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Because

annerbhp's latest icon challenge got me pondering this on my bus in the morning:

Do you think that there can be non-shippy stories where Sam and Jack have sex? Or is that, by your definition, shippy?

As you know, Bob, there's not really a great deal of Sam and Jack friendship fic out there, and the definitions can be a little hazy anyway, with the difference in intent and perception (one person's UST is another person's friendly banter).

What I mean is... gen people, could you imagine reading/writing a Sam and Jack friendship fic where they are forced into that sort of relationship? Or, Sam/Jack people, could you imagine reading/writing that kind of fic, but without the UST angle - one where it's their friendship that they have to salvage? And without a happy ending where they're given permission by the Prez to break the frat regs. *g*

(And no, this is NOT what I'm planning to do for my

jacksamfriends fic!)

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I'm sure I've read AMTDI stories where they're friends before, and have to repair their friendship afterwards. AMTDI between people who've never had sex before would, I think, in the real world, not be likely to end up in a healthy relationship.

Stranded or slave stories could work like that, too, maybe apocafic. On earth or under regular SGC circumstances (whatever those are), hmm. I'd have to see some examples.

Yes, AMTDI, that's more what I meant. They are out there, then? And yes, I agree, friends generally would have a hard time with that - and Sam and Jack in particular, given the command structure, their personalities, etc etc.

I can't particularly picture it under regular SGC circumstances - I mean, I'm thinking more of AMTDI than friends with benefits (choosing to be in a relationship-beyond-mere-friendship, vs. forced).

They are out there, then?

They are, but I sure can't remember where! And the jury is out of course on whether non-S/J fans would read them differently than you or I would.

You know, slight side track, but I was thinking of your recent one, Ecstasis, as friendship fic. A... sophisticated version of friends-with-benefits? (Um - I mean that very much as a compliment...) It seemed like they were all still in a friendship relationship, rather than shippy.

Or OT4, team ship. :)

Thanks. I meant it more as friendship than ship. I don't think, in the Ecstasis universe, that any of them are involved with each other as couples or threesomes, or that there's much romance in what they do together. But I left it open, so people could decide for themselves.

I think in some ways it's easier to have friendship + sex in a multiple, because you have to set aside your ship assumptions going into it. I'm thinking also of

astolat's A Lapse of Gravity, where it starts as friendship and they decide later that they want more.

Well... I did write a Sam/Daniel friendship fic where they were forced to have sex (aliens made them do it). :) "Tangled Alliances" (http://users.livejournal.com/traycer_/78115.html) in case you were interested. They were just friends in the fic, who had to "do it", while Sam and Jack were still trying to distance themselves after "Beneath the Surface", so there was a great deal of triangle angst and jealousy and all kinds of good stuff in that story.

But yeah, if it can be done with Sam and Daniel friendship, it can be done with Sam and Jack friendship. The tricky part is convincing the die-hard Sam/Jack shippers that they really are just friends.

Oh, ta for the link. *bookmarks for later* Yeah, actually, it's much easier to get my head around it if one or both of the characters is USTing after someone else. (I guess that says a lot about my tendency to wear ship goggles.)

That's maybe one of the reasons there's so little Sam and Jack friendship fic – because so many of the story variables that might be applied to their characters in a Stargate universe are already perceived to be shippy.

And no, this is NOT what I'm planning to do for my jacksamfriends fic!

I was going to say... ;-)

Seriously, that's a tough question that I think will depend on individual readers. It's that grey area of gen...like the "Bob" category in the ship/slash/gen brou-ha-ha.

What I mean is... gen people, could you imagine reading/writing a Sam and Jack friendship fic where they are forced into that sort of relationship? Or, Sam/Jack people, could you imagine reading/writing that kind of fic, but without the UST angle - one where it's their friendship that they have to salvage?

Are you talking an AMTDI type thing? Or an odd friends with benefits that ended up having repercussions? I have read both, but more with Sam/Daniel, OT3, or various slash groupings than Sam/Jack...If it's the "friends with benefits/one time/unique situation", I tend to think of them as ship-ish. The AMTDI scenario...it all depends. I think it can be done either way, but it's tricky and would take a lot to be done well.

