The All Fanwork Gateverse Extravaganza

[lunabee34]

I just finished rewatching SGA with my daughter and was reminded all over again how much I love all things Gateverse. To that end, I would like to host a low-pressure fanwork fest focused on SG-1, SGA, and SGU.

How The All Fanwork Gateverse Extravaganza Works

1. All fanworks allowed! This means icons, artworks, gifsets, fic, rec sets, meta, vids and any other fannishness you want to share.

2. All ratings and genres of fanworks allowed! This means het, slash, and gen; this means Adult and rated G; this means AU and cross-over and fusion and Gateverse actor RPF; this means kinky and vanilla; this means drabbles and long fics.

3. All incarnations of the Gateverse allowed! This means SG-1, SGA, SGU, actor RPF, and movieverse.

4. Please respond to this post with fanwork prompts. In the subject line, indicate what kind of fanwork you are prompting for and for which show. (Examples: Subject line: Meta Prompt; SGA or Subject Line: Fic Prompt; SGU) Remember, prompts may differ between the LJ/DW versions of this post, so you might want to check them both.

5. You do not have to sign up for a prompt. You do not have to create a fanwork to leave a prompt. Everyone is free to leave as many prompts as desired with no obligation to fill any of them.

6. If you get inspired by a prompt, create a fanwork and post it wherever you like. Drop a link to your fanwork in this post under the prompt that inspired it just like you would on a kinkmeme or other kind of comment fest. Please indicate if your fanwork requires any warnings. At the end of May, I will make a master post linking to all the prompt fills for easy readability.

7. You can also link to any Gateverse fanwork you create during this time *not* inspired by a prompt to this post. Sometimes inspiration doesn't quite fit the dictates of a prompt, but those fanworks have a home here, too!

9. Please promote this in your personal journals and in any communities you think might be interested. I think it would be wonderful if we could get the fannish momentum rolling in the Gateverse again.

To Recap:

Sometime between now and the end of May, play in the Gateverse sandbox and then come and tell me about it, pretty please. LOL

ETA: we now have banners courtesy of the very talented mific!!!!! Many thanks. :)

Comments

Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[lunabee34]

Writing Rodney McKay

Writing Rodney is difficult in the same way that writing Snape or Spike is difficult. Many writers (myself included!) have trouble writing a Spike, for instance, who is both an amoral killing machine and a poetic softie. How do you write Rodney in all his "petty, arrogant, and bad with people" glory while still making him endearing? Along the same lines, how do you portray his romantic relationships realistically? I hate the whole "John thinks Rodney being an asshole is funny" trope just as much as I hate the "Jennifer calls him out on his shit so she sucks" flipside. How do you write a Rodney who true to canon?

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[sholio]

.... oooh. I've been musing on various ideas to write for the meta fest - I just might pounce on this one! :D

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[lunabee34]

*beams*

I was hoping there would be some intersection between this and the meta fest--two for the price of one. :)

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[which]

Along those lines: I never quite saw Rodney and Jennifer, because I don't really understand why she wanted him. She seemed to me (at least in the last season) like a goal-oriented young woman who had very definite ideas about what she wanted from her life (which only makes sense, when you consider how much she got accomplished at a very young age) and how people should behave.

I love Rodney to death, but as you point out, he's Rodney, and he's petty, arrogant and bad with people, and he's managed to get to middle age without being socialized.

So I'd like to see Rodney and Jennifer from Jennifer's perspective. What about him makes her feel like he could be the one? Does she think the negative things about him are just habit and can be changed? How does she see their future?

I know there's a rationale for this, because a lot of people feel strongly about this pairing. I'd like to read a story about what they see.

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[lunabee34]

I would like to read about this too. I am planning to write a Jennifer Keller meta piece that's focused on her relationship with Rodney, but not quite from the angle you're talking about here. I find the vitriol for her character and that pairing quite incomprehensible, and the piece I'm drafting tries to address the perennial complaint that she and Rodney are a bad match for each other from his perspective.

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[havocthecat]

You are? Thank you! Good God, I'm so tired of all the Keller vitriol. I LOVE HER. I've also never considered them to be a bad match for each other either.

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[lunabee34]

I love her too! I've written meta in defense of her character before which I'll probably link to while writing this piece. I just get so weary of the implication that she's a horrible person or the charges that she was written so terribly or that her character had some kind of magical unicorn cooch powers that she used for evil. LOL I certainly think that for every character legitimate reasons have issues with or be annoyed by that character exist, but those are not the kind of reasons I see thrown around re: Jennifer. Most often it's this weird comparison between her and John that doesn't make any sense to me. But then, I come to fandom from a NOTP background where envisioning Rodney in a relationship with John doesn't mean I can't imagine him in one with Keller in the next breath. I often don't get the vehement mutual exclusivity of pairing for a lot of fans.

