Comments | sga_flashfic: Fear of Failure, by ameretrifle (Cake or Death challenge)

ameretrifle in sga_flashfic

Fear of Failure, by ameretrifle (Cake or Death challenge)

Aug 06, 2007 00:38

Rating: PG, for language and... well... let's call it 'sheer wrongness'. Oh, and plenty of death ( Read more... )

challenge: cake or death, author: ameretrifle

Comments 22

chevron17 August 6 2007, 09:00:35 UTC

Gulp! OMG, that was amazing. The sense of Rodney's madness and his absolute certainty that everything is going according to his plan is quite chilling. The thought of his extending his plans to alternate timelines and universes, all to protect himself (and maybe others) from hurt is terrifying, given his genius and probable ability to actually achieve it. Eeeee! Great story! Best, chev

PS: You should consider submitting this to the Deranged McKay Masterlist, it would definitely fit right in!

ameretrifle August 8 2007, 07:27:04 UTC

Yes, he's been scaring the crap out of me all summer, because no one ever does anything thinking it's wrong. It all makes such terribly perfect sense, just from a different angle, viewed from another spatial dimension... (The first story, set considerably later, was called 'Toward a Theory of Knots'. If I recall correctly, it started from wondering exactly who did make that nanovirus in 'Hot Zone'.) The fact that his motives for genocide can be so strangely altruistic... oh, it's all such a knot.

'Deranged McKay'? I'd think this would fit the bill, yeah. ^~; I'll look into that; I'd never heard of it before. Thanks so much! ^^

dirty_smudge August 6 2007, 16:18:58 UTC

This was a lot better than the other one you submitted, although I understand what you said about the other one scaring you a lot less.
Still... this is what Cake or Death is really about. Eddie Izzard's brand of humour is a disturbed one and we should take any challenge based on his comedy from that angle.

ameretrifle August 8 2007, 07:36:17 UTC

Ah, but you see, I didn't know that; I am almost entirely ignorant of Eddie Izzard, though I do intend to put some effort toward rectifying that. So it was a bit of a... leap of faith. It can be hard to go against the grain... Thanks so much for letting me know that maybe I didn't pull this angle out of thin air!

Better than the other one? Hmm... Probably, yes. Particularly from a technical standpoint. But it's so easy to devalue comedy, particularly if it's doing its job. Not to mention there's an old hierarchy of arts that really has no validity at all. Still: this one is better, I do agree. Thank you so much!

sholio August 6 2007, 21:00:13 UTC

Wow, this is brilliant and painful and I liked it a lot. If I'm reading it right, this is Rodney after the deaths of his friends pushed him over the edge, yes ...? I really loved the viewpoint, his perfect conviction that he's completely sane and is seeing the universe as it really is, while it's fairly obvious that he's about as far from sane as he can get. That's hard to do within a first-person POV and you do it very well.

ameretrifle August 8 2007, 07:54:08 UTC

Thank you so much! Yeah, it's essentially the worst-case-scenario for Rodney (even if he might not have realized that's what it was while it was happening). Everything, everything, just went straight to hell, and this is the way he found to deal with it. Oddly, he's less out of touch with reality than he is out of touch with himself. (And it's the parts where he just skims past it, close but never connecting-- what he was really thinking, what he really knows, who he was and is-- that really get to me.) No one ever does anything thinking it's wrong ( ... )

leesa_perrie August 6 2007, 22:02:38 UTC

Oooh, this McKay scares me too, can't imagine what it's like for him to be in your head...! Very well written, very creepy and very good.

ameretrifle August 8 2007, 08:05:31 UTC

I think I've gotten a little used to him, but I also think maybe that should scare me, heh. It was worse the first time I tried to write something for him (set later, when he's checking the results of his handiwork)-- but the first-person... that gave me the shivers. Jerk. It's the way he's benevolently murderous, lying with perfect honesty, understanding everyone except himself... It's a knot, in so many spatial dimensions.

Anyway-- thank you so much! ^^

wildcat88 August 6 2007, 23:00:43 UTC

Very dark and sad. You did a wonderful job of making Rodney sound sanely insane. Well done.

ameretrifle August 8 2007, 08:08:23 UTC

"Sanely insane"-- that's exactly it (or as close as a rational language could come, especially in only two words), thank you. I'm glad you (is 'liked' really appropriate here?) appreciated it; thanks so much for commenting!