Big grey area, yeah. :)

I was thinking AMTDI rather than a friends with benefits, hurt/comfort type thing - I'd agree with you in seeing those as ship-ish. (I'm prepared to believe there can be exceptions, but generally speaking.)

I was thinking that it's more likely that shippers would ponder the effect of AMTDI on their OTP (and whether it turns out to be bad or good is entirely author-dependent). It would be a hard thing to pitch as definitely friendship, I think.

It would be a hard thing to pitch as definitely friendship, I think.

It would. In my experience, anything with Sam and Jack in the same room alone gets pegged as shippy by people who don't like the ship. (Especially if the author has written S/J ship before.)

Mm. I think shippers tend to do the same - if someone who's normally Sam/Jack wrote AMTDI and aimed to make it non-shippy, I think I would still have a hard time not interpreting it as ship. Or... I'd expect ship, at least. *ponders*

and whether it turns out to be bad or good is entirely author-dependent

Yeah, I think I was considering the friends with benefit nature because that's a wobblier balance beam to play various sides.

AMTDI...I think you could ponder the effect on any kind of relationship--as coworkers or friends as much as if it could go OTP. The sex by its nature would be questionable/noncon so it's not shippy in and of itself per se, but the ramifications could go into multiple directions. But to pitch it as "gen" when there is sex...it's possible...but hairy as far as label (sexual situations?)

Yeah, I guess it's not so much that it's impossible to write - it's just hard to manage expectations.

If they'd done it on the show (*eyes BtS*), shippers would definitely claim it as a shippy moment, even if there were no consequences (no reassignments, no babies, no relationship, no Big Discussion - or whatever). But I know gen fans would be able to handwave it as gen, too. ;)

I think there can be fics like that, and have read some of them, although I'm quite at a loss. I think you would need to have good betas and an upfront disclaimer in order to make it work, but yeah.

I feel like I should've read fics like this, but I couldn't think of one. That may be my lamentable memory, though. Yeah, there'd be a danger of annoying shippers AND gen fans, in one story - quite a feat. *g*

IDK. I feel like I've already read fic like that. Sam/Jack/Daniel OT3 written by non-shippers tend to turn out that way. Not always, of course, but especially when Jack/Daniel slashers write it, it tends to feel very one-sided to me. Sam and Jack have sex, but there's really no emotional impact to it at all and it doesn't feel 'shippy' in our understanding of the word. The shippiness tends to happen between Jack and Daniel. I mean, I'm sure it feels the same to them in reverse when they read some OT3's by S/J shippers. But since you asked specifically about this angle...

OH! And I absolutely could read that sort of fic, especially if it's actually focusing on them and their friendship rather than the OT3 thing!

Heh, yes, I was wondering that - because I think it could be interesting, if it's gen in that character-driven way.

The OT3 thing... I've not really been thinking about the slash angle. I guess I tend to prefer it shippy or gen, and if there's shippiness there I'd prefer it was Sam/Jack or nothing. *g* So, I can sympathise with slashers feeling the same in reverse. Either side can write very lopsided OT3, I guess - not really properly exploring the impact of a sexual relationship between the non-preferred pairing.

(Argh, confusing myself with that sentence.)

Forced? As in "aliens made them do it"? Do not want.

If you meant something else, could you please explain?

I like Sam'n'Jack friendship. I don't ship them. I've tried to read ship with them (partly because of my friends)--and I just can't do it. There are some ships I can take or leave, and mostly I leave those, but I can't take this one at all. No desire to see them sleep together under any circumstances. The kisses were (more than) enough.

Ah, I do mean AMTDI. But do you think there can be non-shippy stories which deal with something like that? Not asking you to read them (*g*), but, as a gen person, do you think it's possible to write/read a storyline like that, but for them to be portrayed in the story as just friends/colleagues?

Think extremely strong alien mind-altering drugs and aaaaaaaaaaaaaangst, if it helps. ;)

The problem there is that AMTDI is rape, and I have a very strong visceral reaction to that; I generally avoid rape stories. Occasionally I have read them--on purpose, even!--and I've seen some done well. Mostly, though, I prefer not to read them no matter how well done they are! I'm sure there would be loads of angst, if aliens made them do it, and they'd both feel guilty even though it's not their fault--I just don't want to go there.

