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

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

I’m bitextual – I like slash and het and gen, and have written each in SGA. My One True Character on the show is John Sheppard, and he’s always the one I want to read about or write the most. I pair Rodney and John and still like Elizabeth. I like *all* the main characters on SGA, although if pressed for a sacrifice I’d shove Carson out the airlock (and I loathe Caldwell, but he’s not a main character).

My feelings about different pairings is dependant on the characters involved – McKay/Sheppard works for me at all times, but Sheppard/Weir is mostly limited to the latter half of the first season (the bonds of leadership and desperation during the time of isolation) or futurefic. Weir/Zelenka is romantic, Weir/Dex is all about opposites attracting. I’m less into Teyla pairings because it’s hard for me to see her allowing emotion to overtake her reason. I’ve read Rodney/Ronon and enjoyed it but have no urge to write it. John/Ronon is all about sex and warrior bonds. And that’s not even getting into the minor characters.

Wraithbait provides some interesting statistics; slash stories far outnumber gen or het. As of today:

1831 slash stories
836 gen stories
510 het stories

I’ve archived every story I’ve written (save one) on Wraithbait, and it provides an interesting look at which of them are the most popular: a Sheppard/McKay explicit porn story has twice the number of hits as my next most-popular story, which is Sheppard/McKay with plot. Right in line with that are two shorter McKay/Sheppard pieces, who have almost the same number of hits. An Elizabeth/Ronon story has been viewed by half as many people. Rodney and John-focused gen stories are more popular. An Elizabeth gen story is less popular. And I have no clue how many of these hits transformed into “read the story completely” – my level of feedback is not high, but it does show that given nothing but pairing and summary, Sheppard/McKay draws more interest.

As a writer, if I’m going to get the most feedback for writing Sheppard/McKay, am I going to spend a lot of effort on het pairings? Now me, I write what moves me when it moves me, but there are market forces in place telling me that the demand is for more Sheppard/McKay stories.

Another community for gen and het fanfiction is lostcityfound, by the way.