Ha, that's probably why I *am* hard to pin down, and it's not even something I'd thought about, but I do move back and forth between the two extremes in SGA to a much greater degree than in most of my other fandoms. My first big fandom, Trigun, for example, was very definitely a "fanning on changes" sort of fandom, and even my stabs at cheerful, fluffy fic in that fandom were fairly dark and weird.
SGA, though -- it draws me both ways, and I find that after I've been focusing on one thing for a while, I'll get burned out and swing back in the other direction ... but still within the same fandom. I guess this is where it's really coming in handy that the fandom itself is so huge, because it is possible to find gloomy apocafic, or non-con, or really dark torture-fic, or fluffy teaminess, or cheerful, goofy slash ...
I *have* noticed that, for its size, it's really not as diverse as you'd expect (the majority of fic in the fandom is one pairing and kind of self-similar in tone), but it's SO huge that it's usually possible to find something in almost any style, with almost any characters. And it seems to lend itself to more diverse possibilities for writing than any other fandom I've been in. AUs work fantastically well, especially since they're technically canon. You can do star-spanning epics, or quiet little set-pieces; you can build societies from the ground up, or set a story on Earth if you want to. Stylistically, you can do it as a space western, as a comedy of manners, a farce, a gloomy metaphor for Western colonial ambition, a complicated tale of political espionage, a happy romance, a frontier society-building tale, a murder mystery; you can even introduce quite a lot of fantasy elements before you get outside the realm of canonical possibility, considering that telepathy, psychic healing, and dead people coming back to life are totally canonical. You can also cross it over with pretty much any show set in present-day Earth. As far as the range of story possibilities, it's kind of hard to beat.
But I know what you mean, about wanting different things from different fandoms; SGA is just a bit unusual for me in that I seem to be able to do the mental twist required to get the show and/or the fanfic to supply my different needs. I'm not able to do that in most fandoms, and I suspect it's probably more me than the show itself. I don't blame you for not wanting to view the characters in the fandom from certain perspectives, though, because it's probably the same reason why I'm not that interested in reading your slash (and, fyi, you're not the only gen author whose slash I don't read -- I hadn't thought about it, but I can think of a couple of others, too, who write both, and I seem to prefer sticking with one or the other view of the characters from them, and not getting both from the same author).
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winterfish
Re: Part 2 (edited)
Date: 2008-11-28 10:46 am (UTC)SGA, though -- it draws me both ways, and I find that after I've been focusing on one thing for a while, I'll get burned out and swing back in the other direction ... but still within the same fandom. I guess this is where it's really coming in handy that the fandom itself is so huge, because it is possible to find gloomy apocafic, or non-con, or really dark torture-fic, or fluffy teaminess, or cheerful, goofy slash ...
I *have* noticed that, for its size, it's really not as diverse as you'd expect (the majority of fic in the fandom is one pairing and kind of self-similar in tone), but it's SO huge that it's usually possible to find something in almost any style, with almost any characters. And it seems to lend itself to more diverse possibilities for writing than any other fandom I've been in. AUs work fantastically well, especially since they're technically canon. You can do star-spanning epics, or quiet little set-pieces; you can build societies from the ground up, or set a story on Earth if you want to. Stylistically, you can do it as a space western, as a comedy of manners, a farce, a gloomy metaphor for Western colonial ambition, a complicated tale of political espionage, a happy romance, a frontier society-building tale, a murder mystery; you can even introduce quite a lot of fantasy elements before you get outside the realm of canonical possibility, considering that telepathy, psychic healing, and dead people coming back to life are totally canonical. You can also cross it over with pretty much any show set in present-day Earth. As far as the range of story possibilities, it's kind of hard to beat.
But I know what you mean, about wanting different things from different fandoms; SGA is just a bit unusual for me in that I seem to be able to do the mental twist required to get the show and/or the fanfic to supply my different needs. I'm not able to do that in most fandoms, and I suspect it's probably more me than the show itself. I don't blame you for not wanting to view the characters in the fandom from certain perspectives, though, because it's probably the same reason why I'm not that interested in reading your slash (and, fyi, you're not the only gen author whose slash I don't read -- I hadn't thought about it, but I can think of a couple of others, too, who write both, and I seem to prefer sticking with one or the other view of the characters from them, and not getting both from the same author).
(And, wow, are we ever off topic now!)