Why is SGA fandom so segregated?

[trinityofone]

lavvyan! I got your package! Thank you so much, it's gorgeous. (To curious parties: it's a piece of papyrus with the Ancient Egyptian calendar on it.) Actually, the tube it came in is gorgeous, too. But I really want to try to get it framed. And this Treed Murray poster, which I keep saying I should treat myself to. (Hey, I have a new apartment and a new office to decorate here!) There has to be a cheap frame shop in existence somewhere...right?

I am incredibly, incredibly tired today. I was exhausted yesterday, and couldn't even make it through The Daily Show before I crashed. This is bad. I thought I was adjusting to my new work schedule, but I guess I'm not. Is there any way to train yourself to need less sleep?

One thing that has almost kept me energized has been the response to the SGA Bulwer-Lytton Contest. There are so many awesome and hysterical entries, it's going to be killer to choose. So I think I'll pick my--15? Is that how many entries an LJ poll allows?--my 15 or so favorites and let people vote on the Grand Prize Winner. Unless anybody has wild objections, I'll put that up tomorrow.

Like I said, the response has been incredible, and I've seen some new names (by which I mean: people I don't know, even by association, not "people who don't usually comment here"), which is always cool. But--and please correct me if I'm wrong--I still seem to be attracting mostly McKay/Sheppard people, or at least mostly slash people. Which in general makes sense, because hey, I write McKay/Sheppard, I talk about McKay/Sheppard, most of my friends are into McKay/Sheppard. As far as I'm concerned, McKay/Sheppard is for yay.

BUT. I like other pairings, too (my other fandom interest could possibly be described as McKay/women), and I think at least a little cross-pairing pollination is to be encouraged. My last fandom was BtVS/AtS, and it was wild, man. I mean, I started out a Spuffy shipper (Shut up! Their love was pure snarky and hot! At least before it became canon, anyway) but I liked the slash a lot (Buffydom was where I really grew to be comfortable with slash) and I wrote and read some of pretty much everything. It was all mixed.

Why is SGA so much more segregated? I mean, I don't think this is entirely a bad thing--I don't want my flist flooded with Sheppard/Weir stories, and I doubt the Sheppard/Weir shippers want a gazillion McKay/Sheppard stories on their friends pages, either. But is it just me, or is it extremely hard to organize activities that include all sides of fandom? Take reel_sga. The response to that has been great...but as pairings go, not very diverse. In terms of my personal reading habits, that's fine, but I had kind of hoped that there'd be more pairings represented. And maybe there still will be. That would be cool.

(Speaking of one nice bit of pairing diversity, I really loved this reel_sga entry: McKay/Ford art by deani_bean. It's the tie thing. That's awesome, and that transcends OTP-loyalty [and I say this as someone who is mockably OTPish at times]. Which is cool, no?)

Anyway, the Bulwer-Lytton thing is different, because of course it is not pairing-centric: it's mostly about mocking style and usage, although certain tropes have been fun to mock, too. It's about bad writing, but it's also about amusing and clever writing, and seeing what you can do in the space of a sentence. That's something everybody can appreciate, right?

So I guess what I'm wondering is, where are the het shippers? (Again, please correct me if they're around and I've just been too dumb to notice.) And I just don't mean, why aren't they here, responding to this--what is here is awesome, and I'm not like, demanding more people participate, omg. I just mean, I've been in this fandom for almost a year now--how have we managed not to interact at all? Of course, part of this may be me--I'm certainly not trolling john_elizabeth, because why would I want to? So I'm also not saying, "Sheppard/Weir peeps! Why aren't you over at mckay_sheppard? We've got a hot tub, come hang out!" Because seriously, why would they want to? But the fact that there's little-to-no crossover is just astonishing to me.

Maybe it's just that we have a situation that's more like X-Files fandom than Buffydom. Back in the old days, I was rabid about MSR, and I just didn't go anywhere near the slash. (Or Scully/Skinner, or whatever else there was.) I can't remember very well, but I think I was actively afraid of those unfamiliar corners of the net, and that included any of the projects "those people" may have been involved in. Of course, I think this may have had MUCH more to do with the fact that I was 14 than with my shipping preferences, but could there possibly be some connection? What I'd like to know is, do most people on the het end of fandom see even a name associated with slash and immediately go, "Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!"? Which, I hasten to say, would be totally their right. But I realize, I don't even know anyone over there that I could ask.

