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

[empressvesica.livejournal.com]

A friend and I were just discussing this the other day. She is heavy into Anime fandoms, among other things, and was saying that in her observation the SG fandoms are some of THE most segregated she's ever seen. She writes love fic - slash and het. She even wrote a fantastic SGA cross with BtVS (McKay/Fred if you were wondering). She said she lost interest because there were so few readers and such scant feedback for het and crossover het in particular.

I am just sort of wandering into this fandom...and am leaning towards the het side of the ocean as far as reading/writing prefs.

I am coming out of the big-love-in of the Jossverse fandoms - BtVS/AtS and Firefly. And yes, they seemed more "More fic! Woot!" than obsessed with pairings.

Oddly the other major fandom I muck around in is NOTORIOUS for being rabid about their 'ships (Harry Potter) and yet the corner of fandom I was in (Rare Pairings/the Slytherin Obsessed) was a quite friendly little place. It was common to find writers that read/wrote Draco, Ginny, Pansy, Lucius, Narcissa and Blaise as well as a number of permutations of pairings with those characters.

So...why? Well, SGA is still a small fandom right now (in comparison). Historically, small fandoms tend to lean one way or the other in a major way. An explanation I have heard is that quite a few well known HP slash writers wandered over early and sort of set the slash tone. They read/reviewed slash in their favored pairings more, created communities, ran ficathons...because that's why they liked.

When fandoms get bigger, you see more and more specialty groups. The small specialty groups (Draco/Ginny, Crossover writers, etc.) tend to be a more diverse group because there aren't a TON of people read/reviewing their pet ships.

Of course, this is all just my two cents.

I was tickled to see someone else debating what has been chatter on my flist for a week and something I have been thinking about quite a bit since I think my first forays into writing SGA will be het crossovers.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

I will possibly attempt to say something more coherent and intelligent later, but right now all I've got is: McKay/Fred? Link!

*g*

[empressvesica.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I will do you TWO better than that. I just had a full-blown, body and soul comsuming McKay crush sneak up on me within the last few weeks. That and the continuing fixation on Beckett led to some serious scouring of the web for some NEW het pairings.

I present:

Small Universe - Fred/McKay (http://www.tthfanfic.com/Story-7339/CinnamonGrrl+Small+Universe.htm)
The tale of how McKay's life changes when he meets a girl who wants a taco.

What She Wants - Anya/McKay (http://www.tthfanfic.com/Story-9511/BeatriceOtter+What+She+Wants.htm)
My note: BEST explanation ever for the REAL reason why he got banished to Siberia. Tee hee.


Just Desserts - Faith/McKay (http://www.tthfanfic.com/Story-6211/Azar+Just+Desserts.htm)
Faith gets what she wants, and she wants Rodney.

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

Small?

Heh. Well, okay, not a behemoth like Harry Potter or Buffy. But as far as I can tell there are very few other fandoms with a larger online presence in English.

I was just humorously surprised because SGA is by far one of the larger fandoms that I've been in. Going on my own observations SGA seems roughly equivalent in active online fannish population to The Sentinel, Due South, or Highlander when I was in them at their height, and all of these are usually described as fairly large fandoms.

[empressvesica.livejournal.com]

Well...I am coming from the two behemoth fandoms you listed so...I suppose one person's small is another person's large fandom?