's John/wraith so it's not quite 'standard' John... John keeps his cards close to his chest, I find (but that is perhaps what you find attractive about the character?).

I love fandom. It's such a broad church, and SGA does seem to offer combinations to delight everybody.

[nymphaea1.livejournal.com]

I've seen OTC as an actual acronym, yeah.

I am amazed at how different your take on SGA fanon is!

One of the thing that kind of interests me about SGA is how radically differently people see the characters. I don't think it's a bad thing at all, and it's certainly a big enough fandom that you can find people who share your worldview without much trouble, but I've never been in a fandom that was so divided.

Elizabeth/Radek is more a vibe I get between the actors than anything. I haven't watched S1 in forever, but I think most of my affection for that pairing is based on The Brotherhood. I think my Laura/Carson thing is that I want to like at least one canon pairing. Rodney/Carson--mostly it's that Carson seems so genuinely indulgent of Rodney. It's not a major pairing for me and I don't generally read it but it's one that I can see the canon basis for.

My John pairings are John/Rodney, John/Ronon, John/Teyla and John/Ronon/Teyla. I also like John with original characters, particularly when Victoria Custer or Pru is writing them. My John bias aside, I do think he is the most flexible in terms of pairings simply because he's a warrior, a leader and kind of a massive dork, so he has at least some common ground with pretty much everyone.

John's an interesting character for me in terms of writing. I feel like I actually understand him in terms of what motivates him and what kind of a guy he is better than any other character, but I do have a hard time deciding what I think his internal voice sounds like. Which ultimately means I find most John POV stories unsatisfactory. ltlj writes a John voice I completely believe, and there's a few others whose John voice I'll buy for the story but it's more rare than not. But then I also tend to disagree with most characterizations of John. I don't see him (or any of them, really) being all that screwed up, mentally, I don't buy him being extremely dissociative and I don't think his relationship with Rodney is the only meaningful one he's ever had (or vice versa). It's not really that I find other characterizations straight up wrong, they just don't work for me personally.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I like it! OTC! I think I may also coin a new one (if it doesn't already exist): OWP. One wrong pairing. For me, in SGA that is, for example, Cadman/Beckett (hah, which is one of your OTPs). But as I see it, you also have pairings you really can't stand. An OWP will get my heckles up and it will need that much more on the part of a writer to convince me -- but if they manage to pull it off: bully for them!! That can be good, too; to let a fic convince you of something otherwise abhorred. (Like anything with Snape in it for HP fandom but I have read a handful of fics that make me love Snape. But only within the confines of that fic.)

[nymphaea1.livejournal.com]

Heh. I haven't seen OWP, so that's all you. I don't think I have any pairings whose very existance annoys me. There's pairings I absolutely don't see and won't read (Rodney/Ronon for example) but I'd find it a little extraordinary of me to wish that other people wouldn't read it either.

I think you must be a little more tolerant that I am because I pretty much won't read any pairings outside of the eight that I see having canon basis (if we're leaving out original characters. I'll read originals paired with about anyone on the team). That said, I like gen stories that have interactions between characters for whom I see no romantic future. Rodney/Teyla isn't a pairing that works for me but I like to see them interact in a story.

And, as you say, a good writer can make you see depth in a character you think is pretty shallow. I don't really dislike any of the SGA characters, but I've definitely come to appreciate Ronon more after reading some of Bone's stories about him. I don't read HP, but I sense my feelings on Snape are similar to yours, so maybe if I did I might like him better.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

,i>I don't think I have any pairings whose very existance annoys me. There's pairings I absolutely don't see and won't read (Rodney/Ronon for example) but I'd find it a little extraordinary of me to wish that other people wouldn't read it either.

Oh no no no no (does a Rodney, *g*), I don't mean that other people shouldn't be reading or writing these! The more the merrier. But then I always took OTP to mean that it applies just to me (or the person doing the talking), not to the fandom as a whole. So I have OTPs and OTCs and OWPs. Interesting that you read orig; I always fear that people don't like origchars.

[nymphaea1.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I realize that. It's just, you were right--there are pairings of which I am not a fan. I was just trying to make clear that although I don't see Cadman/Rodney like you do, I'm not offended by that pairing's presence.