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[havocthecat]

Oh my God, magical unicorn cooch powers used for evil, what can be more fantastic phrasing than that?

My first fandom was OTP-heavy, but I was always very annoyed by it, partly because it was very madonna/whore complex-y when it came to the two lead women for the first couple seasons. So I basically rejected the hell out of that dichotomy and threw the idea of OTPs out the door. (Also, I was one of three femslashers, one of whom was a creepy, fetishizing straight dude, and the other who was...issue-laden.)

But I agree in that I also think that it's hard to find someone with reasons for not liking Jennifer that don't tie directly into "BUT NOT WITH MY RODNEY OKAY? OKAY."

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[lunabee34]

It's possible I'm watching too much Archer. It's affecting my vocabulary. LOL

I am fortunate in that almost everyone I've surrounded myself with in fandom multipships and so I don't get direct exposure to ship wars and etc. It's all out there on the periphery and I stumble upon it from time to time but it's not up close and personal.

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[havocthecat]

Does she think the negative things about him are just habit and can be changed?

Honestly, I'm really frustrated with idea that Jennifer wants to change Rodney. I have yet to see many people float the idea that maybe she knows he's poorly socialized and arrogant, and kind of an ass, and she still loves him. Because you can love someone and have it not be in spite of their bad qualities, nor because of them, but just because you accept them as a flawed individual. Dealing with all that is part of the package that is a relationship with someone flawed.

That's why I find Jennifer/Rodney to be one of the more realistic pairings we've seen on Stargate. It's not epic, or tragic, or terrible (all of Daniel Jackson's pairings, right there, you know?), it's just two people who meet and fall in love (in fantastic surroundings) and who learn about each other and who learn to accept each other, flaws and all.

ETA: So I guess this thread is turning into a meta discussion? Which I am happy with.

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

That's really the crux of my meta piece, addressing this pervasive idea that Jennifer wants to change Rodney drastically into something he's not and that ultimately he'll chafe under as opposed to John who accepts and revels in Rodney's Rodney-ness.

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[havocthecat]

I've run into one too many fics where no one understands and accepts Rodney like John does. Which is, of course, why Elizabeth recruited him for the Atlantis expedition, worked with him in close quarters in Antarctica for months, if not more than a year, and then brought him with her on a potentially one-way trip with only a couple hundred people to act as a buffer between her and her head scientist whom she would have to see on a continual basis. Because she knew that only John would be able to revel in Rodney's Rodney-ness. Even though they hadn't met John at that point in time. She just knew.

Elizabeth and Rodney. They're pals. He wrote a 500 page biography. Of her! He could have spent his time with superpowers doing anything, and he made sure to write five hundred pages to try and make everyone see her the way he did.

Which is to say that clearly there are plenty of people on the expedition who can accept Rodney, even with his flaws, and who have from the very start. And people who call him on his mistakes! (Which is okay, and not a sign that he needs to consume an entire lemon chicken stir fry dish, a la some fics out there.) So why should it only be one person who does?

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

And John is one of those people who calls him out on his flaws while still clearly accepting him and feeling fond of him, so I find the Jennifer/John dichotomy disingenuous to say the least.

I love the Rodney & Elizabeth friendship. Super hard. Oh, the hurt little boy look on his face when Elizabeth is dying. Be still my heart.

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[havocthecat]

I just can't get out of my mind that the Jennifer/John dichotomy is primarily about the pairing, not about Jennifer herself, you know?

It was clear that he would do anything - and I do mean anything - to save her. Because he loves Elizabeth. I'm not even talking about romantic love; I'm talking about that fierce protectiveness that you feel for your chosen family. I think Rodney knew Elizabeth would die for him (and for all of them) and thought it would never happen. So watching it happen in front of him drove him to do something he knew she wouldn't want, just to save her life.

Re: Meta Prompt: SG-1/SGA

[lunabee34]

I agree with you completely on both counts.

Oh, man. Chosen family. One of my favorite things of ever, and I really, really, really like the way that plays out in the Gateverse with Sam&Jack&Daniel&Teal'c and Sam&Daniel&Vala&Mitchell (with Hammond and Landry in the mix as well) and John&Rodney&Teyla&Ford and John&Rodney&Teyla&Ronon and John&Rodney&Elizabeth and Rodney&Carson. I could satisfy myself with reading iterations of that trope and never need romance. LOL