DPP: Pilots for Dummies (or How I Explain This Insanity to Muggles)

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

Greetings and salutations, Shipper Nation! I'm Amy, your friendly neighborhood monkey ninja. My plans for this week require a good deal of audience participation, so you may as well block off the whole week on your calendar right now. :) I'll wait right here... Go ahead...

Anyway, I've had this topic idea for quite a while now, and it ends up kind of timely, since the gang on Twitter was talking over the weekend about recruiting for Shipper Nation. Pardon my mixed fandom metaphor, but today I'd like to know how (or even IF) you've ever explained pilots to the Muggles in your life.

By way of explanation, my company has this open-plan building concept where the cubicles only come up to about your waist when you're standing. This means that almost everyone in your area can see you from their desk. This also means that when I'm reading particularly interesting Daily Pilots Posts, my cube neighbors can see and hear my reactions. Now, thankfully, my monitor faces a corner, which will be useful later this week, but it still means that every so often I'm asked what's so funny or why I'm smiling or shaking my head, etc. If you've commented at no_takebacks  before, there's a pretty good chance I've quoted you out loud. I'm a sharer, what can I say?

So, tell me- have you ever tried to get a friend to watch BSG? How did you try to sell it? Or, have you ever tried to get a casual BSG fan to come and join our little discussions here? Maybe you prefer to keep this whole thing your private little secret. That's OK, too. Your mission is to tell us how you've made your case for pilots (or why you'll never tell). If you used visual aids, include them (why, yes, that IS a cheap ploy to include teh pretty). Have you shown someone a fanvid, a scene from the show, that gif from Eye of Jupiter where you get a little flash of tongue? Ahem. Yeah, so... How do you explain the fandom to an outsider?

Comments

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

HA! Great post idea. My BFF watched BSG long before I did and thought it would be something I'd love. I told her "no thanks" I'm too busy! Then two years later, here I am! HELLO!!!

Well, she doesn't understand shipping and she thought Kara and Lee were doomed and it wasn't a big deal to her that they never ended up together. So, before I banned her from my life, I decided to do a little brainwashing. I spent a week driving her crazy with all of the details about why they should have been together and how the evil RDM declared it would not be so. I remember my clear victory when she said, Oh, right. I totally see it now.

VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But she still doesn't ship them. *sigh* But she does read my fic and supports my ship. I don't talk to much about it to her, but she loves that I write and have a passion for something that makes me happy. :)

As for other people...I don't even try! I just say I love it, it has lead to some great friendships and that, yes, I do write fanfiction. So sue me.

[lizziec]

she doesn't understand shipping

Ah, the number of people in my life who don't get shipping. I feel your pain :) I wonder what the general proportion of people who watch programmes vs those who ship a given couple in that series is?

But she does read my fic and supports my ship.

That's really lovely :) A kind of victory in itself?

yes, I do write fanfiction. So sue me.

This made me grin. It's the way pretty much everyone I know who writes fic (all two of them) tend to tell (confess to?) other people :)

[dannicawebb.livejournal.com]

BEST. ICON. EVER.

alsoalso i can totally relate - SO many of my friends don't get shipping. i don't understand how people can NOT ship!

[kl-shipper1.livejournal.com]

alsoalso i can totally relate - SO many of my friends don't get shipping. i don't understand how people can NOT ship!

Some of my family have seen BSG, and don't ship at all .

To some extent, my sister does ship/support KL, but definitely not as much as I do. In fact, most times that I mention anything KL-related, I'm met with an eyeroll and a sigh.

I don't understand how they can resist the pretty pilots. Their loss, I guess...

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

My husband doesn't ship, which is why I haven't tried to convert him. That and he's not a huge sci-fi fan. I actually like that BSG is my private thing.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

I actually like that BSG is my private thing.

I hear this, sister! It's like a private club of awesome! <3

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

It is a private club of awesome! *high five*

[thegreenkitty.livejournal.com]

Yes, completely this!! <3

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

I have an RL friend (who introduced me to LJ, actually) that is a fan of BSG, but not a shipper. She beta-ed my first few BSG fics until I crossed a line she didn't enjoy crossing (*cough* porn *cough*). She's about the only one I even get into things with, because she ships outside of the BSG fandom.

