Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

Border fence of the day: brought to you by Backspin

For reasons no one else can determine, Jerie has a thing for Sparky. She sent me some wrench caps, so I just had to make icons:

Sparky has a cameo in my latest drabble, The Equipment (a coda to the season 2 episode “Holiday” - I’m slowly working through my drabble backlog). I also have a new one for “Pretense:” With Friends Like These….

There’s also a new TOS fic about Marla McGivers on the TOS page. I don’t consider it successful, but I also don’t expect any more improvement in its condition. It will doubtless remain one of those embarrassing crazy-wife-in-the-attic fics - or experimental ones, if you prefer. Read at your own risk.

Silly mac program of the day: Fish Bowl

Seema and I were discussing retirement from fandom. She’s tired of the meta and I’m tired of the women. Yes, there are a handful of men out there writing fanfiction, but think of the numbers of men who have been driven away by the overwhelming femaleness of the place.

Women are, statistically speaking, more illogical and emotional than men, and that alone increases the annoyance factor of fandom for those of us on the logical end of the scale. But the thing that struck me was how few men have read my fanfic. I have an audience that’s restricted almost entirely to women purely by the demographics of online fandom. How many of my stories have flopped that might have suceeded among a more normal science-fiction audience? How many of my masterpieces would have been berated by a more Y-endowed crowd? Might someone even dare to say that a fic was bad or that an aspiring writer might want to consider a different hobby, one for which they have a modicum of talent?

But enough about how the lack of men affects my fic - how does it affect me? I rarely get to read fanfic written by men. I don’t think the execution of a story is noticably different between the chromosomes, but I have noticed that men and women tend to write about different subjects, and I like the ones that attract male authors. For example, I can’t think of a single male Voyager writer who does J/C, but there have been several who’ve written K/7 and Borg stories in general, or been involved in J/P fandom. There were also a few men writing Khan stories over the past year, after just a couple by women the year before and none to speak of for years before them.

The equation is simple: more men = more Khan stories.

As long as I’m here, I may as well do the meme. Initials are for VOY pairings, full names for SG-1, TOS, and crossovers:

One True Pairing ‘Ship: J/P, Sam/Narim

Canon ‘Ship: C/7, Daniel/Sha’re

“If this happens I’ll stab my eyes out with a spork” ‘Ship: Tu/T, Sam/Maybourne
“You are one sick bastard” ‘Ship: Tu/N, Jack/Daniel

“I dabble a little” ‘Ship: K/7, Chakotay/Crusher, Sam/boyfriend
“It’s like a car crash” ‘Ship: EMH/7, Teal’c/Drey’auc
“Tickles my fancy but not sold quite yet” ‘Ship: C/T, Sam/Jack

“Makes no canon sense but why the hell not” ‘Ship: J/C, Sam/Daniel

“Everyone else loves it but I just don’t feel it” ‘Ship: P/T, Sam/Janet

“When all is said and done” ‘Ship: T/K, Khan/Marla, Apophis/Amaunet

Cool link of the day: Make-a-Flake, thanks to folks at TheGenGate.

The Season of the Hussy has started up again in the U.K. Those of us on the wrong side of the Atlantic have weeks to go before we see Our Hussy in action. Luckily, we have spoiler pics from which to make hussy icons for Jerie:

Jade wanted me to show off my hard screenshot work, so here’s the Khan of the Day at a convenient 100×100 size (click to enlarge, download if you want it):

In her blog, Seema praised DS9 for “friction, continuity, war and angst.” DS9 was the least popular of all Trek series before ENT came along to wrestle for the title. Trek fans clearly don’t want continuity or angst - not because cohesion and plot are bad things in and of themselves, but because they’re bad television.

Television has to be episodic to succeed. You can do it without the annoying reset button - Stargate doesn’t suffer from the reset follies that Voyager did - but you can’t show a five year movie in one-hour bits and expect the audience to stick with you. Yes, rabid fangirls will come along for the ride, but rabid fangirls are not a large enough demographic for network TV.

