schneefink

Out of curiosity, and to confirm something:
(For the purpose of this poll, "fandom-adjacent" means whatever you want it to mean; I mostly thought about things like "I have/had several friends in the fandom and have seen/heard them talk about it without being in the fandom myself.")



Edit: I completely forgot to add options along the lines of "no and I was/am in SGA fandom" *facepalm* Since I cannot edit polls, please comment if that is the case :)

starshipfox wanted to know about my biggest fandoms over the years.

The two top are easy, and also easily visible on AO3: between 2009 and 2012 (mostly 2010-2012) I wrote 17 SGA fics, and between 2013 and 2016 I wrote 13 Pittsburgh Penguins Hockey RPF fics.
(I was fannish about things before I found online fandom, but not really "in fandom.")

SGA was my first big online fandom that I actually participated in – I lurked for years before I first commented, then interacted with people, and then actually wrote and posted something. I first watched SGA in early 2007 iirc (a friend of mine showed me the Ronon episodes first.) I think I found the fandom not too long after, definitely by 2008, and I had several great years in it until I lost interest in 2013. I still have a lot of nostalgia for SGA fandom: I met wonderful people, I had a lot of fun, I learned a lot, the fanworks were amazing, and it's still the gold standard for crack fic.

And then I accidentally fell into Hockey RPF fandom, which was a complete surprise. During the 2012-2013 NHL lockdown I stumbled upon a couple of primers that included both fascinating player stories, clips of beautiful hockey plays, and recs for good fics with tropes I enjoyed, and then suddenly I started having opinions on trades and following sports writers and I remained baffled how that had happened. Previously I'd never been a big sports fan before - apart from following alpine skiing closely for a few years as a teenager, but, well, I'm Austrian, that's not a big surprise, and it's not a team sport either. So sports fandom was new, and weird, and the combination of sports and sports RPF fandom was weird, and overall it was probably the most stressful fandom I've been in. And I was very lucky in regards to timing, my team was doing very well (with… some exceptions, that Boston series, ouch, but still, they always made the playoffs) and even won Cups! (Let's just say I'm glad I didn't become an Oilers fan. As a random example.) I had some great times in hockey fandom (stand-out moments for example were watching a Pens playoffs game with other Pens fans in a bar in NYC, the Kessel trade etc.)
In 2014 I started taking beginners' hockey classes, which I did for two years and which was a lot of fun, and I met my best friend and current flatmate there so for that alone I'll never regret my time in hockey fandom.
I started losing interest in 2017, first in the RPF side and more slowly in the sports side too. It was a combination of a natural loss of interest over time and being unhappy with several aspects of the game and hockey culture etc. I joined both Twitter and Reddit originally for hockey news and I every once in a while I'm still amused when something exciting happens, but overall I barely follow it anymore. Though recently I did find myself thinking that when the NHL starts again, it might be fun to watch a game again. Hockey can be very pretty. And it turns out I still have many feelings about all aspects of the fandom.

I didn't have any fandoms I was into to the same extent after that. I was pretty into Nirvana in Fire for a while (which I still enjoy a lot but no longer feel as fannish about), then The Adventure Zone: Balance for even shorter, and I dipped into several different smaller fandoms and wrote fic for some of them. I thought The Magnus Archives might be my next big fandom, but it turned out to be more medium sized and I don't have the same level of fannish engagement I had with SGA or Hockey RPF.
Sometimes I miss that. Every time I find something new that I feel fannish about I wonder if this will be my new most shiny thing, but so far it's always been short-term. I'm pretty sure that it's going to happen one day, and it'll probably be something completely unexpected, and in the meantime I'll enjoy playing around with whatever things currently hold my interest.

Who would be Ronon Dex' favorite hockey player? A few years ago maybe Iginla, but now... maybe Ovi? Shea Weber? Jamie Benn? Sid?

My first instinct is that Ronon plays forward, but I could see defense as well. Satedan hockey probably worked a bit differently anyway, maybe a mix between Earth hockey and bandy.

For the December meme, a question by devon: Which SGA character(s) do you identify with most? Why? (If it's not too personal) If you don't ID with any, whose voice comes most naturally to you?

"Identify" is maybe too strong a word, but the character I felt the most kinship with was Dr. Jennifer Keller, season 4. In season 5 they added more and more romance to her storyline and that wasn't really my main interest, and in addition there were a couple of times when I thought her development could have been better done. But in season 4 I liked her a lot: a smart young woman out having an adventure - in another galaxy, where everything's different, you don't know anyone, you have to replace your predecessor who everyone loved and admired, and you suddenly have many responsibilities that you're not sure you can fulfill, but you also can't afford to fail. I really liked "Missing", for example, where Teyla and Jennifer discover the Athosians are missing and are hunted by mercenaries, and Jennifer doesn't really know what she's doing but does her best anyway.

