I would like those forty minutes back, please.

[taste_is_sweet]

Or maybe it was twenty, but you get the point.



Here's the thing, I'll admit it. I tend to like Aliens Make Them Do It fics. There is--generally--much guilty pleasure to be had in a well-written fic where, due to outside circumstances, the canon characters you want to get it on do so. But, I will also admit that I only like them when the underlying factor of the story is that the canon characters actually want to get it on, but might not have done so ordinarily due to personal or other constraints. In other words, everyone gets what they want, even if they need to be basically shoved bodily into position to get there. The characters and the story end up happy.

I know that's not realistic. But I don't exactly watch television for realism, and I'm quite happy not to have punctiliously realistic fanfiction, either.

So given the above, reading a fanfic that according to its squee-full and vague author's notes isn't much more than another fun AMTDI fic only to find out that no, it's actually a very long meditation on variations of psychological and physical rape...Yeah. I would have avoided that quite handedly had I known, thank you very much.

Just as fun was that the story ended in just about the worst place I could imagine the characters given the situation. Logically I suppose, but with no way of fixing their relationship even to the point of returning to the general friendship of canon. Which means that the author has ruined one of the few things I watch the actual television show for in the first place. Yes, I know I can ignore the story, just as I do my best to ignore canon that doesn't appeal to me. But I dwell on these things. I do.

I will admit it was interesting how the theme was layered in different ways in the fic, except that by the ending it had become as subtle as falling bricks and no one in the story got it. I also don't like stories where the characters are more clueless than the audience, though I suppose I can grant that living through something might make you less able to see the larger picture than being able to read about those events from a distance. The forest for the trees and all that. No aspect of this theme was ever actually dealt with, either. And again, I know that not all stories have or should have plots or conflicts or themes that can be resolved, but that's really not what I read fanfiction for. I read fanfiction to laugh, and smile, and to occasionally be turned on, and to have my heart in my throat and even sometimes to cry, but I read fanfiction because a good story will always leave me satisfied. Hell, a bad story can be quite satisfying, if the ideas behind it are good.

This story was completely unsatisfying. I'm sorry I read it.

Comments

[hibernate.livejournal.com]

I love Aliens Made Them Do It, and any kind of Sex Pollen / Mate or Die trope, as long as it's done with humour and self-distance.

I've read one story in which sex pollen was used to further the angst and it was actually really good. But I usually prefer the cracky versions. :)

I also don't like stories where the characters are more clueless than the audience

I HATE THAT! You see that quite often in TV too, and it annoys me to know end. It's hard to root for incompetent characters.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes indeed. Thank you on all counts. :) I have also read some good fics where the pollen or aliens or whatever add to the angst, but those have mostly ended happy. Or at least I knew they wouldn't before I started reading them. It makes a difference.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

I would love to know which story it was. I like quasi-con, where the characters want to and they are holding themselves back, until circumstance forces them together. In fact that's one of the appeals of "undercover as a couple" for me. I probably wouldn't be able to read it, but I'd love to know the author and title, just so I could see what I thought.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

It's called Take It by an author who's LJ name is too annoying for me to want to reproduce here. It's on the mckay_sheppard comm, though considering it only has one-sided Rodney UST for John and then an ending where John can barely stand to be in the same room as Rodney, I feel it rather goes against the spirit of the community. Though that's up to the mods.

It's very long, and I skipped a lot of it that got boring, so I actually missed the trigger incident that started the whole thing, though it didn't change the results in the story.

I do love the 'quasi-con' where the biggest issue is the guys actually allowing themselves to have what they want. True rape in any guise is just horrible.

[lalalaleigha.livejournal.com]

But you must admit, it's nice when a story impacts you. I'd rather have read a bad one than have read one which I forget by the time I'm brushing my teeth at the end of the night.

(my turn to test the crazy-optimism waters! :D)

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

::Rolls eyes gently at you::

Much as I appreciate the frayed silver lining there, Leigha my darling, I would in all honesty much rather have a story as sweet and transient as the chocolate I brushed off my teeth tonight, rather than a fic like this one that sticks for days like, um, something I can't floss out. Yeah.

But hey, awesome optimism there! ::hands you a snorkel::

[lalalaleigha.livejournal.com]

Heh. Heh.
I tried. :D

[alsha.livejournal.com]

I also don't like stories where the characters are more clueless than the audience

I couldn't agree with you more. One of my big pet peeves is the prevailing assumption in tv and books that one side or the other is stupid. What's so hard about assuming both the characters and the audience are moderately intelligent and running with it? E.g. when FOX forces writers to dumb down certain scripts, it's no wonder the shows end up cancelled.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

Word, baby. Yeah.

The shows I hate the most are the ones where you can see the grievous error from the opening credits (I can think of at least two SGA eps like that, for example, and there are probably more, alas), but the characters somehow never figure it out themselves. I mean, putting the evil alien on the experimental amnesia drug right inside your home base is possibly not the first option you'd choose, right? Or letting the one guy with the most tactical knowledge be the volunteer to have his body taken over by the other alien? I mean, it's really sad that the other body-snatching alien just wanted to see her husband again, but any cute grunt could be the stand-in, right?

This is why I probably shouldn't watch television. :)

[amalthia]

lol, you just pointed out the two episodes that I was like "wow these guys are terminally stupid!" and it was rather frustrating because we've seen them do brilliant things! I hate when writers dumb down the characters to make their script work.

Me I would have grabbed someone from the cafeteria for alien body invasion episode.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

Hee hee hee.

"Hey, you! Yeah, you--get over here! Yes, just stand there. Great."

[amalthia]

I bet the food service guys would not be happy about that! They probably had the right idea to not piss off the guys that make their breakfast, lunch, and dinner! :) hehe