sholio | 2008 fanfic year in review

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year-end roundup

2008 fanfic year in review

So I did the fic meme after all! Here's last year's fic-year-in-review post.

Warning for a certain amount of gloominess towards the end of this one, since it's kind of difficult to talk about the last couple of stories I wrote without descending into emo territory.

January

Cold Comforts (gen, 5000 wds)

Rodney falls down a hole in the ice. Besides just being an excuse to write h/c, I wanted to explore the idea of an increasingly delirious narrator whose self-reporting of his physical condition is disconnected from reality. Rodney has no idea of how bad his condition is getting, while John, who for the most part is only a voice on the radio, is only too aware of it. It was an interesting writing challenge and I had fun doing it.

Thicker Than Water (SPN, gen genderswitch AU, 2100 wds)

I've never written genderswitch/genderfuck in any other fandom, but for some reason the idea of Sam and Dean as girls is irresistible to me. This started with an indelible image of a female Dean, which worked its way into Crossroads and then this prequel to the other story.

February

Gen Valentines ficlets (about 5000 wds)

I had offered to send in-character valentines or other greeting cards to people last year, but ended up being unable to finish all of them, so I wrote ficlets for the requested characters/prompts instead. I was prepared for mostly shippy requests, but a surprising number of people wanted gen, and there are no pairings in the ficlets. Most of the SGA characters are represented, along with a bit of SG1.

Second Verse (Same as the First) (gen with non-con, 3000 wds)

I have to say that the response to this story was incredibly gratifying to me. It's a very political story, a very pointed story that takes on both the show's colonialism and the fandom's uncritical fondness for AMTDI scenarios, and I was expecting people to react very badly to it. Instead, it got three pages of positive comments, which just blew my mind.

April

This was the month of

sga_genficathon, and I wrote a ton of fic for it.

The Great Pegasus Train Robbery (gen, 10,000 wds)

A western AU; SGA does Butch Cassidy. This was too much fun to write, and I got to give Ford a big role -- one of the neat things about doing AUs is being able to give a better ending to characters who got shafted in canon.

The Pegasus Galaxy Darwin Awards (gen, picture-fic)

Someone had to do it, and John and Rodney are just the people.

Even Bonnie and Clyde Had Off Days (gen, 3200 wds)

This is basically Teyla and Ronon in the sort of goofball, "dorks do Pegasus" adventure that usually goes to John and Rodney. I figured it was about time the other teammates got to have some, er, "fun" too.

Luck of the Draw (gen, 4000 wds)

College AU with the teammates as roommates. In this version of reality, Ronon is a laid-back artist who's the one who pulls the team together. I will never get tired of Ronon-as-artist, and I enjoyed finding ways to fit in the other three teammates plus Ford in ways that reflected their canon existence without quite going in the obvious directions.

Knights Errant (gen, 5000 wds)

Total crack -- Knight Rider fusion with John in the David Hasselhoff role and Rodney as the car.

July

Selena of the Bears (Aesop's Choose Your Own Adventure Remix) (Carson/Ronon, 3300 wds)

This was my

gateverse_remix story, a remix of Androcles and the Lion by

seleneheart. It's also a wonderful example of why I love ficathons and remixes, because when I first got my assignment and saw the list of fic to choose from, I went "eeek!" -- it was mostly pairings that aren't on my usual reading list. But when I read this one, I immediately seized onto the idea of remixing it from Ronon's viewpoint, using a Pegasus myth that resembles the Androcles and the Lion story but ends differently, and exploring how the same set of events looks very different through a different cultural lens. The story itself became a meta-commentary on remixing, and ultimately ended up being one of my favorite stories that I've written in this fandom.

August

A Clear and Different Light (John/Rodney with heavy team presence, 88,000 wds, co-written with

naye)

Ah yes, the story that ate last summer! There are fairly extensive notes on the collaborative writing process, and the story itself, at

whaleverse. I really can't get over how well this worked, considering that neither of us had co-authored anything before -- we came up with the idea together, we both wrote and re-wrote more or less equal portions of the story, and the end product is seamless, at least to our eyes and those of our betas. A+++++, would collaborate again. *g*

Two porn snippets for Port Battle VI (OT4 and Ronon/Teal'c)

Not a whole lot to say about these; I rarely write sexually explicit material and wanted to try my hand at it, though I ended up running up against the comment limit on the Ronon/Teal'c one and cutting out the explicit part anyway. *g*

Colors Seen by Candlelight (gen, 1500 wds)

"Shrine" tag focused on Rodney and Teyla.

