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hmpfI notice that all the recs so far in the het category of this year's recommendations week at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
lifein1973 are Sam/Maya. Now, that does please me. However, I also notice that all the recced fics (I've browsed them, not read them properly, because I'm in a bit of a hurry right now - shouldn't be posting here, either, really) are about them separating/about how the relationship really never worked properly. And, yeah, I've been having one hell of a difficult time writing my own Sam/Maya fic, myself.
I wonder: is it possible at all to write a *working* Sam/Maya relationship? Or does it always have to be broken from the start/broken beyond repair? Of course, with slash goggles firmly in place the obvious answer would be something like "it never worked and never will because Sam's actually gay, even if he doesn't realise it." But I sort of want to believe that what was wrong with the relationship was something *other* than just repressed homosexuality - something even more complicated, perhaps - that was wrong with Sam; something that may be fixed.
But is this me being too pollyanna to see reality?
lifein1973 are Sam/Maya. Now, that does please me. However, I also notice that all the recced fics (I've browsed them, not read them properly, because I'm in a bit of a hurry right now - shouldn't be posting here, either, really) are about them separating/about how the relationship really never worked properly. And, yeah, I've been having one hell of a difficult time writing my own Sam/Maya fic, myself. I wonder: is it possible at all to write a *working* Sam/Maya relationship? Or does it always have to be broken from the start/broken beyond repair? Of course, with slash goggles firmly in place the obvious answer would be something like "it never worked and never will because Sam's actually gay, even if he doesn't realise it." But I sort of want to believe that what was wrong with the relationship was something *other* than just repressed homosexuality - something even more complicated, perhaps - that was wrong with Sam; something that may be fixed.
But is this me being too pollyanna to see reality?
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 06:07 pm (UTC)*honestly intrigued*
Date: 2008-11-05 06:33 pm (UTC)Re: *honestly intrigued*
Date: 2008-11-05 06:36 pm (UTC)Whoops.
Date: 2008-11-05 07:00 pm (UTC)I think you mistake...
Date: 2008-11-05 07:00 pm (UTC)To be fair, my own father harbours the same doubts about me. He does not believe that one can emotionally engage so strongly with fiction and still be able to, say, study, or hold down a job, or follow politics or whatnot. (Although I do all three, and probably follow politics more closely than he does.) He's been fearing for my sanity ever since I asked for the Narnia books for Christmas at age 12 or 13 - and I'm sure he'd say that, at age 32, I have confirmed his worst fears. (I love my dad, but he has *serious* issues with some of the choices I've made in my life. Most of the choices, really. *g*)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 06:09 pm (UTC)The fact that we never got that in *canon* was disappointing indeed. But I do think you could write Sam/Maya post-accident (ending-AU, though) and make it work through his learning his lesson(s). We, of course, know little about Maya's own faults.
Though, I suppose you'd need to address 2.06 as well. I suppose the implication is that in 'moving on with [her] life', Maya has either entered a new relationship or taken a step away from Manchester with her career. But neither of them are insurmountable.
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Date: 2008-11-05 07:57 pm (UTC)Really, we hardly got ANYTHING in canon on Maya, so I think any limitations in fanfiction about Sam/May's relationship are the limitations of, most likely, fanon.
There is always, too, the rather deterministic viewpoint that if a relationship fails, then it MUST have been doomed from the start, because relationships between two people who are perfect for each other and who love each other NEVER FAIL. *rolls eyes with deep, deep sarcasm* (Such determinsim might be in play, but I think more likely it is the failability of humans that is really to blame, personally)
Yet, it's just so EASY to write that Sam is a repressed homosexual who just needs to "find the right man" and VOILA all his relationship problems are solved!!! LOL!
I generally wipe Maya off the map with a "it was good while it lasted, too bad things didn't work out" kind of handwaving (which is really my read of Sam in 2.06). She seemed like a good person and a decent cop, and I would like to think that she would not have fallen in love with the type of cold hearted bastard that Sam is often portrayed as pre-coma. But thatis simply not a story that interests me enough to write. *shrugs*
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Date: 2008-11-06 12:38 am (UTC)Too bloody true. And most of what we have in canon is from the deleted scenes. It was quite a breath of fresh air for US!Sam and Maya to have a functional relationship, even if he didn't want to meet the parents. While we get the "you used to believe in gut instinct" and "I'm taking you off this case as we've got relationship problems" summing up UK!Sam, it's nice to get something concrete... Of course, the fandom does tend to take the unaired scenes in Ep 1 as canon as well, which compounds things. The tie-chosing and the mobile phone message break-up being a lot more... indicative of how fandom feels about the whole relationship aspect.
Yet, it's just so EASY to write that Sam is a repressed homosexual who just needs to "find the right man..
Interestingly, that's not how I've seen the fandom's take in the past. Admittedly I'm ... far too old school now. Now there's an explosion in fic on the comm, I can't read everything, but that's not how I've seen writers deal with Sam previously. And I've been looking out for it, because it's a trap that you see in almost every fandom. Sam walking on the wild side in 2006, Sam throwing caution to the wind in 1973, but never 'finding the right man'. *shudders*
Not that I'm doubting you at all on the current fandom take, but... ewwww. Loathe that sort of thing with a passion!!!