I'm not saying that there needs to be some sort of cross-ship dialogue, because I think those things tend to end in angry glaring at best. Possibly, just ignoring each other is the best way to avoid conflict, and I'm all for avoiding conflict. I'm just surprised there isn't some sort of neutral zone, some shaded area at the center of the Giant Venn Diagram of Fandom Life. Why do you think that is?

Comments

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

It's my experience that most fandoms are like this, actually; I think Jossverse shows may be the exception, because his characters don't just hover around each other for nine years, they actually *go for it*-- Willow dated Oz, Tara, and Kennedy, and had secred makeouts with Xander, who dated Cordy (who thought Angel was hot) and Anya, and Anya did Spike, who did Buffy, who also did Parker and Riley, who Xander was kind of gay for...

If they'd stayed static, with Willow mooning over Xander, who mooned over Buffy, who mooned over Angel, for SEVEN YEARS, I bet BTVS fandom would be just as codified as most other fandoms are. You'd have your Willow/Xander shippers vs. Xander/Buffy shippers vs. Buffy/Angel shippers and that would be *it*, you know?

[cereta.livejournal.com]

What she said. I think SGA is actually more representative of fandom as a whole, or at least of my experience with it. The cross-pollination in particular of slash and het is relatively new, I think.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Right. I mean, it's also all about perception. People probably think of me as a John/Rodney 'shipper because my two most popular stories in the fandom have been J/R, but I have to say that sometimes I like Elizabeth/Ronon, Rodney/Ronon, Rodney/Radek, John/Teyla and/or John/Ronon even more than John/Rodney. And I *write* mostly gen.

[neery.livejournal.com]

It might be because Weir is such an unpopular character in vast parts of fandom. If my favorite character was despised by what sometimes looks like the majority of the fandom to me, and my OTP scoffed at, I'd make sure to stick to my own safe little corner of the net, too. It's just no fun to keep stumbling over posts talking about how much they dislike your favorite things.

I think that's also the reason why there's much more cross-pollination with the Cadman and Teyly het-shippers -- she's a mch more popular and accepted character. I can think of quite a few slashers who have also written Teyla or Cadman with one of the boys, or Teyla threesomes, why I couldn't think of any Elizabeth stories at all (partly because I tend to avoid those like the plague -- might as well be honest about my tiny part in the great fandom divide).

I also think the het shippers are just that much more rare in this fandom than in many others, because there are too few awesome female characters who also have UST with the boys -- Teyla/Ronon, the best-represented het pairing as far as I know, is also the only one I can see at all in this show. It's far easier to ship the women of Buffy or Farscape, IMO.

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

Absolutely true. It's easier to write for characters that have something behind them, that feel real to their reality, even if they aren't to ours. Usually in SciFi, that means the male characters get written, the female don't. Because the writing of female characters on SciFi shows sucks.

The difference is Joss Whedon: Buffy and Firefly both had female characters that felt like people, not like "women written by men". There was more there to latch on to and play with.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

Quality. Well I tried to do that with the databurst (http://shusu.livejournal.com/tag/databurst), before its discontinuation. Like, this past week-and-a-half, my porn category was five het fics to eight slash fics. So in my humble opinion the quality of the fic is *there*. Even if we're having trouble locating it.

Porn? One might have to throw in porn vs. romance as another factor, because I can't stomach certain characterizations of John bowing to a romance plot, het or slash, while I'm sure some people wouldn't care for my fics where it's forget the fingers let's get the sex over with already.

Go Rodney. I'd also like to put forth the theory that Rodney is the neutral zone, all on his own. ^^ I dunno, how many of us slashers are all for the Rodney/Teyla? Is it just me? John as a character seems to be polarizing, to say the least.

Previous fandoms. HP. Nuff said.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

(((Also, Lorne/Novak? DELIGHTFUL. OMG.)))

[neery.livejournal.com]

I'm just surprised there isn't some sort of neutral zone,

But don't you think sga_noticeboard is kind of our neutral zone? That's where most of the different genres of the fandom seem to collide pretty peacefully -- writers, vidders, icon-makers, hetters and slashers. I've never seen any wank between the different groups, either.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I compiled databursts almost exclusively from the noticeboard members.