But she's not the character I found easiest to write. In SGA fandom I discovered that I found the Pegasus characters much easier to write than the characters from Earth. Their backgrounds, experiences, worldview I can make up. But the Earthers: they're socialized in very specific groups that I don't know, like the US Air Force, academia, international politics... Jennifer, as a doctor, would probably be one of the easier ones. But she's still from a culture I don't know, namely the US. Which state is she from? What does that mean? Where did she probably study, what was the environment, how did she get to her position this fast?
Now I could write her, but back then I found it difficult. (I was too lazy to want to do much research.) And she also wasn't one of my favorite characters, Teyla and Ronon were, so I spent more time thinking about their backgrounds. I don't think I ever wrote about Jennifer, actually, and now I kind of want to. I had a few sketches and outlines, but never finished a story. (I'd have to rewatch at least season 4 and currently don't have the time for that. Maybe one day.)

I'm doing that thing again where there are so many things I want to post about that I write nothing. So, random things in random order.

- I took a vacation day tomorrow, and I'm so glad I did. I did a lot this week, mostly meeting with friends, which I love but with work it's very tiring.
For example on Monday I went with a friend to the film festival at Rathausplatz because she'd never seen Disney's Fantasia. (It's not as good as I remember it from when I was ten, especially the Pastorale - surprise!racism that I never noticed before, stuff like that - but most parts of it are still fantastic.)
Tuesday is by now semi-official film night, only we decided to cook together first, so we didn't have time for a whole movie. We had a great time in the kitchen, food was delicious, and we watched the beginning of The Fifth Element.
Wednesday was debate training.

- Debate training! We had several new people, so we had a pro-am room (one experienced debater + one novice in each team.) "My" novice did really well for his first speech! Prep is a work in progress, but that's normal. The motion was "TH regrets the Arab Spring" - when he said he doesn't know anything about that I said me too because I was trying to remember how many years ago it started and how many countries were involved except the few I did remember, but it turned out he actually had no idea what it referred to, which did surprise me.
Later on someone tried to tell me that all muslims want to install sharia law everywhere, "I'm not anti-muslims but", absolutely refusing to listen, it was so bad I just stopped engaging him after a few minutes. I know these people exist, but I don't expect to meet them in the debate club :( (With some luck he won't stay long.)

- The current debate in the media about gendered language is driving me absolutely nuts. There are some good articles, but the vast majority of comments are just so stupid, their whole way of argumentation is just... it's so dismissive, condescending, it's painful to read and it makes me so angry at the same time. Just - URGH.

- I'm currently reading "Superman: Red Son" and enjoying it a lot so far. Tomorrow I'll have time to read! And swim! And sleep in in the morning!

- There's currently a fest about SGA's ten year anniversary going on. I feel sort of ambivalent about my lack of enthusiasm for it: SGA has been such an important part of my fannishness for so long, and SGA fandom has been very important for me for a long time, so to find out that I sort... barely care, at this point, feels very strange and a bit sad.

- Today I found out that Vienna has a women's ice hockey team. I mean it's sort of logical, I just never thought about it, never read about it, never heard about it... I'm sort of pissed about that, actually, and perhaps more surprised than I should have been. I'm definitely going to watch when the season starts again.

- Tomorrow I'm going dancing with a girl I met recently and like a lot, I'm really excited about it. More hopefully later.

Comments make people happy, so before Christmas I try to leave many of them on fanworks I enjoyed. I'm currently very much enjoying the fics posted at sga_santa, the art at sga_art_santa and at yuletart, mischief5's SGA Squee Advent at sga_squee, and the big folders of .gifs I copied from M.'s laptop.

Some SGA_Santa stories I enjoyed so far:

Intergalactic Topology for Beginners by verity
PG, Rodney/Teyla, 1.4k
Rodney can't help but appreciate Teyla's facility with knots. On a purely academic level, of course.
A sweet, funny, and well written story.

Soft by taste_is_sweet
NC17, John/Rodney, 7.7k, contains sex while in hybrid form
Rodney can shapeshift into a creature with cat-like features. (Werecat doesn't really fit, since it doesn't say if it has any connection to the moon and his other form is a human-cat-hybrid.) The story begins with a lovely h/c scene in which a delirious John is rescued by Rodney after an avalanche and ends with a nice and warm sex scene.

In Abeyance by tielan
PG13, John&Teyla UST, 2.2k
John and Teyla (and Torren) go on a team picnic - not a date! This is lovely, a good look at John and Teyla in season 5.