I get your take, and really, it's sensible, considering how much we are all devoted to 1973 (with barely 15 minutes ascribed to the present, even the *writers* fell in love with the place), but it would be nice to see Sam's hard-won lessons re-win him his relationship with Maya after he comes out of the coma. Not that she couldn't do better, but it would make for a fantastic het romance... (Which is probably why I'd never write such a thing!!!)
Maya headaches
Date: 2008-11-06 01:14 am (UTC)devoted to 1973
*cough* Not me... (One reason I sort-of-ship Sam/Maya is that it's a convenient way of essentially shipping Sam/2006. *g*)
>(with barely 15 minutes ascribed to the present, even the *writers* fell in love with the place),
Well, to be fair, there were scenes in 1973 where Sam talked about the present, in addition to the scenes that were actually set in the present. Not many, true, but one thing I did get from those 1973 scenes was an impression that he actually really did love Maya. His passionate speech to Gene on the whole dating an Asian thing showed his emotions most clearly, I think. But also his voice when saying goodbye to her in 2.06.
>but it would be nice to see Sam's hard-won lessons re-win him his relationship with Maya after he comes out of the coma. Not that she couldn't do better, but it would make for a fantastic het romance...
Believe me, I'm trying... Though I'm not playing it so much as straight-on romance, because that is not my genre. But yeah, there's definitely a shippy element to both my AU fics that involve Maya.
My big problem with writing these fics is finding out why in the world Maya would take him back (or perhaps even never properly leave him in the first place - these are AUs, after all) - because as you say, she could certainly do much better, and she must know that. Sam is so very damaged goods (and I'm not even talking about the specific damage I'm inflicting on him for the purpose of the plot.) So, basically, I'm kind of left with postulating a pretty intense kind of love/need on her part (bordering on the pathological, in fact: because the rational, sane choice really would be to have left Sam long ago *snerk*) - which is easy, on the one hand, because I can just project all my silly fangirl obsession onto her; but, on the other hand, is it realistic, based on what little we have on her in canon? Not really. :-(
I should be working... dum dee dum dee dum....
Date: 2008-11-06 01:38 am (UTC)*snerk* Yeah.
Maybe I'm beginning to be affected a bit by all the slash I've been reading/browsing, and am now subconsciously beginning to read Sam as incapable of ever being happy with anyone who isn't Gene?
Though, really, the tiny glimpses we've had of the Maya relationship have *always* struck me as somehow deeply fucked up, and I think that's one reason why I struggle so much with trying to write the two of them in a more or less functional relationship. Even though I really do believe that there is love between them.
>I generally wipe Maya off the map with a "it was good while it lasted, too bad things didn't work out" kind of handwaving (which is really my read of Sam in 2.06). She seemed like a good person and a decent cop, and I would like to think that she would not have fallen in love with the type of cold hearted bastard that Sam is often portrayed as pre-coma. But thatis simply not a story that interests me enough to write. *shrugs*
I'm not so very interested in the pre-coma relationship, either. I'm mostly interested in potential post-coma relationships. Because, yeah, change and all that.
'course, all of those potential relationships are now by definition even more AU than any Gene/Sam slash could ever be...
(The letting go moment in 2.06 did not strike me as the kind of shoulder-shrugging 'oh well' sorta thing you see it as, though: rather, I saw it - at the time - as Sam beginning, wistfully but also calmly and peacefully, to let go of his life. Basically, beginning to accept that he wouldn't wake up, and that he would eventually die. Which, at the time, I found pretty exciting, because I was rooting for it all to end in some kind of very zen, peaceful acceptance of inevitable death. 2.03 also seemed to point in that direction, what with the TCG's 'you're dead, Sam', and the halo moment in the church and so on.)
Re: I should be working... dum dee dum dee dum....
Date: 2008-11-06 08:27 am (UTC):(
Sam's fucked up.
True, true.
Date: 2008-11-06 11:59 am (UTC)(Dammit, what is it with me and this obsession with happy endings. Can't I just accept that he's broken irreparably, and move on? *sigh*)
'moving on'
Date: 2008-11-06 01:21 am (UTC)- I took that just to mean she wouldn't visit him anymore. And, sure, it probably means she considers herself open to the possibility of a new relationship; but not necessarily that she already has found one.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 11:36 pm (UTC)(Way-back-when I wrote a timey-wimey story about what Sam might have been like without that particular trauma: Five little words. I put some hints in the story about how I thought alt!Sam's life with Maya would play out if you're interested.)
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Date: 2008-11-06 12:40 am (UTC)*That's* exactly the fic I was thinking about when I read this post, but I couldn't remember who'd written it! I *love* that fic!!!
no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 03:10 am (UTC)I remember that!
Date: 2008-11-06 01:23 am (UTC)Re: I remember that!
Date: 2008-11-06 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 08:28 am (UTC)