What SGA has meant to me...

[sgamadison.livejournal.com]

So rude to post and run, but I want to put this out there and let everyone have a chance to think about the answers and share with us.

I've been struck by how many people I've heard say that SGA came into their lives at a particular time when they needed something to look forward to, something to get them through the hard times.

An excerpt of what I posted to beer_onthe_ pier, a thank you com developed for the mods of the McShep Awards:

"When I was twelve, I read everything I could find relating to Stark Trek: TOS. I read all the James Blish adaptations, I read every novelization and authorized story that was available. I had heard of fanzines and knew that dedicated fans wrote their own adventures and mailed them in to some mysterious location, where slump-shouldered editors with large glasses and giant mugs of coffee collated them and carefully reproduced them on mimeographed sheets—re-circulating them to impatient fans who wanted more, more, more of their favorite characters.

 

I just didn’t know how to find these people.

 

I wrote my own Star Trek stories. Strictly gen, as I had no idea what slash was (though even then I could see glimmerings of it in the anthology of fanfiction that I discovered by chance at the local bookstore). Mine were dreadful efforts, full of implausible occurrences and high drama and much emoting. Forget MarySue characterizations, heck, I placed myself squarely in the middle of each story, ‘accidentally’ transporting myself into Gene Roddenberry’s future. At the time, you could turn on the television any time of the day or night and find a local station carrying Star Trek. I re-watched the shows endlessly. I met my best friend in high school through a shared obsession with Star Trek. I didn’t share my stories with her though—even then, I knew they were hopeless expressions of love for my favorite characters, and not real stories. I had fun, but I was in a fandom of one.

 

In the late seventies, I fell in love with Battlestar Galactica. Yes, that  version. I know it is cheesy and dated but I loved the show and the characters. It was the one show I made a point to watch every week and my first time with fresh episodes and no knowledge of what was going to happen next. My friend and I began trading BSG stories—each writing an installment that would take the never-ending saga off in new and strange directions (sound familiar, Cep?). It was fun, this little fandom of two. I was so disappointed when the show was canceled. (The less said about Galactica 1980, the better) 

 

High school ended and my friend and I went separate ways. The demands of real life pushed writing fanfiction to the side. After all, it wasn’t like I was that great a writer anyway. I told myself it was time to grow up, to get serious about my life and career and put aside the games of youth. I couldn’t let go of the story-processing in my head though—I kept watching my favorite shows and weaving grandiose plotlines in which I could somehow be magically inserted into the action. I did wonder if I was somehow abnormal and at times tried to give up the storytelling, like it was a terrible addiction that was preventing me from making something of myself.

 

Truth was, it was the only thing that kept me sane at times, though I didn’t realize it at the time. And like most addicts, I would be ‘good’ for a while and then fall off the wagon as some adventure I saw on television or read in a favorite novel made me want to create my own stories again. They stayed in my head though, as though by not committing myself to paper, I wasn’t actually indulging in my childish bad habit.

 

Sometime in 2006, I discovered SGA. Finally, another show in which I could embrace completely and obsess over again! Only this time there was this whole huge fanfiction base that I found on such sites as Area 52 and Wraithbait. Hundreds of stories for me to read and immerse myself in—all about characters that intrigued and engaged me. I was thrilled—if only I’d had access to this kind of fandom when I was a kid!

 

And I began to write again. Small efforts at first, hampered by the fact that I’d not actually ever watched an episode at this point. But then I discovered the magic of downloads and DVDs and I could indulge in an orgy of viewing in order to catch up on my canon. I watched and read and learned and began to grow as a writer. 

 

And then I discovered slash. I gotta tell you, I became an instant convert. My reasons for preferring slash to everything else are many and varied and not necessarily what the average psychologist would tell you are the real reasons. They have to do mostly with the believability of a pairing for me, as well as the built-in angst and the need for me to keep any overt MarySueism at a distance. That’s neither here nor there. But I began writing McShep as a result.

 

I was still fairly isolated from fandom. I read stories online and I began to tentatively post my own, growing bolder with the positive feedback that I received on the big archive sites and writing voraciously when I should have been doing other things. I thought that was all there was. I considered myself lucky to have so much. I was writing again after a twenty-plus year hiatus and I couldn’t stop myself now if I tried. I didn’t want to either."

I went on to say that between the SGA Big Bang, the McKay/Sheppard Awards and the urging of the_cephalopod, I joined LJ and found this whole community waiting here for me.  What I didn't say that I'd just come off serving as my father's secondary caretaker for many years, working a FT job days and sitting with him from 6 pm til midnight every evening.  Every day off, we were at the doctors' office for chemo, for blood transfusions.  My entire life went on hold during that time period.

After his death, I worked every vacation, weekend, CE time, and sick leave time for a period of 2 years so that I could achieve specialized certification, quit my job and move to the place I wanted to live, starting my life over in my mid-forties. When I found SGA and rediscovered my love of writing, it was like finding *me* again, like coming out of stasis, like waking up from a coma.  Yeah, there's a lot of built-in emotional connection with a somewhat cheesy sci-fi show.  But it's my cheesy sci-fi show and I love it and the characters dearly for all that they've given me.  What I love best about SGA is that for all their strengths, just about everyone on the expedition is a misfit of some sort, and they all discovered the best in themselves in another galaxy.

Since I started my life over, I'm riding again, I've schooled with an Olympic coach, met a great guy, got the dog of my dreams, started my own business, discovered that the One True Passion in my life is writing, auditioned for a musical,  and submitted a piece of original fiction for sale.  I've taken risks.  I've done things I'd have never contemplated all those years sitting in my parent's house, waiting for my mother to come home. 

I've walked through the Gate.

Okay, that last bit was pretty corny.  Your turn now.