No Rest for the Winged by bluflamingo
Teen, Laura Cadman/Katie Brown, Ronon Dex/Evan Lorne, Dusty Mehra/OFC, John, 2.1k
Interesting and good little daily life snippets set in an AU where some people have wings.

On This Winter's Night by ceitie
R, Ronon/John/Teyla/Rodney, 1.2
A great Ronon POV, good descriptions, and again a very nice cold/warm contrast.

And there are and will be many other stories! One of them is mine! \o/ But now I have to go procrastinate some more work.

Every once in a while people point out that most SGA fandom classics are years old and that few more recent fics are recced. From my experience this is sadly mostly true, so here, have some recs of recent (from the last few months) fanworks I've enjoyed. (By no means all of them! Just some I could find again on short notice.)

( 9 stories and 3 pieces of fanart )

I had my first "official" driving lesson today. I'm so glad I practiced on the training area first because we started on a real street! But it went well, and the teacher said I was quite good for a beginner. I had two double units (not ideal, but scheduling was difficult) and did things like drive 80km/h, reverse parallel parking, and many left turns. So many things to do at the same time...

This term I signed up for Econometrics II (voluntarily, it's not required) and now realized that my last statistics course was over a year ago and I have to go back and relearn two semesters of statistics. Ugh. It was difficult enough the first time. Oh, and ideally until Wednesday. And then there's that Bachelor thesis I should be working on...

I watched the recent Doctor Who episodes and quite enjoyed them. The build-up is often better than the resolution, which is sometimes disappointing, but the buildup is usually ~30 minutes and the ending only ten. ;)
Wow, the fandom is huge. The list of reaction posts! I usually only read a few to check if I've missed something that others noticed (often), but other than that I'm not really interested in the fandom. It has some shiny vids, and I read a little fanfic, but for some reason I don't want more. I don't even rewatch many episodes.

SGA is different. To prepare for sga_santa I'm rewatching SGA episodes, without writing detailed reviews so it's more relaxing, and it's a lot of fun. I think the reason why I'm still interested in SGA is that I still have so many stories to tell. I can think of no other canon that makes me want to tell as many stories as SGA does, and it's wonderful. Just reading the sga_santa wishlists gives me so many ideas! I'm currently plotting the sequel to Court of Athos, and I think it'll be my story of how Elizabeth becomes a leader that I've looked for for a long time. (Rewatching The Rising it's obvious that Atlantis was basically doomed from the start in a universe with less narrativium.) I hope I'm good enough to write it well.

LB asked me to sign up for a course for him because he isn't home, I wasn't as careful as I could have been (20:41 instead of 20:40) and now he's on the waiting list and probably won't get a spot -.- It just means a more inconvenient schedule for him, but still, well done self. Now go do something productive, like study statistics.

ETA: An hour later: No, self, in this case OTW work doesn't count as being productive. This seemed extremely familiar: The Science of Procrastination...

I wrote fic, wheee!

Title: The Court of Athos
Author: schneefink
Rating: G
Words: 1440
Summary: A few hours after they arrive in Pegasus the Earth expedition meets the Queen of Athos.
Notes: For the prompt "Name": what if Pegasus culture was just a little bit different? Thanks to tari_roo for beta.

On AO3 / at sga-saturday

This week I didn't do much of anything. Not strictly true: I drove again (I can now start and stop the car without problems almost all of the time!), did a lot of work for the OTW and made minor progress with other things. But that's what it feels like, because I didn't do the things that were most necessary, e.g. studying (except a bit of Russian) and working on my Bachelor's thesis. Same as always.

I got all the courses I wanted, but I didn't get a place in the special program I applied for. That means I have time to sing in the choir, but I spent two weeks telling myself that not being able to sing wouldn't be so bad and now I have a hard time being excited about singing.

sga_santa sign-ups are open! I like reading people's wishlists, some of the prompts sound very good. I hope someone writes Sora&Ford having adventures.
I never participated yet and I'd like to, but I'm not convinced I could finish a story. On the other hand maybe having a recipient would be added motivation? I'm currently trying to write a fic for sga_saturday and I told myself if I finish that one I can do sga_santa too.

Today is an "eat chocolate and watch TV" kind of day, with a bit of statistics in between. I almost forgot that this is actually interesting.

ETA: I actually wrote a (short) story! \o/ The first one in ages! It's "only" a retelling of "The Rising" with a few details about Pegasus culture changed, but still. It looks like a prologue to a larger story to me, but I strongly suspect that I'm never going to write that one. (Although it would give me an opportunity to write a lot of competent!Elizabeth... hm.) Would anyone be willing to read through it and tell me if it's actually interesting?