I think it's because writing real gen is harder: with any ship story (het or slash) you will get readers who are in it for the pairing. So it's easy to reach a wide audience even if your plot is shaky or non-existent and your grasp of character is minimal and your storytelling skills are subpar.
Whereas gen fanfic has to stand on its own merits and have a strong story/plot/character analysis/whathaveyou. You don't get a pass because your readers just like the pairing and are ready to forgive you any weaknesses, grammatical mistakes or horribly OOC behavior because they like the pairing to the point where they are besotted.
The OP also mentions a point with which I totally agree: the show itself is mostly gen, so it hardly requires any gen addition. In most cases, people read and write fanfiction to remedy a lack in the original, ie, explicit het or slash. Any SGA fan who is truly in it for the gen can usually be satisfied by the show itself.
Friendshipper is a happy exception because she is such a good writer with an excellent grasp of the characters and a true love of the show and of these characters. If you are a gen-only fan, I would suggest that after enjoying Friendshipper's stories, and checking out the handful of other excellent gen SGA writers you can find easily - they tend to comment on her stories!- you then write off this fandom. The SGA fandom is great, but it is not one where gen stories are thick on the ground.
If you are a het fan, it's a different story: Sheppard/Weir and Sheppard/Teyla both have strong followings, and have a lot of support from all semi-official sources (*cough*Gateworld*cough*) and seem worth staying around for. I wouldn't know the exact details because both of these pairings give me hives -when it comes to SGA het, I prefer McKay/Carter- but there are active communities out there which welcome new members.
Not that the gen fandom would not welcome support, by the way: but it is indeed vanishingly small and unfairly so!
Re: Not the OP, but
Whereas gen fanfic has to stand on its own merits and have a strong story/plot/character analysis/whathaveyou. You don't get a pass because your readers just like the pairing and are ready to forgive you any weaknesses, grammatical mistakes or horribly OOC behavior because they like the pairing to the point where they are besotted.
The OP also mentions a point with which I totally agree: the show itself is mostly gen, so it hardly requires any gen addition. In most cases, people read and write fanfiction to remedy a lack in the original, ie, explicit het or slash. Any SGA fan who is truly in it for the gen can usually be satisfied by the show itself.
Friendshipper is a happy exception because she is such a good writer with an excellent grasp of the characters and a true love of the show and of these characters. If you are a gen-only fan, I would suggest that after enjoying Friendshipper's stories, and checking out the handful of other excellent gen SGA writers you can find easily - they tend to comment on her stories!- you then write off this fandom. The SGA fandom is great, but it is not one where gen stories are thick on the ground.
If you are a het fan, it's a different story: Sheppard/Weir and Sheppard/Teyla both have strong followings, and have a lot of support from all semi-official sources (*cough*Gateworld*cough*) and seem worth staying around for. I wouldn't know the exact details because both of these pairings give me hives -when it comes to SGA het, I prefer McKay/Carter- but there are active communities out there which welcome new members.
Not that the gen fandom would not welcome support, by the way: but it is indeed vanishingly small and unfairly so!