September

Untitled political fluff (gen, 900 wds)

I think the initial impetus to write this was because every politically-themed SGA fic I'd run across depicted John as a liberal, and not just any liberal, but a politically active liberal. Despite leaning heavily in the liberal direction myself, I just do not see him that way. Also, I figured that if all the election talk was getting old for us, it would be pushing Ronon and Teyla right over the edge.

Night Ops (Rodney/Keller, 17,000 wds)

astridv won my services in the

livelongnmarry fandom auction, and requested Rodney/Keller adventure h/c, so that's what this is ... with a fair bit of John/Rodney friendship in there as well. Since I don't write romance all that much, I'd never tried to mix romance with a flat-out adventure plot, and I really enjoyed it; I'd like to do more of this.

October

Peace I Leave With You (Ronon/Jennifer/Rodney, 3500 wds)

At the risk of sounding whiny, I think this is probably the point where my interest in writing fic in this fandom took a big hit. In all my time in fandom, I hadn't yet had the dubious pleasure of getting bitched at for writing an unpopular pairing. It's not as if it really upset me, and I certainly always knew it's a possibility in any fandom, but I'd always thought of this fandom as one that is fairly welcoming of other pairings despite being very heavily dominated by a particular one. It was not pleasant to realize that this is not, in fact, true, and as my own fic is straying more heavily into experimental-pairing territory, I realized that I'm going to have to brace myself for this sort of thing every time I post something. I don't think I've posted anything since this story without bracing myself in that way -- or just turning comments off, because I'm a giant wuss.

November

Cheating the Other Guy (gen, 2000 wds)

My story for

galpalficathon, in which Sam and Teyla find themselves in a Western, of sorts.

Untitled Rodney birthday ficlet (gen, 2400 wds)

Written for

lavvyan's birthday.

December

Coming Down (gen, 8200 wds)

My

sheppard_hc Secret Santa fic.

Woven Together, Seamless (gen, 8000 wds)

My story for

sga_santa. This and the above were both written back in early November, so the story below is the only one I've worked on since my interest in the show really flagged.

Slightly Tarnished Armor (Rodney/Teyla, Ronon/Jennifer, John/Elizabeth, 37,000 wds)

There's a lot about this story that I wish had been different -- the writing process and my headspace while I was working on it, that is, not the story itself. I really enjoyed working on it in the beginning, but it was tainted for me with the suspicion that the fandom wasn't going to like this (lots of Jennifer, lots of weird pairings) -- I wish that anticipating the fandom's reaction didn't matter to me, but the more I worked on it, the more I remembered what happened the last time I posted a Jennifer-pairing story and the more bitter about it I got. Which is a shame, because this should have been a helluva fun story to write -- each of the three romances is a particular romantic cliche, which was fun to play with; I am totally selling myself on Rodney/Teyla, because I find them cute as the dickens; and while it really wasn't meant to be a John-and-Rodney story, the long-lost-brother bits were really enjoyable for me, especially the part where Rodney has to fight the Black Knight without knowing it's John. All in all, though, my memories of writing this story are mostly bad ones, and I was feeling more than a little bitter when I posted it.

I still honestly don't know if it's going to be my last story in the fandom or not. I would hate to go out on that note, though.

General Trends

I wrote almost nothing but SGA in 2008, unless I'm forgetting something. Previous years have been a lot more diverse in terms of fandoms. On the other hand, my SGA fic was more experimental than it's tended to be in the past -- I'm stretching myself more as a writer, and trying different things and particularly different pairings. My 2006 SGA fic was basically John/Rodney friendship adventures; my 2007 fic tended to be fairly dark and dystopic, as well as including a bit more non-SGA fic; my 2008 fic went back to a lighter and sweeter place, in general, and was more romance-heavy than my fic in this fandom has usually tended to be.

