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As per usual... aka, same old song and dance when dipping my toes in a 'new' fandom
I got to talking with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nicci_mac about Trek fic the other night. She was mildly horrified when I told her that there's a huge trope/cliché in (specifically, but not limited to) Reboot based fic. And it of course made me realize that I had the same damned rant that I had when I joined Torchwood, when I used to be in SG1 and quite frankly, I should stop being surprised, shouldn't I?
Yeah, I told you it was the same old song and dance! Heh. I'm not currently referring to any specific story, because quite frankly, I've come across more than a few that fit the description.
In SG1, I used to be able to ignore it to a certain point - probably because I was a. lucky enough to read a lot of GOOD fic and b. because I was, let's face it, still a noob (and had yet to develop a taste in fic) (yeah, yeah, it was my fourth fandom, shut up, I was still a noob!). I've long since admitted to myself that I'm a snob when it comes to comes to characterization. Although it's a matter of interpretation, and I can handle a bit of OOC, I like a lot of the characters being male, because they're male. I know I'm going to get hit with more than a few "but you're a woman, you should have female idols!" Erm, yeah, sure, I do have female idols, but following the TV shows that I do/have done, the male characters are just better written (mostly, there are ALWAYS exceptions XD). I probably have other reasons as well, but I'm not awake enough for a psychoanalysis.
I'm probably not awake enough to be writing this XD
To get back to the background, when in the SG1 fandom, I got really tired of woobie!Daniel. Not so much that people felt the need to hurt Daniel. I've hurt both fanfic characters as well as my own characters over and over. No, the problem was how they let Daniel handle it. Or rather, how he didn't handle it. And had to have Bwig Stwong Jack come save him. Now, I'm not saying it's badly written to hurt Daniel and have Jack help him. What I object to is that instead of using both characters well, very often they'd take Daniel and make him a blubbering, angstridden boy instead of the man I was pretty sure I saw mature from S1 onwards (not always well-written, but he grew up, definitely), not to mention that man had a sharp (and sexy!) brain. I love intelligent characters. Not to mention the fact that he made mistakes, misjudged situations - all in all, it made him human. Which only made it more annoying when some fanfic writers would have him sitting in a corner, blubbering to himself until Jack came and made it all better (often with his magic cock of magic XD).
Same thing in Torchwood annoys me. Yeah, Ianto's occationally broken down, but he's had a lot of reasons for it and he's above all else, effective and comptent. Why is it when I see competence and intelligence, other people pounce on the emotional side and completely ignore that there's a brain in there as well. Someone who was hid his cybernetic girlfriend in the basement of TW3?
So, back to trekfic. Can you imagine the same way of writing applied to Captain James T. Kirk? I'm not saying he's not fucked up. The reboot version of Kirk had some pretty extreme baggage, I'm not saying that he couldn't have an occasional break-down. However, I doubt he'd be that different from the TOS version of Kirk. I can't see a man of that much intelligence, who is capable of thinking on his feet (and off *sniggers*) needing to be coddled by McCoy and/or Spock. I'm not saying that I oppose anyone caring about and taking care of Kirk, because they're friends, and if written as a pairing, there are emotions involved. Even if it's something as basic as mere lust.
I'm sorry, I just can't see the version of Jim Kirk who is incapable of taking care of himself. I can see him as a work-a-holic who might need a nudge to remember to slow down occasionally, but it's a far cry from the idea of a man who is teetering on the edge of a break-down, who can't take care of himself while at the same time they're on their five-year mission and he deals with a ship of 400+ crew (I can't remember the full number and it might be different in reboot as therer are difference to the ship). Now, I wouldn't mind so much if the fanfic writers acknowledge this. If they made use of Jim being unstable combined with the fact that he DOES have responsibilities and how it may impact on each other, I wouldnt' mind so much, but it's 98% of the time just an excuse to have either Spock or McCoy take care of him as the little woobie we all know Kirk is... not!
Now's not the time to mention that I've come across a few fics where you could exchange woobie!Kirk with woobie!Spock... *coughs*
On the upside of things, yeah, I've read good reboot fic too. I've read Kirk dealing with all the shit he hasn't learned, all the things he doesn't have any experience with and that's great! I've seen him written as a competent young man who will occasionally make mistakes, but who learns from them and a man and captain who relies on and trusts his crew and friends. Now that version of Kirk I love reading about.
