Imagine Something Witty *Here*

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Fanfic is located at still_need_name and the_red_den.

Let me see if I can get this straight in my mind, apparently characters like Teyla and Ronon are being sidelined in fics and placed in lower positions in AUs because we are all being racist?

Forgive me but...I don't get this. I understand if people feel insulted by the role the characters appear to be playing, but what if it fits with the characterisation? And what do we mean by 'lower position'? In society? In terms of time spent on said character in the AU? In relation to other characters?

( In which I try to work out if my AU fits this )

Maybe I'm just over analysing things, or I've missed the boat completely. But quite simply, I really don't get what is going on here. Are these complaints being based on what is happening in every, single AU in the Atlantis fandom, or is it a few tarnishing the many? Because if it's the second one, a lot of people are going to get accused unnecessarily, as I have already seen today.

So...thoughts?

For what I am about to do, I want to apologise so much to the person involved.

This journal has always been a sanctuary for me to rant about my life and its problems knowing that very few people I know in real life can read it. Unfortunately, friendships change. New ones are made and old ones are broken. We've been drifting apart for a while and though I was sad, it has become clear that you share no interest in trying to fix things. We each have our own group of friends now, and I already know you don't like the people I am now friends with. Personally, I don't particularly like the people you now hang around with. It's just how things go.

For these reasons, I'm afraid I'm de-friending you. If you read this and want to talk to me, please contact me by whatever means necessary. But right now, I see no other option. You have resorted to ignoring me in real life, so there seems no reason for you to be interested in what I have to say here.

I hope things go well for you.

Alyson.

This journal is on hiatus from now until the 13th of February while I am in New York. Please link any important posts or new stories to comments to this post. Thank you.



If the weather is better
We should get together
Spend a little time and we can do whatever
And if we get together we'll be twice as clever
So, staple it together and call it bad weather.

Staple It Together, Jack Johnson

I think I may just give up on NaNo now. My muse for it has died well and truly. Everytime i go to write, I lose all interest. In 4 days, I've done 400 words, and I really don't like what I've written. I've got loads of fanfic to finish that want finishing first, as well as others I want to start.

I'm not in the right mind frame to do this right now. Way too much college work and it's been such a long time since I've written original fic that I don't think I can remember how to write properly. I know that might not make sense, but I've spent nearly two years jsut writing stories where I don't need to describe the characters in much detail, don't need to set up the world in detail. It's all there for me. I think this seemed like a good idea, but it's just gone a bit wrong.

I tried, I really did try and I'll probably try a little more, but right now, I think my NaNo month is over.

So, I have some fanfic problems and think the best and most democratic way to deal with it...

...is for you lot to sort it out for me. ;)

Therefore, it's a vote:

Poll #824187 Fanfic Poll!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13

Which shall I work on?

And that is all.

*Looks at clock*

11 minutes to go.

This Journal Is On Hiatus

Yes, I shall be on holiday from tomorrow (11th August) for two weeks (until 25th August). Anything I need to know about, eg. spoilers, pictures, news in fandom/RL/your lives, graphics or fics, please post a link in a comment here and I will catch up when I get back, as there is no way I can catch up on two weeks worth of communities/personal LJs very easily. That is all, and have a good holidays!

Team Mates, Hallucinations and Alien Hussies – Does all the kissing really mean anything?

In the first two seasons of Stargate Atlantis alone, there have been a grand total of 9 kisses. This means proper kissing, not a peck on the cheek or just a slight meeting of the lips that may or may not be defined as anything close to a kiss. I am not going to try and fully explain what I mean, but if you don’t understand what I mean now… ask someone else. Thank you.

Getting back on topic, as I was saying, 9 kisses, 7 of those in Season 2 alone. And what I’m trying to work out is…do they actually mean anything? Are TPTB trying to tell us all something meaningful, or just that the Atlantis crew has a very high sex drive that clearly isn’t being fulfilled? To do this, I’m going to go through each episode and see what the kiss in each of them actually means in terms of the episode/character and see if I can make any sense of it.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything here. All characters belong to TPTB of Stargate SG1/Atlantis and MGM. Seriously, I don’t own any of it. I don’t even own the PC I’m typing this on.