Why I'm not evangelising (or am just not ready yet) (big ramble, feel free to skip)

[lizziec]

I've always been a bit of a nerd. I like Star Trek and Star Wars and Stargate and Doctor Who and can generally hold my own in a discussion on those subjects (which is good, cos a lot of my friends are nerds also ;)).

I've said quite a lot that I've only just started "doing" BSG. The first time I watched an episode in February this year. It's not for want of my husband trying though, because he's been watching BSG since the miniseries, meaning every week for years he'd squirrel himself away and at the end of 45 mins exclaim "OMG BSG!" - or sometimes "WTF BSG?!". I regarded him with amusement. Occasionally I wound him up. For Christmas 2010 I indulged him by buying him the complete Blu-Ray box set. That proved to be my undoing (or possibly the catalyst for me embracing my dorkiness).

I work as a temp and found myself to be at a loose end in February. There was nothing on the telly and I found myself peering curiously at the box set. Most of my friends liked BSG, so maybe I should actually give it a go.

So I did. I watched the entire series from end to end in four weeks. Ben watched with me, and when he was at work I just rewatched some of the episodes I had seen. Then I started reading fan-fiction.

In what I suspect is the collision of many elements (me essentially mainlining the series, identifying with a lot of what the characters were going through, especially on themes of loss, the UST between the pilots being nearly unbearable) I became completely hooked, to the degree that Ben started to teasingly call me the queen of the dorks.

I watched this (and other comms) for a while, quietly lurking, before deciding to get involved, and then I didn't tell anyone else I was quite so in to it until I started drabble writing, and even now I feel kind of red-faced when I post about it on my journal. Course, it doesn't help that I tend to think of Pilots like real people and explore their feelings and motivations as such. Even my dork friends seem to think that's a bit odd ;)

I'm less embarrassed than I was at least, so I'm kind of hoping I get over that soon and start being able to evangelise a bit, cos pilots are awesome :)

Re: Why I'm not evangelising (or am just not ready yet) (big ramble, feel free to skip)

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

My husband and I watched the whole series in 39 days and he doesn't get why I'm still talking about it over a year later. Oh, well. I'm in fine company!

Re: Why I'm not evangelising (or am just not ready yet) (big ramble, feel free to skip)

[thegreenkitty.livejournal.com]

he doesn't get why I'm still talking about it over a year later. Oh, well. I'm in fine company!

Dude, completely hear you on this one!! I watched with my bffs (well, I mainlined S1-start of S4, then watched S4/4.5 real time)...and after DB2/3 ended, they just GOT UP and started doing other things while I sat there looking completely dumbfounded and in shock over Kara and K/L. How people just got over that is beyond me but whatever...you guys are the best so it all worked out fine. (Well, relatively fine...apart from the character mutilation and all.) ;)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

A few friends who knew about my obsession decided to watch it because of my enthusiasm for the show (not specifically pilots). One (and his mom!) ended up really enjoying it, but...I find that it takes a special level of obsession to be a fan like we all are. A special level of internet addiction too probably. ;)

I don't usually go on too much about my love for pilots or Kara or the show outside of my computer screen. :) Not so much embarassment as just the realization that people "won't get it." Maybe if I already knew someone was this level of obsessed about another fandom/show/thing, then I would. I did convince or at least helped convince poppypickle my fellow Hunger Games shipper that she needed to check out pilots and BSG because I knew she'd love them and she did. But "RL" people? I just don't usually bother.

I also find that without watching week-to-week for at least part of the show's run, it doesn't have the same effect for most folks? It's easier to dismiss if you just blow through it in a week or two I think, as opposed to having to suffer through at least one eye-stabbingly long Syfy hiatus and coming up with all the fic, conjecture, speculation, interview-related squee that ensues.

[dannicawebb.livejournal.com]

"I also find that without watching week-to-week for at least part of the show's run, it doesn't have the same effect for most folks? It's easier to dismiss if you just blow through it in a week or two I think, as opposed to having to suffer through at least one eye-stabbingly long Syfy hiatus and coming up with all the fic, conjecture, speculation, interview-related squee that ensues."

this totally makes sense to me. i've found i have a different relationship to shows that i watched during their run, versus shows i only started after they were canceled.

[lizziec]

I also find that without watching week-to-week for at least part of the show's run, it doesn't have the same effect for most folks?

