Snowflake Challenge Day Six

[minoanmiss]

I have been really busy with a household issue the first few days of this year, so I have a bunch of half-written stuff for snowflake_challenge. But Today's, Day 6, got under my skin, and I was just crying, so I'm going to post something I probably shouldn't.

Three and one on the topic of: "create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive"

1) I would love threesome fanart of JediStormPilot, because I love them a lot.

2) I would love more writing guides on writing people not like me (and, for that matter, people like me).I was going to write details but this is not a good night, upsetting things keep happening. Let me try for #3

3). I want a fandom to talk to people in again. I'm gradually finding links and places for Star Wars on Tumblr but if there are DW communities I'd love to talk to them if they''ll have me.

#4. This is the big one. ETA which, amazingly, I was generously given. I mean, wow. Thank you all, so infinitely much.

I want someone to absolve me, which is funny, because I used to be a Protestant and I'm definitely no longer a Christian. But... I have been so unhappy in the MCU fandom these last few years, and I don't know why I didn't run off long ago, except that there are so many people I want to stay friends with, but I don't know if I can. I can't stop a twitch of fear every time I see Tony Stark's name. I can't get out from under my skin all of the essays I read about how movie Team Cap are actually all villains and that people who picked Team Cap personally, in real life, hate people with PTSD and shouldn't be trusted with children and approve of police brutality and colonialism and basically everything evil. I feel like a whole lot of people, including some I used to like, have decided I'm evil because of what side I picked in a movie, and I can't get over that feeling.

I want someone to tell me, "Yeah, CACW was a complicated situation and I ended up coming down on the side of Team Iron but I don't agree with the people who say that you're a bad person in real life over this. It was an interesting movie about important themes but good people can actually disagree." But that's the thing, ins't it? These days, good people cannot disagree. Someone has to be evil. And anyway one fan isn't responsible for the opinions of another and I already ask too much of people.

I want to stop worrying and feeling hated over a movie, but in the end, no one can really give that to me but myself, and I don't know how.

As I said above I can't even believe how kind people have been to me about this. Now I really need to take all this kindness and wisdom and internalize it and actively work on feeling better.

Comments

may all your fannish wishes come true

[oldtoadwoman]

You know I still haven't even watched that movie. It's on my "I supposed I should watch this eventually so I know what's going on in the universe" list, but I just haven't been motivated to watch a movie where the characters I like are fighting each other.

Re: may all your fannish wishes come true

[minoanmiss]

Oh my goodness, I could hug you. Thank you for replying to me in the middle of a not great nigth.

ANd.. I'm not the person to reccomend that movie. Watiching my favorite characters fight was heartbreaking. When Tony shot Sam in the face I started crying.

All you really need to know for the MCU could be summed up in a paragraph that someone more dispassionate should write. weak smile

ANyway, thank you ver, very much for reaching otu to me. I'm usually cheerfuller than this.

[sodium_amytal]

You're not a bad person over what team you sided with in a comic book movie. Tumblr's brand of moral purity wrt fiction is completely bonkers, and it's a shame they've managed to manipulate the language in such a way to make their "my ship is better than your ship!" wankery sound Woke™ and Progressive™. To paraphrase the MST3K mantra, "it's just a movie, they should really just relax."

[minoanmiss]

Thank you, a lot. bashful smile I don't know why it 'sounds' more meaningful from outside my head, but it really helps to be told this.

[lynnenne]

it's a shame they've managed to manipulate the language in such a way to make their "my ship is better than your ship!" wankery sound Woke™ and Progressive™.

Yeah, fans have been doing this since the Buffy days, and probably long before that. It's not real life. Anybody should be allowed to love any fictional character without getting lectured about it.

[kore]

I hate Marvel SO MUCH for doing that movie. It wasn't a Cap movie, and it didn't make sense in MCU anyway, and they played up the split deliberately and it was almost like they wanted to make fans miserable. It sucks so much.

[minoanmiss]

Oh my God that movie broke my little heart. They could have done so many other things and they did that. And now there are people I'm never going to talk to again. :( But I wrote this in the interests of finally putting that behind me. tries to buck up

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I do tend to call it Iron Man 4 when among savvy people. It only makes sense with large slabs of Doylism and even then it's a study of No, Stop. Please, No.

[rosefox]

I haven't seen the movie and don't care about fandom wank, and you are a lovely person who gets to have opinions about media.

[minoanmiss]

blusehs and hugs you Thank you, ma beau. I really hope I can finally get this to stop bothering me, not leasr with your kind words here.

[cjsmith]

THIS. EXACTLY THIS. You are a lovely person who gets to like what you like.

+1

[mdlbear]

"you are a lovely person who gets to have opinions about media."

Yeah, very much this. (For that matter, I haven't seen any of the movies, but if I ever do the list won't include that one.)

[lynnenne]

But that's the thing, ins't it? These days, good people cannot disagree.