[setissma.livejournal.com]

I think it's maybe the relatively small number of characters. Like, you really don't *have* that many pairings to work with, so the ones that are plausible and make sense tend to rise to the top, and if there are only one or two, it divides out, really, cos you like one or the other better.

I was (am?) in Harry Potter, too, which is the complete opposite - most mix and match fandom ever, and though some people are rabid shippers, most people are like, eh, she works with more than one person.

[strifechaos.livejournal.com]

I see your point and have thought about the diversity in the fandoms before. There isn't much of it yet in SGA, especially when compared to Angel/Buffy.

I think that it might have to do currently with the amount of time that both have been airing. Stargate Atlantis is still fairly new while Buffy/Angel have been on for years; people have been Buffy-fans for a while longer than SGA-fans. They've had time to write/read, find pairings and characters they prefer. Challenges and groups have formed for seasons, people that like Willow might have been het writers from her few seasons of hetro-ness and then stuck with her when she became a couple with Tara, crossing into the slash genre for example.

There’s more canon to mess around with I guess is what I’m getting at.

Which reminds me of my other point for why SGA lacks variety, there haven’t been a lot of “new” characters. We have the main players and then some minor characters that have stuck around for an episode maybe two before they're totally left behind in canon. Though I suppose you could do crossover with SG-1 if you needed more characters, but I digress.

There's also the fact that people like seeing certain characters together and haven't likened to the idea of dipping their toe in a different pond yet.

I know I tend to reluctantly read other pairings but generally stick pretty much with John and Rodney. Though I still tend to read slash even then, Rodney and Ronon or "McShep" with Beckett.

I'm not sure if it's just because I just don't read het that much anymore or if it's just because the only strong female characters we have in SGA are Elizabeth and Teyla, neither of which who I care to read paired with the characters I'm generally interested in reading about. I'm not sure if that's just me or other people haven't warmed up to Weir and Teyla as well. (It's like I don't mind them being a supporting character in the story---I actually like it but as neither is a favorite I don't look out for stories about them.)

Which isn't to say I would be averse to seeing some het, if it's well written I'm up for anything.

So maybe all we need is time and a few new characters (Chuck and Lorne screen time are never bad! *grins*), but I like the idea of a neutral zone for just sharing the fandom love. *grins* Maybe I'll have to go check out john_elizabeth and see if they're hot tub is as cool as ours?

[ferret-kitty.livejournal.com]

Off-topic, a day late, and a dollar short, but your icon made me laugh out loud, and I definitely watched it go by at least three times. ... But it might have been more. Very cool.

Pardon my incoherence, I haven't slept for about40 hours

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lemon_lyman_/]

I was just discussing this same thing with a Teyla/Weir shipper I pointed in the direction of your last post (I hadn't noticed till she pointed it out). While I read almost exclusively McShep, I think this is because I'm often too lazy to search for good fic in other pairings. In McKay/Sheppard it is just there. There is so much, you needn't search through as much badfic to find the good. I actually ship most everyone where SGA is concerned; McKay/Beckett, Beckett/Teyla, Sheppard/Teyla, Sheppard/Weir, Zelenka/Weir, Weir/Teyla and on and on. They're even mostly het pairings. Those're just so much less common (and I dunno why that is) that it's less work to just read McKay/Sheppard, so I do. I think for whatever reason, when the best writers all gravitated to one pairing, a vast majority like myself converted for the sake of the fic, causing the other pairings to sort of feel a need to separate off and do their own thing.

Re: Pardon my incoherence, I haven't slept for about40 hours

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

May I ask, what did she point out? That it was mostly McKay/Sheppard people participating in the B-L thing, or something else?

[shetiger.livejournal.com]

*pimps gate_bitextual for the hell of it*

[cincodemaygirl.livejournal.com]

I want that poster really bad, omg. Bad influence you are. /Yoda

p.s. B-L: I still say you are a genius for holding this contest. I love these damn things, have for years, and the chance to enjoy fandom-flavored similar horrors is just fantastic. Any chance you could post a list of all the entries so we don't have to unpack all the nested threads?

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

I'm a bad influence on myself, too! $30! Not including shipping! Or framing!

I'm so glad that you're enjoying the B-L, 'cause I never would have thought of it if you hadn't posted that link. I'm not sure if I'll have time to post a list of all the entries, though I'll try; in the mean time, I'm pretty sure that all the real entries are at the tops of threads, so they're all visible without expanding.

