This is my life

I really like your point about Sheppard having continuums to his characterization, and different writers dialing up one end or other of the spectrum. That's a good reflection of what I've seen in both the fic and the show, and also why some writers' versions of Sheppard work for me and others don't. I think you're right that Sheppard doesn't really have a fixed and indelible characterization in the same way that Rodney does, and the contradictory mix of traits is a big part of what makes him Sheppard for me. I don't think he reads correctly as Sheppard if all the bits aren't in there -- I'm as put off by a Sheppard characterization that doesn't include his dorky side as one that doesn't acknowledge his pricklier parts.

Having said that, my own characterization of him was very fluid over the early seasons. Specifically, I think in retrospect that I tended to downplay both his dark edge and his insecurities. Especially the latter -- up until season three or four, I'd generally seen and written Sheppard as fairly comfortable in his own skin, and the Sheppard-as-a-seething-mass-of-insecurities thing was something that I'd seen as fanon woobification. Until canon made it impossible to ignore, that is. *g* Same with the darker side, which I had mostly seen as a situational thing in the first couple of seasons; he fights because it's his job and to protect people, but it's not something that I had seen as really being a part of him, any more than any soldier or cop or anyone else in an occupation of that nature. I'd always considered dark!Sheppard stories as fairly OOC and antithetical to the way I saw the character. It was Miller's Crossing that changed my mind on that, and ... I don't know, I found it harder to like the character after that episode and in light of certain later developments (like the way he shuts out Teyla when she's off the team). I think Sheppard, increasingly as the seasons go on, is a guy who gives off a very strong feeling of "us" and "them" mentality, and having seen it in later seasons, I can see it in earlier seasons as well, like his refusal to help Teyla save her friends in "Letters From Pegasus" or the way he's willing to risk the lives of everyone on the Daedalus to get Ronon back in "Sateda". I think this made it a little more difficult for me to write the character (because I was used to writing him in a certain way, and I no longer see him in that way), and made it suddenly harder for me to read a lot of authors that I used to like, because now I need to have that darkness acknowledged and included in order for the character to read as Sheppard to me.