Stargateland challenge
I'm going to post here two challenges for stargateland (and another should be forthcoming in a day or two).
First, I had to make a little essay on the theme "Sell me on Stargate"
Why watch Stargate Atlantis? Well I will counter with... why not? It has everything!
It might be a spinoff, but it is it's own show! In the lost city of Atlantis! In another galaxy! The city is a spaceship! That some characters can fly with their minds! Did I mention it's in space? And that it's gorgeous? Because it is!
The "Rising" episode, in two parts, is the pilot for the series and gives a good idea of the tone in SGA (so you should give it a try!). There is humor! Great action sequences! Snark! And we also start to learn about the characters. I cannot honestly tell you that every episode is well crafted with stellar writing and extraordinary television. SGA is a bit silly. But the characters and how they relate to each other are the center of the show (as it should be in a TV show, yes I hear that, but it's so not always the case). Oh and it's possible to watch SGA even if you only vaguely heard of SG-1, if you are afraid of many years of previous canon. You can watch SG-1 later, once hooked to a quirky space show ;)
It's set early on that our hero is going to be John Sheppard, flyboy with a bit of attitude and extreme good looks (his hair alone is one of many incentive to watch the show). Oh, did I mention the pretty? Seriously, the cast is gorgeous on that show, and I condone watching it for entirely shallow reasons. We also meet a slew of various characters, military, diplomats, aliens and scientists, that are embarking on one hell of an adventure (in space). It becomes a show about friendship and making your own family, how is that not awesome?
And if that's not enough to convince you to give it a try, I'm going to bring out the big guns: everyone needs a show where the bad guys are goth space vampires! Or fake-Amish people! Or replicators! I know I liked it.
Be assured of something if you enter the big Stargate Atlantis Adventure: the fandom? is amazing and has, IMHO, some of the best fanwork in existence.
I also had to come with a Shipper Manifesto and very unsurprisingly I had to talk about all of my feelings for my favorite pairing in the whole world most days.
Every time that there is an assignment to create a ship manifesto, in whatever fandom it might be, there's always a pairing that stands out for me. My One True Pairing, or OTP, as I've learned to say. Oh, don't get me wrong: I am a serial shipper. One day I'll make a list of all of the pairings I'd be theoretically interested in from my shows and I'm pretty sure I'll fill pages and pages (I'm looking at you, The Vampire Diaries). But, generally, there is one pairing in a particular show that is closest to my heart. And that is especially true in Stargate Atlantis.
Yes, I am one of many, I know. But at heart I'm a McShep girl.
The label comes with perks (the amount of fabulous fic/art/everything, oh my god!) and less interesting sides (the pairing has a lot of vocal people against it), but facts are facts and I ship it hard.
In fact, to be honest, John/Rodney fanfiction made me discover the show Stargate Atlantis. See, I came to play in the fandom itself late; the final episodes were airing at the time (never seen one live). But way before I started watching SGA, I heard about the pairing: my flist held several devoted McSheppers. They recced stories and, well, being a fan of fanfic and love stories in general, it does happen that I try something even if I don't have any background info.
At the time when I started reading, I had no idea who any of characters were or even what they looked like. The fic that was recced? Was awesome. As was the second one I tried. And the other one. After a few stories I stepped back, because after all I didn't even know the show, but I already was loving how John and Rodney interacted and fell in love in those fics. After months if not years of sporadic reading, I finally bought the Stargate Atlantis DVDs on a Black Friday Amazon sale because I wanted to have faces and context for those stories, because unbeknown to me I had fallen in love with a fictional couple.
Adopting a ship before seeing one minute of a show? That was a first for me!
This sequence in my fannish involvement means that I started watching SGA with McShep goggles already in place. And I did see it, or as much as it takes in any regular show to make me believe in a fanon pairing. It was awesome, for me, to have those little looks and moments that could back up the idea of John and Rodney as more than friends.
They quickly became one of my favorite pairing ever. I was asked why that, exactly, more than once, so I'm going to try to list some of the reasons I think they click:
- they are, without a doubt, friends;
- they enjoy each other's company enough to hang out after hours;
- they take turns saving each other's lives;
- it's canon that they will never ever let go of the other, even if it takes 40 years to get them back;
- the contrast between them is marked (physically, jobs, attitudes);
- their personalities are well set and can be transposed in a million alternate realities.
Doesn't seem like much? Well it's more than enough for me. Because those facts, taken together, show a paring that is not antagonistic, unless you want it to be. And that? that's such a relief from the different pairings that I loved over the year, who had either overt conflict or complicated situations to deal with (brothers, anyone?).
John and Rodney are FUN, and that is so, so refreshing for me (or it was at the time I started reading in earnest and first dabbled in the fandom). I feel that the guys are great individually, but that together they become something more. Something that makes me happy.
