Originally posted by JenniferJF
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I think I've briefly given my story sometime in the past few days, but here it is all together: (beware of exploding posts)
Spoiler:
I watched Stargate after it went to Scifi from Showtime (didn't have Showtime) though my parents did and swore it was one of the best scif shows ever. Loved it almost immediately and was quickly caught up thorugh Scifi marathons to where they were in S5. *Saw* the Sam/Jack ship, but as with Crag, was so burned by previous ships as to have become completely and utterly cynical and calloused towards them. This is, btw, still true in general for me. I can enjoy individual moments between two characters (aw.. isn't that sweet) but remain unable to get vested in the outcomes because, with Very Few notable exceptions, TV ships tend to result in characters who act more like space aliens than real people (I mean.. how many REAL people have secret spouses wandering around out there they never mention to anybody? I mean.. really?) So I didn't really pay attention to the ship and sort of knew it was there but didn't really care because obviously it was never going to go anywhere anyway. If anything, I was a noromo simply because I was certain that, if they ever did pick up the 'ship', as it were, the end result must necessarily be a total destruction of the characters as anything remotely resembling the real human beings in extraordinary situations which had attracted me to the show in the first place.
I should mention I was also out of fandom during this time for reasons primarily involving things like falling in love and getting married and having babies and then toddlers and then more babies and still more toddlers followed by...
Anyway.
You get the idea.
Plus I somehow graduated from college and got commissioned and went from a butter bar to a Captain and out of the army and became a pharmaceutical rep in that period as well... So. No fandom. Not much sleep, really, either.
So like I said.. Anyway...
I was actually (throw potatoes) a bit glad when Sam started dating Pete, and really didn't pick up on the idea of him as stalker at all. I was just happy to see her happy, frankly. And... you know... not turn into the two-headed alien having them 'play' with her and Jack was certain to do...
Then we get to Threads. And I sort of grimaced along with the rest of the Noromos when I realized (being completely unspoilered) that they were going 'there' again blatantly and I hoped to *goodness* it didn't screw up the characters too badly.
Only... Something extraordinary happened.
I will never forget the moment when Sam - not because of Big Drama or Impending Doom or any of the other TV Tricks they teach at How To Write For Television School - sat in her car in front of Jack's house. And then she took a deep breath and went to go talk to him. But still, I'd been around the block a few times and when Kerry stepped out, I figured they were about to launch into Act Two of the Other Scenario (one of those aforementioned tricks taught at the aforementioned school) in which Ship Member A finally realizes she's dating the wrong person, only to discover Ship Member B has found someone else and it's now too late, which launches us into another round of long pining looks and jealousy on one side and frustrated attempts to stick square pegs in round holes on the other only this time in the opposite direction.
So that wasn't the *really* extraordinary thing.
The *really* extraordinary thing was Kerry. Because, for just about the first time I can recall, one of the nameless 'other' acted like... drumrole please... a Real Person. Which, in retrospect, shouldn't really have surprised me as Real People were what attracted me to the show in the first place. But at the time I was knocked off my feet. Especially when she had an actual honest conversation with one Jack O'Neill and... amazingly... he did the right and sensible thing which almost anyone *would* do and found Sam in the infirmary.
See, when I say I see resolution in Threads, I saw it the first time when not only was I not expecting it, but I didn't really even WANT it. Or at least, I didn't really care if it existed or not. I simply saw it unfold on screen. And was amazed. Because that sort of thing just doesn't happen on TV... the subtle and the beautiful, two people finding each other finally not because the world's going to end (impending doom came AFTER they found each other) but because they loved each other and wanted each other and both realized it.
It was...
Amazing.
And John saw it too, cause after we watched the last few minutes in silence and they were fishing together on the pier, he turned to me and said, "Wow! I can't believe they did *that* on TV" He wasn't simply talking about 'the fishing' (and from both their demeanors we both knew they'd been 'fishing' even though we didn't even know there was a double meaning to the term at that point) We were talking about the subtlety and lack of drama.
It was actually, though, the next season when Sam showed up with a Big Smile on her face after Jack had ridden off into the proverbial sunset more-or-less that I really fell in love with the relationship. Because I *saw* Sam-with-Jack in the changes in her character. And it was so amazingly subtle and natural - just the result of a woman finally being happy in her personal life after years of not being so. I was... Can I say amazed again? Cause I was.