A series is something you can drop into at any point, see an episode, understand more or less what’s going on, and want to see more. A serial requires you to go in order or you’ll miss, not the subtle details, but the main meaning of what’s going on. You see one episode and you’re hopelessly lost; you know you don’t have the time for this. You walk away.

The serial vs. series problem affects virtual seasons as well. I’m not the only one who had the best intentions of reading VS7.5 but fell off the wagon early on. It’s not always clear at the outset which one you’re dealing with - you might think Lois McMaster Bujold is a serial writer, but she writes series. For all I know, VS7.5 is a series - but if it smells like a serial, I run away.

It doesn’t matter whether serials are superior to series on some literary or fan-fodder basis. I’m willing to admit, sight-mostly-unseen, that Babylon 5 and DS9 were far, far better shows than Stargate or Voyager. It’s a purely economic decision on my part to watch the latter. I can miss entire seasons of VOY or SG-1 (and believe me, I have) and still follow the fandom and write fic. The barrier to entry on a show that has five-year plots, or even one-year plots, is too high for me.

Word count: 1940

Several relatives got to meet the mac for Thanksgiving. Mandy, 8, was the most impressed; her fingerprints are all over the screen. As I was demonstrating QuickTime, I discovered that none of my cousin’s children had ever seen Star Trek. Considering that I was already addicted to TOS by that age, I was shocked by their abysmal ignorance.

I could tell that most of them were not sci-fi people, but Mandy was fascinated by Khan. She fast-forwarded through everything else, but she wanted to see the sleeping man wake up.

Mandy has definite fandom potential.

Word count: 2400

Seema doesn’t like this meme but I thought it was cool, and since my last entry was an unpopular opinion I may as well continue the pattern. I’m not sure what the rules are since I haven’t read many meme responses and I don’t know where it started. As far as I know, I’m supposed to list ten of my unpopular opinions about fandom.

1. I have a muse. In fact, I have several, both named and unnamed. B’Elanna the Canon-Correcting Muse wrote my best fic for me and I am eternally grateful to her. If you find her in a seedy bar somewhere, send her home.
2. Free biology lessons are not fiction, they are free biology lessons.
3. If it’s not canon, it’s just not all that interesting - unless it’s an AU. I’d rather read about an AU where everyone was paired up in weird ways than read non-AU fic with the same premise.
4. Slash is therefore uninteresting, as is post-Endgame J/C.
5. There is no such thing as subtext. Your interpretation of the text (the text being the actual sound and picture of a television show, or the actual words printed on the pages of a book) is just your interpretation. The author’s intent is as inaccessible to you as the what the author had for lunch that day.
6. The world does not need another mailing list, archive, or bulletin board.
7. Harry Potter is overrated.
8. Speaking of which, litfic is more morally and legally questionable than mediafic - at least until the copyright expires.
9. My fic is a free gift to the readers. I do not expect feedback or anything else in return for it. I do not write for the feedback. Posting my fic does not mean that I wrote it for the feedback; it just means that I’m nice and I’m giving the gift of fic.
10. It’s my blog. I don’t use bad language or make personal attacks here, so if you’re offended, that’s your problem. When you’ve grown up and realized that the world isn’t going to end just because not everyone in it shares your opinions, feel free to come back.

[P.S.] Liz claims that this meme is just the old manifesto meme come back again. Many of my answers were more or less the same this time, although I wasn’t able to fit RPS and It’s the 24th century, people! into this version.

Word count: 1130

This is an old meme that Jerie dug up out of her blogspot blog. I’m completely unqualified to do it because I’ve only seen a few episodes, but she claims she was as ickle as I am when she filled it out.

How long have you been a fan of Stargate SG-1?
I’ve been a fan wanna-be since Voyager went off the air, but I didn’t get to see any eps until July of this year. That’s also when I wrote my first drabble.

What was the main reason that you became a fan?
Voyager went off the air, Buffy went off the air, and Enterprise put me to sleep. I needed a new show. I needed the fanfic inspiration you can only get from new, never-before-seen episodes in an open-ended canon.

The ONE Stargate SG-1 episode you think is the best they’ve done, that you can watch forever?
I doubt I’ve seen the best they’ve done. I think “Singularity” was very well done, and I could watch “Enigma” forever just for Narim.

