Top SGA Online Fic 2006

[icarus]

Just out of curiosity, if one were to compile a list of the top/best/most influential/memorable slash and/or gen fics of this year --

-- which ones would you include?

I have in mind to start with synecdochic's "Freedom's Just Another Name For Nothing Left To Lose." That one's easy, it's amazing and powerful and swept the fandom like a tidal wave.

But what other tidal waves have hit this year? The Post Secret challenge? I mean, if I were collecting the most influential/top fics characterizing 2005 I'd have an entire section devoted to the sga_flashfic's Harlequin challenge.


ETA: Okay, skimming the mega-reviewed fics on sga_flashfic gives us a start. Now on to the Fan Awards.

ETA2: Ah. The tricky part is when the story was written. About two thirds of the Stargatefanawards stories are from 2005. Hmm. Perhaps run backwards through the sga_newsletter for familiar names. Also, might need to stick to slash.

ETA3: Okay, picking through stories, using a baseline number of reviews as an indicator of fandom interest, then appearances on rec-lists, and on del.icio.us, the story discussion such as the immense amount of discussion spawned by "Freedom's Just...". I'll probably do a poll at some point, something open-ended to gather opinions.

A couple of interesting flavors that have turned up this year:

1) western AUs and the influence of "Brokeback Mountain,"
2) curling,
3) the final carryover from last year's penguins, unicorns, dolphins,
4) reel_sga,
5) some controversies, "Will the real John please stand up?" and "Has McShep taken over the fandom?" and BDSM fic, though I want point to a story.
6) it seems silly crack!fics have given way to careful, world-building AUs.

Not sure how this'll be put together. A rec-list of sorts? With a contextualized commentary?

ETA4: "Okay, picking through stories, using a baseline number of reviews as an indicator of fandom interest, then appearances on rec-lists, and on del.icio.us, the story discussion such as the immense amount of discussion..."-?? When did I change my name to McKay? This is the fault of reading your McKay fics, all of you.

ETA5: Trends pointed out by toft_froggy -

7) DADT fics
8) Darker fics in general
9) Darker, more fucked-up John

Almost forgot bruinsfan's point -

10) John/Mitchell SGA/SG1 crossovers

Comments

[bruinsfan.livejournal.com]

I'd say Frostfire's "Here Is no Water" (http://frostfire.killerstar.net/stories/nowater.html) would be a good choice - it seemed to spark a Mitchell/Sheppard crossover trend.

I'd also list your "Last Port of Call" as a well-writen story that caused a lot of spirited discussion in fandom, though I can understand you might be reluctant to include it for various reasons.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*snaps fingers* "Here Is No Water" -- absolutely. Thank you. Not only an excellent story but it was like a new color of dye added to the water.

I'm considering including all the Flashfic stories with 100-150+ reviews, but if I included "Last Port Of Call" I'd also include seperis' story, whatsit, the one written in response that has a much more positive spin on John. That way we'd get the whole conversation in story form. Then, since that would mean I'd add a controversy category (which makes sense), I'd need to include "The General & Doctor Sheppard" and the discussion surrounding BDSM.

Actually, do you know of any other stories that were written in response to "Last Port Of Call"?

Oh, oh-- switching the subject, I know another fic that needs to be included: that one where John is a virgin, "Lost In Waiting." That's a very important story that made people see John in a completely different light.

Icarus

[bruinsfan.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I wasn't even aware that seperis had written a story in response—I only knew of your Rodney POV follow-up. Was it just something that sort of rebutted with her tonal take on John, or did it specifically reference "Last Port of Call"?

Oh, I don't know how much fandom acclaim/response it got, but Linaerys's "The Call of the Traveler" (http://linaerys.com/fic/sga/call_traveler.php) for the darkfic challenge was easily one of the most memorable stories I've read in any fandom this year. After three decades of reading Blish, Lovecraft, and Barker, it is NOT easy to give me chills a few hundred words into a story.

Thinking out loud...

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

The Call Of The Traveler... I think I missed that one. I was off licking my wounds during most of that challenge.

Some stories don't get acclaim but they make an impact. I'm thinking of stories like the Jack/Ba'al story that everyone read and it still lingered, "oh yeah, you remember that-?"

I am using a base-line review statistic of 150+ to support the fact that one or another story had an impact on someone other than me. I have to view the stats with a jaundiced eye, however, because some people automatically get a lot of reviews -- like astolat -- simply because they have a lot of fans. But if a relative unknown has 150 reviews in sga_flashfic, I'm going to pay close attention to it.

Still, I am going to be forced to make some personal judgement calls about which stories I pick to illustrate this or that... oh... flavor. This is going to be biased and has to be my personal take (with as much input as I can get). There's just no way around that.

I can use the stats and make a fairly good guess that the story with 150 reviews is more influential than the one with only 5 reviews. But stats are just a symptom. Something is going on there, yet they don't tell what's going on. Recs also help point out that something about that story had an impact. A story that's recced in numerous locations -- something is going on. Then discussion of a story can help ferret out what that impact was.

I'm not decided how to approach this.

- As a lit project with some commentary?
- As a simple rec-list?
- As a fandom ethnography?
- Or perhaps a combination, a rec-list with a description as to why I picked this or that story to illustrate what.

The goal, however, is context. I'm coming out of the HP fandom where stories from 2002 and 2003 have lost their frame of reference due to the passage of time and the publishing of two books in the series. This vanishing context is even more true of a fandom where canon is changed every episode. I can provide only one perspective, but I hope I can make some connections.

As for rebuttal fics for Last Port...

I know there was a lot of discussion about John after Last Port of Call. There were several fairly important people in fandom who didn't like the story. cesperanza said, "a good story, but not exactly the feel-good hit of the summer" and was disturbed by John's behavior. amireal was very honest and flatly said she didn't like it, and she had specific reasons why not.

Then I think it was... was it eleveninches(?) who put up an informal poll about your preferred characterization of John in response to all the discussion, while... it was maybe frogspace(?)... talked about how we used different characters as points of entry, that people who viewed through Rodney felt shut out of Last Port Of Call.

So, based on the overall discussion of John, seperis (who didn't tell me if she read Last Port Of Call or not, though she had heard about it) wrote a post about her frustrations in John characterization, and then posted two stories as part of the discussion, one arising out of the other one (the second was more a story summary of John sleeping with someone for a ZPM).

Not a direct rebuttal, but a fandom trend, this one blowing in the opposite direction so-to-speak.

Icarus