As the last few entries have made obvious, I'm very much on the fence about my future participation in SGA fandom in 2009 and beyond. What's making it really difficult is that so much of my social life is tied up in the fandom. As burned as I'm currently feeling, by both the show and the fandom, I don't want to lose it -- I can't really imagine finding another fandom that's this large and satisfying, let alone the unpleasant idea of drifting apart from the friends that I've made through the fandom. On top of that, I know that I've become a better writer because of the hundreds of thousands of words of SGA fic I've written. So ... yeah, still on the fence. I think it'll be easier to get an idea of where I stand with the show after the finale has aired and the dust has cleared.

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re: untitled political fluff--you have no idea how happy it made me to see a bit of fic where John wasn't a liberal. Not because I'm not a liberal, but because his character really doesn't read that way to me. He comes across more apolitical-with-conservative-leanings, as you wrote him here.

I don't know if this will make you feel any better, but I'm keeping you on my friends list no matter where you wind up fandom-wise. Of course, I'm pretty horrible at commenting regularly, so you may not be able to tell. ;p

To be honest, I'm also feeling somewhat ambivalent about sga, although I think that's mostly because I've fallen out of the habit of watching, and so can't hear the characters' voices anymore. But I have a lot of stories set in some version of that universe that I want to finish, so I'll probably end up doing some marathoning of the show to remedy that problem. I find that I enjoy tv shows a lot more when I watch them that way instead of as they're being broadcast--I'm not sure why.

Heh! Yes, I never could figure out the John-as-a-liberal thing, because it struck me as so utterly wrong for the character. I don't have any problem with characters thinking differently from me; they *should* think differently from me, because they're not supposed to *be* me.

I've generally fanned on closed-canon shows before now; it's possible that I just don't deal well with an ongoing, ever-changing canon. I'm actually looking forward, on some level, to canon being closed.

Well I thank you for your stories, and have to say that if I ever want to read about an extremely accurate potrayal of freezing one's arse of, you are definitely the go-to author. :) I've read your stories during the height of summer and still felt a chill.

One thing I've found helpful is that just because a couple of individuals react badly that's not 'fandom' that's person x and person y and they're the ones that should be getting smacked over the nose with the rolled up newspaper. I've also come to realise that the only person responsible for my enjoyment and squee is me. Fandom after all is really only the people that we have on our flists - or if we're brave enough, random links that we click on via newsletters. :) If you've got control of that I think it can make this whole thing a happier place to be.

The Keller part of fandom might be a smaller part and might mean less feedback on stories, but I'll tell you what I bet those stories are loved even more just because there might be less stories out there - I'm sure they made a lot of people very, very happy - and if one or two people threw a strop, well they've apparently just got some strange entitlement issues going on. I'd ignore them and just have fun with it.

Yes. I love Keller's character and I love fanfic where she appears.

I do think it's true that fanfic for less-popular characters is very much appreciated when it shows up, in a way that fic for a mega-popular pairing usually isn't.

Awwww, thank you. :)

There *is* appeal in being in a small niche subgroup of a big fandom, just like being in a small fandom for a lesser-known show or book has its appeal. I guess part of the problem is that I'm really not a shipper, per se; I might write a pairing one way and then write a totally incompatible pairing the next time. So, if there *are* niches out there for a particular ship, I don't think I'd be comfortable in it.

You are right, though, that the important thing is to just have fun.

Lots of good stuff! I can't believe how much you wrote this year! I especially liked "Cold Comforts", and "Darwin Awards" was lots of fun.

I came into online fandom with SG-1 and haven't written much of that this year, yet my SG-1 friends still hang out with me (virtually), although occasionally someone does hint that maybe I shouldn't go wandering off and writing in other fandoms...which kind of makes me feel appreciated, actually.

I read more than just your SGA postings, so I won't drop you as a friend!

I didn't realize I'd written that much, either! It's felt like I've hardly written anything this year, compared to past years, but actually there is quite a lot, especially including the Big Bang story.

It's very gratifying to realize -- as I have, over the emo posts of the last week or so -- that people *will* stick around, that the connections I've formed through fandom won't just fade away. At the same time, though, if everyone is talking about something, I want to be able to join in ...