I think politics in just about every country have people more on edge than usual. I'm not sure you could make a movie like Civil War today, with Donald Trump in the White House and Erdogan in Turkey and Putin invading everywhere and Brexit and Nazis. The real world just seems so much worse than anything superheroes could squabble about.

Anyway, I came down on the side of Team Iron Man but I still think that Steve is basically a good man and a good friend. I could understand his point of view, even though I didn't agree with it, and there is absolutely nothing wrong in taking his side.

Also I tend to think of Tony as a supervillain, which is kind of why I love him. :D

[minoanmiss]

Oh man, it's a good thing this doesn't have a video aspect. I kind of burst into tears again. Thank oyu. A lot. :)

Yeah, politics definitely have people on edge these days. I should probably try to remember that.

But anyway, I never thought I'd get #4, and it helps a lot to hear it. Thank you. :)

(Also, "Tony as a supervillain" is such a great conception. It could be the topic for an amazing meta and several stories, I know it. Discussing him as a supervillsin template who set out to do good could produce such awesome fanworks.)

[kore]

/DIGRESSION/

I personally think a whooole lot of the MCU!Tony problem is that Whedon gave him Hank Pym's plot way back in AoU, and he's....not Hank Pym. They're afraid to commit to the villainous aspect because RDJ and the moneymaking machine, but because they don't really acknowledge it, it looks like Tony isn't really facing consequences for his actions (but CW dealt with guilt very weirdly anyway -- just look at Bucky and Wanda).

But MCU really wanted to push the "WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON!?" bullshit, which turned out to be super poisonous in the current IRL and fannish climates. Good job Feige.

[rachelmanija]

Anyone who makes assumptions about a human being in real life based on their opinions on the split in Civil War is being an asshole on the internet. It's like the people saying anyone who likes Reylo is an RL abuse apologist. It's ridiculous bullshit that's also harmful and bullying. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a movie is just a movie.

[minoanmiss]

I feel ridiculous to be this fragile, but thank you so, so much for reassuring me. It's funny -- I find sociopolitical critiaques really useful a lot of the time. But this way they've been weaponized iss really awful and gets under the skin of certain people, of which I am one. I never write publicly about pairings I don't like because I don't want to seem to reinforce that "if you like this you're a bad person" attitude going around.

Which, among other reasons it's awful, makes it so stifling. It would be interesting to write about the Doylist and Watsonial implications of Reylo but not all all to deal with soomeone coming in and saying "Yeah, this is why REylos approve of abuse!" auuuugh, no.

This is me babbling in text. ANyway, thank you. a LOT. slightly soggy smile

[catdetective]

I'm on 'Team why-can't-we-all-get-along' myself... but I think it's awful that people took Civil War and turned it into something to relentlessly bully each other over, it just makes me sick some of the things people say to each other.

You are not a bad person based on which fictional character you sided more with during a movie-- particularly as it was Cap's movie. Your tastes in fiction can't determine what kind of person you are at all, really, but... I mean, really. If anything, I think it's the kind of story that makes me feel more than ever like we should all be able to sit down and talk to each other and try to empathize.

I hope you can find some peace of mind over it-- I certainly hope other people will stop giving you a hard time, or even just spewing the kind of generalized vitriol that makes it hard to feel safe and accepted in fandom. It may be something you have to ultimately give yourself, but there's certainly nothing wrong with hoping others will help you on that journey.

[minoanmiss]

Oh my goodness. I should thank you properly and eloquently but I kind of started crying again. This is exactly what I didn't dare hope for.. Thank you, so much.

[ljwrites]

Every time I see how much damage Tumblr's (and often Twitter's too) moral purity wanking has done to people, the happier I am that I'm not spending nearly as much time there and have decamped to other platforms. There are fans who haven't written in years, fans who are afraid to ship what they like, fans who are terrified of harassment. It's heartbreaking.

I happened to side more with Tony and kinda hated both Tony and Cap, but it never occurred to me to think of those who took Steve's side as actually IRL bad people deserving of censure. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with people?

On the JediStormPilot front... well, I'm not an artist and I'm not good with sex scenes (if that's what you meant by threesome?), but here's a small fic offering. I hope it helps cheer you up. Thanks for the inspiration, and let me know if you want some modification such as being credited with a different name or not being named at all. I also have some art reblogged to my JSP tag on Tumblr.

Finally, I'm a big Finn freak and have made a comm for him, i_made_a_choice. It's just starting out and is pretty bare, but if you want to come over and talk Finn feel free!

[minoanmiss]

*hugs you* Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am blushing and reassured. And thinking of things to post to i_made_a_choice, which delights my heart. Do you want too spot it to fandom_on_dw? (I hope my HTML comes out, I'm typing fast.)

I don't have a Steve + Tony icon so have a SuperBat one instead

[swingandswirl]

/hugs you very gently, if that’s okay/

So people have responded, above, but I just want to reiterate, as someone who has been in fandom for half her life and is a child of colonialism, that anybody who thinks that picking Team Cap makes you some sort of evil terrible person IRL is a giant flaming asshole and not in the least worthy of your time or attention.