Now, it's half past midnight and I'm wondering what the hell I'm still doing up! Give me a wide grin when I get up, comment and let me know why Kirk is awesome, why Uhura kicks ass, why NO ONE is as cool as Spock or as huggable as McCoy, or as insane as Scotty and why Gaila really has to have survived the destruction of the fleet at Vulcan. There has to have been escape pods, right? I mean, she would've made brilliant addition to the Enterprise *g*
I could write an ode to how much I love the boyis asshole that is Kirk, even as I know some of my friends probably don't like that part of his personality. What can I say? I have strange quirks and tastes in characters. I shall now head off to bed with lovely images in my head of Kirk and Spock having a bit of fun together.
Goodnight everyone... if nothing else the above proves I should really be in bed, deeply asleep.
nicci_mac about Trek fic the other night. She was mildly horrified when I told her that there's a huge trope/cliché in (specifically, but not limited to) Reboot based fic. And it of course made me realize that I had the same damned rant that I had when I joined Torchwood, when I used to be in SG1 and quite frankly, I should stop being surprised, shouldn't I?Yeah, I told you it was the same old song and dance! Heh. I'm not currently referring to any specific story, because quite frankly, I've come across more than a few that fit the description.
In SG1, I used to be able to ignore it to a certain point - probably because I was a. lucky enough to read a lot of GOOD fic and b. because I was, let's face it, still a noob (and had yet to develop a taste in fic) (yeah, yeah, it was my fourth fandom, shut up, I was still a noob!). I've long since admitted to myself that I'm a snob when it comes to comes to characterization. Although it's a matter of interpretation, and I can handle a bit of OOC, I like a lot of the characters being male, because they're male. I know I'm going to get hit with more than a few "but you're a woman, you should have female idols!" Erm, yeah, sure, I do have female idols, but following the TV shows that I do/have done, the male characters are just better written (mostly, there are ALWAYS exceptions XD). I probably have other reasons as well, but I'm not awake enough for a psychoanalysis.
I'm probably not awake enough to be writing this XD
To get back to the background, when in the SG1 fandom, I got really tired of woobie!Daniel. Not so much that people felt the need to hurt Daniel. I've hurt both fanfic characters as well as my own characters over and over. No, the problem was how they let Daniel handle it. Or rather, how he didn't handle it. And had to have Bwig Stwong Jack come save him. Now, I'm not saying it's badly written to hurt Daniel and have Jack help him. What I object to is that instead of using both characters well, very often they'd take Daniel and make him a blubbering, angstridden boy instead of the man I was pretty sure I saw mature from S1 onwards (not always well-written, but he grew up, definitely), not to mention that man had a sharp (and sexy!) brain. I love intelligent characters. Not to mention the fact that he made mistakes, misjudged situations - all in all, it made him human. Which only made it more annoying when some fanfic writers would have him sitting in a corner, blubbering to himself until Jack came and made it all better (often with his magic cock of magic XD).
Same thing in Torchwood annoys me. Yeah, Ianto's occationally broken down, but he's had a lot of reasons for it and he's above all else, effective and comptent. Why is it when I see competence and intelligence, other people pounce on the emotional side and completely ignore that there's a brain in there as well. Someone who was hid his cybernetic girlfriend in the basement of TW3?
So, back to trekfic. Can you imagine the same way of writing applied to Captain James T. Kirk? I'm not saying he's not fucked up. The reboot version of Kirk had some pretty extreme baggage, I'm not saying that he couldn't have an occasional break-down. However, I doubt he'd be that different from the TOS version of Kirk. I can't see a man of that much intelligence, who is capable of thinking on his feet (and off *sniggers*) needing to be coddled by McCoy and/or Spock. I'm not saying that I oppose anyone caring about and taking care of Kirk, because they're friends, and if written as a pairing, there are emotions involved. Even if it's something as basic as mere lust.
