Sam Carter/Amanda Tapping Discussion/Appreciation

[the dancer of spaz]

Very much so. It did feel a little rushed to me, and I'm uncertain as to whether they should have attempted to cover so much (although the clue is in the ep title...). But at the same time, it's a very awkward situation. Sam's in mourning, yes, but at the same time she is at peace, which I think anyone who has had a parent who they have seen terminally ill will recognise. And those around, no matter how close, don't always know how to deal with their own feelings on the own subject whilst trying to fathom out exactly what is going through the mind of the bereaved. And those possible scenes, in all their complexity, might have been considered a bit much. We can't know.

That's true. They were well over the limit anyway, what with the whole thing needing to be 60 minutes. I'm one of the fans who wishes that the fishing scene had been longer. While at the time I was just content to get a (supposed) resolution to the ship, I really wanted to see the whole team sitting there together, without the focus being solely on Sam and Jack. That would've been a great opportunity to have a few lines address the various subjects - Jacob, RepliCarter, etc. Meh. I guess that's what fanfic is for.


ETA: Sorry for my part in the OT chatter over the past day or so. While I think the thread should definitely stay on topic (whatever that is), I never saw any harm in a couple of pages of OT silliness - especially when there are no new episodes airing. I don't always get the inside jokes, despite the fact that I've been here since the thread's inception, and that's OK. If there were pages and pages of OT discussion, that'd be one thing. But somehow we always manage to get back on track. And we seem to have this same discussion every few months, which suggests (to me anyway) that this is simply the ebb and flow of the thread.

And if we're going to be expected to go to another thread to take any off-topic discussion during the summer, this might be a good opportunity to address that as a group now. Because we have several, several months before new episodes of Atlantis air, and I can almost guarantee that we'll have the same issue by June.

[Uber]

Blah blah blah blah blah

Yes yes. Good points all.

But more importantly, what did you think of my hybrid???

Spoiler:

*What do you mean it's not all about me!!*

[resurgamlaura]

That's true. They were well over the limit anyway, what with the whole thing needing to be 60 minutes. I'm one of the fans who wishes that the fishing scene had been longer. While at the time I was just content to get a (supposed) resolution to the ship, I really wanted to see the whole team sitting there together, without the focus being solely on Sam and Jack. That would've been a great opportunity to have a few lines address the various subjects - Jacob, RepliCarter, etc. Meh. I guess that's what fanfic is for.


ETA: Sorry for my part in the OT chatter over the past day or so. While I think the thread should definitely stay on topic (whatever that is), I never saw any harm in a couple of pages of OT silliness - especially when there are no new episodes airing. I don't always get the inside jokes, despite the fact that I've been here since the thread's inception, and that's OK. If there were pages and pages of OT discussion, that'd be one thing. But somehow we always manage to get back on track. And we seem to have this same discussion every few months, which suggests (to me anyway) that this is simply the ebb and flow of the thread.

And if we're going to be expected to go to another thread to take any off-topic discussion during the summer, this might be a good opportunity to address that as a group now. Because we have several, several months before new episodes of Atlantis air, and I can almost guarantee that we'll have the same issue by June.

The thing is, they probably thought they were giving the fans what they wanted...and to them their final 'team' moment was them watching how things could been at the end of 'Moebius pt2'. But the whole team 'fishing'...its corny, but fitting somehow. Really the best thing to do when in doubt is to go for the team, writer people

OT: The OT is really only a problem because so many people post here- many of whom have had similar experiences, etc and also who have met personally now. The main character thread that I post in has...ooh, about ten to a dozen real regulars. So when we go OT its not so big deal, and its easy to direct it back. We never have more than four or five members viewing. Here, I've noticed that the (GMT) evening average is about 17. So, feel free to shove me towards the blue jello corner when I start to get out of control...

[the dancer of spaz]

The OT is really only a problem because so many people post there- many of whom have had similar experiences, etc and also who have met personally now. The main character thread that I post in has...ooh, about ten to a dozen real regulars. So when we go OT its not so big deal, and its easy to direct it back. We never have more than four or five members viewing. Here, I've noticed that the (GMT) evening average is about 17. So, feel free to shove me towards the blue jello corner when I start to get out of control...

Well, the BJC was cool when it first started because it came a point in time where a whole lot of us were going off-topic. Now, as one can see from the actual posting - or lack of posting - it's become rather superfluous.

