Unwanted Attention
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Unwanted Attention |
| Author(s): | Joolz |
| Date(s): | |
| Length: | 219K |
| Genre: | het and gen |
| Fandom: | Stargate SG-1 |
| External Links: | AO3 |
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Unwanted Attention is a Stargate SG-1 story by Joolz. The pairing is Daniel/Sam.
Reactions and Reviews
"Unwanted Attention" is the third story in the "Loosely Bound" series. As the name suggests, these three are less a series than a group of stories that have things in common, as well as an occasional referenceto events in a previous instalment. Joolz has labelled this story as both gen and het because, whilst Sam and Daniel do become intimate, they are not in a romantic relationship as such. Joolz writes them both as mature, passionate, sexual beings who demonstrate their deep love and friendship in order to comfort and succour each other (some might say somewhat inappropriately!)
The story begins with the attempted rape of one of the team at the hands of a group of Jaffa, while another member of the team looks on helplessly. Saved in the nick of time, Joolz cleverly reverses the scenario when one of the saviours faces the same situation later in the story. Joolz does not dwell on the attempted rapes, but uses them to discuss the nature of "mankind" and to draw the team of friends even closer together.
Of the original characters, it is Gattahn, the leader of a rebel group, who I found the best written and most well-rounded. He comes over as a fairly likeable man, despite his initial actions, and the plight of his people remains a constant and interesting thread within the story. Other events reinforce the sense of team spirit, and highlight Jack and Daniel's mutual friendship and respect, despite their considerable differences.
Throughout this fairly heavy action tale, little beacons of humour light up the darkness and I, for one, enjoyed them. I found the characterisation of SG-1 excellent. Joolz makes Jack the alpha male but never reduces Daniel's masculinity. I find it very annoying that, in so much fan fiction, any stress on Jack's alpha male qualities tends to be at the expense of Daniel's competence - never Teal'c's! Joolz even has Daniel spell this out to Jack:
"'I know you've always seen me as a sort of feckless science geek, especially at first.' Jack opened his mouth to protest, and Daniel held up a hand to stop him. 'But what you don't realize is that I never saw myself like that until I came into the SGC. Before my 'crazy' theories derailed me, I used to head up important excavations, supervising teams of twenty, twenty-five people, where I was the one in charge. People came to me for advice and to make decisions. I was the one who mediated between real world getting-things-done and the politics of academia. And I taught college classes where I was the one people looked up to, even though I was practically a kid. They treated me like that on Abydos, too. Then all of a sudden I'm low-man on the tough guy totem pole, in a culture I can barely comprehend. And no, I don't want to be an alpha male soldier, but I do need to feel like a competent adult, and that's been a bit of a struggle."'
I think this is an excellent summation of Daniel's probable pre-SG-1 experience and it should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants to write him as "little incompetent Danny".
In fact, the very different abilities and personalities of each member of the team are only used positively in this story: Sam allows Daniel to 'protect' her because she knows it makes him feel better for both of them; Daniel permits Jack to comfort him when he needs it; Jack lowers his defences to Daniel in front of the entire team; and Teal'c admires his teammates' ability to accept their own strengths and weaknesses. I found Jack's disclosures to Daniel, and Teal'c's ruminations on O'Neill's qualities as a leader, a joy to read.
My major gripe, although I enjoyed hearing mature drops of wisdom fall from Jack's mouth, was that Joolz had Jack telling Daniel stuff that Daniel should have been well aware of, certainly more so than Jack. Also, the POV changes continuously, not necessarily at the expense of the story, but it was often distracting, with an almost omnipotent POV adopted at times. The confusion was not helped by the tendency, mostly at the start of the story, for the characters to be referred to by different names. For example, in the first section, which is mainly Jack's POV, Jack is described as Colonel Jack O'Neill, Jack, the Colonel and O'Neill. In fact, the beginning of the story, with its rapidly changing POVs, is perhaps the weakest part.
Despite these criticisms, I think this story has a great deal to offer, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to read a good team story with a bite.[1]