ponderings on friends and friending memes

[tielan]

I put my name down on the SG1/SGA friending meme.

However, since my favourite SGA character is Teyla and my favourite SGA pairing is John/Teyla, I doubt I'm going to get any new friends out of it. The most-disliked character (or least-liked, anyway) and most-disliked pairing on SGA? Never let it be said that I in any way, shape, or form, run with the crowd! At any rate, I daresay that the other friending meme is going to be a bust for people like myself, who aren't McShep, Shweir, or Teynon (or whatever they're calling it).

I thought about running a friending meme for fans of Teyla: just for fans of Teyla. But I seem to be a bit of a black sheep in fandom these days. Hold the 'wrong' opinions. Say the 'wrong' things. Don't support the 'right' characters or the 'right' pairings in the 'right' ways. Hell, half my f-list avoids this LJ for one reason or another! Do I have any hope of getting total strangers involved in such an undertaking?

And even friends-of-friends would probably be a bust: the people I could count on to propagate this meme don't have large f-lists and aren't heavily involved in fandom. They might not even want to expand their f-lists.

Am I arguing myself out of doing this? Possibly. In fact, quite probably. But the fact is, a lot of Teyla's fans seem to have gone underground - and we who remain aren't exactly the cool kids. Now are we the uncool kids because we like Teyla, or is Teyla just liked by the uncool kids?

(No offence intended to any of my f-list reading this who are Teyla-fans. But you have to admit, we're not exactly a chatty, involved, super-popular bunch. Well, maybe you are! But I'm not.)

So what I'm basically asking is whether there's anyone reading this who'd pimp a Teyla-oriented friending meme, or knows of people who'd answer a Teyla-oriented friending meme run by me. (I think it's a valid question: there are at least three people I know of who are fans of Teyla but would rather slit their firstborn's throat than touch anything I'm involved in.)

It would be nice to expand the f-list with Teyla-fans (preferably productive ones) before the S4 spoilers start seeping out.

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I was going to watch Heroes: Hiro tonight. But all I wanna do is sleep.

Comments

[tielan]

Yeah, I get the 'identification' thing - a lot of women identify with Elizabeth being white, middle-class, educated, from a technologically-advanced society, and 'bookish and geeky' rather than 'sporty and physical'. All of which appeals to the white, middleclass, educated, technologically advanced, bookish-and-geeky women of fandom.

I guess my problem is: that's not how I pick characters I want to write for, that I'm interested in.

Teyla's interesting to me because she's a cipher. Because she dresses 'revealingly' but doesn't act sexy - her standards are not Earth ones and shouldn't be measured as such. Because she observes a lot and says little, but still keeps up with what's going on - intelligence that doesn't require audience. Because she's got potential to go places in the alliance between Earth and Pegasus - working diplomatically as well as being a physically competent ally.

I dunno, maybe I'm a shallow author. I just don't feel the need to really absorb her cultural norms to write her.

I wonder if non-Americans would have an easier time writing Teyla than Americans. Because, ultimately, the "earth way of thinking" depicted in the Stargates is really American thinking - written by and for and American audience. So maybe it's sufficient to be "alien" simply by not seeing through American cultural specs?

Just a thought. :)

[missyvortexdv.livejournal.com]

Regarding if non-US people finding it easier to write Teyla, could make for an interesting poll...if it's quantifiable, depends on how well people think they write her.

[tielan]

It's kinda intriguing. Most of the hardcore Teyla fans (those that don't generally ID with Elizabeth) that I've met and chatted with online are of African, Chinese/Asian, Indian/Subcontinental background.

I'm sure there are exceptions either way, but it's intriguing all the same.