Differing Goals: Meta and Fanfic

So, I love writing meta -- it's writing about the show, writing slightly outside the show. And I love writing fanfiction, which feeds precisely the opposite need -- it's all about writing inside the show.

For me, meta is about explaining the show from the outside in, whereas fic is about illustrating it from the inside out.

I also feel as though I need to be very careful when I'm writing fiction, much more than meta. Because meta? Is from my perspective. Meta is about how I see the show.

When I write fanfiction, I have to forget about how I see the show and instead concentrate on how the characters view their situation. Jack and Daniel can see the exact same thing and view it in entirely different ways -- big example, Scorched Earth, where Jack seeing a race of people being killed for something that isn't anyone yet, while Daniel sees two different species that both want the same place. For Jack, the situation shouldn't even require much argument, because only the Enkarans exist, only they are actually there. For Daniel, the culture and the possibility of the Gadmeer is as valid as the culture and existence of the Enkarans.

The faults that I find with characters are not always faults that they would recognize as faults. What a viewer sees as blind loyalty, a character may see as faith and trust. In meta, I say what I think, but in fanfiction, I have to find what the character would think.

It's a wonderful exercise, one that I think I succeed at more than I fail. Plus, it's fun. And when everything clicks and I think to myself, oh, yes, they see the world that way, my own world brightens and glows with new perspective.

So, in the end, for me, meta is exploration and fic is transformation.

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I really need to be asleep right now. I need to catch a bus at nine so that I can get to the airport at eleven.

But my head hurts and it's hot and, fuck it, I can't sleep. If all else fails, I am capable of skipping one night of sleep, after all, and hotel rooms are air-conditioned (and here, there's so little point because it just isn't needed except for summer, but, man, it sucks when it is hot).

Watched the 'Captain Carter' special on the Stargate dvds. Was vaguely offended by the description of Carter as pretty much the perfect mix of Jack and Daniel. Am thinking of sulking. I've also now seen every single episode in seasons one through four and all but two of five.

I've been thinking about aliens recently. SG's overall picture of them isn't too complimentary. The Asgard are a dying race. The Nox and the Ancients have basically retreated into their own little corners of non-interference (the Nox are really the nicest high-tech race that we ever meet, and they don't ask the Tau'ri for help, which distinguishes them from the Tok'ra and the Asgard). The Tollan and Tok'ra are jerks, except for the ones that have a Sam connection.

And the Goa'uld, of course, are parasitic slimeballs.

I've also been thinking about what it really means that SG-1 is basically stocked with four of the most exceptional people that we ever get to know on the show (two major genius types, a guy who used to lead an army and is now something of a Moses figure, and Jack, who is... Jack and thus very impressive). It's about the 'best and the brightest' and about how four already strong people make a team that is even stronger than the sum of its parts. They inspire each other to greatness.

I also went back through my Jack-pov Meridian fic (Playing Possum) and edited the sentences that had ended in prepositions, because I know Jack's position on that. Also, if Jack must have a degree to be an officer, then I hold a tiny little flame for it being an English degree of some kind. Because he does care and I love that about him. Plus, it immediately makes all of his pretending not to know what words mean even funnier ("No, seriously. Impudence, what's that?" Hee.).