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

[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.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Usually in SciFi, that means the male characters get written, the female don't. Because the writing of female characters on SciFi shows sucks.

Hm, but is that really the case on SGA? Not that it's the bestest most feminist show ever, but we know far more about Elizabeth's background and life on Earth, for instance, than we do about John's. And I think Teyla is a very strong character.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

I love Teyla. (And I think that may be due more to Rachel Luttrell than to the writers, but the same could be said of John and Joe Flanigan.) I wish there were more Teyla fic. Or really, more Rodney/Teyla fic. Er.

But yes, I do think there are interesting female characters on SGA. I'd include Cadman in there, too.

[neery.livejournal.com]

Personally, I do think the writing of the women sucks, and with Elizabeth in particular -- I started out loving her, and the whokle idea of her, partly because she triggered the love for female leading characters I've still left over from one of my very first fandoms, Voyager. But I ended up disliking her pretty soon, because the writers seemed to use her as Sheppard's opponent, the one who disagreed with him in pretty much anything, regardless of whether that was consistant with her behavior and ethics in previous eps. The background we got of her didn't make that any better.

And I ended up hating Cadman, who has the potential to be a strong and likeable character, also for what I consider poor writing choices.

I know a lot of people feel the same way. Teyla seems to be the only female on the show most people in my circle of friends can agree on liking.

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

I actually WANT to like Cadman. I feel she has potential. But she's just so damn fake, so stereotypical in her own way.

[neery.livejournal.com]

I did like her during parts of the eps with her, but there were other parts that just annoyed me to no end.

Opponents

[lonespark.livejournal.com]

I hated Shep in the early episodes, for the same reasons.

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

I actually do. It's not that we do (or don't) know a lot of facts about these characters...it's more whether or not they, as people, ring true for me. And Elizabeth, especially, often doesn't. I'm not always sure if that's the writing or the acting - I suspect both, because with Teyla, I feel that the writing isn't quite right, but that the actress is bringing something to this role that I quite like. She lifts it above the writing.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

*nods*

Yeah, I think RL is definitely bringing something extra--and strongly needed!--to the role: a sense of humor. I think Teyla isn't written with too much of one, but RL's reaction shots are often PRICELESS.

I also really want to like Elizabeth, because she should be cool, and because Torri seems awesome. But there's just no there there.