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

[lunabee34]

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?

Comments

Also a Pony and a Plastic Rocket

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Well y'know, people say they're gonna lose 20 pounds too...

And fandom is very far from monolithic. The fans who are angry about the lack of representation of women, or the quality of representation, aren't necessarily the ones who are in the slash for the Two Hot Guys and No Icky Girlparts.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I don't know. :-/ Does the newsletter announce when there's a new discussion? If not, that might help bring it to people's notice.

[tabaqui]

*hugs*
You're so wonderful. You really are.
Lemme see...

Maybe you should link this or get it into Metafandom, if you can't - you might get some awesome ideas.

I think when most people - not all - but most people say 'i want you to criticize me!!' - you know what i mean - what they *really* mean is 'i want people to tell me they can't find anything to criticize and i'm really just uber!!' You know?

Some people really *do* want serious con-crit, but most...eh. They're talkin' out the side of their neck.

I, myself, have a hard time leaving really *good* concrit. I have a hard time articulating why something doesn't work for me, and i also have a *very* hard time separating valid concrit from 'it's not how i would do it', you know? So i tend to shy away unless it's a friend, 'cause then i can ym them and really hash things out.

I don't know what you can do, to be honest. I don't know how to encourage people to be unafraid. I hope more people start to participate.

As for femslash - i love me some femslash if i like the characters. I invest more time in the boys, it's true, and i think a lot of that is because i get bored with women. I *am* one. I don't like the stereotypes and i have a hard time being interested in a lot of them. I think, too, that it's a lot easier to get called out on 'mary sue' ing when writing a female character, even when you're not - and i know that i want to make them more like 'me', rather than more like them. And i don't want to do that. So, i dunno.

Maybe i'm copping out, go ahead and tell me if i am. :)

The comment limit? Yes, I hit it. (1/2)

[havocthecat]

I... Wow, I have no idea what to say right now. Because, the thing is, it's not really that you didn't drum up participation. It's more that, you know, femslash participation in the Gateverse is at an all-time low, and has been for, oh, at least a year now, despite the best efforts of me and a few other people. (Femslash being at an all-time low is appalling, really, given how little of it there was to start with.)

Elizabeth Weir is off the show, either dead, a prisoner of war, or hauling around the galaxy on an Ancient battleship, depending on what version of canon you choose to believe. Kate Heightmeyer is dead, and in a lovely, victimy sort of way. Katie Brown is...someplace. Miko Kusanagi has been hiding in the Astrophysics labs since Letters From Pegasus, and I'm convinced she's sharing Simpson's bottle of vodka and commiserating with her.

Laura Cadman is back on Earth, bitching that she can't blow shit up as easily, and probably commiserating with Jeannie Miller and Sam Carter over that fact. (They use C-4 as poker chips, of course.) Teyla's mostly stuck in the background, relegated to Earth Athos Mother status, and Jennifer Keller's in the infirmary, doing her thing, and getting advice from Marie and Biro.

Obviously we're never going to see Teer, Chaya, or Mara again, and Norina from Inferno died painfully, as did Perna and Helia. We can presume that Sora's on Genia somewhere, at least, right?

There isn't much in the way of women on the show that have any sort of continuity to them. I hear we get ourselves an all-girl team this season. (This is me being horribly bitter: Yay. That's what we need! More women who will show up, have potential that never gets realized outside of fanfic, and then die painfully or get shuffled off to Earth, never to be seen again!)

Most of us that write femslash in SGA are either writing other pairings now, or actively on the hunt for a new fandom. There's barely any canon support for femslash left. :(

I love the idea of [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com], but I didn't find out about it until I was in the midst of my summer crazy time. I had [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] to crank out with my co-writer, my dad was having his Annual Health Crisis, and I had three performances in two weeks, complete with tons of extra rehearsals, and brand new costumes to crank out for a seven person troupe (that went down to six people abruptly and mid choreography). Which explains why I haven't participated.

Also, er, any time I've had free time, it's managed to hit during one of the McShep weeks, and, frankly, that pairing isn't one of my favorites. (Er, wait, why am I feeling a need to be apologetic about that? No one gets apologetic about not being into my pairings.)

Anyway, if you're looking to drum up femslash discussion, try posting a link at [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]. We're pretty good with most things that go up that are related to femslash. (We got seven people signed up for the last mini-ficathon! For femslash, that's pretty good numbers.) Heck, post links to older discussions - are those still open? You might want to mention that (even on the comm), because I don't know if I can go back and comment on older stuff.

I'm sure you know about the noticeboard, and I know I've seen links on the newsletter. Get your friends to pimp it out on their journals, maybe, when you put up discussion posts?

Heck, if the stories for discussion fit the categories that are considered "rare" in SGA (not Elizabeth/John, John/Teyla, or John/Rodney), you're welcome to pimp them at [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] too. (I'm the chief mod. I can totally give permission.)

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Did you know that if you're driving from Westfield, New Jersey to Jersey City, about halfway there will be a John Street roughly parallel to Elizabeth Avenue?

[lyr]

I own my own fault here, too. I could have done the reminder and assignment and gone back to comment on the discussion I missed, too. But I went off on vacation and have been having trouble getting caught back up, and I just didn't take that ball. Sorry, hon. I'll try to do some commenting, at least, over the weekend. As for getting more people to come and play, I'll think it over and see if I come up with anything. I am not sure much can be done about the femslash problem, though; there are simply far fewer people who will read it in the first place, let alone discuss it. But hey, we're bringing it to light for those few who do want to find and discuss it, and I feel good about that.