[vonknibble.livejournal.com]

My first thought, when i read this post, was 'hey! i thought that too', and i don't have any past fandom experience to go against. My one and only fandom (in the internet sense) has been the Stargate Universe - SG1 and SGA, so i don't know how much of a difference that makes.

I started my fandom life a couple of years back, on GW - i think i lasted 6 months before running away screaming. My experience there nearly killed all the fun out of fandom for me, and if it wasn't for finding LJ...who knows? But yeah, i have seen the extreme sides of fandom decision in the shape of ship wars and some of the most nasty god awful behaviour.

It seems to me that the 'divide' is less a chasm and more a wiggly line. Those who write fiction are more known, and often known mostly by their fiction, but people don't necassarily write to their preffered pairings or genre, meaning they are sometimes assumed to be a certain kind of fan when their actual interests or preferences are completely different.

Conversly, those who don't write at all, and there are quite a few, and those who both don't write and lurk a little...their preferences don't get taken into account because of the minimal interaction they have, and by nature of being less visible to the fandom masses.

Neutral Zone sounds great, but the realist pessimist in me is pretty sure it won't stay neutral long...

SGA Fandom Divide

[anjak-j.livejournal.com]

I have to say, I actually actively avoid Sheppard/Weir shippers - and not because of the actual ship itself, though I'm not keen - more because of the experiences I've had with some of the people themselves in the past.

I have low tolerance for the militant crap that ship in SGA seems to attract, especially when it involves Sheppard with either Teyla or Elizabeth. I have to say, I actually welcome the segregation to a degree - I'd rather spend my time having fun reading what I enjoy and having polite conversation with like-minded people than bitching with people about pairings. I have actually noticed that SGA attracts a level of fandom wank that I've never experienced in any other fandom before, especially in the likes of GW.

In honesty, there are probably a good many people who run just from seeing my name just because it's me and not because of my slash leanings...

Re: SGA Fandom Divide

[neery.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm really surpsied at this. I've experienced SGA as one of the least wanky fandoms I've ever been in. I can think of only one fandom wank experience, and that was small, and not a pairing wank. I've admittedly always stayed away from the Sheppard/Weir places, but even in the mixed zones like the noticeboard, I've never seen any pairing wank. Where did you run intom problems like that? Not asking you to name specific people, of course -- just, are there really wanky communities, or was it more isolated incidents in people's own journals?

[raisintorte.livejournal.com]

First, I have to explain that I'm a multi-shipper, and because of that I hang out in both of the het and slash communities. My flist is about 1/3 slash, 2/3 het, but I can see how it's very easy to fall on one side and just keep your fandom interactions limited to those people.

I've found that sga_noticeboard is a generally neutral zone, but it does lean towards the slash side, as do most of the bigger communities, like sga_flashfic. I think a lot of the time the general communities, that are more commonly frequented by slashers, are so big it's a little intimidating to come in and post or interact.

I think another factor int his fandom is pure numbers. On the SGA het side the main pairings are John/Teyla and John/Elizabeth, and on the slash side it's pretty much all John/Rodney. Going off just the numbers, mckay_sheppard has 1305 members, john_teyla has 53, and john_elizabeth has 466. The slashers more than double the two main het pairings combined, and as I said sheer numbers like that are intimidating.

Then there is the fact people tend to stick with what they know and what they like, and don't see any point in venturing out into other parts of fandom. And the "my pairing is the only pairing, and everything is just plain wrong attitude." Those all add into the fandom divide.

Honestly, I think it's the divide that keeps the fandom from getting too wanky, and those people who want to venture into the other side, find ways to do it.

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

I am finding this conversation *fascinating*. Especially with the comparisons to btvs/ats but for me, it comes down to a couple of things.

1. Size of cast. Jossverse has a lot of characters, in all three shows, and he has a real gift for making one-off characters people viewers become interested in (Jonathan and Chanterelle/Anne being two easy ones) and want to see in other situations. That increases the possibilities, especially because of the potential cross over or "meeting up in new york randomly" types of fic.

2. Compatibility/Age of characters -- without backwardsly dissing sga or sg-1 or any other fandom, btvs was in a lot of ways about sex -- sexual identity, sexual exploration, sexual limits. It got couched in terms of who makes a good friend instead of a boyfriend (Xander) or why the best boyfriend ever actually isn't (Riley), and many other flavors. Sex was a highly present theme in a way that is not comparable to Rodney's occasional date or Sheppard being an intergalactic ho. This is less true for AtS and FF, but if you'll notice, AtS had a lot darker sexualized stories, and FF leans a lot more towards Gen (not that there's no sex in FF! *she says quickly*). FF was the most adult of the stories, the characters already fairly established, and that shows in fanfic as much as it does on screen.