I'm with you on writing Keller. I'm actually afraid to write her, even if she's barely in the story, because I'm afraid people won't read just because she's in it (and I have seen people make the threat not to read a story if it has Keller in it).

I may have said this before, but I think becoming jaded to a fandom is just inevitable. Try as I might not to, I've been feeling it myself. Not so much because of the show (I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to most shows) but because of a lot of little annoyances and frustrations. I also feel guilty when ever I write an SGA story since I could be using that time to write original stories. But, also like you and for pretty much the same reasons, I don't want to quit fandom.

I hope your jadedness doesn't last. We need stories like yours, especially now that the show is leaving us.

I didn't realize it affected me as much as it does. I mean, I've never thought of myself as bending to popular opinion; I have a history across fandoms of just writing whatever I wanted to write, regardless of how people felt about the character or pairing or genre. I've often been a gen writer in fandoms where slash/ship was the norm; I've written deathfic for popular characters and weird off-the-wall pairings and totally screwed with canon. I truly don't know why this is affecting me so much.

There is a certain, hmmm, half-life to shows and fandoms; a show inevitably becomes stale, a fandom tends to lose its shine. I've already been in SGA fandom *much* longer than in any fandom previously, and I'm really *not* ready to leave, which makes it very annoying that I don't really want to stay either.

I think it's a number of things - addiction to getting reviews, wanting to avoid flames and controversy and (in my case at least, I can't really speak for anyone else) creating an image - especially if you're looking to become a published author. There are many ideas I have that will never see the light of day because I don't want people thinking that those ideas are the only kinds of stories I like to write.

I think taking a break from it all helps, but I'm basing this on personal experience. My forced break during the move ended up relighting a few sparks, enough to get me to wanting to write some SGA. Fandom itself, however, I continue to have issues with.

At the risk of sounding whiny, I think this is probably the point where my interest in writing fic in this fandom took a big hit. In all my time in fandom, I hadn't yet had the dubious pleasure of getting bitched at for writing an unpopular pairing. It's not as if it really upset me, and I certainly always knew it's a possibility in any fandom, but I'd always thought of this fandom as one that is fairly welcoming of other pairings despite being very heavily dominated by a particular one. It was not pleasant to realize that this is not, in fact, true, and as my own fic is straying more heavily into experimental-pairing territory, I realized that I'm going to have to brace myself for this sort of thing every time I post something. I don't think I've posted anything since this story without bracing myself in that way -- or just turning comments off, because I'm a giant wuss.

You don't sound whiny at all. I feel your pain.

My first real fic in this fandom was Bates/Kavanagh and let me tell ya, boy do people not want to read that. LOL I mean, some people do. And those people were awesome and left awesome feedback. But stack that comment count against any single piece of McShep I've written and well. I think you get the picture. I've gone on to write Teyla/Elizabeth and Woolsey/Caldwell and Ronon/Sam Winchester and I love these pairings. They call to me and I write them, but most other people don't seem to want to read them. It's a little frustrating, but I can't seem to stop. I suppose it helps that no one's ever attacked me for writing one of those pairings though. That would probably upset me greatly.

Thank you. :) Bates/Kavanagh -- wow, that *is* a rare pairing! I don't think the lack of feedback bothers me all that much -- I mean, admittedly, there is a *huge* difference in the amount of feedback I get on, say, my Caldwell or Radek or Elizabeth fics compared to my Rodney or John fics. But it doesn't have the same damping effect on my desire to write more.

I just stumbled upon your fic sometime during the middle of 2008. I think the first thing I remember reading was "Luck of the Draw."

I will never get tired of Ronon-as-artist...

Me either, and I love fic where that's referenced for his character, like this story. But, overall, I loved this story because of how you had everyone coming together and finding a place with each other when they didn't fit anywhere else.

Thank you! :D I've been in a couple of previous fandoms where college and high school AUs are so prevalent that they're a big cliche, and I never would have imagined that I'd ever write one! But it ended up working very well for the characters.

