i swear, there's always one

[jennickels]

This is a review I just got on ff.net for Seven Sins:

This was pretty good except for the ending. You ruined the whole thing by
having him go after Carter. He should have gone after the first pretty nurse
he saw but no, you had to play to the J/S fans. I'm disappointed in you.
 

"Play to the J/S fans"?  Um, I am a Sam/Jack shipper.  Although I suppose it went from a completely teamy fic to slight S/J at the end but I didn't think I played it up that much.  I really wasn't even thinking Sam/Jack really when I wrote it but I guess the line the nurse says sold it as that.  Sigh.  There's always one to complain about something.  And they always reply anon or without a ff.net account so I can't reply back.

Being a shipper myself I don't really think of these things.  Do you take out any shippiness in an otherwise teamy fic to please the non-shippers or add ship in to please the shippers?  I write what I would want to read.  I like to read ship.  I love team adventure fics, too, but love when they have the shippiness in the background.  So, of course, that's what I write.  To be accused of putting ship in to please shippers cracks me up.  I put it in to please myself.

One freaking scene and it ruined the story for this guy (the name on the review was "John").  Oh well.  Back to what I was doing... which I can't remember right now.  I think I was going to go get myself some dinner, lol.

Comments

[thothmes.livejournal.com]

Twice in a weel I have a use for an icon I made and haven't mounted, because I really didn't think I would use it often. If I mount it, of course, I will never need to use it ever again. It uses the picture in this icon, with an alternate legend: "Carter goosing him was a surprise. Daniel doing it was a bigger one."

I have loved happy endings (preferably happy endings with romance) since I was little. I was a tomboy. I was not at all girly, and I'm still not girly, except in this one thing: I've always been attracted to the opposite sex, and I've always been a complete sucker for a romance. Being the protagonist in my own happy ending, and being the person I am, this makes me a happy little shipper, and specifically a Sam/Jack shipper.

Jack/Daniel doesn't do it for me, although I've read some phenomenally wonderful stories by phenomenally wonderful writers that are Jack/Daniel. It would never, ever occur to me to criticise the author of a Jack/Daniel story for chosing that pairing, even if I wandered into it all unwarned. It's their squee. It would be rude to say that it is wrong/bad/ooc/icky. Nor do I think that. It's a perfectly valid pairing that doesn't do it for me.

There was a story out that paired Jack with Jennifer Haley that I found to be borderline cradle robbery (48 in bed with 22!) and squicky, but I didn't say so. [The author started writing the series as "punishment" for Sam who no longer deserved Jack, since she "betrayed" him with Pete. Never mind that Jack doesn't seem to see it that way, but instead gives her room to seek happiness, because he truly loves her.] I just pushed the back button, tip-toed quietly away, and made an "eeewww!!!" face in the privacy of my own space. This story made the author and some readers happy. The protagonists were consenting adults. Who am I to interfere with their squee?

There are certain sites where either some Sam/Jack shippers or some Jack/Daniel shippers delight in slipping in an in-your-face our-pair-are-f*ing-like-bunnies portion to their fic, in fine ambush style, sometimes with a scornful reference to the utter distaste Jack has for the idea of congress with that other partner. This is silly and makes me want to knock heads and ask in fine L.A. Riot/Rodney King style "Why can't we all just get along?"

Sam seems to be a bit of a lightening rod for some people, and most of those people who can't tolerate Sam seem (in my opinion) to be threatened by strong or succesful women, in a way that Jack just ain't. Those people will allow Jack to end up with anybody from Ba'al to Siler to Hathor to Anise to Loki to Howard the Wonder Horse, provided he stays away from Sam. And they see approach to Sam in the most harmless and unromantic of gestures. They don't seem to have trouble with Vala, I suspect because they see Vala as enough of a screw-up to be far less threatening. I imagine they'd hate Haley even more if she became a main character.

I'm really glad you are smart and secure enough to go on with the avowed intention to continue to write what you would want to read, because we have similar tastes in reading, and I, for one, will be delightedly looking forward to reading more!

[cleothemuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, believe you me... Vala gets turned into The OOC Bitch often enough in Jack/Daniel fics... it's just that by the time she came around, many of the most militant slashers had moved on to personal canon that never had Jack leaving the SGC, so they largely ignored her.

