lunabee34 | This is what it sounds like when Lorraine whines; it apparently involves sentence fragments

I am a little disappointed.

And a little annoyed.

In no small part at myself, but also at fandom at large.

And so I come to you, dear friends who are wiser than me, for advice.

I dropped the ball on the last

sga_talk discussion. This whole new assistant professor, teaching five classes, QEP, SACS, why yes you have to finish your Ph.D. right now or we won't give you tenure gig is a little exhausting. And stressing. And I forgot to do a reminder post for this last discussion. And I forgot to drum up participation once I saw that I was, again, the only commenter. And I forgot to assign a new piece to read for the 1st of September.

So, yes. Culpability, I own you.

But here's the thing, y'all. Here's the thing.

I think

sga_talk is awesome for a lot of reasons. I love to write. I am a writer. I become a better writer when I talk with other people about writing. And I like having a structured place to do this. I love to read. I am a reader. I have made reading and nattering on about it to other people my life's profession. I love literary analysis of fanfic. I also love reading outside of my comfort zone. I have so little time to hunt for fic now that I pretty much exclusively read the flist or large challenges like Big Bang. I find the good stuff through

sga_talk that I would never find otherwise. I also like to meet people and I have met through

sga_talk some really cool people with interesting ideas about SGA and writing and fandom. I think

sga_talk is poised to be a vital segment of fandom.

And yet, it saddens me that I have to beg and grovel for participation in what other fans say over and over again that they want.

Believe me when I say that I understand there are obstacles to participating in a comm of this nature. RL is in the way; you have no time to read this week; you hate the featured pairing; you vowed never to read amnesia fic again; you're too wrapped up in Big Bang. All valid reasons not to participate.

But a significant portion of fandom says over and over again that it wants constructive criticism. A significant portion of fandom says over and over again that it thinks of fanfic as having the same kind of value and interest as published works and that it wants literary analysis of fannish works. And yet, in a comm with 69 members, I can count on only four other people besides myself and

lyrstzha to regularly comment.

So what am I doing wrong? What am I not getting?

And while I am showing my ass, as we say in the South, let me also make this complaint. Why oh why is it that we fans criticize again and again the source material for giving short shrift to women and fanfic for doing the same; why is it that we lament the representation of women and of queer female relationships both in our source texts and in the fannish works we create but when it comes time to read and talk about femslash, everybody disappears? Even in its honeymoon phase when participation in

sga_talk was at its highest, the femslash selections received the fewest comments. This makes me angry, particularly since there is an AWESOME and truly unique femslash fic sitting in

sga_talk right now that no one but myself has commented on.

I am having a really hard time reconciling what I think I hear fandom say that it wants and needs and what fandom actually ends up doing.

So, help me, y'all. I think

sga_talk can be an amazing community, but I don't know how to get it to that point. What can I do (besides, oh, getting my head out of my ass and doing my modly duties like I'm supposed to; *is embarrassed*)? What are your suggestions?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Your list of female characters and the way they've been either marginalized or written off the show entirely is very telling. Coupled with Sci-Fi's decision to chuck SGA in favor of a Gate-verse show they feel will attract the teenage boys, I'm feeling very pissed off on that score as of late.

(This is totally an aside that has little to do with the convo at hand, but I am also not chuffed that this new Gate-verse show is apparently mostly a cast of younglings. One of the things that I really enjoy about SGA is that everybody is a grownup (even if they don't always act like it *g*). Most of the characters are at least 35 and many are even older than that. Who will take me to the prom is thankfully never going to be a plot point on the show. Who knows about this new incarnation?)

And now, personal life aside. Your summer does sound incredibly busy. I hope your father is well. And performances! Troupe! Excitement! Are you an actor?

Re: your participation or lack thereof. I hesitated in making this post because I didn't want anyone to think I was pointing the finger at them or calling them out. Because we all have really legitimate reasons for not participating in X aspect of fandom. And as busy as I am right now, I am the last person to condemn anybody for having more important stuff going on. I think what I meant to say, and probably articulated poorly, is that I totally get Individual Fan's reason for not participating in any given week. I have a harder time getting 69 fan's reasons for not participating every week. Does that make sense?

Discussions do always stay open! Posts never close. In fact, we sometimes do get comments on fics way after the fact, so feel free to comment on an old post and I will definitely announce that again in the comm the next mod post I make.

And I will definitely pimp in the comms you've listed for the stories that will fit into those categories. Thank you.

The list of female characters? I could cry. Seriously. I could really cry. I am so freaking tired of it. Just. Dude. This is SGA only, and I know I forgot names. (I keep thinking, "And Larrin! And that cool girl from The Game! Plus Ellia!) I've been watching since season three SG1, and if you've seen that at all, then I'm sure you could get a clue as to how I could get on a rant about the female characters on that series, and how they were treated.

Actually, I have an entire (locked) meta post on how men get to be cool with their special powers through heredity (mostly), but women have to be violated in some way (becoming a host, being part Wraith, getting infected with Asuran nanites) to gain any non-human abilities.) Er. It's very, very locked, because I don't want someone thinking I'm slamming their favorite characters. (I save my rage for the PTB, by and large.)

I was at Dragon*Con last weekend, and the group I hung out with spent the entire weekend calling SG: Universe "Stargate: Voyager 90210." I think that was the general feeling of the entire fandom represented there, and there was a broad spectrum of fans.

(No, no, I completely agree about the fact that the characters are, by and large, the right ages for their jobs. It was so damn nice to have that.)

My father is about as well as he's going to be. :) He's a little sickly. I'm a dancer! ATS belly dance. We're a student troupe that dances for fun. It would be nice to be paid, but we generally do it for love.

I also see your point on the having a harder time getting 69 fen's reasons for not participating every week. (Did you see the [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] member list? And yet, only seven participants for our last mini-ficathon, and two of those were mods.) Totally get it.

Oh, good! I saw some interesting discussions, and I didn't comment, because I thought, "Meh, they're old. Who cares?"

I have seen all of SG-1 and I completely feel you on the female characters and their development in that show. So many women we only get a glimpse of and then never hear from again. *sigh*

That's a very interesting point you make about the female characters only achieving "heroic" status through outside intervention. How does Carter fit into that schema? Yes, she has been a Host to Jolinar, but she is also is really damn intelligent in her own right.

Belly dancing! That is so cool. I love to dance. I do it very, very poorly with virtually no sense of rhythm but I love it. What does ATS mean? Is that a particular style?

This is what it sounds like when Lorraine whines; it apparently involves sentence fragments

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