AUTHOR NOTE: This is in NO WAY a definitive, un-biased, purely objective guide. I’ll try, really I will, but I warn you now, I am a shipper and I have a few issues with very small minorities of other ships and slashes. If you feel I am offending you or your ship/slash, I apologise. I am trying to make this objective as possible, but I am promising nothing.

( Onto the rambling… )

PS. I'm leaving this public, if anyone can think of where I can post this to get some more opinions.

It seems I owe an apology. It's not the Sheyla's who are causing the worst of the problems, mainly related to the kill_dr_weir community and certain icons. Yes, I am apologising to the Sheyla's.

It's the McShep slashers.

Now, I must have been living in my own little bubble for a while, as I always thought the slashers were perfectly nice folks. But no, apparently McShep slashers are worse, and they may be the ones responsible for the kill_dr_weir community, which I am not going to visit. So much for ship wars. The Atlantis fandom has ship wars and ship vs slash wars.

Seriously, NO ONE'S GOING TO GET WHAT THEY WANT! NO SHIP OR SLASH WILL BECOME CANON! TPTB and the actors have already said they don't want to do it. Therefore, there is no point in fighting! I think we should just all accept each other's ships/slash's and get on with life. I mean, what's to stop everyone getting along? In real life, everyone has a different opinion on different things, doesn't mean we go out of there way to insult them all the time. (I know I can kick off about George Bush, but that's another matter for another rant)

Though, there is one thing amusing me. The McShep's are only attacking Sparky, not Sheyla. Maybe Weir's more of a threat to their ship than Teyla. Heh.

You know, with all this fighting, back biting, bitching and the occasional tantrum, we should rename the fandom:

Atlantis: A fandom for those aged 10 and under. All childish behaviour welcome.

Atlantis is probably the third fandom I have become actively 'involved' in. First was Final Fantasy, then Lord of the Rings and now Atlantis. And I have to say, out of the three, Atlantis is my favourite, but it also appears to be one of the bitchiest. Final Fantasy had it's moments, but it's a huge place, so you can always find plenty of friendly people. LOTR was too deep in character to really try to be bitchy. And then there's Atlantis. We've got character bashing, ship bashing and even actor bashing.

For character bashing, it mainly seems to be aimed at Weir and Ronon. Don't get me wrong, there could be others, but it mainly seems to be those two. Gateworld has a 'Get Rid of Ronon' thread, there was a thread about killing Ronon off on IMDb, and then there's kill_dr_weir. I know everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when does it become fair to attack a character? I personally don't like Caldwell, or Teyla particularly, but that doesn't mean I sit here devising ways to kill them and I certainly wouldn't try to rally other people round to my way of thinking. It's one thing to dislike a character, it's another to attack them in every way possible. It also just means that you end up insulting other fans, and getting them mad at you. Which is of course a *great* way to make friends and influence people.

Ship bashing is harsh. It's very, very harsh. And one set of shippers launch on another set of shippers, you've just got to stand back. And, I am not trying to discriminate here but this is the only one I know of, some of the worst are the Sheyla's and the Sparky's. Quite simply, we don't see eye to eye. We don't see where they're coming from and vice versa. Unfortunately, some are more vocal about it than others. All it takes is one or two Sheyla's, or even Sparky's, to say something in the wrong place and all hell breaks loose. To put it in simple terms, we both ship the same person with different characters. However, we are all fans of the show, and we shouldn't really let personal opinions cloud that. There are plenty of nice Sparky's and plenty of nice Sheyla's, it's just a small minority who want to stir up trouble. And there are some fans who need to express their hate of some ships with icons, etc. Again, let's just wind up other fans.

Actor bashing is pointless and cruel. But it keeps happening in the Atlantis fandom. I admit, I've only seen attacks aimed at Torri Higginson, and some at Jason Momoa, but still. It's the constant repetetive drone of 'Weir is old'. May not seem insulting to whoever posted it, and a few crazy collaborators, but how would you feel if you came online and found someone saying you looked old? I'd be pretty pissed off. Not only is this going to annoy other fans, this is pretty serious stuff. Fandon is about people being joined together as fans of one show, not a case of 'We like the show, but we're gonna insult the people in it'. It's just not on.

Right, I'm going to shut up now, but if anyone else wants to add anything, comment to this. I'm gonna leave this post public for a while, not that anyone will read it other than the flist I bet. I've been wanting to type this up for ages, finally got round to it.