I'm very glad you posted about Hindsight; it's a terrific first-discussion story.
Right up front, I have to say that there were a couple of lines in this story that were laugh-out-loud funny, to me, in the good way. And a couple of things I found really insightful, about character. McKay's string theory model, the gift given in an attempt to get Sheppard to put out, was my favorite thing about the story. *g*
However...the characterizations in this story struck me as being over to the extreme edges of what's seen in canon for both Sheppard and McKay. I can see the Sheppard of canon in this story, if I squint -- laconic, laid back, easy-going. The Sheppard of Hindsight is incredibly passive, which is rather odd given his profession, and that turned me off. Even so, it's easier for me to buy an even more laid-back Sheppard than it is to see the extreme version of McKay.
When I watch the SG-1 ep in which McKay was first introduced, I see a one-dimensional obnoxious jerk who trampled every last nerve of everyone he interacted with. His meta-purpose there was to be fingernails on the chalkboard. But by the second episode in which he appeared, he had already started to take on three dimensions, including some vulnerability and a sense of his own limitations where science was concerned. This is why I don't quite buy Hindsight's strident, obnoxious, truly annoying McKay as being 'pre-Atlantis'. He's at the far edge of who McKay is -- he's a big ol' bundle of irritating.
Which brings me to what rivier said:
In making McKay nothing but an arrogant, needy, pushy, whingeing asshole, Hindsight destroyed any sense for me of understanding why Sheppard or anyone else would want to be within a thousand miles of this man.
This, more or less, is my primary problem with the story. I'm not able to see any defined connection between the two characters that explains why they even like each other. Why would someone like Sheppard, as portrayed in this story, be attracted to someone like this McKay? Yikes. More than that, I try to follow the whole McKay-as-pursuer thing here, and I just can't do it; this McKay hasn't the social skills to make it plausible.
I'm not fond of the softer, more wide-eyed, martyriffic McKay in SGA stories, either, but there is a balance that works for me somewhere in the middle. This story doesn't reach that balance, for me.
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Right up front, I have to say that there were a couple of lines in this story that were laugh-out-loud funny, to me, in the good way. And a couple of things I found really insightful, about character. McKay's string theory model, the gift given in an attempt to get Sheppard to put out, was my favorite thing about the story. *g*
However...the characterizations in this story struck me as being over to the extreme edges of what's seen in canon for both Sheppard and McKay. I can see the Sheppard of canon in this story, if I squint -- laconic, laid back, easy-going. The Sheppard of Hindsight is incredibly passive, which is rather odd given his profession, and that turned me off. Even so, it's easier for me to buy an even more laid-back Sheppard than it is to see the extreme version of McKay.
When I watch the SG-1 ep in which McKay was first introduced, I see a one-dimensional obnoxious jerk who trampled every last nerve of everyone he interacted with. His meta-purpose there was to be fingernails on the chalkboard. But by the second episode in which he appeared, he had already started to take on three dimensions, including some vulnerability and a sense of his own limitations where science was concerned. This is why I don't quite buy Hindsight's strident, obnoxious, truly annoying McKay as being 'pre-Atlantis'. He's at the far edge of who McKay is -- he's a big ol' bundle of irritating.
Which brings me to what rivier said:
In making McKay nothing but an arrogant, needy, pushy, whingeing asshole, Hindsight destroyed any sense for me of understanding why Sheppard or anyone else would want to be within a thousand miles of this man.
This, more or less, is my primary problem with the story. I'm not able to see any defined connection between the two characters that explains why they even like each other. Why would someone like Sheppard, as portrayed in this story, be attracted to someone like this McKay? Yikes. More than that, I try to follow the whole McKay-as-pursuer thing here, and I just can't do it; this McKay hasn't the social skills to make it plausible.
I'm not fond of the softer, more wide-eyed, martyriffic McKay in SGA stories, either, but there is a balance that works for me somewhere in the middle. This story doesn't reach that balance, for me.