even more of the bad fic

[beccaelizabeth]

am reading more of the fic that I hate
... no I don't know why, sleep went away, I just read what I find, tis annoying, I hope someone writes something long and plotty soon.

They're doing that thing again where Rhodey and Pepper aren't good enough for Tony until he finds his True Love (tm), and the new guy points out how Rhodey is a horrible friend who is all mean to Tony, and Pepper never saw how awesome Tony is (and also by implication they never just tried hugging him and throwing his booze away, which seriously, still is not how humans work, I hate that part)

So this is the same fic where Fury and Hill are also haters who do not value their co-workers and say all mean things about them until corrected by the Sainted Phil.

And it's looking like a pattern.

Character bash the black guys and the women, replace them with pretty white boys who understand Tony's awesome woobie manpain excuses all things.

It's making me look sideways at, well, all the fic, really. In an OMG I really hope we don't do that kind of way.

Canon gave us kick arse black men and awesome women. Fanfic... does not spend much time with them. And I was thinking it's a side effect of which pairings I read, but it's still giving me the creeps right now.

I think if a genre is more sexist and racist than summer action blockbusters it has a problem.

So I'm really hoping I'm just seeing too much rubbish in a row.

Comments

[kickair8p]

(I think I'm answering two of your posts simultaneously, while spilling issues all over everything. Sorry.)

Part of why the Avengers movie is so popular (both in general and in the fanfic communities) is that Joss&Co did something pretty damned amazing: they made an ensemble movie pretty much without marginalizing anybody. There were even characters who didn't get screentime still shown as important (even better from the deleted scenes). And with that shining example in front of us, it's easy to forget that that's really hard to do. So it's not surprising to me (especially given fandoms' on-going issues with over-simplification, misogyny, and various forms of racism) that it's extra-hard to find fanfic that hits the right notes like the movie did. Frustrating, but not surprising.

I'm a child-abuse survivor of several alcoholic parents/stepparents, and I find it easier when Tony's drinking problems simply aren't addressed or are glossed over than when they're handled badly, yeah. I'm not even sure alcohol > bad > get-Tony-on-the-wagon is the best take on it (after decades of never touching the stuff I'm now drinking 4-8oz of red wine at bedtime because it's helping my bloodsugar and insomnia, so now I'm stuck having to consider alcohol-use-as-a-potentially-viable-solution to things like brain-won't-stop-thinking, even though I'm pretty sure it's not for PTSD or emotional-neglect issues). And I realize that some other abuse survivors will write fanfic for catharsis or wish-fulfillment, but I usually won't want to read it for the reasons you've cited.

The Hydra-weapons issue is complicated -- everyone in that room was right, and they were saying opposite things! Brain 'splodey! SHEILD (both the organization and the people, down to the Galaga-playing tech) is problematic -- good people doing bad things for good reasons when the "bad guys" are doing bad things for what they believe are good reasons is an ethical minefield. If you wanna just have some fun writing escapist fanfic then EvilOrg!SHEILD is easy, BadGuy!Fury is easy, BadFriend!Rhody is easy, BadGirlfriend!Pepper is easy, and anybody who complains about the racist or misogynistic implications is taking fanfic too seriously. (But we need better stories, stories that celebrate and reinforce not-asshole values, and those stories aren't while frequently being seriously squee-worthy, like gorging on candy-corn for the soul.)

And that comment's not what I planned to spend the last hour on, so back to the art-like stuff.

~

[beccaelizabeth]

(my issues get all over my Avengers feels all the time. Alcoholism sucks. no worries.)

*nods a lot* about ensemble movie.
dude has been practicing with TV shows for years. and still, quite a feat.

We do need better stories. Captain America can and should shine. I like my heroes when they make people around them better too, so fanfic tearing people down is all sad.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

I just did a rant last weekend about how sick and tired I was of fanfic writers ignoring/demonizing canon M/F relationships in favor of slash especially Sherlock/John and Tony/Steve.

I'm actually a little surprised that you've seen so much demonizing Rhodey since most of the fics I've seen just ignore him entirely. I wouldn't even classify it as a Marvel problem...even though Loki and Thor do canon relationships that are not with each other...because I've seen it in almost EVERY fandom! Even in Pirates, they would have Elizabeth Swann be some demon spawn bitch completely out of character so they could have Will fall for Jack or Norrington fall for or some other M/M relationship.

I love slash, I do but there should be responsible writing where it seems natural and not at the expense of other characters...and it does feel like it's becoming a problem.

PS With Marvel, I do blame some of it on people who are too lazy to watch or read anything past The Avengers movie itself. This is also bad writing.