Non-contemporaneous thoughts

[pensnest]

*haz woe* I was looking forward to having lots of new popslash fic to read this weekend, as the Poptober Challenge was due to be live by now. Sadly, practically everyone has dropped out of that one—I know, I know, Real Life has to trump fandom, however much I might wish it were otherwise—so there's only one story up and a prospect of (I hope) a couple more at some point.

:-( *wantz stories*

So I spent much of last night reading the Shroedinger's Rapist post and its multitudinous comments instead.

Anyway. On to my Non-contemporaneous thoughts.

Beast and I have been watching Stargate: Atlantis together, and are now into the fifth season (which I haven't seen before). I have been struck so many times by the contempt meted out to Rodney and Zelenka, and it continues to baffle me.

Yes, indeed, they *are* geeks. They are geeks whose brains have managed to save Atlantis from... well, from nearly every little scrape they've managed to get themselves into. So why are they so belittled? If Rodney mentions that he is more valuable than, say, Ronon and Teyla and Sheppard combined, he speaks no less than the truth. Each of them is replaceable (Teyla less so than the others, but still, replaceable).

Why is Rodney's desire to eat so mockable? In a recent show, he was wolfing down a belated lunch, with John and Ronon sitting watching him in mild disgust. And they were all sent out on a mission before he'd eaten—with the clear implication that the others had not eaten at all. This is DUMB. No commanding officer with a grain of sense (Sheppard rarely fits this definition) would send troops into potential danger without at least making sure they had been fed! Besides, eating is *normal*. Human beings need to do it. Gah.

I get it, really. Being academically-intelligent is Unmanly. Being interested in, say, pigeons, instead of football is Unmanly. Even Samantha (possibly because of her SGA lobotomy) subscribes to the whole deal, and belittles Zelenka (who is *adorable*) for no reason at all. And of course any kind of character consistency is Just Silly, when you have someone available who can be mocked: no matter that Rodney has demonstrated consistently and from the beginning that he has courage when it counts—let's lock him in a Wraith cell (a situation with which he is not unfamiliar) and instead of having him attempt to escape, just let him gibber.

Dear god. The writing is so fucking dumb.

And another thing. Yes, I'm way behind on my American Idol watching, having seen it all perhaps a couple of weeks ago instead of week-by-week as it was happening. (Thank goodness. Having to endure it live, with all the bollocks *and* intermittent advertising, instead of being able to fast forward... how does anyone deal with that?) And you know, as I was watching, I never understood that those 'theatrical' references were supposed to be code for 'gay as a rainbow jumper'. Adam Lambert had been in musical theatre productions. This was indeed perfectly recognisable. But I like musical theatre. I do musical theatre myself. I see nothing wrong, or suspect, or snide, about musical theatre references, so they all passed me by until I watched the wonderful 'Idolatry' stuff. Fortunately Adam Lambert was well up to the task of dealing with them. But damn it. There's nothing wrong with musical theatre!

Off to Body Balance now. May return calmer.

Comments

[nopseud]

Dear god. The writing is so fucking dumb.

This was always my fundamental problem with SGA. I wanted to like it, because it seemed like half the really good writers in fandom were flocking to it. I watched, I don't know, maybe half a dozen episodes. And every time they were shit, people said, oh, no, that was a bad one, watch this one. And they were all shit. And then I didn't watch any more of it.

[pensnest]

I have already passed along a favourite fanfic to my Beast, who agreed that it was a lot smarter than what they did on the show...

But we did, this afternoon, watch the 'Flowers for Algernon' episode in which Rodney loses his intelligence, and it was. Well. Beast was weeping, of course, he's a big softie, but it was a very emotional hit and well thought out. And led to us having an interesting discussion about suicide, among other things. I think it was called 'The Shrine', and I have a vague feeling it occasioned a virtual riot when first shown, but I thought it was very moving.

[saba1789.livejournal.com]

That is 'The Shrine', yes. That episode was making me bawl my eyes out, too because I have issues with brain damage (because of my mom who has of course a very different kind of brain damage but Rodney losing his intelligence still hit very close to home) and as far as I remember, people actually really loved this episode. At least my flist was all aflutter over the John/Rodney scenes and I remember a lot of squee that I just couldn't share because of the before mentioned issues.

[pensnest]

I can well imagine the McShep squee, since it was practically text. But yes, it must have been very hard for you to watch with those issues to think about. I thought they dealt with emotional responses really well (for a change).

[saba1789.livejournal.com]

Yeah, no, it was definitely well done! Just very painful to watch for me.

[nopseud]

But we did, this afternoon, watch the 'Flowers for Algernon' episode in which Rodney loses his intelligence, and it was. Well.

