ramblings

[tielan]

I think I'm the only John/Teyla entrant left in the sgabigbang. Real life hit one of the writers of the only other story I've heard anything about and it's a very very bad time for her right now.

Having realised that the sga_newsletter has a very strange way of interpreting [gen, John, Teyla] as [Sheppard/Teyla], I'm once again curious about what exactly constitutes John/Teyla in my stories.

It's hard to know where the line between attraction and actual pairing-ness is drawn - and with something as delicate as the John/Teyla pairing EWW! My eyes! How dare you sully my eyes with John/Teyla! it's a tough question. With the stories I usually write, which don't necessarily involve them sexing it up or smooching it out, it's an even more difficult question.

Is John touching Teyla in Doppelganger shippy? What about Teyla hugging him in the same ep? Does the headtouch in Return count as shippy? What about the fact that Teyla's the only one that John sees as a friend in Phantoms? If Rodney coming to see John in Outcast is a true indication of the feelings between the two men, would the scene have contained the same overtones if it had been Teyla instead? (I secretly believe that the scene in Outcast was originally written for Teyla, not Rodney. RL simply couldn't make the shooting schedule due to her pregnancy. It just feels more like something canon-Teyla would say than canon-Rodney.)

Anyway, the question - as always - is where does friendship end and 'romantic' begin?

Does pre-slash count as 'gen'? And if pre-slash counts as gen, why is pre-het generally considered het? (At least, it is if the labels that end up attached to my fic are any indication.)

If I post to john_teyla or sga_beya - both John/Teyla-focused stories, does that mean my story is automatically het? According to the fannish gatekeepers of SGA, can a story be John&Teyla without being John/Teyla? Will the john_teyla_fic Thing-A-Thon entries all be labelled 'het' because they focus on John and Teyla?

Times like these, I want to do a social experiment. Not just for the lulz (although that would be entertaining as well), but because when you tell the control group they're being fed the placebo, it kinda wrecks the damn experiment.

I wrote to 19,300 last night at 1:30am. Using Teyla as a social gauge for a six-month-missing-John-Sheppard-Atlantis (because, let's face it, Rodney and Ronon suck as social gauges, and Elizabeth's at the top of the food chain, so she can't see what's happening below) is actually a very convoluted process. The woman's a damn onion - layers and layers and layers, and adds piquancy to a thick, hearty story. I always hated stodge.

*wonders if there's any stewed pork left in the fridge or if her sister ate it all*

On the off-chance that there's anyone who'd has the time/energy to encourage me in the next six weeks to the sgabigbang finish line, the comm is sga_team and you have to request to become a member in order to see the f-locked posts (snippets, story, the stuff behind the scenes).

Comments

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

Okay, firstly, I gotta say, I hate 'pre-slash' and 'pre-het'. To me that's cheating. It's like, the person knows that they'll get more readers if there's a ship involved, but they couldn't be bothered to wait to post the story until the relationship kicks in so they lable it 'pre-whatever'. Feh. To me, there is either 'ship or there is not. If you know the story is going to end up there, label it as such. Or if it really is gen, and any shippiness that happens later is specifically a development that occurs outside of that first story, then call the damn thing gen.

Rar. Stupid, random pet peeve, but, yeah.

It's hard to know where the line between attraction and actual pairing-ness is drawn

I draw that line in different places for show v. fanfic. Touching, hugging, whatever, on the show - I resist seeing 'ship. I want it drawn out for me clearly, I want to know exactly what the characters are thinking in regards those touches and what have you.

But in fanfic, it IS drawn out for me clearly, because I know what the characters are thinking. Your five part story that I just read today, if I had written that, I might have labeled it John/Teyla UST, because to me John is very clearly reacting to Teyla's closeness and touch, but then I may have drawn back and stuck with gen because he doesn't pursue it and she doesn't seem to be having the same thoughts. It's not outright John/Teyla to me, though. If Teyla had appeared to be having similar reactions, that would ring my 'ship bells. So I guess what I'm saying is, if I see something labeled character/character, I expect some kind of reciprocal action, even if it involves one of the characters rejecting the other, or the characters never actually, physically getting together. When I see the gen label, I tend to expect no hints of 'ship at all, but a bit of really vague UST won't make me go "hey, that should be labeled as 'ship, darnit!" either...

