That's a really tough question to answer. Because the story is understood to be fanfiction, slash, set in the SGA universe with the main characters of John and Rodney the weight of expectation is indeed that they end up together. The number of fan writers who would confound this expectation are few indeed. Since the story is a romance - slash is most often a romantic storytelling - then even if they were named other names I would expect a romantic resolution. Romances are generally as formulaic as slash fanfiction, after all.
The question then is, has the writer written it convincingly? For me, yes. Rodney behaves unlike any of the other tops that John has ever encountered, he doesn't treat John as sexual outside the bedroom but instead affords him the same Rodneyish professional respect he affords everyone else. I think Rodney is the first person who has ever treated John the way he wanted to be treated when he first chose his life path. John is drawn to Rodney because of this difference and marks him as the character we have to notice in the romantic equation.
There's more, but I have to race off to an appointment. Blah blah blah I'll fill in the middle if you like but at the end, at the end when Rodney says, 'Everything' and means he wants to give John everything, that's his flowery declaration of undying and perfect love. He wants to give John everything and he wants everything back. You could go on for five or so pages with a romantically perfect love scene, mutual orgasms, more declarations of love, plans to move in together and a hint of children and/or marriage but that would be another story altogether and I would have stopped reading at 'Everything' anyway because that's the emotional payoff for me, the heartfelt confession of love by an inarticulate person.
I acknowledge that someone who wants their romance written differently ain't gonna like this at all.
I remember Helen getting flack in Sentinel for her argumentative and angry Blair. Oh, the horror of writing Blair other than as a hippy, true love peace and sage wise shaman to be!
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branchandroot
Re: no plato...but
Date: 2006-11-18 10:52 pm (UTC)The question then is, has the writer written it convincingly? For me, yes. Rodney behaves unlike any of the other tops that John has ever encountered, he doesn't treat John as sexual outside the bedroom but instead affords him the same Rodneyish professional respect he affords everyone else. I think Rodney is the first person who has ever treated John the way he wanted to be treated when he first chose his life path. John is drawn to Rodney because of this difference and marks him as the character we have to notice in the romantic equation.
There's more, but I have to race off to an appointment. Blah blah blah I'll fill in the middle if you like but at the end, at the end when Rodney says, 'Everything' and means he wants to give John everything, that's his flowery declaration of undying and perfect love. He wants to give John everything and he wants everything back. You could go on for five or so pages with a romantically perfect love scene, mutual orgasms, more declarations of love, plans to move in together and a hint of children and/or marriage but that would be another story altogether and I would have stopped reading at 'Everything' anyway because that's the emotional payoff for me, the heartfelt confession of love by an inarticulate person.
I acknowledge that someone who wants their romance written differently ain't gonna like this at all.
I remember Helen getting flack in Sentinel for her argumentative and angry Blair. Oh, the horror of writing Blair other than as a hippy, true love peace and sage wise shaman to be!