I suppose this might be true for most people, but I often find the opposite. I tend to get most obsessive over shows that I've watched in a condensed amount of time. Having said that, having watched BSG in just four weeks, I'm not sure I could have lasted Syfy hiatuses. And I certainly couldn't have lasted the weeks between Maelstrom and Crossroads part II without completely losing it all together. You guys have my total admiration for managing that.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Oh interesting! Yeah, I didn't catch up until I think mid-to-late 4.0 and just had to endure the last hiatus I believe? I was totally spoiled for Katee coming back by the time I got to Maelstrom so it didn't even faze me much. I was just like "OKAY NEXT EPS!"

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that the manner of watching affects the depth or passion for the ship or the show. If anything, watching all at once is extremely intense and all-consuming with little room to think of anything else. I think I could have easily shipped less had I watched week to week with the long hiatus and season breaks. Real life didn't have much of a hold on me for the few weeks it took to watch the show the first time. It overtook me. And then I watched again, it overtook me even more and I had to find fanfiction and a community. I think sometimes people claim to ship harder or to somehow be more devoted because they watched real-time. *shrugs* I'm not sure that's true at all. There are very few shows I watch that are in real-time and I can't say my enjoyment of them is any more than the shows I watch in one fell-swoop. If anything, I forget what I watch week to week and certainly on the long breaks. Watching all at once put me inside the BSG universe and that was pretty hard core.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I've always been a big TV watcher so I don't think there's any show that I actually have experienced completely afterwards on DVD... hmm. I think if I had just watched it in a week or two and been done... it would've changed my viewing experience a lot, but it's hard to say of course.

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

Maybe if I already knew someone was this level of obsessed about another fandom/show/thing, then I would.

See, I even tried that, and ships just don't translate! I try to sell the show, certainly, but I don't bother trying to sell the ship. You're right- people either get it or they don't. And are you implying we have an internet addiction? 8'D

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Lol. Only a small internet addiction. ;)

[thegreenkitty.livejournal.com]

Agreed on this: I don't usually go on too much about my love for pilots or Kara or the show outside of my computer screen. :) Not so much embarassment as just the realization that people "won't get it."

I mean, I "didn't get it" re: fandoms, etc. until Kara and pilots, so I can understand others that haven't had that experience with a show or character(s). People like what they like I suppose.

As far as mainlining vs. watching real time, I did some of both (including dealing with the S4 to S4.5 hiatus crazy). I think both parts affected me in different ways. The mainlining was definitely all-consuming and fostered my Kara love and pilots!love. The real time watching and hiatus-enduring was what pulled me into fandom though b/c I started lurking on skiffy and then LJ. I might have had less rage about the poof and such if I hadn't waited week to week idealistically "knowing" they would fix things by the end. So...I dunno, I might have felt less of a betrayal if S4/4.5 had gone faster as the "trauma" might have been less, but my love for K/L was strong throughout my bsg experience.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I had a quasi fandom with Pacey/Joey from Dawson's Creek I guess, in that I was checking message boards a lot and writing long melodramatic fic for them. LOL. The community element of LJ is a whole different experience though.

I think I would've found it easier to get over/not so terribly traumatic if I wasn't in this fandom and as active as I was? Like if I just loved them a lot while I watched on DVD for a few weeks....then I don't know...

[thegreenkitty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, who knows, right? I think I would have found it harder to get over without fandom for support BUT I looked for fandom after the 4/4.5 crazy hit in order to discuss/empathize/etc. I see your point though...since you were already part of the fandom and then had the crazy blow up all around you, it does make sense that it would be harder to get free. Hmmm...

[onlyariana.livejournal.com]

I inhaled BSG in just over a week and it was INTENSE. I finished like 3 weeks ago and I still can't seem to step away from the Netflix Instant. I just *keep* rewatching my fave bits. I think if I'd have been watching in real time I'd have been bored with the shippiness by the time the end came. That's what seems to happen in a lot of the shows I watch "live" Like right now I don't really care if Booth and Brennan get together on Bones. By the end I didn't care if Veronica and Logan ended together or not. (By the way LOVE the icon. That quote has been going through my head regarding Kara/Lee since I watched BSG)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I actually made this icon! Feel free to snerch if you like.

