Some SGA (season one) meta, some self-indulgent whining

[elspethdixon]

While driving back from DC last night, I had the minor epiphany that one of the things I love about slash fic is its wish fulfillment quality. No, not the “ooh, I wish X and Y would sleep together because it would be hot” wish fulfillment—it’s the fact that the canonical set ups of most genre shows (which are pretty much what I read fic for) allow characters to be slashy in a family-free vacuum. Most action/Western/sci-fi heroes have either tragically lost their relatives, moved to the other side of the country/galaxy from them, or are thoroughly estranged from them because said relatives are evil, giving them an enviable freedom to pursue their goals, desires, and the object of their affection, without having to make the agonizing choice between satisfying their own wants and needs or keeping their parents/siblings/etc.’s good opinion and respect. I can have the romance and the exploring of one’s sexuality without the need to choose between one’s family and one’s lover. In my own life, that state of affaires would be about as improbable as, say, my being able to stake vampires or go through a wormhole to another galaxy.

Not that most readers actually wish their family didn’t exist, but deep down inside every person who didn’t perfectly and joyfully match up to everything their relatives expected from them (like, say, every non-heterosexual person ever) is the knowledge, conscious or subconscious, that their life would be a whole hell of a lot less stressful if they didn’t have to worry about meeting or failing to meet the expectations of a group of people who are intimately connected with their life through no choice of their own. That they could express their sexuality without guilt.

I mean, the guys in Brokeback Mountain would have been a hell of a lot happier if they hadn’t gotten married. Buffy would have had a much easier time being a slayer if she hadn’t had to hide it from or justify it to her mother.

Anyway, that musing led into Atlantis musing, since I’m watching season one on DVD and it’s therefore taking over my brain.

SGA, at least season one of SGA, is the ultimate geek wish fulfillment. Think about it. McKay and Sheppard, our main viewpoint characters, who are 1) a massive, painfully socially inept geek, and 2) a closet geek, have gone through a wormhole into another galaxy accompanied by an entire expedition of like-minded people. McKay might whine about how all the scientists are useless and all the military guys are dumb jarheads who break every piece of equipment they touch, but that’s just because McKay enjoys whining about things; everybody there is pretty tech-friendly and most of our major characters definitely have that quality of semi-lame enthusiasm about their particular field that marks geeks out like a scarlet letter. Witness Sheppard’s gleeful explanation of what G-forces can do to your body in “Suspicion,” or Ford’s season-long enthusiastic puppy impression, or Zelenka and McKay jumping all over each other to explain their brilliant plan to Weir in “The Storm,” or Dr. Biro waxing enthusiastic about the alien nanovirus in “Hot Zone.” And then there are the Star Trek references.

Atlantis is a closed society of people who self-selected for things like curiosity and enthusiasm about the scientific and the unknown. All of the people who don’t share their goals and desires are literally in another galaxy. It’s a whole galaxy of geeks.

Granted, said galaxy is filled with evil monsters who suck the life out of people, but if I stretched my metaphor far enough, I could claim that they were symbolic stand-ins for the people they left behind in the other galaxy. But that would be a mean-spirited joke motivated by cynical bitterness on my part.

And in a vaguely related tangent: pixyofthestyx, I’ve decided that the Planet of the Prussians will have tech roughly equivalent to WWI, including chlorine gas and old-school wood-and-fabric biplanes with pusher propellers. There will be much fanboying of the biplanes, possibly to the extent that the blatantly obvious evil of the locals will be completely ignored in favor of pilot squee. (“But Elizabeth! They let me fly their ghetto-tastic fighter plane! How was I supposed to know they were evil?” “The fact that they were researching chemical warfare didn’t tip you off?” “Well, maybe, but… airplane!!!”)

Comments

[bbathory.livejournal.com]

Interesting observation re: wish fulfillment. I tend to do that too, albeit not with slash. I was just thinking the other day about how many of my female characters have only brothers, and it's not that I hate my sister, but I've always wanted a brother or brothers, just to see what that dynamic would be like. Also, many of my characters tend to have non-traditionally feminine attributes and occupations, in part, I think, because sometimes it seems like there are just more limitations to being a woman. I'm sure there are lots of other common thread to my writing that I'm just not aware of yet.