Now we look at SGA, which is pretty much all about the trippy. Sex is usually used as a gag, if it's used at all, and it features a group of people who are old enough to know that sleeping with the people you work with can have seriously bad repurcussions. They aren't teenagers who aren't ready to fuck at the drop of a hat. They're adult enough to have already done the bad-boyfriend, psycho-girlfriend, and if they're into kink, they know a lot of their limits already.

Okay. So how's that circle back to slash? I think there's more freedom between the characters of Rodney and Shep then Shep and, um, anybody else. Rodney takes himself outside the chain of command all the time, since he listens only when he wants and he doesn't govern the city. Shep and Weird do, which puts them in a position where, to me, it makes it really hard for me to see them as ever being irresponsible enough.

Not that it wouldn't be hot.

So that creates a divide. I've only read a few sparky fics, but the ones that I do always circle back to issues in how they'll be able to impartially offer each other advice, how their relationship won't effect everyone else, in ways that mcshep just ... doesn't have to deal with. Granted, we have our own anchors, but they tend to be things like DADT, which is more nebulous and less immediately dangerous to those around them. To me, that translates into McShep people being more loose and open in their fanfic, while (again, *to me*) sparky authors actually have a bigger hill to climb. That tends to create an entrenched feeling, you know?

Also, hi! I am ranty mcranty pants today, sorry!

[fairestcat]

I'm with you on the Sheppard/Weir thing. As much as I adore Elizabeth, I have a hard time reading her in most romantic relationships, because of the precarious balance of the Atlantis leadership, and I can't see her being willing to go anywhere near the risk inherent in a relationship with John, it would totally fuck up the balance of power.

I think you hit on something big here though. Usually it's the slash fandom that has more hurdles to overcome, but I think you're right, in SGA it's the big het pairing that has to work considerably harder to convince me of it's plausibilitiy and I think that might well contribute to the entrenched attitude there.

[thegrrrl2002.livejournal.com]

I actually feel that the SGA fandom is less divided than others I've been in. Maybe that's because of the LJ format. My previous fandoms have mostly been in yahoo/mailing list type interactions (Enterprise, SG1 (in the beginning) and just by the specificity of the subjects, it was pretty self-segregating. LJ, on the other hand, allows me to put on my flist anyone I darn well please.

That said, I'm not big into het ships on SGA, but I will read them on occassion. And even write them. But my main interaction is with slashers, and slashers who dabble in het or threesomes.

So...I don't know what my point was. I like LJ? Yeah, that was it.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

I like LJ too! *g* And yes, I agree that my experience on it has been much more diverse than when I was on, say, BAPS, a Spike mailing list that I was a member of in 2000, 2001. LJ wins. =)

[lamardeuse.livejournal.com]

As someone who never gets terribly involved in fandom politics, I never really noticed a fandom divide in SGA per se, any more than the general observation that in the fandoms I've been in, most people tend to be either slashers or het fans, with little cross-pollination. Like you, when I was in XF (and Star Trek, my first fandom), I read very little slash; when I was in A-Team, my first slash fandom (yeah, shut up), I straddled the line, but since then it's been pretty much slash all the way for me until SGA, where I find I could read a lot of different het pairings (Ronon/Teyla, Elizabeth/just about anybody but John or Rodney). The first het I've written in a long time has been SGA (mind you, the fact that I was taken to task by a het freak for implying a John/Rodney relationship didn't endear me to that side of the fence, I must say), and I've found some really kick-ass het and gen stories. However, the fact that I'm not tapped into the network of shippers makes it difficult for me to actually find the good stories - for the most part it's been hit and miss til now. I'm not aware of any active anti-slash or anti-het hostility (except for GW, which is a galaxy unto itself), and certainly not the kind of infighting that existed in a fandom like due South between the fans of the two Rays. But perhaps I'm just locked in my little bubble, happily insulated from the rest of the world. :)

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

I know I'm locked in my own happy little bubble, and mostly that's nice. But sometimes I want to break out, and I can't seem to do it; like you, I mostly don't know where to find the good hetfic.