There are some themes it's just really hard to cock up, even for bad writers. When there are so many people in the world who have some direct experience of older family members losing their cognitive abilites, you'd have to get the script witten by actual monkeys banging typewriters not to manage to hit a hot button like that.

[pensnest]

This is true. It's impossible not to see what's going on, and impossible not to translate it into the real world.

[msktrnanny.livejournal.com]

that post reminds me of having to counter ex-boss lady's 'instruction' to the boys about how to treat women. All women like jewelry doesn't sound too bad except when you hear 'so I can do whatever I want as long as I remember to buy her a nice necklace' as response. Because she was happy with her milk toast husband she thought it was okay to teach her sons that the approach to all women was the very same way she wanted them to treat her. Sigh.

[pensnest]

That perennial problem of 'what you heard was not exactly what I meant to say'... Also, ick!

[luxshine.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to think that we've got to strike a deal with RL so fic challenges go without a problem

And you just wrote why I couldn't get past episode 1 of SGA... I hate geek-shaming, and while SG-1 had a bit of that, Daniel was always considered *as* important as the rest of the team, no matter how much Jack teased him.

[pensnest]

The challenge thing is such a shame - it's not as though we have an abundance of fresh stories at the moment. :-(

Geek-shaming, that's it. It's so *stupid*. Also, I was very cross with how Sam Carter apparently left her scientific intelligence back in the Milky Way.

[luxshine.livejournal.com]

popslash is sort of dry right now, hopefully Sesa will change a bit (and yes, it's the main reason I decided to give me one hour dialy to write fics. We can let the fandom die :) )

What I don't understand of shows like SGA and their geek shaming is that *other* shows seem to like to point out that geeks and intelligent people *are* cool. You've got the Criminal Minds, the CSI, the NCIS, even the Law and Order where the intelligent detectives are treated with the same respect... Hell, Numb3rs is based around the fact that the FBI *can't* do a thing without their resident math geek!

Sigh. Don't make me start with Sam Carter. I loved her in SG-1 and when I heard she was in SGA, I was about to give it a chance, until everyone told me she was not *exactly* as I remembered her so... yeah, SGA was not for me.

[pensnest]

I suppose SGA is trying to target Manly Men. Apparently they are a desirable demographic. Bah. I bet geeks spend money too.

Sam... obviously wasn't allowed to be smart any longer, even when the situation called for it, unless neither Rodney nor Radek was available. Very silly.

[saba1789.livejournal.com]

Huh, I have never really seen the other people's behaviour towards Rodney and Zelenka as that bad. But then again Rodney was very much my favorite from the very beginning and I might have been too distracted by looking at him with full on heart-eyes to pay too much attention to anyone else ;) .
Also, I was always reading a lot of fanfiction on the side and so I ended up all fanon > canon.

I really loved Adam's 'That was a compliment, right?' regarding Simon's 'OMG, it was like Rocky Horror Picture Show! o.0'. You go, Adam! <3
Also, I loooooooooove Idolatry! I want to have Kristen Baldwin's snarky little babies! *g*

[pensnest]

Fanon is definitely > canon! Although I do find it makes things more amusing to assume while watching that McShep is either ongoing or an imminent possibility.

Adam's "That was a compliment" was *excellent*. And quite right, too! Awesome musical! Hee. And yes, Kristen Baldwin is completely fabulous.

I thought Danny Gokey's exit interview was *incredibly* awkward, but not just because Idolatry had made such a Thing of not liking him - he was inept to a surprising degree.

[saba1789.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I was definitely always watching with my McShep goggles firmly attached ;) .

And I actually did not watch his exit interview because I saw it mentioned somewhere that it was pretty dull and I certainly do not need more Danny Gokey in my life. *shudders* I watched Adam's, Kris's and Allison's more than once to make up for that though ;) .

[pensnest]

Heh. Can't say I blame you. I thought the Idolatry ep on Rock Week was absolutely hilarious, with the LOTR stuff...

[saba1789.livejournal.com]

INORITE?! Man, I love Idolatry so much! They are awesome :D .

[chalcopyrite.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thank you for linking that post, which I had not seen. Reading (almost) all of the comments took a very long time, but I think it was worth it.

Imma bed now. ::square eyes::

[pensnest]

It was hard to stop reading once I started, but overall, good stuff. I'm glad other people have these thoughts.

[rikes]

Thank you for:

a. getting me stuck in the Schrödinger’s Rapist post,

and b. giving me a good reason to never have anything to do with SGA again. :D

[pensnest]

You may rely on me. ;-p