I'm a fan of OT at a relative minimum. Especially when there's nothing else of substance being discussed. It's part of the whole community feel we've developed for over two years, and it's bound to happen. But that's just my take on it.

[Skydiver]

Like that one. I really liked how Jacob didn't just have a great relationship with Sam, but that he had a really good relationship with the guys on an individual basis.

That's why, after Threads, the lack of reaction on a team level - let alone from Daniel and Teal'c - seemed so incredibly off to me. There should've been some line of dialogue between the four of them. I guess it was just another one of those issues they were trying to tie up by the end of the season.

i do like how sam and jacob grew over the years. from the daughter that couldn't tell her dad what she did and the dad that was disappointed in a way, to near equals in many ways.

the one time i really, really felt for sam was in evolution. Jacob, teal'c, bratac and her...and she's in command. yeah right. like SHE is gonna boss around her dad, selmac, teal'c who does what he wants and mister 140 years old

poor girl.

as to threads, yes, the fishing was cute and, well rather appropriate...but a little daniel and teal'c grief sympathy would have been nice too. Like after jacob died and we see jack up in the window...well just have him joined by the boys. that would have been enough. just to have the boys be there

[majorsal]

I can see how some might want to have those in-depth character discussions without interruption or side-tracking and I think that's fair. But a lot of the time, I just want to talk to 'everyone' (I'm a social trollop like that ). So I really don't have a solution to this - just a personal point of view, I guess.

that's the main reason i created the 'amanda *and her roles* discussion and appreciation thread'. i'd love for any amanda/characters she's played fans to come over, but also just amanda appreciation is good. it's not in replacement of this thread, just a different lane that ends up taking us to the same place in the end anyways (our shared love of amanda and her characters).



sally

[Amanda_Tapping_Fan]

Yes yes. Good points all.

But more importantly, what did you think of my hybrid???

Spoiler:

*What do you mean it's not all about me!!*

lol, thats just freakin brilliant

[majorsal]

What? Who the heck said we didn't want to discuss Sam in Samanda?! Maybe there are topics that have been discussed before... it IS a big thread after all. But new voices and new people, plus time and perspective bring different aspects into a discussion. Okay, you might have to mitigate an argument with "I know we've discussed this before..." but given that the people in the Amanda thread are most likely the same people as here in Samanda, what's the difference?

If you want different threads and you want to keep them separate (Which I really don't, to be honest), then you can't decide to have Sam conversations in the Amanda thread, you know? You have to make distinct differences or they merge and are obselete duplicate threads.

It's not just "newer" people who want to discuss Sam. If we didn't want to have discussions about the character, we wouldn't be in this thread. Having said that, as a group we are both interested in the actress and the character and I see no reason for multiple threads.

In some cases, multiple threads work. But I think we already have a developed community atmosphere and "reworking" the rules would be detrimental to that. In Gateworld history, these forced changes have never seemed to work. Just look at the Torri threads, for example.

a thread needs to progress to survive. for whatever reason(s), we aren't getting a lot of new minds/opinions into this thread. there are over 26,000 ppl on this forum, there's got to be more than 10 fans of sam/amanda's.

maybe the new thread will bring out the lurkers/newbies/need time to post from shyness ppl. at least i hope so.

if the other thread ever gets merged into this thread, i'm hoping enough new postees will be on the thread to come over here and keep the sam-related discussions going.





sally

[majorsal]

I'm not talking about merging anything. What i'd like to do is make sure that ALL the threads survive. Like someone else recently said 'there has been so much negativity and sam bashing lately, i'd love anything that's pro sam to contiue to exist'

sounds like a good idea, sky.


((((amanda & sam & helen & anyone she's played))))





sally

[majorsal]

So there seems to be several issues to resolve here...

1. The OT stuff needs to subside a bit, or take the OT discussion back to the Blue Jello Corner.

2. Those people who wish to discuss Sam, really need to stop relying on the older, more loquacious folks for keeping a discussion going. If you really wish to chat about Sam, then make it happen. Obviously there is several of you on the AT thread capable of keeping a discussion going, so do it here. I adore Sam, truly I do. I think she's a fantastic character, but in the end, she is still just a character to me and while I enjoy chatting bout her on occassion, I just don't enjoy going on in grand detail about every tiny aspect of her life. In many cases, I don't get involved in the discussions because people often transcend Sam into a greater than all entity which makes me feel very uncomfortable discussing the more negative aspects of the character. I don't believe in bashing a character or an actor, but I also get rather tired of hearing how absolutely wonderful they are as well. Everything in balance, is what I say.

