A Mystery Explained

[handful_ofdust]

Oh, okay, NOW I get it…

Well, no, actually I still don’t. But witchqueen has finally codified the explanation for why so many people are getting fannishly sucked ass-over-teakettle into Stargate: Atlantis rather than Battlestar Galactica 2003. It’s still a conundrum which will never be solved from my own (admittedly) very limited POV, and I like David Hewlett, Goddamn it! But here we go: "Not Watchable/Fannish" vs. "Watchable/Not Fannish". You’ll have to scroll down somewhat.

Clicky-clicky:

http://cereta.livejournal.com/214659.html?thread=2491779#t2491779

P.S.: I’m done Draft One of the POV piece. Now I’m going to make dinner, find out where Cal and Steve are, maybe later do some actual writing.

Comments

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Makes sense to me. I mean, there's some BSG action, but really, they're just not leaving people a lot to do but write porn.

This doesn't actually strike me as problematic, but it's not going to run a fandom by itself.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I guess the question then would be: Don't most fandoms run on porn, to one degree or another? Or are those just the ones I've found myself in? (Yes, I understand that people write gen; I've written it myself. But given that most of what I see coming out of SGA *is* porn, by any reasonable definition of the term...)

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

To some degree, even to a large degree, yeah.

But -- and I'm blue-skying here, understand -- there's enough remaining stigma that if the gen/porn ratio falls below a certain point, or the plotty-porn/PWP ratio falls below a certain point, the fandom loses coolness, and exodus ensues. And the writers burn out on it, too.

The thing with BSG is, I'm not sure there's even a lot of scope for plotty porn; all they're really leaving open are the actual bedroom antics. It seems to lend itself to short pieces of various combinations of characters snuck between the small cracks, and not a whole lot else except AUs, that I can see.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Well, I certainly can't say you're wrong. Hell, I wouldn't know an active fandom if it bit me in the ass, these days: I'm almost beginning to think I've never been in one, or never one in which I was ever in step with the general animating passions that drove 98% of everyone around me. But it just keeps coming down to this, for me: SGA is a sucky, sucky show. I don't understand how it inspires anyone to do anything but change channels. As with The Sentinel--I don't care how inherently slashy something is, good writing and a lack of constant pan-pipe will always attract me more than slashy-thing-that-can't-act-or-write-its-way-out-of-a-paper-bag. I mean, for Christ's sakes! Most of us can probably make our own slash, we're THAT hard up.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Oh, the whole SGA thing astonishes me, but I have actually never watched it.

I watch so little tv and so few movies that I am in continual danger of being tossed out of fandom on my sorry ass. :)

So why it causes people to emit fannish behaviour and fanfic in vast waves, (frequently quite amazing fanfic, from the few I've read because someone threw them at me with determination), is a complete mystery to me.

Why BSG, much as I love it, does NOT cause similar reactions... that, I think, probably is just because it kind of repels plotty fanfic. I mean, there are tons and loads of BSG fans on my flist; every Friday the place explodes with episode commentary. Saturday there's sometimes meta.

Then they go back to writing SGA...

(btw, haven't been commenting because I so rarely seem to have anything useful or to the point to say, but, you know, hi there. :)