Oh, SGA, what happened?
Even though I'm not involved in SGA fandom on an active basis, it bothers me inordinately to see some of the things that were coming out of it in the last season and are coming out of it now. I have a strong knee-jerk negative reaction to any character bashing -- I don't like it and can't stand reading it, no matter how I feel about the character concerned, and it's hard for me to buy any argument that tries to sell it to me as a valid method of fan engagement. Nor can I really parse it as justified because it's an age-old technique from the romance genre; so is rape as a prelude to true love, among many other devices, and you're not going to convince me that's a valid and acceptable fic trope. (And, undeniably, there are authors who would try.)
Maybe I'm oversensitive, but I'm tired of people refusing to see the implications of how female characters are so readily bashed (as in, attacked with vitriol via portrayal in fan fiction and in discussions) and dismissed as Mary Sues. And that's when they're not being marginalised and killed off meaninglessly in the text itself. (Hi, Star Wars EU!) Obviously people have individual reasons for disliking a character and to do so is not necessarily misogynistic, but speaking in terms of a broad and disturbingly common trend, it's frustrating to see the same arguments being made again and again in different fandoms.
In entirely unrelated news, I am somewhat ashamed to admit I bought And Another Thing..., the new Hitchhiker's Guide book written by not!Douglas Adams. I've been torn all along, because clearly Adams' writing is distinctive and his comedic voice is irreplaceable, but on the other hand that ending in Mostly Harmless always felt strangely incomplete, despite its, well, finality. I do think it might have been smarter to treat this as an offshoot rather than a continuation of the series, though.
Maybe I'm oversensitive, but I'm tired of people refusing to see the implications of how female characters are so readily bashed (as in, attacked with vitriol via portrayal in fan fiction and in discussions) and dismissed as Mary Sues. And that's when they're not being marginalised and killed off meaninglessly in the text itself. (Hi, Star Wars EU!) Obviously people have individual reasons for disliking a character and to do so is not necessarily misogynistic, but speaking in terms of a broad and disturbingly common trend, it's frustrating to see the same arguments being made again and again in different fandoms.
In entirely unrelated news, I am somewhat ashamed to admit I bought And Another Thing..., the new Hitchhiker's Guide book written by not!Douglas Adams. I've been torn all along, because clearly Adams' writing is distinctive and his comedic voice is irreplaceable, but on the other hand that ending in Mostly Harmless always felt strangely incomplete, despite its, well, finality. I do think it might have been smarter to treat this as an offshoot rather than a continuation of the series, though.