Minimum standards are not impressive
Jun. 29th, 2014 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThere's a kind of fic that's all about how one character's relationships have all been horribly abusive and then they meet The One and find out what a healthy relationship looks like and decide they want this forever and ever happily ever after.
And, okay, I get it, for some characters it's even canon, if horrible has happened already then swooping in and making everything all okay again is lovely. Like cookies and blankets and regular meals.
It just bothers me quite a lot when the only thing The One has going for them is that they treat others like actual people with basic respect and human rights and so forth. Like, that's the bare minimum, everyone who doesn't meet that is the bad guys, but there's a world between not being a bad guy and being actually actively good.
In some stories though I worry that they've set their bar waaaaay too low. Like, they do not seem to have the difference be 'abusive' and 'not abusive', more like 'abusive' vs 'jealous and possessive and violent to other people but hey that's sure to work out just fine'. I mean, I know there's this weird strand of dominant monogamist culture that has jealousy be a good thing, but, well, no. If they think violence is a great way to solve interpersonal conflicts that is in fact a very bad sign. Saving someone from physical assault by physically stopping the attacker, fair enough, but saying nobody touches 'their' person or they'll hit them? Ew. Bad.
D/s 'verses tend to exaggerate this one. The story thinks it's swapping a bad Master for a good Master, but due to the concept being a full time Master with accompanying social structures, there's some very problem in there. I can see the happy fantasy underlying it, it's just, in itself, the only survivable social response is No Masters and the local equivalent of women's lib.
Plus, how creepy is that world if the first good Master is the one the main character meets in his thirties? It doesn't make the good guy look better, it makes it all horribly cheap and sad that basic human kindness is in such short supply.
... I'm looping back to thoughts of how D/s verse is about defamiliarising gender relations of power that were assumed to be natural up until not so very long ago, which was all very depressing. Eroticising the relationship with the Master to make it palatable and hoping for a good one because they were going to be the sole determinant of the rest of one's life was pretty much the whole deal. Creepy deal.
Being the best of a bad bunch is never going to be impressive or romantic, basically. If you want your white knight to look proper good they have to distinguish themselves even among a background of actually decent people.
Actually a lot of stories about bosses at SHIELD do this, they set the average boss as total rubbish, and then have Coulson be super boss just by not being actively a jerk. ... Agents of SHIELD does this, a bit. Like, there's reasons we didn't get another boss of the same kind, but it doesn't make Coulson look like superboss, he's just winning on account of everyone else being actively evil. That is no great distinction.
... I still like Coulson best though. There are moments where he does go beyond basic. From the beginning, standing calmly and talking to people that might be about to go boom is pretty brave and kind. Except then the comparison is using his words where he could just use bullets, and that... that says worrying things about law enforcement and how far my expectations have shifted. Police round here don't has bullets to use, mostly, and they do fine. But it's still a brave risk some days.
Some of this is just stories having a limited cast. The good one vs the bad one takes a bunch of words, adding another good but not quite as good one would take more.
But still, it bothers me. It's giving all the cookies and happily ever afters just as prizes for meeting minimum standards. It seems like best should be better than just avoiding all the awful things.
And, okay, I get it, for some characters it's even canon, if horrible has happened already then swooping in and making everything all okay again is lovely. Like cookies and blankets and regular meals.
It just bothers me quite a lot when the only thing The One has going for them is that they treat others like actual people with basic respect and human rights and so forth. Like, that's the bare minimum, everyone who doesn't meet that is the bad guys, but there's a world between not being a bad guy and being actually actively good.
In some stories though I worry that they've set their bar waaaaay too low. Like, they do not seem to have the difference be 'abusive' and 'not abusive', more like 'abusive' vs 'jealous and possessive and violent to other people but hey that's sure to work out just fine'. I mean, I know there's this weird strand of dominant monogamist culture that has jealousy be a good thing, but, well, no. If they think violence is a great way to solve interpersonal conflicts that is in fact a very bad sign. Saving someone from physical assault by physically stopping the attacker, fair enough, but saying nobody touches 'their' person or they'll hit them? Ew. Bad.