R.e. the John Teyla Thingathon, I wouldn't think they'd all be labeled het, because the challenge is not a specifically het challenge. But I can see people assuming that fic is John/Teyla if it's posted to a comm that is, for all intents and purposes, a John/Teyla comm...

I don't know how good I'd be at formal encouragement (ask everyone in my life: I suck at verbalizing everything from congratulations, to sympathies, to encouragement, and beyond), but posts like this one do make me go "you hit 19,300, WHOA! Awesome!!"

[raksha38.livejournal.com]

To me, there is either 'ship or there is not.

[snip]

I draw that line in different places for show v. fanfic. Touching, hugging, whatever, on the show - I resist seeing 'ship. I want it drawn out for me clearly, I want to know exactly what the characters are thinking in regards those touches and what have you.

That's really interesting! I was just going to post something saying pretty much the opposite! For me, it's all about degrees and authorial intent (yes, I realize that's PoMo Blasphemy. My fellow academics can suck it. I'm a rebel!). Obviously, if there's smoochies and such, it's obviously shippy. But if you're being all subtle about it, I don't know that there is any hard and fast rule about how to categorize it. I guess an author has to take stock of how much of the story is devoted to the romantic feelings of the characters, how important said feelings are to the story as a whole, and where they intend the characters to end up at the end of the story.

But I also agree that a lot of "pre-slash/pre-whatever" labeling is a grab for readers. You're going to get fewer readers if you label your story UST (as that carries with it the implication that the UST is a permanent or at least very long term state of being), whereas the term "pre-slash/pre-whatever" implies hawt smexxing on the horizon. And we all know what kind of stories get the most readers.

As for the actual show vs. fanfic, I have to read into things, at least to some extent. For some characters (*cough*JohnSheppard*cough*), if they ever actually did spell out what they're thinking and feeling, I'd be throwing pillows at the TV and screaming "He's a Replicator! Run, Teyla! Run away!" And since stories should (ideally, anyway) show rather than tell, I think we'll always have to read into things to some extent. But it's a slippery slope. You can go all kinds of crazy reading things into the show that are only tangentially related to reality at best ("ZOMG, they're in frame together! They're obviously fucking!").

[raksha38.livejournal.com]

Oh, and also: As for interpreting "gen, John, Teyla" as "John/Teyla," I honestly believe it's 1) the larger fandom just doesn't want to see John and Teyla meaningfully interact in any context at least partly because 2) the larger fandom's rampant sexism makes it hard for them to see Teyla in any kind of significant, non-T&A-providing light. So, if John and Teyla are interacting, it's because she's the Sex Object, thereby threatening McShep with Sheppards obvious heterosexuality.


Fandom itches and smells like Fritos.

[tielan]

I guess an author has to take stock of how much of the story is devoted to the romantic feelings of the characters, how important said feelings are to the story as a whole, and where they intend the characters to end up at the end of the story.

Right. Which was what I was considering when categorising 'Partnership' and 'His Own Kind Of Freedom'.

It's easier in 'Partnership' since that's not only about John and Teyla's friendship and interaction in a partnership, but also about Earth and Pegasus, too.

In 'His Own Kind Of Freedom', my focus was more on setting up John in Atlantis town, making it a place for him to stop and breathe, finding things that would connect him to the town and the townspeople, and leave something that might suggest something between him and Teyla, without necessarily having to make it as direct as, "They're going to end up in the sack together."

[tielan]

Okay, I'm pretty much in agreement with you on the canon-show vs. fanon works (in the example of Stargate Atlantis).

The only argument I'd add would be that, while we're not always given the exact thoughts of the characters in any one moment in show-canon, I think that tendencies do show up over time, resulting in an indication of a leaning one way or the other.

I had a conflict regarding Partnership - the five-part story you mentioned - and just how 'shippy' it was. In the end, I labelled it 'gen' because it was more about them acting in partnership and friendship - with a strong overtone of "this is not just about John and Teyla as individuals, this is about the bodies they represent: Earth and Pegasus" - than it was about them coming to an understanding.

It was about their relationship, but in the context of friends and allies. I think that John's attraction to her is part of that, and if the story had been written from Teyla's POV, then there'd have been her thoughts on John and his friendliness, although she'd have been more reserved about it. (I always write Teyla as more controlled in her reactions to John than John is towards Teyla. Just as I write John more restrained in showing emotion towards Teyla than Teyla is towards John. Does that make sense?)