I think the very reason I so rarely write anymore and what I do write is quick, not thought out stuff this year is precisely because of how fandom reacts to things. I'm determined to shake it off however and write something worthwhile again. Good luck to you. I hope you keep writing, and if you don't, stay in touch anyway!

I hope you're able to keep writing, too! Good luck with yours. :)

Thanks for doing this :D I read the Darwin Awards one (left a comment) and reread the Rodney Birthday one :D I love finding out about Alaska *brrrr* so I won't be abondoning you. I may surprise you one day :D

Just saw your comment; thanks! I hope my recent posts haven't come off as a "stalking out of fandom in a huff" kind of thing -- but it's awfully nice to know people will still be there.

No :) I don't really know what to tell you because I have written anything yet (getting close though :D). And I read a few different fandoms but I'm still true to Buffy ;-)
We have so many stresses in our lives that this is one you can do with out *hugs*

It's a very political story, a very pointed story that takes on both the show's colonialism and the fandom's uncritical fondness for AMTDI scenarios

That line made me want to read the story! *bookmarks for later*

As for Keller, I really don't like her on the show, but I'm not opposed to fic about her, because fic can be free of all the things that make me not like her in the first place, which are mainly tied up with how she's been pushed into top billing for season five at the expense of Ronon and Teyla, who never got that much screen time to begin with.

Hopefully the story will be to your liking...

Keller is not one of my favorite characters (actually, of the contract players, she's probably my least favorite) but she's so utterly unexplored in fic that I find it more interesting and challenging to write about her, or her interactions with the other characters, than John and Rodney, who have been so thoroughly explored in fanfic. It's an opportunity to do something new, and for me, that's interesting.

Again, I'm really sorry - I was the one who responded negatively to "Peace I Leave With You" - I went back and checked the comments, and while a couple Shep-fans said they liked the story but it made them sad on John's behalf, I was the only one who actually had a negative reaction to the pairing itself. I am really, really sorry that I bitched you out over it; I was dealing with my own stuff at the time and totally overreacted.

*kicks herself a few more times.* God, if I could take back those couple days, I would, I swear. I am so sorry!

No, no, you don't owe me an apology, really! *hugs* I dithered about whether to be honest about that particular incident being the impetus that started me swinging away from the fandom, because I really didn't want to hurt your or anyone else's feelings or make you feel responsible, but in truth, it *was* kind of a wake-up call for me. I've said before, though, that I'd rather have people be honest about their reaction to my work rather than lie to be polite. I don't mind the honesty; I've just learned that I need to have comments off if I don't feel like dealing with negative reactions to my work, especially with stories like the Camelot one where I suspect the reaction *would* be fairly negative. And, yes, it does incline me to write less or to look for a less volatile fandom where I fit better, but that's not your fault; it's me being a touchy little flower who doesn't want to deal with conflict, that's all. *hugs again*

The thing is - I haven't read it yet, but from what I guess based on the pairings, I doubt the Camelot story would've gotten that negative a reaction. The negativity to the Peace story wasn't over the pairing, but the friendship-breakup. You could rewrite about three paragraphs of Peace and it wouldn't cause that depressed reaction.

But I am sorry, whether or not it was my fault; I broke my cardinal law of do no harm, and I can't help but wonder if you'd still be enjoying yourself here if I'd never joined SGA fandom at all. Which is a terribly depressing thought...

I *really* don't think so! Maybe this is just my natural fannish life cycle kicking in, who knows. And I did read a John/Rodney story tonight and enjoyed it, for the first time in about a month. (It was a massively depressing story in which they were horrible to each other, but I *did* enjoy it.) So, we'll see; I just have no idea how I'll end up, especially with all these Wiseguy story ideas to write ...!

Gotta say, that vid you sent makes me verra curious about Wiseguy (though it sounds like I will have to exercise major Denial on s4! XP)

I'm totally gone for Wiseguy right now, though it really doesn't have much of a fandom at all, at least not on LJ (that I've found); it makes me sad because it's *such* a good show and so totally deserves a fandom, but the only fic I've been able to find is all for an enemy-ship slash pairing that doesn't appeal to me. Which clearly means with this one, I'm back in the position of having to create my own fandom if I want one. Haven't done that in a while ...!