(I loved your Weir/Caldwell, BTW, as I hope I said at the time. And yes, that person who got on your case was psycho. I wonder if they would have freaked out at you so much if it had been some background, say, Sheppard/Cadman or Rodney/Teyla? Or even Rodney/Radek?)

[melagan.livejournal.com]

John/Rodney are just plain fun to play with and that makes them perfect for this kind of challenge.

and For your het love here’s a non- entry

Dr Biro left Ronon confused and strangely aroused when she let him turn on her power tools for the autopsy

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! RONON/BIRO 4EVA!!!11!!!1 THEIR LOVE IS THE PUREST!

[mousewrites.livejournal.com]

I don't think that SGA is alone in this. HP is REDICULASLY segregated along slash/het lines. You can wander for months in the slash side and never see a het moment or post...

And I'm so glad you linked to that poster. I ADORED Treed Murry, and want to pimp it to everyone. A poster would be cool...

[merelyn.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Enjoying this discussion v. much.

I would agree with other people that one reason for this dynamic is that it has been filtered down into SGA fandom from the writers and fans from more old-school, OTP, buddy-show, inherently slashy (and therefore segregated) fandoms like MFU, Starsky and Hutch, The Professionals, The Sentinel, post-Ray-wars due South, etc., with fans that are used to keeping to themselves and having that OTP to rule them all.

Of course, there are also plenty of people who came to SGA from big ensemble, pick and mix fandoms like the Jossverse and Harry Potter, which gives SGA fandom potentially a weird hybrid between those two fandom dynamics.

Part of the problem, of course, is that the show itself doesn't know what it wants to be. SGA tries to be an ensemble show, but it turns out to be the McKay and Sheppard show more often than not (and the McKay show when all else fails). There's a tension there, and an unbalanced distribution of narrative energy. The result of this is that fans who are used to ensemble shows as well as those fans who are used to OTP shows are left equally unsatisfied. Instead of one or the other, we are given lots of tantalizingly underdeveloped characters and a bantering relationship where if one character were to call the other by his first name it would make fandom history. This means lots more legwork in the fic department from everybody- either to develop the other characters more, or to create a relationship between McKay and Sheppard that we don't exactly see and may never see on screen. (Also a reason for a noticeable gap between the fanfiction and the show itself.)

[porntestpilot.livejournal.com]

Are you serious about this? This fandom is actually no where near as segregated as the SGC fandom is, the Sam/Jack -- Jack/Daniel fans kind of hate each other in scary ways. I wish I could get it cut off a little bit more, I don't want Shepherd/Weir anywhere on my flist. I want it a little more like the SGC one, I am aware I am in a minority there.

As far as the other fandoms I've been in, it's almost always been split up. Smallville was split carefully, there was no het in The Sentinel [haha], HP is divided like crazy, due South definitely divided.

However pairing-wise I'm not as rigid here, I love the Rodney/Shep clearly, but I also read every Rodney/Ronon thing ever written and then lie horribly about it. It is really the best way to avoid conflict, generally the het people and the slash people end up hating each other.

I've always likened it to hanging out with your friends

[lillian78.livejournal.com]

at a mall. You get together because you have something or, perhaps, many things in common. If someone loves het that's fine and dandy let them have fun, read, write etc. Now, personally, I've no interest in reading and/or writing it. Call me closed minded but my time online is limited and I do prefer slash and most particularly the Sheppard/McKay pairing. Like calls to like I guess. :-D

Re: I've always likened it to hanging out with your friends

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

No, that makes total sense. But I've always liked, say, when I have a friend who has interest X, and sometimes they'll talk about it even if it isn't my main interest, but we can talk about X and I feel like X and Y do get along and there's some communication between the two.

Which, to leave the realm of bad metaphor and vaguery, is I guess my way of saying:

*Yes, let us hang out and talk about McKay/Sheppard as much and as often as possible!
*Occasionally, I wish I had more people with whom I could discuss the het pairings that I like, or that I even knew how to find those people.
*And sometimes, even if I'm not personally invested, it's nice to hear with the folks with other interests are up to, and what their takes on stuff are. Like eavesdropping at the food court, you know? *g*

[lillyjk.livejournal.com]

it's been my experience that most fandoms are pretty well segregated by pairings...I dunno why. I mean of course my OTP is McKay/Sheppard, but I'll read McKay with just about anybody and I have a special place in my heart for McKay/Teyla het. hmmm. *ponders*

um, and my reel_sga fic is still in the works. I promise. I just haven't been able to write much lately.