Of course, I can say all this because I'm the author and I knew what I wanted the characters to think. I don't know if I managed to convey that sufficiently in the story - the disconnect between intent and message.

The thing about places like john_teyla and sga_beya is that I post friendship fic there as well as romantic - stories that include both John and Teyla as main characters.

I figured there might be one or two who like reading about "John-and-Teyla" and not just "John/Teyla OTP!!!!", so I post the notifications to those two comms, too.

Heh. Regarding encouragement, I probably should have posted about having 'inclination' as well. But, honestly, I'd be okay for you to stick with this kind of thing - conversations and discussions via LJ comment.

[raksha38.livejournal.com]

I had a conflict regarding Partnership

I think you made the right call by labeling it gen. Sure, there was a lovely little undercurrent of attraction, but on the whole that wasn't what the story was about. You could have deleted those bits from the story entirely, and it still would have held up. I don't think little threads of attraction between friends are necessarily romantic, or even sexual sometimes.

(I always write Teyla as more controlled in her reactions to John than John is towards Teyla. Just as I write John more restrained in showing emotion towards Teyla than Teyla is towards John. Does that make sense?)

It makes total sense to me. John has always struck me as someone who's actually pretty emotionally volatile (therefore, less controlled in what he feels) for the same Childhood Trauma that makes him shy away from actually ever showing what he feels. I love the boy, but he has issues. And conversely, I think that for all the angst that living under the threat of the Wraith must bring, Teyla somehow manages to be much more well adjusted, thereby making her more even-keeled in her emotional responses and more comfortable actually showing those emotions when appropriate.

[tielan]

John has always struck me as someone who's actually pretty emotionally volatile

You know, I had a conversation with someone once about how John, Rodney, and Elizabeth are very emotional people. My term for it was "emotional black holes" although, really, the term 'black hole' is maybe a little too harsh. "Emotional gravitational fields" perhaps?

At any rate, those three are the 'emotional' ones of the show - the ones who I reckon would be most likely to end up in therapy (except for John because he'd deny-deny-deny-deny-deny-deny-deny) over the shit that is their lives.

Teyla, Carson, and Ronon are all much more emotionally stable characters to me - they've got a sense of balance about them that the other three lack. They're the people that you'd lean on in a crisis and know that they'd still be there holding you steady when you got out of it.

[raksha38.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think you're totally right. Although I think Keller is a bit more stable than Carson was. He could hold it together, no doubt, but sometimes he had a tendancy to go all Whiny Mama's Boy at the most random moments. Keller's little New Athos Sleepover with Teyla seems to have toughened her ass right up.

I think for the kind of crises that hit Atlantis on a regular basis, you need a mix of both kinds of people. You'd definitely want to lean on someone like Teyla, Ronon, and Carson/Keller, and they'd definitely still be there with you when you all came out the other side. But you also need people like John, Rodney, or Elizabeth veering off to extremes in order to pull off the wild shit that saves the day against all odds. Put them all together and the more stable team members anchor the others and keeps their extremism from turning (self-)destructive.

In short: Yay, Team!


Yikes, I need to get off the computer and go to bed before my arms give out completely. Stupid tendons. G'night!

[agriope23.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm still writing BigBang. I just friend the wrong comm which explains how I missed the posts. It's done now anyway so worry not, there'll be a little more J/T.

[tielan]

Oh good. :)

How's your writing going, anyway? I knew you had computer troubles for a while - are they sorted now?

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

Okay, firstly, I gotta say, I hate 'pre-slash' and 'pre-het'. To me that's cheating. It's like, the person knows that they'll get more readers if there's a ship involved, but they couldn't be bothered to wait to post the story until the relationship kicks in so they lable it 'pre-whatever'. Feh. To me, there is either 'ship or there is not. If you know the story is going to end up there, label it as such. Or if it really is gen, and any shippiness that happens later is specifically a development that occurs outside of that first story, then call the damn thing gen.

Rar. Stupid, random pet peeve, but, yeah.

It's hard to know where the line between attraction and actual pairing-ness is drawn

I draw that line in different places for show v. fanfic. Touching, hugging, whatever, on the show - I resist seeing 'ship. I want it drawn out for me clearly, I want to know exactly what the characters are thinking in regards those touches and what have you.

