Clan Mitchell

From Fanlore
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Fanwork
Title: Clan Mitchell
Creator: Synecdochic and Ivorygates
Date(s): 2009 -
Medium: fanfic
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
External Links: Clan Mitchell on Dreamwidth, Clan Mitchell on the AO3
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Clan Mitchell is a shared Stargate SG-1 AU created by Synecdochic and Ivorygates. They have encouraged spinoff fan works, which are commonly posted to related Livejournal and Dreamwidth communities. Although it is nominally a branch of Stargate: SG-1, fan-written stories tend to explore original characters unconnected with the Stargate franchise.

The main premise arose from discontent with Cameron Mitchell's stated backstory. In Stargate SG-1, he was raised in Kansas, although his actor believed him to be from the South. Clan Mitchell sets Cameron's childhood home in Black Mountain, North Carolina, with a large extended military family. His parents are changed from Frank and Wendy (in the TV series) to Everett and Sassy. Although Everett closely resembles Frank from the TV series, Sassy is considerably more authoritative and outspoken than Wendy.

Clan Mitchell itself has several AUs. It made an early appearance in the Broken Wings AU, in which Cam never recovers properly from his injuries in Antarctica and starts a new life with Jack O'Neill's clone, the Cammieverse, in which Cameron Mitchell is female, and Mezzanine, a combination, in which Cammie doesn't recover from Antarctica.

Many readers have said that a good deal of Clan Mitchell fanfic, including Broken Wings, can be read without much knowledge of SG-1 canon. Several spinoff fanfics do not deal with SG-1 characters at all, choosing to focus instead on original characters who are in some way related to the Mitchells. Others focus on finding ways to integrate the original Mitchell characters with the series, for example, by making Teal'c friends with Gran'ma Mitchell, or theorizing that Cam and Samantha Carter met and became friends during the First Gulf War.

2010 incident

In June 2010, Synecdochic started a "Not-A-Kinkmeme" challenge on the clan mitchell dreamwidth community.[1] One fill, by slybrarian, offered a less charitable interpretation of the clan as "a highly pressurized, homogenous environment in which everyone is expected and raised to be part of the elite, where no one is normal and boring, and where there are no secrets and thus also no privacy."[2] Synecdochic was upset, Ivorygates reacted badly, other readers weighed in, and the whole incident made Fandom Wank.[2] A few days later, Synecdochic posted an apology and announced that Ivorygates had left the community.[3]

The Fandom Wank comments contain some discussion about the portrayal of the Mitchell family — how it might have been a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the authors, but looked smothering or creepy to some readers.[4]

Since the 2010 incident, activity in the fandom dropped abruptly. Most fans stopped participating in the community ceased to write for the fandom.

Further Reading

Reference

  1. ^ synecdochic. Clan Mitchell Not-A-Kinkmeme, posted 2 June 2012. (Accessed 26 February 2012.)
  2. ^ a b tetradecimal. ♫ My my my my Mitchell ♫, posted on 7 June 2010 to Fandom Wank. (Accessed 26 February 2012.)
  3. ^ synecdochic. untitled clan_mitchell post, posted 9 June 2010. (Accessed 29 February 2012.)
  4. ^ comment thread started by yolanee (wayback) on Fandom Wank, 9 June 2010.(Accessed 29 February 2012)