What is the ONE Stargate SG-1 episode you think could be timeless–as in always be played on the TV years from now?
Again, from my restricted frame of reference, I’d say “1969″ because humor never loses its appeal. It’s also a very approachable episode for someone who doesn’t know the show.

When was Stargate SG-1 at its best?
When it’s funny and when the sci-fi is really cool - the quantum mirror is my favorite plot device.

Who is the ONE character on Stargate SG-1 who you can’t get enough of?
Jack. I adore the snark.

Your favourite B-storyline (underlying thread) of Stargate SG-1?
Definitely the development of the abilities and memories Sam inherited from Jolinar. I love that clueless look she gets whenever a new one pops up.

What’s your favourite line from a Stargate SG-1 episode?
“Hail Dorothy.” –Jack in “Seth.”

What’s Stargate SG-1’s best season out of all their seasons?
I have no idea. I haven’t seen any of the seasons that are considered good.

How many Stargate SG-1 conventions have you been to?
None.

Do you think you are a fan of the show for its content or for the actors?
The content. I don’t know a thing about the actors. I don’t think any of them are especially good-looking, either, except for Narim of course.

What is your favourite show of all time that’s NOT Stargate SG-1?
I would have to say Star Trek: The Original Series. I’ve really enjoyed writing Voyager fanfic, but my main interest in the show was as fodder for fanfic, not the other way around. And TOS has Khan, so it must be the Superior Trek.

Favorite pairing of characters on Stargate SG-1?
So far, it’s Sam/Narim. Sam and Jack are cute together, but they haven’t really become a pairing yet in my mind. Maybe later in season 3…

Word count: 200

Yesterday I was chatting with some fellow BOFQ’s about the general public’s perception of fandom. They think we’re a bunch of obsessed plagiarizing pornographers giving fic away for free. And they’re more or less right about that.

So the question I asked myself was, would I have gotten involved in fandom if I’d realized at the time (in 2000) what it would be like today (in 2003)? Would I want to be associated, in even the slightest way, with a genre that is mostly smut, mostly badfic, mostly mary-sues, mostly slash - pick your poison - and where there is an ever-present, if , danger of plagiarism of my own fic by other fans? Would I want to be involved in a community that supports your right to write RPS and twincest?

I’m not necessarily talking about moral qualms here. Consider slash, for example - even for people who like it, it’s not usually something they got into fanfic for. It’s more of an acquired taste. Even smut is something most fans work their way up to writing rather than the thing they came to fandom looking for. People come for the show.

So the inside of fandom is not at all like the outside. Back in 2000, there was no easy way for a new fan to see the seamy underside of fandom, but now there’s LJ, where anyone who does a little research can find out that fandom is really distasteful or contentious or meta or low-quality - pick your poison again. Now instead of a seamy underside, we have a underside of good, clean, gen, deep, literary (pick your preference) fic almost completely obscured by the notorious public face of fandom.

I think this change in the face of fandom is having an increasing effect on what kind of people get involved - more young rowdy people, fewer adults stumbling into fandom by accident - but it could just be that I’m a BOFQ and I’m not meeting the promising newbies.

I’m certainly not trying, either - my answer to whether I’d get involved in fandom today is a definite “no.” Though I write Stargate fic, I don’t go out of my way to post it or meet other Stargate fans. I don’t have time for LJ or fic taxes - the sheer size of fandom today drives people away as well. Anyone who doesn’t have lots of time to dedicate to fandom is marginalized.

I’ll see you in the margins.

Word count: 2,700

I’ve found that I write many more words when faced with a deadline (like BRAD) than when writing for fun. Whether they’re better words is another issue entirely.

My BRAD fic is a 10,000-word (64k) Voyager/Stargate story which will appear here soon. I’m sad to say that SG-1 overran what was intended to be a fair and balanced, serious yet shippy crossover and turned it into a slapstick comedy-of-wormholes.

Better luck next time, I guess.

Word count: 3850

In just a few short moments it will be October 13th, otherwise known as Beta Reader Appreciation Day. Say you care with fresh fic!