But in fanfic, it IS drawn out for me clearly, because I know what the characters are thinking. Your five part story that I just read today, if I had written that, I might have labeled it John/Teyla UST, because to me John is very clearly reacting to Teyla's closeness and touch, but then I may have drawn back and stuck with gen because he doesn't pursue it and she doesn't seem to be having the same thoughts. It's not outright John/Teyla to me, though. If Teyla had appeared to be having similar reactions, that would ring my 'ship bells. So I guess what I'm saying is, if I see something labeled character/character, I expect some kind of reciprocal action, even if it involves one of the characters rejecting the other, or the characters never actually, physically getting together. When I see the gen label, I tend to expect no hints of 'ship at all, but a bit of really vague UST won't make me go "hey, that should be labeled as 'ship, darnit!" either...

R.e. the John Teyla Thingathon, I wouldn't think they'd all be labeled het, because the challenge is not a specifically het challenge. But I can see people assuming that fic is John/Teyla if it's posted to a comm that is, for all intents and purposes, a John/Teyla comm...

I don't know how good I'd be at formal encouragement (ask everyone in my life: I suck at verbalizing everything from congratulations, to sympathies, to encouragement, and beyond), but posts like this one do make me go "you hit 19,300, WHOA! Awesome!!"

[raksha38.livejournal.com]

To me, there is either 'ship or there is not.

[snip]

I draw that line in different places for show v. fanfic. Touching, hugging, whatever, on the show - I resist seeing 'ship. I want it drawn out for me clearly, I want to know exactly what the characters are thinking in regards those touches and what have you.

That's really interesting! I was just going to post something saying pretty much the opposite! For me, it's all about degrees and authorial intent (yes, I realize that's PoMo Blasphemy. My fellow academics can suck it. I'm a rebel!). Obviously, if there's smoochies and such, it's obviously shippy. But if you're being all subtle about it, I don't know that there is any hard and fast rule about how to categorize it. I guess an author has to take stock of how much of the story is devoted to the romantic feelings of the characters, how important said feelings are to the story as a whole, and where they intend the characters to end up at the end of the story.

But I also agree that a lot of "pre-slash/pre-whatever" labeling is a grab for readers. You're going to get fewer readers if you label your story UST (as that carries with it the implication that the UST is a permanent or at least very long term state of being), whereas the term "pre-slash/pre-whatever" implies hawt smexxing on the horizon. And we all know what kind of stories get the most readers.

As for the actual show vs. fanfic, I have to read into things, at least to some extent. For some characters (*cough*JohnSheppard*cough*), if they ever actually did spell out what they're thinking and feeling, I'd be throwing pillows at the TV and screaming "He's a Replicator! Run, Teyla! Run away!" And since stories should (ideally, anyway) show rather than tell, I think we'll always have to read into things to some extent. But it's a slippery slope. You can go all kinds of crazy reading things into the show that are only tangentially related to reality at best ("ZOMG, they're in frame together! They're obviously fucking!").

[raksha38.livejournal.com]

Oh, and also: As for interpreting "gen, John, Teyla" as "John/Teyla," I honestly believe it's 1) the larger fandom just doesn't want to see John and Teyla meaningfully interact in any context at least partly because 2) the larger fandom's rampant sexism makes it hard for them to see Teyla in any kind of significant, non-T&A-providing light. So, if John and Teyla are interacting, it's because she's the Sex Object, thereby threatening McShep with Sheppards obvious heterosexuality.


Fandom itches and smells like Fritos.

[tielan]

I guess an author has to take stock of how much of the story is devoted to the romantic feelings of the characters, how important said feelings are to the story as a whole, and where they intend the characters to end up at the end of the story.

Right. Which was what I was considering when categorising 'Partnership' and 'His Own Kind Of Freedom'.

It's easier in 'Partnership' since that's not only about John and Teyla's friendship and interaction in a partnership, but also about Earth and Pegasus, too.

In 'His Own Kind Of Freedom', my focus was more on setting up John in Atlantis town, making it a place for him to stop and breathe, finding things that would connect him to the town and the townspeople, and leave something that might suggest something between him and Teyla, without necessarily having to make it as direct as, "They're going to end up in the sack together."

[tielan]

Okay, I'm pretty much in agreement with you on the canon-show vs. fanon works (in the example of Stargate Atlantis).