I'm pretty gen about SG-1; I've dipped my toes in other things occasionally, and, interestingly, the only pairing I can stand is Jack/Daniel. I don't want porn, but I can't read anything, no matter how innocuous, with other pairings among SG-1. I don't know why. I read Torchwood (canon!) slash and some Primeval slash; even some SGA (there it's pretty much only Rodney/Carson). For a heterosexual, I have astoundingly little interest in reading het fic, come to think of it. (I do like Gwen/Rhys on Torchwood! I wanted Carson and Cadman to stay together! I liked Rodney and Katie for a while! The only one of those three that I read, though, is Gwen/Rhys, and not much of that.)

(Oh, and I'm not talking about stories that are about the sex itself, necessarily - just ones that deal with that having happened.)

I've been thinking some more, and I came up with an exception: I've read stories where the AMTDI is more like "Plants made them do it" or some variation, so it's no one's fault--that does not set off my "noncon!" button the same way AMTDI does. (I've seen: alien plant spores that overwhelm the human system, more than once; some little 'gift' left behind by Hathor; and maybe one or two other causes.)

I've read a few of these stories. I wasn't actually all that fond of any: most had elements I liked, but they all had elements I didn't like, and in most cases I thought those elements were extraneous (really inappropriate humor would be the recurrent one. Not funny, folks).

Seeing Sam and Jack deal with something like that, where no person made them do it, for "entertainment" or other nefarious motives, but they have to cope with what's happened--now that might be interesting.

I think there can *definitely* be fics that involve sex but aren't ship (I say "ship" to mean het or slash or any other romantic-esque relationship) but I wouldn't call them gen either, since most gen-only people really don't want to run into sex.

There's a lot of fic grey areas in this - I mean, I feel like the OT3 (OT4?) I've written (and some I've read) has a very different feel than most ship fic - the dynamic between them feels more like a gen/friend dynamic only there's sex.

Although I've seen that sort of thing attempted in fictions (not necessarily Stargate ones per se) they always ring false to me for this reason: I have never seen an intense, close, deep friendship out in the real world between an unrelated adult heterosexual male and heterosexual female that did not have some definite sexual tension. It may not lead to RST, it may not cross lines or boundaries, but it is there, and once you have that, there is shippiness sitting there like the proverbial elephant in the living room. I think I'd read it, and evaluate it for what it was, but I don't think I'd buy the premise.

This is also, btw, the reason why even though I am a Sam/Jack shipper, I don't really buy the "Sam and Daniel soo brother and sister" argument either. While I can see Daniel saying "You know I love you like a sister, Sam," the internal view is more likely to be "While I'm quite aware of your considerable charms, I'm also equally aware of your focus on Jack and his whole alpha-male-territoriality schtick."

That said, sexual tension notwithstanding, I think that mature well adjusted human beings can see and identify that sexual tension for what it is, and choose to not to act on it. I do think, for instance, that wives of patrolmen or firemen, or paramedics whose husbands work with women partners in situations of high tension that are conducive to the formation of deep bonds should not feel threatened if they know that their husbands love them and are committed to their relationship. I have absolutely no fear that my husband the physician is going to wander off with one of the paramedics after running a code. He is married, not dead, but is mature and adult and is capable of storing up that sexual frustration and bringing it home to me, and doing anything else would devastate his sense of who he is, just as bedding Sam would devastate Daniel if Sha're were alive and easily available to him.

If it's not shippy, I'm not interested. Sad but true. *g*

Which is not to say that I haven't clicked on apparently shippy stories only to find more of a friendship story - and enjoyed it - because I have.

Which I just realized is not exactly what you asked.

But yeah, the same answer sort of applies. I pretty much put the ship into it, even if it's not really meant to be there, because I'm a shipper. Although again...I have accidentally read enough fics so that I can recognize when it's not supposed to be shippy, and have (mostly) appreciated them for what they were.

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heh...

lol..