I'm sorry, I just can't see the version of Jim Kirk who is incapable of taking care of himself. I can see him as a work-a-holic who might need a nudge to remember to slow down occasionally, but it's a far cry from the idea of a man who is teetering on the edge of a break-down, who can't take care of himself while at the same time they're on their five-year mission and he deals with a ship of 400+ crew (I can't remember the full number and it might be different in reboot as therer are difference to the ship). Now, I wouldn't mind so much if the fanfic writers acknowledge this. If they made use of Jim being unstable combined with the fact that he DOES have responsibilities and how it may impact on each other, I wouldnt' mind so much, but it's 98% of the time just an excuse to have either Spock or McCoy take care of him as the little woobie we all know Kirk is... not!
Now's not the time to mention that I've come across a few fics where you could exchange woobie!Kirk with woobie!Spock... *coughs*
On the upside of things, yeah, I've read good reboot fic too. I've read Kirk dealing with all the shit he hasn't learned, all the things he doesn't have any experience with and that's great! I've seen him written as a competent young man who will occasionally make mistakes, but who learns from them and a man and captain who relies on and trusts his crew and friends. Now that version of Kirk I love reading about.
Now, it's half past midnight and I'm wondering what the hell I'm still doing up! Give me a wide grin when I get up, comment and let me know why Kirk is awesome, why Uhura kicks ass, why NO ONE is as cool as Spock or as huggable as McCoy, or as insane as Scotty and why Gaila really has to have survived the destruction of the fleet at Vulcan. There has to have been escape pods, right? I mean, she would've made brilliant addition to the Enterprise *g*
I could write an ode to how much I love the boyis asshole that is Kirk, even as I know some of my friends probably don't like that part of his personality. What can I say? I have strange quirks and tastes in characters. I shall now head off to bed with lovely images in my head of Kirk and Spock having a bit of fun together.
Goodnight everyone... if nothing else the above proves I should really be in bed, deeply asleep.
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I don't like it either when characters are woobiefied or ukefied to the point where they're OOC, but that has nothing to do with their gender expression >:-(
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Tangential discussion: I bet a lot of us - actually I wouldn't be surprised if all of us feel like that. But we all have different enough perceptions of the characters that the fics we like work for us - and feel in character. I makee sense? I know OoC fics turn me off - and I have been turned off by fics other people liked in part for the apparently IC characterisations, and I bet some fics I like feel OoC to others, so it must be different perceptions of characters to begin with.
More relatedly, woobie!whump is totally my fic!kink (except, like wing!fic and lots of other kinks/tropes I claim to love, I haven't read that many that really worked for me), and now I want to read some of those Daniel!fics you talk about :oD
…Yes,
MS(okay, I can't call him MS, MS will forever be Michael Schumacher to me) Michael Shanks/Daniel Jackson crush still going annoyingly strong, though watching SG-1 every night on 6'eren as well as various con panels on youtube has helped some.…Except for how I'm now crushing on Amanda Tapping as well - science, she is hot. I just watched "Unending", and she's even hot as hell when old! The only thing hotter than Michael Shanks or Amanda Tapping, is Michael Shanks and Amanda Tapping kissing. OMG, that's so hot! Even if it's joke smooches, they dwell for so long it's becomes practically indecent :o) !
Anyways, you were trying to talk about something else, weren't you - sorry, I don't have anyone to talk about my Michael Shanks crush
withat :oDno subject
there is nothing wrong with going off on a tangent about Michael Shanks - he tends to do this to people *g*
Oh, there's OoC and Ooc *g* I have no trouble reading whump-fic, but yeah, I'll admit to the woobie part bothering me occasionally (that said, it can be written very well when it's balanced). then again, I guess it can be said about most tropes/clichés, that when well-balanced, they can work very well and add a lot to a story. I don't think it's until I hit the extremes that it really bothers me, but because I don't always browse recs, but simply fic links, I'll of course end up reading stuff that's just going to bug me *g*. I think what I'd prefer to read when whump/woobie is used in a fic, is that, if the character is an otherwise intelligent and competent person (and I'm with you on the comptence-kink *g*), that the fic writer at least keeps that in mind as well.
That said, I know from writing that sometimes you just focus so much on one thing that you kinda forget the rest, so although you know in your head that of course this character is competent and capable, you forget to mirror that in the story *g*
As for Woobie!Daniel... I'm fairly sure I could find a link or two. I'd have to double check. And double check that the sites still exist - it's been a few years and things do fall off the interwebs occasionally.