The only argument I'd add would be that, while we're not always given the exact thoughts of the characters in any one moment in show-canon, I think that tendencies do show up over time, resulting in an indication of a leaning one way or the other.

I had a conflict regarding Partnership - the five-part story you mentioned - and just how 'shippy' it was. In the end, I labelled it 'gen' because it was more about them acting in partnership and friendship - with a strong overtone of "this is not just about John and Teyla as individuals, this is about the bodies they represent: Earth and Pegasus" - than it was about them coming to an understanding.

It was about their relationship, but in the context of friends and allies. I think that John's attraction to her is part of that, and if the story had been written from Teyla's POV, then there'd have been her thoughts on John and his friendliness, although she'd have been more reserved about it. (I always write Teyla as more controlled in her reactions to John than John is towards Teyla. Just as I write John more restrained in showing emotion towards Teyla than Teyla is towards John. Does that make sense?)

Of course, I can say all this because I'm the author and I knew what I wanted the characters to think. I don't know if I managed to convey that sufficiently in the story - the disconnect between intent and message.

The thing about places like john_teyla and sga_beya is that I post friendship fic there as well as romantic - stories that include both John and Teyla as main characters.

I figured there might be one or two who like reading about "John-and-Teyla" and not just "John/Teyla OTP!!!!", so I post the notifications to those two comms, too.

Heh. Regarding encouragement, I probably should have posted about having 'inclination' as well. But, honestly, I'd be okay for you to stick with this kind of thing - conversations and discussions via LJ comment.

[raksha38.livejournal.com]

I had a conflict regarding Partnership

I think you made the right call by labeling it gen. Sure, there was a lovely little undercurrent of attraction, but on the whole that wasn't what the story was about. You could have deleted those bits from the story entirely, and it still would have held up. I don't think little threads of attraction between friends are necessarily romantic, or even sexual sometimes.

(I always write Teyla as more controlled in her reactions to John than John is towards Teyla. Just as I write John more restrained in showing emotion towards Teyla than Teyla is towards John. Does that make sense?)

It makes total sense to me. John has always struck me as someone who's actually pretty emotionally volatile (therefore, less controlled in what he feels) for the same Childhood Trauma that makes him shy away from actually ever showing what he feels. I love the boy, but he has issues. And conversely, I think that for all the angst that living under the threat of the Wraith must bring, Teyla somehow manages to be much more well adjusted, thereby making her more even-keeled in her emotional responses and more comfortable actually showing those emotions when appropriate.

[tielan]

John has always struck me as someone who's actually pretty emotionally volatile

You know, I had a conversation with someone once about how John, Rodney, and Elizabeth are very emotional people. My term for it was "emotional black holes" although, really, the term 'black hole' is maybe a little too harsh. "Emotional gravitational fields" perhaps?

At any rate, those three are the 'emotional' ones of the show - the ones who I reckon would be most likely to end up in therapy (except for John because he'd deny-deny-deny-deny-deny-deny-deny) over the shit that is their lives.

Teyla, Carson, and Ronon are all much more emotionally stable characters to me - they've got a sense of balance about them that the other three lack. They're the people that you'd lean on in a crisis and know that they'd still be there holding you steady when you got out of it.

[raksha38.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think you're totally right. Although I think Keller is a bit more stable than Carson was. He could hold it together, no doubt, but sometimes he had a tendancy to go all Whiny Mama's Boy at the most random moments. Keller's little New Athos Sleepover with Teyla seems to have toughened her ass right up.

I think for the kind of crises that hit Atlantis on a regular basis, you need a mix of both kinds of people. You'd definitely want to lean on someone like Teyla, Ronon, and Carson/Keller, and they'd definitely still be there with you when you all came out the other side. But you also need people like John, Rodney, or Elizabeth veering off to extremes in order to pull off the wild shit that saves the day against all odds. Put them all together and the more stable team members anchor the others and keeps their extremism from turning (self-)destructive.

In short: Yay, Team!


Yikes, I need to get off the computer and go to bed before my arms give out completely. Stupid tendons. G'night!

[agriope23.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm still writing BigBang. I just friend the wrong comm which explains how I missed the posts. It's done now anyway so worry not, there'll be a little more J/T.

[tielan]

Oh good. :)

How's your writing going, anyway? I knew you had computer troubles for a while - are they sorted now?