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Thursday, August 21st, 2008 10:52 pm
Those prompts I asked for this morning? I'm not really in the mood to write them right now. *hugs* to the people who offered them and encouragement to me this morning. I needed it.

Fandom is a group experience and this post is the LJ therapy couch for the not-too-posty elements of my f-list. Tell Dr. T all about your Stargate Atlantis experience: what got you in, when you realised it was your crack, and what you're going to take from it.

Technically, SG1 was my first fandom. I played, wrote, made friends, bitched, got bitched out, had a ball, and ultimately walked away because I didn't like how the show was going. Then SG1 led into SGA.

I got into the show partly because of the SG1 lead-in, but mostly because of Teyla. Nothing more, nothing less. She was the magnet that drew me into activities beyond merely watching he show. This is probably why it took to the end of Season One for me to go, "Oh, now I get this show!" I was ambivalent about the whole shipping thing, although I liked the John/Teyla dynamic. I liked it, but it didn't bother me that it wasn't going anywhere. John/Teyla fandom wasn't very active at the time, so I mostly wrote gen with a John/Teyla UST thing and hoped to find someone else who liked John/Teyla whose work I could appreciate.

I'm not sure I realised when it was my crack, to be honest. It just...snuck up on me. Possibly around 2005, when I wrote 'To Serve A Queen' and realised that I'd just put 50,000+ words into a fanfic about two characters who'd never actually get together on the show in an AU where they did get together and had super speshul powerz.

That was probably a watermark moment for me. "Yeah, I'm in deep. WAY deep."

Oddly enough, though, SGA has been both an up and down ride for me - partly because I can't count on the show to be constant in the things I watch it for - not the way I can with something like Bones. I want Teyla, I want team, I'm not into the John/Rodney relationship, and I wanted the show to focus on Pegasus, not on Earth and the "white peoplez".

For me, it's sort of a relief to know the end of the rollercoaster is in sight.

I will miss my show and the characters I love and the people I've met through them but with whom I haven't had the opportunity to form bonds that go beyond SGA. But I won't grieve for what won't be. I might grieve for what could have been, but wasn't; but I don't think I can feel unadulterated loss for something that wasn't measuring up to my expectations (enjoyable though it might have been).

What I will celebrate is that I've come out of the fandom with new friends, new perspectives, and another layer of fandom skin. I think. I don't know that I'll ever get into another fandom the way I did with SG1 and SGA - they were my first real fannish experiences.

What was your fannish experience with SGA?
Thursday, August 21st, 2008 03:36 pm (UTC)
Oddly enough, though, SGA has been both an up and down ride for me - partly because I can't count on the show to be constant in the things I watch it for - not the way I can with something like Bones. I want Teyla, I want team, I'm not into the John/Rodney relationship, and I wanted the show to focus on Pegasus, not on Earth and the "white peoplez".

Likewise - because most of that is what I watch for. I want team, I'm not into J/R, I wanted the show to focus on Pegasus and what is out there. I'd have liked to have seen more done with the city too.

The 'white peoplez' thing goes back to the discussion that was being had on one of our mutual friend's journals recently about the total inability of this writing staff to write anything of consequence for anyone but the white geek characters. This show was pants on character development for anyone not in that bracket and tried to hide it with more screen time. Ultimately, the characters I watched this show for were John, Teyla and Ronon - and none of them have ever been serviced with a decent level of character development.

For me, it's sort of a relief to know the end of the rollercoaster is in sight.

I might grieve for what could have been, but wasn't; but I don't think I can feel unadulterated loss for something that wasn't measuring up to my expectations (enjoyable though it might have been).

I'm glad I'm not the only one with these feelings. At the moment, I feel more 'grief' (for lack of a better word) for how much potential has been wasted in the last few seasons than I do for the fact that the show has been cancelled.


Most of what I have to take from SGA as a fandom isn't particularly positive. That said, there is only one thing I want to take away from my experience in this fandom and that is all the wonderful people I've forged relationships with as a result - be that IRL by meeting at cons or just speaking online. I hope at least some of those friendships outlast the show.
Thursday, August 21st, 2008 09:49 pm (UTC)
From a memories standpoint, really, fandom hasn't given me that much of anything that isn't negative. However, that negativity has helped me learn a lot of things about myself as a person and also taught me some valuable lessons about others. So I can sort of make a positive from them.

I can't say I was surprised by the defriending - if anything, I'm surprised that SGA defriendings have taken so long to start, especially when I didn't do the advanced reviews of the DVDs this year. That said, even though it wasn't someone close, it did feel like a slap. It sort of confirmed something I'd long suspected - a few people were only around for the content and not so much for me. And if there is one thing good to be gotten from this cancellation, it'd going to be getting rid of fake-ass people like that.

*snuggles*