D/s 'verses tend to exaggerate this one. The story thinks it's swapping a bad Master for a good Master, but due to the concept being a full time Master with accompanying social structures, there's some very problem in there. I can see the happy fantasy underlying it, it's just, in itself, the only survivable social response is No Masters and the local equivalent of women's lib.
Plus, how creepy is that world if the first good Master is the one the main character meets in his thirties? It doesn't make the good guy look better, it makes it all horribly cheap and sad that basic human kindness is in such short supply.
... I'm looping back to thoughts of how D/s verse is about defamiliarising gender relations of power that were assumed to be natural up until not so very long ago, which was all very depressing. Eroticising the relationship with the Master to make it palatable and hoping for a good one because they were going to be the sole determinant of the rest of one's life was pretty much the whole deal. Creepy deal.
Being the best of a bad bunch is never going to be impressive or romantic, basically. If you want your white knight to look proper good they have to distinguish themselves even among a background of actually decent people.
Actually a lot of stories about bosses at SHIELD do this, they set the average boss as total rubbish, and then have Coulson be super boss just by not being actively a jerk. ... Agents of SHIELD does this, a bit. Like, there's reasons we didn't get another boss of the same kind, but it doesn't make Coulson look like superboss, he's just winning on account of everyone else being actively evil. That is no great distinction.
... I still like Coulson best though. There are moments where he does go beyond basic. From the beginning, standing calmly and talking to people that might be about to go boom is pretty brave and kind. Except then the comparison is using his words where he could just use bullets, and that... that says worrying things about law enforcement and how far my expectations have shifted. Police round here don't has bullets to use, mostly, and they do fine. But it's still a brave risk some days.
Some of this is just stories having a limited cast. The good one vs the bad one takes a bunch of words, adding another good but not quite as good one would take more.
But still, it bothers me. It's giving all the cookies and happily ever afters just as prizes for meeting minimum standards. It seems like best should be better than just avoiding all the awful things.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-29 05:49 pm (UTC)I've been reading a lot of Loki fic (mostly Loki/Tony, some "Loki joins the Avengers, at least as an occasional buddy"), and getting really tired of the poor!abused!Loki falls head over heels for the first guy (or group) who shows him basic compassion, respect, and decency.
On the one hand, I think of the Avengers as heroes--they're all *good* people, noble and committed to doing the right thing. On the other, they're none of them prizes in the personal relationship department.
Tony's, well, Tony is Tony, and a more egotistical asshat may not exist on the side of the angels. He gets away with it because he really is that talented *and* that dedicated, up to chasing a nuke through a wormhole. But that doesn't make him good boyfriend material. None of the rest are as obviously, stunningly *bad* as relationship prospects... but they all have serious issues. (Coulson? Coulson has my vote for passive-aggressive manipulator who never says a harsh word and still manages to make a partner feel miserable if they've upset him. Also too fond of keeping secrets, including from partners. Terrific agent. Lousy boyfriend.) And so on.
I am quickly growing to dislike trope in which abused people, of whatever affiliation, gender, or omegastatus (is there a label for that yet?), find their soulmate in the first person who treats them with the consideration that any responsible adult would offer a four-year-old who dropped a brick on his foot in front of them--"here, let me move that for you, check your toes--nope, nothing broken, good--you want a hug? Okay, off to the playground with you and be careful with bricks in the future."
The idea that simple kindness and basic nurture, of the type that costs essentially nothing in resources, energy, or emotional commitment, is The Sign Of Ultimate True Love is deeply disturbing.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-01 02:14 pm (UTC)On the other, I tend to read those fics not so much as "basic decency is The Sign Of Ultimate True Love", but more along the lines of "abused!character is so fucked up he'd take any crumbs leftover in his plate". But then I'm not a huge believer in "Ultimate True Love OTP 4EVAH" in the first place, maybe I'm just not the right target audience there?...
no subject
Date: 2014-07-01 02:42 pm (UTC)And sometimes those fics come across as "X has been abused so often for so much of his life that he pathetically scrambles to please anyone who shows him the smallest scraps of decency"--and the only tension is from his attempts to brace for the he-believes-inevitable betrayal.
I think I've been judging the difference, because it's a pretty fine line, on whether or not Loki becomes a "nice person" by the end and stops doing trickster-ish things that bother anyone.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-01 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-29 10:05 pm (UTC)