Then I started to lose interest in Harry Potter, as these things tend to go, and Stargate: Atlantis was just starting up. I hated the pilot and first few episodes. They were trite, boring, and blatantly copying their parent show. If I wanted to watch these episodes again, I'd watch the damn SG-1 originals. It took a rainy Sunday and a SGA marathon on SciFi of the first half of the season to get me hooked. They aired The Storm and I was in. I loved it and it was different from SG-1. I started watching weekly then.
I got into J/R first because I was coming from J/D (primarily) in SG-1 and it seemed like the logical jump. Plus, there was an audience for it. The main problem was that other people shipping J/R seemed to be watching a radically different show than I was and there was only so long I could smile and nod along before I finally went "Fuck that shit." Coincidently, this is about the time The Gift aired and, again, the rest was history.
I adore Teyla, even if I don't write a lot of fic in this fandom. Fannish interaction, the back-and-forth, vital, active vibe of getting together with other fans is really, really key to me in being fannish. It doesn't have to be a lot of other fans but there has to be some. And with Teyla, the pickings were few and most of them were as frustrating as the J/R shippers. Radically different show. A lot of Teyla "fans" are fans of her in the sense of John'sgirlfriend or Ronon'ssparringpartner or Rodney'stherapist. You know what I mean. They aren't into Teyla, they're into using her as a stand-in for themselves. The ones that are left often suffer, none too gently, from the same orientalism the show possesses. They ignore that Teyla is smart, practical, and effective. They ignore she's competent. At which point we're talking about totally different characters.
Then, around S3, I'd say, the tide towards Teyla in the larger fandom changed. You know what I mean. Where she went from That Islander Bitch [Who Fights In Skirts!] Who Gets In The Way of One True Love to Hey, She's Kinda Cool [When I'm Not Loving McShep!]. In fannish terms it was a huge shift. But, by that point, I'd written the fandom off and was enjoying the show in pretty much a vacuum. I don't have problems doing that. I do it for a lot of shows that just don't have consistent fandoms or that I don't want to be all fannishly involved in, due to the show itself and/or time constraints. I think that's also about the point I met you, which was unfortunate for you. If we'd met a year earlier, you probably could have convinced me into being the big time producer of J/T stuff you wish someone (besides you) was.
And, now, I feel the show's better off being moved into a movie franchise and removed from various complications that being in a sixth, seventh, eighth season has. I don't feel the gut-wrenching "NO!" about this move, to be honest, the way I did when The 4400 was cancelled. SGA has had a good run and the fandom will go on in the way that Highlander and The Sentinel does, I suspect. Most of the fandom doesn't even seem to really like the show all that much so this might be freeing rather than an impediment for them. And I'll find the next Stargate and then be fannish about that.
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I got into J/R first because I was coming from J/D (primarily) in SG-1 and it seemed like the logical jump. Plus, there was an audience for it. The main problem was that other people shipping J/R seemed to be watching a radically different show than I was and there was only so long I could smile and nod along before I finally went "Fuck that shit." Coincidently, this is about the time The Gift aired and, again, the rest was history.
I adore Teyla, even if I don't write a lot of fic in this fandom. Fannish interaction, the back-and-forth, vital, active vibe of getting together with other fans is really, really key to me in being fannish. It doesn't have to be a lot of other fans but there has to be some. And with Teyla, the pickings were few and most of them were as frustrating as the J/R shippers. Radically different show. A lot of Teyla "fans" are fans of her in the sense of John'sgirlfriend or Ronon'ssparringpartner or Rodney'stherapist. You know what I mean. They aren't into Teyla, they're into using her as a stand-in for themselves. The ones that are left often suffer, none too gently, from the same orientalism the show possesses. They ignore that Teyla is smart, practical, and effective. They ignore she's competent. At which point we're talking about totally different characters.
Then, around S3, I'd say, the tide towards Teyla in the larger fandom changed. You know what I mean. Where she went from That Islander Bitch [Who Fights In Skirts!] Who Gets In The Way of One True Love to Hey, She's Kinda Cool [When I'm Not Loving McShep!]. In fannish terms it was a huge shift. But, by that point, I'd written the fandom off and was enjoying the show in pretty much a vacuum. I don't have problems doing that. I do it for a lot of shows that just don't have consistent fandoms or that I don't want to be all fannishly involved in, due to the show itself and/or time constraints. I think that's also about the point I met you, which was unfortunate for you. If we'd met a year earlier, you probably could have convinced me into being the big time producer of J/T stuff you wish someone (besides you) was.
And, now, I feel the show's better off being moved into a movie franchise and removed from various complications that being in a sixth, seventh, eighth season has. I don't feel the gut-wrenching "NO!" about this move, to be honest, the way I did when The 4400 was cancelled. SGA has had a good run and the fandom will go on in the way that Highlander and The Sentinel does, I suspect. Most of the fandom doesn't even seem to really like the show all that much so this might be freeing rather than an impediment for them. And I'll find the next Stargate and then be fannish about that.