Rose Period, by Chandri (PG)
Nov. 20th, 2010 11:46 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
michelel72.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
stargateficrecShow: Stargate Atlantis
Rec Category: Rodney McKay
Characters: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Het/Slash/Gen: Slash
Warning/Spoilers: "traumatic fallout of killing people, I suppose?"; an episode of vomiting | None
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chandri
Author's Website: Fantasi.net
Link: Rose Period
Why this must be read:
Summary: People make bad choices all the time. That isn't Rodney's fault. (3k words)
Rodney is thoroughly a civilian, but he's a member of a first-contact gate team and he has learned to use the firearms he carries. This story builds a scenario in which Rodney must kill someone to save John, and it interweaves his reactions to that moment with a study of how he has approached his life and relationships. This Rodney scorns what he cannot master, only to find that approach does not always serve him well. I particularly like his recognition of the ways in which John tries to manipulate him and his own consciously selfish refusal to play along.
Excerpt:
The defining boundaries of Rodney's existence have long been inscribed with mathematical notation and little else. His life used to seem linear, a straight line from MIT to CalTech to an all-too-brief academic stardom to the silent magnificence that came with working on top-secret government projects. He has always subsisted at intellectually breathless heights, incomparable to the peaks and valleys he supposed made up the careers of ordinary people. It's never been uninteresting, far from unrewarding. As a scientist, his career has been lit in vibrant Technicolor, as is only appropriate.
As a human being, his life has been depressingly monochrome.
Because even though he dismisses social interactions, friendship, and all that comes with them, as a waste of his precious time, he's not really good enough at deluding himself to deny that he's simply jealous. That there's something he simply isn't any good at, that he gave up on trying to master a long time ago. That people with half his IQ points seem to manage it without even thinking about it and that sometimes, that makes him feel so lonely that it's like a bitter taste in his mouth.
It makes him absolutely crazy, because he likes to tell himself he's above this kind of thing, smarter than this, in control of his emotions.
It's enormously frustrating to him to discover that he's really, really not.
Rec Category: Rodney McKay
Characters: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Het/Slash/Gen: Slash
Warning/Spoilers: "traumatic fallout of killing people, I suppose?"; an episode of vomiting | None
Author on LJ:
chandriAuthor's Website: Fantasi.net
Link: Rose Period
Why this must be read:
Summary: People make bad choices all the time. That isn't Rodney's fault. (3k words)
Rodney is thoroughly a civilian, but he's a member of a first-contact gate team and he has learned to use the firearms he carries. This story builds a scenario in which Rodney must kill someone to save John, and it interweaves his reactions to that moment with a study of how he has approached his life and relationships. This Rodney scorns what he cannot master, only to find that approach does not always serve him well. I particularly like his recognition of the ways in which John tries to manipulate him and his own consciously selfish refusal to play along.
Excerpt:
The defining boundaries of Rodney's existence have long been inscribed with mathematical notation and little else. His life used to seem linear, a straight line from MIT to CalTech to an all-too-brief academic stardom to the silent magnificence that came with working on top-secret government projects. He has always subsisted at intellectually breathless heights, incomparable to the peaks and valleys he supposed made up the careers of ordinary people. It's never been uninteresting, far from unrewarding. As a scientist, his career has been lit in vibrant Technicolor, as is only appropriate.
As a human being, his life has been depressingly monochrome.
Because even though he dismisses social interactions, friendship, and all that comes with them, as a waste of his precious time, he's not really good enough at deluding himself to deny that he's simply jealous. That there's something he simply isn't any good at, that he gave up on trying to master a long time ago. That people with half his IQ points seem to manage it without even thinking about it and that sometimes, that makes him feel so lonely that it's like a bitter taste in his mouth.
It makes him absolutely crazy, because he likes to tell himself he's above this kind of thing, smarter than this, in control of his emotions.
It's enormously frustrating to him to discover that he's really, really not.
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