That was when I went back and rewatched all the episodes from CotG, looking for the ship and finding it in a thousand little gestures and nuances I'd never really paid much attention to before. And in doing so, I discovered how closely tied in to Sam and Jack's characters 'the ship' really had been all along. Here were two amazingly - er, sorry, that word just came out -complex and nuanced characters who started the series with backstories and baggage (as characters do) and over the year's we'd actually seen them grow - on a TV Screen, FCOL! - in extremely natural and realistic ways both as individuals and towards each other until the point of Threads. And the ship was never ever a deviation or diversion from this growth, but was an essential and natural part of who each of them was as an individual as much as what they might become as a couple...
I was in love
And, really, that's how I became a shipper.
*Absolutely* backwards from the way nearly all of you did But there you go. The ship won me over with the absolute awesomeness of the cohesive whole of the story as I saw it and its and near uniqueness from anything I'd ever seen on TV.
I should mention I was also out of fandom during this time for reasons primarily involving things like falling in love and getting married and having babies and then toddlers and then more babies and still more toddlers followed by...
Anyway.
You get the idea.
Plus I somehow graduated from college and got commissioned and went from a butter bar to a Captain and out of the army and became a pharmaceutical rep in that period as well... So. No fandom. Not much sleep, really, either.
So like I said.. Anyway...
I was actually (throw potatoes) a bit glad when Sam started dating Pete, and really didn't pick up on the idea of him as stalker at all. I was just happy to see her happy, frankly. And... you know... not turn into the two-headed alien having them 'play' with her and Jack was certain to do...
Then we get to Threads. And I sort of grimaced along with the rest of the Noromos when I realized (being completely unspoilered) that they were going 'there' again blatantly and I hoped to *goodness* it didn't screw up the characters too badly.
Only... Something extraordinary happened.
I will never forget the moment when Sam - not because of Big Drama or Impending Doom or any of the other TV Tricks they teach at How To Write For Television School - sat in her car in front of Jack's house. And then she took a deep breath and went to go talk to him. But still, I'd been around the block a few times and when Kerry stepped out, I figured they were about to launch into Act Two of the Other Scenario (one of those aforementioned tricks taught at the aforementioned school) in which Ship Member A finally realizes she's dating the wrong person, only to discover Ship Member B has found someone else and it's now too late, which launches us into another round of long pining looks and jealousy on one side and frustrated attempts to stick square pegs in round holes on the other only this time in the opposite direction.
So that wasn't the *really* extraordinary thing.
The *really* extraordinary thing was Kerry. Because, for just about the first time I can recall, one of the nameless 'other' acted like... drumrole please... a Real Person. Which, in retrospect, shouldn't really have surprised me as Real People were what attracted me to the show in the first place. But at the time I was knocked off my feet. Especially when she had an actual honest conversation with one Jack O'Neill and... amazingly... he did the right and sensible thing which almost anyone *would* do and found Sam in the infirmary.
See, when I say I see resolution in Threads, I saw it the first time when not only was I not expecting it, but I didn't really even WANT it. Or at least, I didn't really care if it existed or not. I simply saw it unfold on screen. And was amazed. Because that sort of thing just doesn't happen on TV... the subtle and the beautiful, two people finding each other finally not because the world's going to end (impending doom came AFTER they found each other) but because they loved each other and wanted each other and both realized it.
It was...
Amazing.
And John saw it too, cause after we watched the last few minutes in silence and they were fishing together on the pier, he turned to me and said, "Wow! I can't believe they did *that* on TV" He wasn't simply talking about 'the fishing' (and from both their demeanors we both knew they'd been 'fishing' even though we didn't even know there was a double meaning to the term at that point) We were talking about the subtlety and lack of drama.
It was actually, though, the next season when Sam showed up with a Big Smile on her face after Jack had ridden off into the proverbial sunset more-or-less that I really fell in love with the relationship. Because I *saw* Sam-with-Jack in the changes in her character. And it was so amazingly subtle and natural - just the result of a woman finally being happy in her personal life after years of not being so. I was... Can I say amazed again? Cause I was.
That was when I went back and rewatched all the episodes from CotG, looking for the ship and finding it in a thousand little gestures and nuances I'd never really paid much attention to before. And in doing so, I discovered how closely tied in to Sam and Jack's characters 'the ship' really had been all along. Here were two amazingly - er, sorry, that word just came out -complex and nuanced characters who started the series with backstories and baggage (as characters do) and over the year's we'd actually seen them grow - on a TV Screen, FCOL! - in extremely natural and realistic ways both as individuals and towards each other until the point of Threads. And the ship was never ever a deviation or diversion from this growth, but was an essential and natural part of who each of them was as an individual as much as what they might become as a couple...
I was in love
And, really, that's how I became a shipper.
*Absolutely* backwards from the way nearly all of you did But there you go. The ship won me over with the absolute awesomeness of the cohesive whole of the story as I saw it and its and near uniqueness from anything I'd ever seen on TV.
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