In case anyone (who cares) missed it, yesterday I finally posted "Eschatos", the BSG fic I've been working on for the past month and a half or so
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This whole question of how to label fics in BSG is tied (at least in my mind) to what I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about feeling like this fandom is so compartmentalized. My first BSG story was a gen, original character story--not the way I'd advise attempting to break into a new fandom! I got about three comments, two of which were from my betas. And that's fine, really. I write stories because I want to tell them, and while it's always nice to get feedback, that's not my goal in writing. What frustrated me, though, is that I felt like there probably were people who might have liked that story, but I didn't have any means of finding those people and pointing out the story because most of the comms are pairing-related, and the ones that aren't get so many stories that I suspect people don't read all that many of the stories.
SG-1 is a fandom with plenty of nasty pairing battles, but I've managed to find a pretty lovely group of talented multi-shippers/-slashers to hang out with, and I find I do so much better reading the stories these people write and rec than when I try to read at random under certain labels. I'd love to see something similar in BSG, but so far no such luck. But there should absolutely be room in this fandom for someone to be interested in Laura/Lee and Laura/Bill, in het and in slash, in gen-with-pairings.
i don't watch bsg for "the ships". at least, no more than i watch it for the politics, laura's hair and skirts, the space battles, and jamie bamber's biceps. why does it always have to be about "the ships"?
For some reason I'd never thought about looking on crack_van for BSG. It's very much the place for Farscape recs, but I think I tend to associate it with Farscape, even though I'm well aware that it's far, far broader.
And I'm not sure I "chose" Adama/Roslin in any kind of concerted way. The pairing itself sometimes frustrates me, and the fandom contingent often does, but their interaction just really pings for me. I really should write my A/R love post.
I have poked around at nnaylime's archive, and I think it's pretty cool. I understand why she has the non-A/R restriction, and it does make a lot of sense on one level: there is already a good A/R archive, and there are so many of those stories that I'm sure they'd soon take over lauraroslin.com if they were let in, drowning out the gen and rare pairings that are the whole point of the archive. But on the other hand it's doing the label thing that kind of irritates me. Is "Eschatos" A/R? Is "The Signs that the Signmakers Made"? Yes. And also no. Perhaps I should learn to write either pairing-free gen or fluffy bunny smut, but neither of those are how I see these characters. How is it that the characters as I see them canonically (and I've been told that my renderings strike people as reasonably canonical) don't fit into fandom's way of divying things up?!?!
(Er, I'm probably overly grumpy about things that have nothing at all to do with this... Take with a grain of salt!)
yes, i think i remember you mentioning that with regard to the compartmentalization of bsg fadom, and i find myself agreeing with you. this may sound a little bit silly, but fandom makes me want to scratch my eyes out. not the people as individuals, but the idea of fandom, of "groups" of people. the way fandom is right now i feel like a lot of these ppl think they've got some sort of twisted claim on their particular pairing or character or whatever and it bothers me, because bsg is about so much more than that. they "cheapen" it by acting like brats. plus, i find it increasingly difficult to "break" into any of these groups, they're so damn elitist and close-knit i couldn't even begin knowing where to start. if i wanted to make myself known to them at all, that is. :)
i think i also see your point about those gigantic gen-communities, where in theory they accept everything but in practice still label everything as this or that and insist you stay "in your corner of fandom". and yes, it's hard - if not impossible - to find things there. especially since in these communities bad writing prevails. ;/ and not the kind of bad writing we can overlook, but the REALLY bad, cringe-worthy stuff.
like you, i write because i want to, because i understand the characters - as well as the real world around me - through writing. i don't care if people read what i wrote, although it does make me happy if someone tells me that what i wrote touched them somehow. most of the stories i've written and posted have been, btw, f-locked. and maybe that's the best way to go about it: find people with whom you can share things, regardless of whether they know eachother and not, and connect, rather than as a community, as a network. if that makes any sense. :)
Fandom does have its frustrations, like any loosely organized group of varied individuals. And sometimes it makes me fighting mad, but most of the time I think it's rather wonderful. There is elitism, there is bad fic, there are offensive idiots; but there are also splendid and awesome people, brilliant fic, and people who write things that open up whole new ways of thinking about a subject.
I do find that LJ, with its slightly haphazard and informal networking possibilities, brings out what I like best about fandom: here are informal networks of people--not just stories or opinions--and I love the way I manage to stumble upon someone new and am suddenly having a cool and thinky conversation about a topic I'd never have expected. You can't plan that sort of thing, and I think it's what I like best about fandom.
So yeah, there's much to complain about, and I'm sure I'll continue to do so from time to time, but I'm still here and still having a rather grand time of it all. (I just...sometimes wish it could be even better!)
SG-1 is a fandom with plenty of nasty pairing battles, but I've managed to find a pretty lovely group of talented multi-shippers/-slashers to hang out with, and I find I do so much better reading the stories these people write and rec than when I try to read at random under certain labels. I'd love to see something similar in BSG, but so far no such luck. But there should absolutely be room in this fandom for someone to be interested in Laura/Lee and Laura/Bill, in het and in slash, in gen-with-pairings.
i don't watch bsg for "the ships". at least, no more than i watch it for the politics, laura's hair and skirts, the space battles, and jamie bamber's biceps. why does it always have to be about "the ships"?
Amen to that!
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And I'm not sure I "chose" Adama/Roslin in any kind of concerted way. The pairing itself sometimes frustrates me, and the fandom contingent often does, but their interaction just really pings for me. I really should write my A/R love post.
I have poked around at nnaylime's archive, and I think it's pretty cool. I understand why she has the non-A/R restriction, and it does make a lot of sense on one level: there is already a good A/R archive, and there are so many of those stories that I'm sure they'd soon take over lauraroslin.com if they were let in, drowning out the gen and rare pairings that are the whole point of the archive. But on the other hand it's doing the label thing that kind of irritates me. Is "Eschatos" A/R? Is "The Signs that the Signmakers Made"? Yes. And also no. Perhaps I should learn to write either pairing-free gen or fluffy bunny smut, but neither of those are how I see these characters. How is it that the characters as I see them canonically (and I've been told that my renderings strike people as reasonably canonical) don't fit into fandom's way of divying things up?!?!
(Er, I'm probably overly grumpy about things that have nothing at all to do with this... Take with a grain of salt!)
Reply
i think i also see your point about those gigantic gen-communities, where in theory they accept everything but in practice still label everything as this or that and insist you stay "in your corner of fandom". and yes, it's hard - if not impossible - to find things there. especially since in these communities bad writing prevails. ;/ and not the kind of bad writing we can overlook, but the REALLY bad, cringe-worthy stuff.
like you, i write because i want to, because i understand the characters - as well as the real world around me - through writing. i don't care if people read what i wrote, although it does make me happy if someone tells me that what i wrote touched them somehow. most of the stories i've written and posted have been, btw, f-locked. and maybe that's the best way to go about it: find people with whom you can share things, regardless of whether they know eachother and not, and connect, rather than as a community, as a network. if that makes any sense. :)
Reply
I do find that LJ, with its slightly haphazard and informal networking possibilities, brings out what I like best about fandom: here are informal networks of people--not just stories or opinions--and I love the way I manage to stumble upon someone new and am suddenly having a cool and thinky conversation about a topic I'd never have expected. You can't plan that sort of thing, and I think it's what I like best about fandom.
So yeah, there's much to complain about, and I'm sure I'll continue to do so from time to time, but I'm still here and still having a rather grand time of it all. (I just...sometimes wish it could be even better!)
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maybe that's why i don't like fandom at all but i like meeting people who are fans. :)
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