Absurdity Theory
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Absurdity Theory |
| Author(s): | Julad |
| Date(s): | 2005 |
| Length: | |
| Genre: | slash |
| Fandom: | Stargate Atlantis |
| External Links: | online here |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Absurdity Theory is a Stargate Atlantis Zelenka/McKay story by Julad.
Author's notes: "So I started writing this for the 38 Minutes challenge on sga_flashfic. After about seventy minutes, I gave up on meeting the deadline. I tried to make it in 38 hours, but three days later I got the impression the story was laughing at me. I have, however, finished it in well under 38 days! I'm counting that as a victory."
Reactions and Reviews
Why this must be read:Now for a change up in pairings -- just for today -- as I couldn't go a month without reccing one of Julad's stories and this is definitely my favourite. The premise makes me laugh every time, because and if there were ever two people who would make scientific lemonade out of the lemons thrown at them it would be Zelenka and McKay.
Cursed to quack and honk likes ducks? Not a problem. They'll come up with a reason why -- even if it's the most absurd thing in the universe.[1]
This is the story that sucked me into SGA fandom. With the ecstatic but sadly mistaken expectation that McKay/Zelenka was going to be everybody's number one OTP. God, I love that pairing. God, I love this fic.[2]
Best FF That Left Me Reaching for the Book on Animal Sounds in Other Languages That I Do in Fact Own. It's Like I Spent Years Preparing to Read This Story! Absurdity Theory, by julad. Stargate: Atlantis, Rodney McKay/Radek Zalenka.
So. If it quacks like a duck, but does not in fact look like a duck, what is it? In this case, two people paying a slightly higher-than-usual price for certain unkind comments. But, hey, if you know stuff, it doesn't matter that you can't talk to others; you can still entertain yourself with a Turing machine or the Theory of Universal Absurdity or lots of sex. This is why everyone needs science. (The sex. Though the entertainment is nice, too.) And everyone also needs this story, although you probably don't need it as much as I did when I first read it, because it was the perfect antidote to an unfortunate vid experience I had last week. Vidders, please: avoid the all talking heads, no action, no meaning blue-light-special vids. But if you're going to make one, for Christ's sake don't center and zoom in on those faces too far. Because you may find that dramatic, but all I see is nostrils. Gigantic, flagrant, unignorable nostrils. ("Nostrilriffic" is not a word I had previously been tempted to coin, but this vid - it needed adjectives as yet undiscovered in the English language.) And when a love song is wailing in the background but huge nostrils are flaring in the foreground, I am in an unhappy place. Or, actually, a seriously happy place and laughing myself sick, but that's probably not where the vid was supposed to take me. Worse, after I watched said vid, I couldn't read SGA without thinking mostly of nostrils, and it was inhibiting my new-fandom love. But then, fortunately, I found this story, which completely derailed the memory of hysterical nostrils via hysterical quacking, and also the honking, and also the Czech. So my love has returned. Healed by the magic of fan fiction! [3]
This story is both hilarious and creative. Julad takes what should be an absolutely ridiculous premise and turns it into a something that isn't at all crack, and somehow manages to even be somewhat thought-provoking. Rodney and Radek get cursed (yes, cursed) by an alien race and as a result, when they try to communicate with anyone they sound like ducks and when they write anything down, the only thing anyone else can see is 'quack'. Quacking aside, the two scientists are hilarious together as they try to figure out just how the aliens did it[4]
genuinely the funniest thing I’ve read in years. Please do yourself the favour, as long as you’re somewhere you can safely CACKLE ALOUD.[5]
This is brilliantly whacked, taking McKay and Zelenka's ability to communicate with each other without anyone else understanding what they're saying to a whole new level, and drawing them together perfectly, sensibly, madly. I love this one more than I can say.[6]
References
- ^ rec at Crack Van, June 2005
- ^ rec at Crack Van, June 2005
- ^ rec by thefourthvine at Slashy Nominations 116: Speaking in Tongues, May, 2005
- ^ "Rec by morena_evensong at stargateficrec". Archived from the original on 2023-03-22.
- ^ "Stargate: Atlantis - Fic Recs". Archived from the original on 2023-03-22.
- ^ "Fic Recs Stargate Atlantis". Archived from the original on 2023-03-22.