[mcbeckla.livejournal.com]

yay for McTeyla!!

[bibliotech.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that, too (from my grand experience of being in this fandom for almost a month). I jumped right into McKay/Sheppard, and after a few weeks I realised that if I wanted to, I could live out my entire SGA life and never, ever see any other pairing. Fic that's not McKay/Sheppard never seems to show up on my flist unless I actively go looking for it. I was wondering if there was some sort of random, gen, het-and-slash-we-take-everyone type of fic community and maybe I was just unaware of it. But overall, people here seem to be nicer about it--I remember so many fights in Buffy yahoogroups about how stupid people were for liking Pairing X over Pairing Y.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if there was some sort of random, gen, het-and-slash-we-take-everyone type of fic community and maybe I was just unaware of it.

Have you tried

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<i>I was wondering if there was some sort of random, gen, het-and-slash-we-take-everyone type of fic community and maybe I was just unaware of it.</i>

Have you tried <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/atlantisfic/"atlantisfic</a>? I don't know whether it's that varied, but they do accept het, gen and slash, so since I write all three, I tend to post there rather than worrying about which community to post to.

[lilyayl.livejournal.com]

You're right. It is extremely segregated. There are the McShep shippers, some het people, and then everyone else. And everyone else tends to, in my limited experience of the fandom, blend and shift ships more often. The person who writes Rodney/Radek might also write Rodney/Beckett and Sheppard/Weir. Or a whole host of things.

I suppose what makes this so much more noticeable is the size of the fandom and the size of the McShep portion. In the Harry Potter fandom (which is the only other one I've been in) you have a couple incompatible ships (R/Hr v. H/Hr most famously), but each side is huge. And beyond that, you can be more than an R/Hr or H/Hr shipper. In fact, you can not care or ship other things entirely and the fandom is large enough that you may never notice.

In SGA, the first question seems to be, do you ship McShep or not. And then if you are a non-McShepper, your options for fic, vids, etc is severely limited in comparison to the McSheppers. This will change, I think (and hope! as an ardent non-McShepper), as the fandom grows.

[veracity]

All right, I’ll try and respond, but I’ve only been in the fandom three whole months, if that…however long today from Memorial Day (math, so not my subject). I think I’ve noticed that people have picked up the McKay/Sheppard banter, and it seems to be universal pairing, judging by LJ and things like the sga_newsletter. Personally, I’m a pick anything that makes sense. For instance, I really, really like Cadman/McKay more than anything, but as a fic reading whore it’s not the only thing I read. I came from the Buffy fandom ages ago, and then I was in HP. I tend to know more McKay/Sheppard preference people, so I stick to what they rec. If that makes sense. If they don’t rec a good Zelenka/Weir, then I won’t know it’s out there. Being new, I’m depending on the people who have been in the fandom longer (though, really, some of them are barely in it longer than me) and have figured out what they like. Usually from there, I like to go exploring, but only after I’ve determined what fics I like and why. And if all I’ve read is majority one ship, then that’s what usually sticks.

When I was in HP, I was a slasher, but I liked things like Ron/Draco as opposed to Harry/Draco. Actually my OTP in that fandom was Harry/Ron, but anyway. It seems like people stick to the more prolific writers as well. In Buffy…well, I was a shipping whore there too. Seriously, I was all about Faith/Spike, Faith/Willow, Dawn/Spike, Angel/Cordelia, Cordelia/Wes, and pretty much any pairing that stuck my fancy. With a smaller cast on SGA, I think that’s what makes it a tad bit more one sect or the other. In HP, you had a ton of minor characters that barely interacted with the major ones, but even a mention would put the two together (well, considering I shipped Seamus/Percy, I speak from experience on wtfery side). SGA is a smaller amount of people (a lot of milling extras, but you know, not a ton named) so people are pretty limited I think to what they read or really can get into characters enough to want to ship (as opposed to HP, where at least if they were in the same house, they had a small connection). So if someone liked John/Teyla and John/Elizabeth but hated John/Rodney, there wouldn’t be an overlap. I don’t think that makes a whole lot of sense either.

If you can figure out what I meant with that babble, um, more power to you.