I was kind of busy with my new job and the onset of my disability when I was watching S1 DVDs, so I didn't go looking for fandom. It's only when I had to leave my life in Columbus and move back in with my parents that I really started looking for that escape. In S2, the development of the reconnect with Earth ruined a lot of what I liked about the first season, so I sought out a lot of fic to "rectify" that situation.
I'd kind of passively shipped John and Teyla up until that point. In the pilot I saw a lot of sparkle in their interaction that was really appealing to me, especially that one scene of the two of them in the cave with the necklace, but I wasn't "ZOMG OTP!!!1!" Mostly, I loved them as individual characters, although I always appreciated that little sparkle. As I got further in my viewing of the series, I also got further into fandom and the deepening of their on screen relationship plus the potential places it could go that I saw in fan fic, made me start shipping it like a goddamn harbormaster. LOVE. THEM.
What will I take away from fandom?
It's a mixed bag. I've met people (like you!) that I like and whose conversation and work has been a bright spot at a hard time in my life. And I've formed a big list of links that I like to go back to over and over to relive, which is always tasty and fun.
But a lot of fandom experience has been pretty negative for me. There's always a taint that goes along with any fandom that has a big split (usually along shipping lines). And any fandom that is heavily slash oriented is a major problem for me. Honestly, I fucking hate slash.
My problem goes like this: I'm a bisexual woman. Therefore, the amount of misogyny in a great deal of slash, whether overt (through bashing or making female characters pathetic) or covert (through erasing them entirely from the story), is disgusting to me. Then there's the gay aspect. I would dearly love for there to be more gay characters on TV. In fact, I would dearly love for there to be more sexual ambiguity in general on TV, either through people discovering the capacity in themselves to be attracted to both sexes to whatever degree or through people giving off all kinds of signals without ever explicitly stating a preference. But y'all? John and Rodney (and Jack and Daniel) are not those characters. Nor are the vast majority of slashed characters. The mental aerobics needed to pretend explicitly straight characters are gay just because they are friends or are pretty or are, I dunno, in the same frame during one episode are staggering to me.
And I get angry because it really cheapens things. It cheapens human relationships to narrow down any and all emotional/social bonds between men to fucking only. And it cheapens the real life struggles of gay people. It completely ignores or (at most) glosses over just how fucking difficult (professionally, socially, emotionally) it really would be to be gay in the kind of situation that John and Rodney are in, for example. I feel like if people cared half as much about actual gay people as they do about pretending straight TV characters are gay, then maybe my life and the lives of many of my friends wouldn't be so hard.
I'll miss the show itself more than fandom. Though, that's partly because (having been active in these things for so long), I know full well that just because a show is over doesn't mean fandom is! There are several fandoms I've been involved in that are still going strong, even though the shows have been off the air for years. Thank the Gods that Farscape is one of them! I have a feeling that SGA fandom will be around for a long time to come. And who knows? With the more explicit John/Teyla content that we have been promised, maybe this tiny little corner of fandom still has a chance to grow!
Part 2 of 2
I'd kind of passively shipped John and Teyla up until that point. In the pilot I saw a lot of sparkle in their interaction that was really appealing to me, especially that one scene of the two of them in the cave with the necklace, but I wasn't "ZOMG OTP!!!1!" Mostly, I loved them as individual characters, although I always appreciated that little sparkle. As I got further in my viewing of the series, I also got further into fandom and the deepening of their on screen relationship plus the potential places it could go that I saw in fan fic, made me start shipping it like a goddamn harbormaster. LOVE. THEM.
What will I take away from fandom?
It's a mixed bag. I've met people (like you!) that I like and whose conversation and work has been a bright spot at a hard time in my life. And I've formed a big list of links that I like to go back to over and over to relive, which is always tasty and fun.
But a lot of fandom experience has been pretty negative for me. There's always a taint that goes along with any fandom that has a big split (usually along shipping lines). And any fandom that is heavily slash oriented is a major problem for me. Honestly, I fucking hate slash.
My problem goes like this: I'm a bisexual woman. Therefore, the amount of misogyny in a great deal of slash, whether overt (through bashing or making female characters pathetic) or covert (through erasing them entirely from the story), is disgusting to me. Then there's the gay aspect. I would dearly love for there to be more gay characters on TV. In fact, I would dearly love for there to be more sexual ambiguity in general on TV, either through people discovering the capacity in themselves to be attracted to both sexes to whatever degree or through people giving off all kinds of signals without ever explicitly stating a preference. But y'all? John and Rodney (and Jack and Daniel) are not those characters. Nor are the vast majority of slashed characters. The mental aerobics needed to pretend explicitly straight characters are gay just because they are friends or are pretty or are, I dunno, in the same frame during one episode are staggering to me.
And I get angry because it really cheapens things. It cheapens human relationships to narrow down any and all emotional/social bonds between men to fucking only. And it cheapens the real life struggles of gay people. It completely ignores or (at most) glosses over just how fucking difficult (professionally, socially, emotionally) it really would be to be gay in the kind of situation that John and Rodney are in, for example. I feel like if people cared half as much about actual gay people as they do about pretending straight TV characters are gay, then maybe my life and the lives of many of my friends wouldn't be so hard.
I'll miss the show itself more than fandom. Though, that's partly because (having been active in these things for so long), I know full well that just because a show is over doesn't mean fandom is! There are several fandoms I've been involved in that are still going strong, even though the shows have been off the air for years. Thank the Gods that Farscape is one of them! I have a feeling that SGA fandom will be around for a long time to come. And who knows? With the more explicit John/Teyla content that we have been promised, maybe this tiny little corner of fandom still has a chance to grow!