It's hard to compare because I've never shipped anyone this intensely before. The closest was Pacey/Joey but I soured on the show a bit in seasons 5 and 6 I guess, so I wasn't torn up when they broke them up. (Though I did like the finale)

[onlyariana.livejournal.com]

Ha!!! You know when I started watching BSG I really wasn't a fan of Apollo but then in Kobol's Last Gleaming when she called out his name I decided to ship them because *she* wanted that. That's exactly what I did in the first half season or so of DC. I wanted Joey/Dawson because that's what Joey wanted. Quickly I realized she could do much better. ;-)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

That was exactly my shipping trajectory too! I was intrigued by them but not sure I fully shipped until I squealed in glee at the Leegasm. (Although even as late as Scar, I still had some doubts, but then once Lee got to totally pining for her (basically right after the table scene in Scar) then I was very on board. Lol.

And I shipped Joey/Dawson in S1 because she clearly wanted that (but I was intrigued by the P/J chemistry in the Snails episode!) and then I started writing fic for them at the end of S2 and over that hiatus so I loved S3!

[dannicawebb.livejournal.com]

um, i just started watching bsg about a month ago (maybe a little more), and like trapper, i mainlined the series - finished all the eps in about three weeks, and have been rewatching my favorites. (i had to get completely fucking wasted to make it through season 2.5 with my shipper heart intact though, especially black market and sacrifice...so i'm a little afraid to rewatch those.)

i've been evangelizing about bsg to some close friends and family, who are already familiar with my fangirlish ways, but they aren't taking me very seriously :( i'm hoping when i move to kansas in august, i can make my friend who lives there watch bsg with me (he's the one who turned me onto firefly).

i think the biggest problem is that in other fandoms i usually ship pairings that are totally non-canon, so most of my friends think i'm off my rocker to begin with and don't pay attention to anything i say. and that i take things too seriously...i'm totally addicted to pilots. i think of them as though they are real people. (i mean, i know they're not, but...you know. i relate to them too much.) so i guess what i'm trying to say is, my usual choir that i preach to doesn't get it AT ALL, so i need to find new people to woo with my love of bsg & pilots.

[lizziec]

in other fandoms i usually ship pairings that are totally non-canon, so most of my friends think i'm off my rocker to begin with

Pfft, I think your friends just need to realise that sometimes the canon pairings are just plain wrong ;)

[thegreenkitty.livejournal.com]

Ummm, the easy answer for me is that "what the muggles don't know won't hurt them"...the complicated answer is well, complicated, and rl is distracting me today (arrgh...potential goodness, but currently manifesting as anxiety)...but I will try to come back and post more later.

(Just a quick spoiler: Since pilots have taken over my life, I did feel it necessary to apologize to my favorite cousin for thinking he was crazy for writing Star Trek and Buffy fanfic back in the day. LOL...a lesson in "don't judge, lest ye be judged" and/or "don't knock it til you've tried it.") :P

[rdave1.livejournal.com]

I preach BSG to all sadly only few have listened!:)

After the finale, I was well depressed and co-worker/friend was like what's up? Instead of telling her the sad tale of my pilots, I remain quite. Few months after that, I started to decorate my office with Bambi's pics and later I started spamming her. We went to D*C last year and she felt left out of all the piloty convos with fangirls. Thus she decided she had to watch the show because she was missing out on something epic. She watched, she fell in love with pilots and she hated the finale. Her husband watched of course but his reaction to the finale is by far my favorite. My friend was taking a shower, he walks in, says "poof really?" slams the bathroom door and leaves.

So I have added two shippers to fandom though I am trying to get her to participate more. She is shy you know!:)

Thus endth my preaching!

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

Success! Good for you! So far, I've failed on all counts. :)

[rdave1.livejournal.com]

Keep it up! It took me nearly 2 years.:)

[thegreenkitty.livejournal.com]

Awww, tell Ms. Lady J that we love her and deffo want her to pop in around these parts!!

I was depressed post-finale too, bb. You guys are great for support though! *hugs*

LOL at decorating with Bambi!!! I <3 you!

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

This ship ain't my first rodeo. My obsession with TV couples goes back to the NBC soaps I grew up with, and I've known since the early 80s that a) nobody whose opinion I care about ever seems to watch what I watch, and b) if they do, they don't ship the same couples. I have vivid memories of watching Texas (which was a VERY short-lived Another World spin-off: 1980-1982), and daydreaming that Reena and that Dekker guy could get things sorted out. I was, rather disturbingly now that I look, only 8 years old.