*headdesk*

[thothmes.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have no doubt of that. I've seen it with my own eyes. I guess what I was trying to express (not entirely clearly) is that some people have objection to Sam on general principles, even before the matter of pairings comes up, because they see her as the Mary-Sue-est Mary Sue evah!

But yeah, some of the most ardent OTP'ers of all varieties try to make the rival into some sort of monster, some sort of sexless or oversexed being, or some sort of weak, wan ineffectual creature. It never works, because in order to do that, the rival has to be waaaaay OOC, and the whole fic goes off the rails as a result. Bad writing is Bad.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Jack and Haley... uh, no. I don't see Jack taking up with someone that young, especially someone he knows somewhat well and will see around. He'd see her more as a daughter or niece or something. But, like you, I wouldn't leave some comment about the pairing. Whatever floats the author's boat.

I've noticed the maelstrom that Sam creates with fans. And the reasons are all over the freaking place. Obviously some fans can't handle a strong, independent female lead. Other's see her as devoid of humanity, apparently.

I got slammed on one story because I made her sort of freak out on a mission and almost got them all killed. Nevermind the story was AU where Sam was just thrown into a leadership position with Jack as her 2IC. I was accused of bashing Sam because of that (I never bash characters).

I've also seen comments on other stories that show Sam having any normal human emotions. They always accuse the author of trying to make Sam dependent on a man (Jack or Daniel or whoever). Can't a woman be both strong/independent and have feelings. Sam has cried on the show. And she's come close to it many more times. She can usually hide it but she still has those feelings, insecurity (definitely at the beginning), needs. Geesh.

People take their ships way too seriously. I can't imagine making 1/2 of a pairing into an evil bitch/bastard just to break them up. That's why I have difficulties writing Sam/Pete break up stories. Pete was such a nice guy (despite his slightly stalkerish tendencies). I have to find legitimate reasons to break them up. Obviously the biggest one is that Sam doesn't actually love him but I'm not going to make Pete out to be the bad guy in the pairing. Sam was the one that jerked him around for far too long.

It still amazes me the way the ships polarize a fandom. Like you said, "why can't we all just get along?"

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

A lot of anti-Samantha Carter wank stems from laziness; it's easier to oversimplify Sam as a tomboyish military scientist than to see all sides of a complex, fully-rounded, subtle character who's developed over 11 seasons (including SGA). Reducing her to "strong, independent Mary Sue without vulnerabilities" is just as faily as Sam/Jack fanfic that paints her as a giggly/emo virgin.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

OMG, virgin!Sam is ridiculous. Do we even need to touch on virgin!Jack fic which is the crackiest kind of fic (I've never read it but I've heard about).

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

WAT

How in the fresh hell could virgin!Jack have fathered Charlie?

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

I know, right.

I've never actually seen virgin!Jack fic but I've heard of it's existence. I'm pretty sure the only way this thing could have been written is if the author were an 11yo girl that had never watched more than a few episodes. Or they were just an idiot. Or perhaps one of those kids that never got sex-ed in school.

As for virgin!Sam... Just because she's a geek doesn't mean she'd be a virgin in her late 20s/early 30s. For crying out loud. Even I was getting some in college and I was the biggest dork on the planet.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

I'm sure someone's written virgin fic for mini!Jack, but virgin!Sam makes no sense, given that locker room scene in Broca Divide where she's clearly a Top, and First Commandment where she's Jonas Hanson's ex-fiancée.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

mini!Jack sex is squicky. He's still a 50-something year old guy in a 15yo body. Unless it's mini!Sam and even that's kind of icky because she's still got a 15yo body.

Love mini!Jack when done right (and that kid was hilarious, I almost forgot he wasn't RDA for a minute while watching that episode). That whole situation would really screw with Jack's head.

And we really are all over the place with topics on this post.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

BWA!

Whenever a fanfic author posts about negative feedback, it always sparks interesting tangents. :D

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

They seem to become all out rants about what writers like/dislike about fanfiction (whatever their fandom may be).

[freaking stupid dog next door started barking and woke Jack up]