Sheppard/Teyla - a rare pairing

[tielan]

You know, I'm beginning to think that Sheppard/Teyla should get rare-pairing status, canonically-inclined or not.

God knows that it's less-popular than both Sheppard/Weir and Teyla/Ronon, harder to find fic, icons, or photomanips for, and impossible to encourage anyone towards. There's no middle ground for the pairing: people either like it, or loathe it and won't touch it with a ten-foot pole.

And I'm getting tired of not being allowed to write or post it in ficathons and LJ comms because it's apparently 'popular'.

Popular, my ass.

If it's so popular, then someone point me to the fic. I've found two authors I trust to write it well in all circumstances and maybe three or four others who are reasonable. And then there's the cliched, badly spelled, grammatically incorrect, unbeta'd, labouriously-written stories by authors too 'precious' about their fics to entrust them to a beta reader or to take constructive criticism about their spelling and grammar, let alone their characterisation.

No, good fic is not the same as all fic, but the fact that there are only two really good, regular writers for Shep/Teyla is a simple mathematical indicator that the overall selection pool is pretty small.

If it's popular, then someone explain to me why the SGA newsletter regularly features Shep/Weir and Teyla/Ronon but very little Shep/Teyla.

If it's popular, then someone tell me why a het ship canon vs. fanon pairing poll turned up 183 people who wanted to see Teyla/Ronon in canon (against 111 people who wanted to see Shep/Weir) and 20 people who wanted to see Shep/Teyla in canon.

Shep/Teyla a popular pairing? Bloody well do the math, use Earth logic to compute rather than fan logic[*], and gimme a break.

And seriously reconsider the automatic exclusion of Shep/Teyla any time someone does something involving the phrase, 'we don't want the popular pairings.' Because Shep/Teyla is so very not popular.

[*]But I don't like Shep/Teyla! We can't let it into the pairing communities for rare pairings because I don't want to read that stuff! EW!

Comments

[tielan]

I'm not talking about show subtext or complaining that less people see Shep/Teyla.

I'm pointing out that the fact that there is less fic, less artwork, and less support for Shep/Teyla should land it in the 'less popular' bucket when it comes to fandom pairings - where it rarely lands right now.

It might not have been the case before Season Two, but I think it's pretty safe to say that it's been easily eclipsed by the popularity of Shep/McKay, Shep/Weir, and Teyla/Ronon.

And if it isn't a popular ship, then it shouldn't be being excluded as a popular ship.

[therisingmoon.livejournal.com]

It's a lonely ship. :(

I had a John/Teyla wallpaper and some manips to post, but I wasn't satisfied with the way they came out and kept them to myself. One day, I'll stop being so picky about that and post them because they need the love.

[tielan]

Maybe work on them a bit, refine them some?

[therisingmoon.livejournal.com]

along with my musicon100 project, school, work and the lack of creative inspiration, that could take a while but I'll try to get something posted.

[allisnow.livejournal.com]

And if it isn't a popular ship, then it shouldn't be being excluded as a popular ship.

Bingo.

And then you have the people who are so in denial over what's popular that they shoot themselves in the foot...

[tielan]

Fucking shoot all the people in their pairing in the collective foot.

Thank God for mouthy bitches. :)