Ah, the other was SGA, specifically Rodney McKay and John Sheppard.
In this case I saw it as a bit more than a dynamic, though. The backstory about the laconic character correcting the genius' math and in the process revealing his own hidden intelligence is something very specific to the McKay/Sheppard storyline, and that's in addition to their general temperaments and roles in the narrative.
(But then again, I can't say I'm sure I would have seen a possible connection between the two sources if I wasn't aware there already was a preexisting connection.)
To me, it was like seeing the interactions between two siblings - one who is loud and has overblown reactions to being insulted on a specific physical trait and the other is tall, gentle, and has an serious existential crisis - plus, they are both robots (yes, sibling robots). Never is it mentioned that the loud sibling hates milk or that the gentle sibling likes cats, but I can still see Alphonse and Edward in the robots' dynamic and in their character arcs; I can recognize what is the same and what it different in the new material. But are the differences enough to say the Robot piece isn't completely derivative? Or is the fic-ofic divide a YMMV issue?
(thank you for making this post, by the way. it was a very interesting read! <--forgot to mention in first comment)
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Date: 9 Feb 2010 07:33 am (UTC)In this case I saw it as a bit more than a dynamic, though. The backstory about the laconic character correcting the genius' math and in the process revealing his own hidden intelligence is something very specific to the McKay/Sheppard storyline, and that's in addition to their general temperaments and roles in the narrative.
(But then again, I can't say I'm sure I would have seen a possible connection between the two sources if I wasn't aware there already was a preexisting connection.)
To me, it was like seeing the interactions between two siblings - one who is loud and has overblown reactions to being insulted on a specific physical trait and the other is tall, gentle, and has an serious existential crisis - plus, they are both robots (yes, sibling robots). Never is it mentioned that the loud sibling hates milk or that the gentle sibling likes cats, but I can still see Alphonse and Edward in the robots' dynamic and in their character arcs; I can recognize what is the same and what it different in the new material. But are the differences enough to say the Robot piece isn't completely derivative? Or is the fic-ofic divide a YMMV issue?
(thank you for making this post, by the way. it was a very interesting read! <--forgot to mention in first comment)