*g* On a completely different tangent, are you in the market for a new fandom? I wholeheartedly recommend the Final Fantasy VII fandom. Especially with the movie that just came out, Advent Children, more people are coming to the fandom. There's lots of eye candy and ample slash opportunity....
Just thought I'd mention it ;).

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

are you in the market for a new fandom?

I'm rarely in the market for a new fandom. That never stops me from finding them, though. Fandoms are like stray cats. They show up from nowhere and attach themselves to your brain whether you want them or not, and once you have one, others will follow.

I've seen some Advent Children art drifting around the net, and it is indeed glorious eye candy, but Final Fantasy's never really been a source of fannish interest for me, mainly because I don't play video games (lack of hand-eye coordination combined with lack of enough ready cash to buy a playstation) and therefore have only the vaguest familiarity with the source material. I tend to stick with books and things I can get on DVD.

[bbathory.livejournal.com]

*g* Didn't mean to hijack your discussion point there. I only said it out of a completely selfish interest to see what sort of fanfic you'd write ('cause I'm fangirly like that). But, y'know, role-playing games are great for those of us (myself included) with poor hand-eye coordination....

Anyway, I was thinking more about your post yesterday and reading your comments with pixyofthestyx, and realized I missed your point about the importance of distance from family, which I also do to a certain extent. I am considerably more liberal than my conservative, religious family, and tend to keep my real opinions on things to myself because, of course, there's my dad's view and the world and then there's the wrong view of the world. It may not be quite on the level of sexuality, but one's convictions are very personal and I often find myself wishing I could be more honest and open. But I think it also goes back to gender issues, because if anything my characters are more androgynous than anything else. Not sure what that means in relation to myself other than my desire to smash conceptions of traditional gender roles.

I may have to take this musing over to my own journal. Thanks for an interesting, thought-provoking post. That's one thing I missed in my absence from Internet fandom.

[seanchai.livejournal.com]

(“But Elizabeth! They let me fly their ghetto-tastic fighter plane! How was I supposed to know they were evil?” “The fact that they were researching chemical warfare didn’t tip you off?” “Well, maybe, but… airplane!!!”) That's... just truly brilliant. In no small part because it's more than half way plausible as something that could happen on the show.

And as for the wish fulfillment thing... yeah. I think you've got it pretty much spot on there- and it extends even beyond slash. Look at how many deeply geeky series revolve around a set of characters that are in some way separated from their original families, who then proceed to make their own little (geek) family. Like you said, Atlantis is a good example of this. Angel, Firefly, and Magnificent Seven all work well too. Actually, come to think of it, the January series is probably the ultimate example.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

it's more than half way plausible as something that could happen on the show

I pity Elizabeth Weir sometimes. Really I do. It's not enough for her research expedition to be stranded in another galaxy in the middle of a war against the Borg Reavers the Wraith, she's got to have subordinates with the emotional maturity of twelve-year-olds, too.

Look at how many deeply geeky series revolve around a set of characters that are in some way separated from their original families, who then proceed to make their own little (geek) family.

*nods* Pretty much every Joss Whedon show has some of that (not surprising, since Joss Whedon is a self-confessed huge geek), and most genre shows have a touch of it. The Atlantis crew haven't quite reached the level of unbreakable family-type bonding that SG1 had/have, but given time (and some resolution on the Ford-is-turning-into-a-wraith storyline), who knows?

As for January, Rose, and Hannibal's massively co-dependant little threesome arrangement... that sort of exists in a fanfiction-like catagory of its own, rivalled only by C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy and a couple of buddy cop shows (and 19th century novels). And it's the only example of that particular you-and-me-against-the-world intense partner thing I've ever encountered that involves more than two people.

[seanchai.livejournal.com]

As for January, Rose, and Hannibal's massively co-dependant little threesome arrangement... that sort of exists in a fanfiction-like catagory of its own, rivalled only by C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy and a couple of buddy cop shows (and 19th century novels). And it's the only example of that particular you-and-me-against-the-world intense partner thing I've ever encountered that involves more than two people.

That's why they're such a good threesome. Even other examples of little geek-families with more than two people geek-families tend to split the characters into pairs, but you really can't divide up those three, no matter how you try.