h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I live in Iran (if nobody has looked it up yet) and my access to tv-series is rather limited. We have a satelite dish, but because of my mother we get the german channels, and I simply do not like the dubbing. Before that we had the STAR-TV satelite, and I used to watch anime - in chinese! When I got on the internet, first thing I did was to search for those anime to find out what the **** they were about which led to fanfiction - which led to crossovers- which led to anime I have not seen. Which means that I was able to tell my uncle what DVD to bring me from the USA. Fanfiction may be only a personal perspective on something, but it helps to narrow down your choices. BTW, fanfiction reading has helped my japanese, so when I get un-dubbed anime, I can follow the story a bit. (my chinese had become rather good too... )

Sorry, WH, stalking you after meeting you on the drool thread.

I can only say that the more people who read Prophet's (brilliantly beta'd I have to say) fic, the more people will watch Stargate. Which is good (oh, btw, the ratings are great, so it may go to a 7th season)

to get on topic, I find that a lot of the slash fic (probably including mine) is MarySueWishFulfilment, but if it's well written, who cares? not me anyway.

who mentioned reading Sentinel fic without ever having seen the show? That must be a "fic thing" because, via a friend of mine, I've now become very attached to Magnificent7 (as in the tv show) fic - and I'd never even heard of it.

I felt I had to reply to nim the cat's post comment about teenagers. A fair bit of any fandom contains teenagers, they just can't go to conventions as easily as the adults due to school and parents. They're seen as an extreem minority because of this, and not all of them are unable to write. No need to go and insulting the entire tennage population because of it. I've seen plenty of adults failing to grasp to concept of 'new person speaking, new line' and other such things. They're often used as a scapegoat, from what I can tell, 'that fic is bad, must be written by a teen'.

Now, this may be thought of as a rant, fair enough, but I felt I had to stand up for teenagers, being one myself, as we tend to get a lot of slag. For some reason, those adults in the fandom(s) who don't know one of us tend to think we're all five-year-olds who don't know the difference between photosynthasis and osmosis. Granted, some of us don't and are total prats, but the same goes for the adults.

Now, on a different note, Slash fic isn't discriminated against so much as it's protected, far as I can tell. There are plenty of close-minded people out there who can't stand the thought of two people of the same gender being in love. Makes no difference really, I believe Delenn (B5) said something along the lines of 'the heart knows no boundries' and that 'the heart will do as the heart will do' (not direct quotes there). So, for the sake of those close minded people and the authors Slash is clearly defined so that those who can't stand it stear clear of it and don't go sending flames to the author for something that is their own fault. I haven't actually written any, but I have read some (even in some cases when it contradicts the shipper groups I belong to) and many are good, thus why I read them. Sure, sometimes they are the subject of prejudice, but then again, everything at one time or another. Race, gender, sexual preference, religion, attitude to life, age and anything you can think of really. Slash fic is, in general, protected from close-minded ejits who have nothing better to do than not bother to actually think about life.

Anyway, rants over. Sorry for my teenager like behavour, being so imature, uneducated, stupid and totaly hormonal (okay, I'll grant you that in part) self, I'll just have to wait another five years or so for fandoms at large to actually take me seriously. Lovely.

--Neth Bob

Actually, as the moderator on a fan board, I have a certain amount of sympathy with the teens, who do face a lot of "oh teens, what do they know?" attitude.

That said, however, we also get a lot of teens who make statements about adult behaviour, and how silly it is, without (of course) having had the experiences they're commenting on. We were all teens once... although I will admit that a lot of people forget. (I haven't which is why you'll always hear me say I don't want to be a teenager ever again)

Anyway, if you're a teen writing fic, keep at it: practice makes perfect!

Neth - I had to check the thread about what I wrote about teenagers, and the only comment I found was about the ONE who wrote without punctuation here in h2g2, and that was not a negative comment, I found her rather funny. Was it something I wrote somewhere else? I do enjoy fanfiction written by teenagers, or their comments about diverse shows - as long as they do spellcheck it. I think it is a pity when somebody spends so much time on writing something, and then saves it without correction. But then again, such problems are not limited to one age group.

I also admire teenage fans for their courage to be "different". We don't have that here, and I had to suffer a great deal from negative comments about my reading habits, and it does not help that I still am "different as an adult.

Therefore, more power to your arm!