And there is no season four, just like there's no Serenity movie ...

p.s. Of *course* you've seen the vid now, hee! What's the beta status of that thing, anyway?

J's beta'ing now, I believe (I thought she'd done so last night, actually, or I wouldn't have brought it up ^^;)

Reading the list brought back some happy fanfic memories, and I might just have to read a few of them again! *g*

I don't think I commented on the Camelot one, but just to say that I really enjoyed it - and this is from a person who rarely reads ship, and then usually only from people I trust not to go too womantic on me!! It did help that it was AU and I'm more tolerant of non-canon ship in AUs... but anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

I haven't really written much for Keller (if any - looks at WIPs, notices that most are set S3 or before or are AU, and scratches head! Huh?!). It's not that I don't like her, I'm one of those that do, it's just I haven't quite got the hang of her character yet. I hope to write her into a story one day, as more than a background character, but only when I think I can do her justice.

I don't think the Keller-block is as bad as my Ford one - I just cannot get the hang of him, beyond background comments here and there, to my total frustration 'cos I do like him too! And Teyla, I'm not so bad with her so long as it's not her POV, then I struggle. *sigh*

Sorry, off tangent a bit there and rambling... probably because I don't want to get into some of the other stuff. I'm trying to keep my head down these days and avoid certain blogs, forums and even the comments section on Joe M's blog (which I used to enjoy, but I'm tired of wading through the negativity to get to the amusing/interesting stuff).

I just want to enjoy my show and not worry about the rest. If that makes me seem shallow, then so be it - after all, this comes from a self-confessed special effects junkie! I do like really well-written/clever shows and movies, but I don't tend to fan on them. I don't know why, but I seem to like a few flaws here and there. *shrugs*

EDIT: Because I am an idiot and didn't switch off the italics!

Thank you; I'm glad you liked it. :)

I totally understand about the character-block. I really can't write Carson at all. I used to be much the same with Elizabeth, but I think I got a handle on her eventually and came to really enjoy writing her.

What an excellent roundup! I just love the way that you can write from any POV - I struggle with writing Ronon or Teyla.

I know it's not as easy as I'm going to make it sound, but there is a beautiful effortless flow throught all your stories - okay, you can tell I'm green with envy huh! :).

Excellent work! Thank you

That's a wonderful compliment, and thank *you*! :)

And on a totally different note, I hope you don't mind me posting this here, but I saw this pic on a site today (of a van spotted in Japan) and immediately thought of your 'nobody move, I've dropped my brain' icon:

So next time you lose your brain, you know who to call!! *g*

Ha! That might be handy...

When I read the Camelot story, the comments were turned off and I never went back to check if they'd come back on, so I'll say it here: I loved it. I loved Jennifer in it. I loved the pairings, and even when you said in your a/n that you had a hard time finishing it, it never showed. It never lost its pace, magic or quality. Great story.

Peace I Leave With You - oh dear. I was very vocal in the comments. It wasn't about the pairing for me and it absolutely wasn't about Keller - I like her. I just felt bad for John. I think it is a valid opinion, but I very much regret that your interest to write SGA fic took such a big hit because of the comments to this story.

Woven Together, Seamless is gorgeous. I love cuddly Team fic.

A very impressive list. I'm hoping for all of us, that you're just experiencing a temporary glitch in the squee and will enjoy this fandom again. :)

Thank you! I'm glad that you liked the story. Well, stories. :)

I certainly don't think any of the opinions that were expressed in the comments to that story are invalid, and I don't want to hurt the feelings of anyone who *didn't* like the story.

I couldn't figure out how to comment on this without going all emo or tl;dr on you. So instead a question... I feel the urge to do a fanart with Jennifer in the main role. I also have an idea for a John/Rodney gen piece but it's weird, it's like I can't even sketch that one without having made Keller fanart first. Balance feels... out of whack. Would it be okay with you if I picked a scene from Night Ops to illustrate?

Oh! I would be flattered and delighted if you wanted to illustrate my story. That would be completely awesome. :D

That's great to hear, thank you. :) Now all I have to do is finish a few days's worth of work first. (I'm somehow more effective at that when I have plans for fanart afterward.)

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2008 fanfic year in review

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