I learned oh-so-very-young to mostly keep it to myself, although I do mention things we talk about, under the less-freaky guise of "one of my LJ comms". My husband dated me during the Janeway/Chakotay years of Star Trek: Voyager, and the Mulder/Scully years of X-Files, and yet he still acts surprised. I keep telling him, he knew what he was getting into... Muggles. 8'D

[thegreenkitty.livejournal.com]

See, I don't know. I watched the CBS soaps and had 'ships I loved...but I don't feel like they were as all-encompassing. Maybe it's Kara's fault there...b/c it's not just the ship this time...it's also how closely I connect to her. Hmmm...

[kl-shipper1.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I watch other shows and support various ships, but I've never loved-- and been so involved in-- any of those ships as much as Kara/Lee. All-encompassing is a good word to describe it. I would never have considered writing fanfic for the other ships, that's for sure.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

FINALLY! Another person who watched and loved TEXAS!!! I shipped Reena/Grant. Boring canon, I know, but I DID! <3<3

My first ship was Mulder/Scully back when it first aired on Friday nights. I'd set my VCR, but even then would rather NOT go out on a Friday night and miss my show. I was in my mid-twenties, so abstaining from going out was near torture. Who know I'd be so addicted nowadays, with half so much time passing. X-files also spawned my FIRST fanfiction, which was slash, Mulder/Skinner. It sucked and the places to post it were few and far between, but I read what I could find and had a great time of it. Oh, those were the days.... LOL!

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

I'm in the group of late-comers to this show, and back in the fall when I was newly addicted, I was sitting around at lunch one day with a bunch of other teachers. Sarah and I had just had an animated conversation about the awesomeness of Ender's Game, and I decided she was ripe for conversion to watching BSG. I started by saying this: "So it's not really scifi. See, there are these robots--" And then we were laughing pretty hard. (It's often political allegory was my point. She's a social studies teacher.)

The first person I successfully hooked was my father, by convincing him to get me the box set for Hanukkah and then that he should watch "just the mini-series" with me. We watched all the way up to Home before I left.

I also got a friend addicted, who ships K/L now maybe even more than me. She watched most of it on her own, but I was there for Maelstrom and she promptly declared that Kara was the main character and she was never watching this show again if she and Lee weren't going to end up together! (She did, of course, with encouragement :) ) And actually, I just gave her a link to my profile to read some of my fanfiction, so she may wander over here one of these days...

[sammy567.livejournal.com]

By the time I started watching BSG, the series had already ended. My friends had kept trying to get me to watch the show, even wanting me to be the "Boomer" in their group Halloween costume where they all dressed as generic pilots, except one Saul Tigh w/ an eye patch, and the one (blond w/ short hair) female as Starbuck.

When I finally got to watching it with my sister and her husband, she and I were initially Pilots shippers, but by the end she hated them. I remained a fan, so this place is my secret refuge.

Shipping aside, I think the series is great, and I describe it not as a scifi show but more as a military drama that happens to be set in space. I convince people to just watch the "first episode" with me and by the end of the mini series, they're hooked.

[nazkey.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to comment on this post for a few days but of course, stupid RL always gets in the way of serious fangirling.

Any way, like most of you, I preach talk about BSG all the time. But, my one major success was my BFF#2 who comes over to dinner at least once a week. About two months ago, I told him I needed 30 minutes of his time to show him something and promised that if he didn't like it, I wouldn't make him watch the rest. Didn't tell him what it was. I started the mini and stopped exactly at the 30 minute mark and he turned around and yelled, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING STOPPING????" Hee. The rest is history. He has now watched the entire thing twice, owns the DVD's, has downloaded the music and is getting all of his other friends to watch it too.

*high fives bringing one more person into the hive*

[winegums.livejournal.com]

I used to get teased to death back in the days when I talked about my love for Harry Potter, so fandom in general is a very private thing for me, and shipping even more private :)

I'm all open to helping my LJ and forum buddies get into something, but IRL I just keep my Pilots love on the down low, it's like it's too precious to share with people who might not get it and I don't want to expose my poor precious OTP to even the smallest risk of being ridiculed. Canon is hard enough for them as it is :(.