Someone pls save me from the badfic
Aug. 31st, 2012 06:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI had a whole post but it turned into a ranty thing.
The short short version is: Dear Fic Writers: Alcoholism does not work like that.
You cannot throw out all the drink and hug someone better and have that be the whole story. Just... no.
It is not even a happy fantasy, because of all it implies about all the people who try the hug thing and fail.
Other short version of other complains: I know what slash writers do to our favourite characters. I know we have our best shiny toys and I know they tend to somehow turn out to be the white boys. But somewhere beyond that into really uncomfortable territory there's what happens when you set things up as Clint&Phil the woobie good guys vs horrible haters Fury and Maria Hill. I in no way think the writers consciously put all the white boys in the happy box and wrote the rest as manipulative backstabbing violent harpies, but it's really ugly when it happens.
SHIELD is not made up of a bunch of cold haters made of incompetence and spite, plus Clint, Phil and Natasha. SHIELD is made up of people kind of like Clint, Phil and Natasha. And Nick Fury. We have no reason to believe Phil Coulson is any less a manipulative bastard than Fury is.
Treating assets as people? Not his unique talent. He has shit to get done, and he'll do what it takes to get it done. Keeping assets on side and useful is part of that. As is putting his own life on the line. And that is by no means unique, that's the job.
Plus, we're talking about their friends and trusted allies. They trust Coulson, he trusts them. One way loyalty says no good things about a guy.
Plus I don't get it on a characterisation level why anyone wants to write them this way. If they like Clint and Coulson well enough to spend a few thousand words with them, why not use what we've actually seen of the guy? There's a difference between looking under the cool to what he cares about and simply getting rid of the cool and replacing it with cuddles.
Team made of assassins is problematic. Doesn't mean they're secretly the nice and fluffy people only surrounded by cold bastards.
okay, that got long again and I still haven't slept.
If I could sleep more I'd read much less bad fic.
The short short version is: Dear Fic Writers: Alcoholism does not work like that.
You cannot throw out all the drink and hug someone better and have that be the whole story. Just... no.
It is not even a happy fantasy, because of all it implies about all the people who try the hug thing and fail.
Other short version of other complains: I know what slash writers do to our favourite characters. I know we have our best shiny toys and I know they tend to somehow turn out to be the white boys. But somewhere beyond that into really uncomfortable territory there's what happens when you set things up as Clint&Phil the woobie good guys vs horrible haters Fury and Maria Hill. I in no way think the writers consciously put all the white boys in the happy box and wrote the rest as manipulative backstabbing violent harpies, but it's really ugly when it happens.
SHIELD is not made up of a bunch of cold haters made of incompetence and spite, plus Clint, Phil and Natasha. SHIELD is made up of people kind of like Clint, Phil and Natasha. And Nick Fury. We have no reason to believe Phil Coulson is any less a manipulative bastard than Fury is.
Treating assets as people? Not his unique talent. He has shit to get done, and he'll do what it takes to get it done. Keeping assets on side and useful is part of that. As is putting his own life on the line. And that is by no means unique, that's the job.
Plus, we're talking about their friends and trusted allies. They trust Coulson, he trusts them. One way loyalty says no good things about a guy.
Plus I don't get it on a characterisation level why anyone wants to write them this way. If they like Clint and Coulson well enough to spend a few thousand words with them, why not use what we've actually seen of the guy? There's a difference between looking under the cool to what he cares about and simply getting rid of the cool and replacing it with cuddles.
Team made of assassins is problematic. Doesn't mean they're secretly the nice and fluffy people only surrounded by cold bastards.
okay, that got long again and I still haven't slept.
If I could sleep more I'd read much less bad fic.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-31 11:27 am (UTC)I want to read good fic. Now. Several of them. Grump.