3. The Amanda fangurls, myself included, also need to learn to balance our discussions to include Sam more often. I'll admit I also need to work on responding more to comments people direct to me personally, in this thread as well in reps. The hardest part for me is that writing is not my forte. It's not something that comes easily and while I did try to do respond more often in the past, I found that I ended up spending way too much time online discussing things that people had said in response to my comments and my daughter was beginning to feel ignored. So sadly, my choice was to limit my discussion time even if it made me appear uninterested or rude at times. Hopefully noone takes it personally. It's not that I'm not interested or that I don't want to respond. But as I said, writing for me is not something I do well or feel comfortable doing, so sitting online responding to every rep, email and comment could literally take hours out of my day and while some people may have this luxury... I really don't.

i've tried on numerous occasions to get this thread back into some sam discusions. i've even suggested getting lurkers to come in, just to bring in *more* bodies to talk. i think we, we being the ones here the longest, have just kind of went over all the sam stuff already, so it's not real "interesting?" for us. newbies and lurkers and just more bodies would help the situation. even if 'we' didn't find the discussions interesting enough to jump in, we'd be sitting back reading others views and it would also be keeping this thread alive (sam discussions wise).

but we've talked and the majority have wanted to keep things the way they were. now we have another 'discussion only' thread, which lets this thread continue in it's discuss/chat thinger. i think this makes the most ppl happy, even though i wish the sam-heavy discussions were going on here.

it's already happened, so why don't we just continue the same here? i'll still come over and contribute when i find something interesting enough, but what's done is done. this thread can stay the same, as the majority have voted for. just my opinion.





sally

[Amanda_Tapping_Fan]

I think it should really be easy to talk about Sam/Amanda because there are so many sides to even just Sam, her relationships with others, the world around her, and the character her self has so many dimentions and sides the possibilitys are endless (well maybe not endless but yeah)

[Agent_Dark]

The solution is simple: If you want to talk about Sam - post about Sam. If you want to talk about Amanda - post about Amanda. If you want to talk about other stuff - talk about other stuff. If no-one takes you up on your posts.... well no-one's taken you up on your posts. They're not gonna think you're a dick for bringing it up though

[the dancer of spaz]

The solution is simple: If you want to talk about Sam - post about Sam. If you want to talk about Amanda - post about Amanda. If you want to talk about other stuff - talk about other stuff. If no-one takes you up on your posts.... well no-one's taken you up on your posts. They're not gonna think you're a dick for bringing it up though

Words to live by, folks. Words to live by.

[Agent_Dark]

Words to live by, folks. Words to live by.

Yeah, I'm not really sure why people go on huge pilgramges to see the Pope or the Dalai Lama or to the Mecca or whatever . Just read my posts on the Internet...

[JuliaR]

I have to say that as I had thought we'd all agreed to live in harmony the last time this came up, I was surprised by the new thread and it seems bizarrely to me from my one brief visit to the Amanda thread (RL gets in the way of my browsing time so I tend to stick to S/J and here) that a lot of the discussion there is about Sam. So colour me confused about where I go to discuss Sam.

I'm very confused too. I thought we'd discussed this ages ago and talk about everything Amanda was going to be on the table here in Samanda, encompassing past, present and future characters and her actual fandom.
I thought that Samanda was about Amanda and not just Sam as she was now moving into other things, so we could keep the community together let it grow and move with her.

Frankly, having three different threads is going to make life very difficult for a lot of people who support Amanda in all her roles. A one stop shop is surely a better option for everyone, with perhaps really OT stuff going to the blue-jello thread if it gets too out of hand. Although frankly that's what makes this thread great. I don't mind skipping posts which are chitter chat and finding those which interest me, that's part of being a community.

I don't know about other people, but Samanda is a community that speaks of Amanda's fandom and therefore discussion about everything she does is surely okay since her fans are the ones on here, and if Sam is discussed or Helen Magnus or anything else she does down the line it will be eagerly discussed within this community.

I have to add my two penneth and say that with a hectic lifestyle (and I'm not unique, there are others like me) multiple threads about Amanda will end up with me not being able to keep up with reading them all and occasionally contributing to them, and if others end up feeling the same the Samandan community won't grow but will fracture across the different threads and some people may possibly just give up trying to keep up with all the posts altogether.

Just my thoughts but I am a tad confused.

Julia
G4