And isn't that the whole point of fandom?
=D
First, I had to make a little essay on the theme "Sell me on Stargate"
Why watch Stargate Atlantis? Well I will counter with... why not? It has everything!
It might be a spinoff, but it is it's own show! In the lost city of Atlantis! In another galaxy! The city is a spaceship! That some characters can fly with their minds! Did I mention it's in space? And that it's gorgeous? Because it is!
The "Rising" episode, in two parts, is the pilot for the series and gives a good idea of the tone in SGA (so you should give it a try!). There is humor! Great action sequences! Snark! And we also start to learn about the characters. I cannot honestly tell you that every episode is well crafted with stellar writing and extraordinary television. SGA is a bit silly. But the characters and how they relate to each other are the center of the show (as it should be in a TV show, yes I hear that, but it's so not always the case). Oh and it's possible to watch SGA even if you only vaguely heard of SG-1, if you are afraid of many years of previous canon. You can watch SG-1 later, once hooked to a quirky space show ;)
It's set early on that our hero is going to be John Sheppard, flyboy with a bit of attitude and extreme good looks (his hair alone is one of many incentive to watch the show). Oh, did I mention the pretty? Seriously, the cast is gorgeous on that show, and I condone watching it for entirely shallow reasons. We also meet a slew of various characters, military, diplomats, aliens and scientists, that are embarking on one hell of an adventure (in space). It becomes a show about friendship and making your own family, how is that not awesome?
And if that's not enough to convince you to give it a try, I'm going to bring out the big guns: everyone needs a show where the bad guys are goth space vampires! Or fake-Amish people! Or replicators! I know I liked it.
Be assured of something if you enter the big Stargate Atlantis Adventure: the fandom? is amazing and has, IMHO, some of the best fanwork in existence.
I also had to come with a Shipper Manifesto and very unsurprisingly I had to talk about all of my feelings for my favorite pairing in the whole world most days.
Every time that there is an assignment to create a ship manifesto, in whatever fandom it might be, there's always a pairing that stands out for me. My One True Pairing, or OTP, as I've learned to say. Oh, don't get me wrong: I am a serial shipper. One day I'll make a list of all of the pairings I'd be theoretically interested in from my shows and I'm pretty sure I'll fill pages and pages (I'm looking at you, The Vampire Diaries). But, generally, there is one pairing in a particular show that is closest to my heart. And that is especially true in Stargate Atlantis.
Yes, I am one of many, I know. But at heart I'm a McShep girl.
The label comes with perks (the amount of fabulous fic/art/everything, oh my god!) and less interesting sides (the pairing has a lot of vocal people against it), but facts are facts and I ship it hard.
In fact, to be honest, John/Rodney fanfiction made me discover the show Stargate Atlantis. See, I came to play in the fandom itself late; the final episodes were airing at the time (never seen one live). But way before I started watching SGA, I heard about the pairing: my flist held several devoted McSheppers. They recced stories and, well, being a fan of fanfic and love stories in general, it does happen that I try something even if I don't have any background info.
At the time when I started reading, I had no idea who any of characters were or even what they looked like. The fic that was recced? Was awesome. As was the second one I tried. And the other one. After a few stories I stepped back, because after all I didn't even know the show, but I already was loving how John and Rodney interacted and fell in love in those fics. After months if not years of sporadic reading, I finally bought the Stargate Atlantis DVDs on a Black Friday Amazon sale because I wanted to have faces and context for those stories, because unbeknown to me I had fallen in love with a fictional couple.
Adopting a ship before seeing one minute of a show? That was a first for me!
This sequence in my fannish involvement means that I started watching SGA with McShep goggles already in place. And I did see it, or as much as it takes in any regular show to make me believe in a fanon pairing. It was awesome, for me, to have those little looks and moments that could back up the idea of John and Rodney as more than friends.
They quickly became one of my favorite pairing ever. I was asked why that, exactly, more than once, so I'm going to try to list some of the reasons I think they click:
- they are, without a doubt, friends;
- they enjoy each other's company enough to hang out after hours;
- they take turns saving each other's lives;
- it's canon that they will never ever let go of the other, even if it takes 40 years to get them back;
- the contrast between them is marked (physically, jobs, attitudes);
- their personalities are well set and can be transposed in a million alternate realities.
Doesn't seem like much? Well it's more than enough for me. Because those facts, taken together, show a paring that is not antagonistic, unless you want it to be. And that? that's such a relief from the different pairings that I loved over the year, who had either overt conflict or complicated situations to deal with (brothers, anyone?).
John and Rodney are FUN, and that is so, so refreshing for me (or it was at the time I started reading in earnest and first dabbled in the fandom). I feel that the guys are great individually, but that together they become something more. Something that makes me happy.
And isn't that the whole point of fandom?
=D