I think one of the things that really aggravates me about CACW is the utterly goatfucking stupid manner in which an actually interesting, complex plot was handled. Steve and Tony? Both had excellent points, each influenced by their background and history. Except the movie (and the promotional material, tbh) basically reduced it into a dick-measuring catfight that would have been solved by, say, Peggy or Natasha walking in and forcing them to THINK for one fucking minute. (Tony, how the fuck did you manage to STAY a billionaire without lawyers going through every contract you’ve ever signed before you signed it? Steve, your name is literally ‘Captain America’, please remember the USA has a history of meddling in other countries’ business and fucking them up spectacularly.) But doing it that way would have meant boring things like TALKING and ACTING LIKE ADULTS happened, rather than the boom-fighty-punch the overgrown fanboys currently in charge at Marvel love so much.

But coming back to the actual point… one of the worst things about Tumblr and purity culture specifically is this idea that there’s the One Right Opinion to have, or the One Correct Pairing to ship, and anyone who doesn’t is a Horrible Terrible Human Being With No Redeeming Qualities. Like, no, that’s not how this works. That’s not how ANY of this works. Human beings are complex and nuanced and far more grey than black or white, and pretending otherwise is both a huge disservice to everyone and a goddamned lie.

TL; DR: You are not a terrible person for having a different opinion about a goddamned work of fiction. They’re terrible people for making you feel this way.

Re: I don't have a Steve + Tony icon so have a SuperBat one instead

[minoanmiss]

*hugs you so, so much*

One of the most frustrating things about that movie is how both characters got distorted to make the post work. And then all the people who took that distortion as gosple.

And I do need to keep adjusting my Tumblr experience. One of the worst thing about it is the horrible assume-the-worst guilty-guilty-guilty attitude. I read a pos recently where the OP was spouting the usual Fandom Is For Kids bilge and someone said in 'support' that any older fan who had a problem with that was necessarily a predator. The place breaks my heart a lot.

I should stop ranting and continue thanking you for being so kind and awesome to me. Thank you.
*hugs you most gratefully*

[darkmarcy]

1. Hmmmmm. How explicit you'd like it? I'm not a seasoned sauce artist, more of a cuddly cutesy one, but I could try.

[minoanmiss]

Oh my goodness, sweetie!. I would delight in ANYTHING you wanted to make for me.

[ilyena_sylph]

Oh honey.

I am glad other people already got here, but good gods who you sided with in an goddamn comic book movie has no fucking bearing on your worth as a person and I'm feeling sort of violent about this point (towards the people that hurt you so much).

Also I still haven't seen CACW because I hated it in comics and I am Not Regretting this choice.

Ilu, sweetie.

[minoanmiss]

*hugs you so much* Thank you. So, so much. I should say more but my brain is fried, but I absolutely had o thank you.

There was exactly one lovely moment in that damn movie and it isn't worth enduring the whole fearing movie. Argh.

But hopefully now after I finally aired this, with ym wonderful friends' help, I can get past it.

[spikedluv]

This was actually cathartic for me to read, too. I'm Team Cap (I'm a Steve fan and generally against anything Ross thinks is a good idea *g*), but no one's ever called me on it. I agree with whoever above said that they both had good points and sitting down and talking about it would have solved everything. Tumblr has become such a cesspool of antis and purity wank, it makes me glad that I'm only on the periphery of it all. *hugs*

[minoanmiss]

Oh goodness! I'm really glad I let myself say this.

We'll always have the tree by the river of truth. *team Cap fist bump*

[raine]

Hey, if you want help writing a character who's grown up the product of a Filipino/American mixed-race, mixed-culture upbringing (bonus points: I lived in my mom's home country for several years as a child!), let me know. I'd be happy to help!

[minoanmiss]

Oh hey, thank you! That's really generous of you!

[laraflame]

I just want to say what others already said: anyone giving you hell FOR YOUR FICTIONAL CHOICES are stupid, biased idiots *now me coming, beware* and they wanna be big boys on the internet because at home no one's willing to even shit on their opinions. They have a sad life, and they wanna make you feel miserable too. (imo.)

Anyway, hugz 'n' kisses, hon
and just
LOVE WHOEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT.
Love can turn the world around.

khm, here comes the RANT:

Civil War was a fucked up movie, it did horrible things to all the characters I love and I literally got sick after it and was bedridden for three weeks. I raged over the sheer stupidity of it for years and I'm glad that it's gonna be kind of over. BUT these past months I kinda deflated finally and realized the almighty opportunities for the fanfic world instead. :D
Thank fuck I never met any of the things you talked about though (I'm on Tatooine in the Tumblr galaxy, if you know what I mean). I had insightful word-battles with some MCU fans and we always have very... intellectual debates about that shitstorm of a movie. And while I'm inherently Tony Stark's woman through and through I always loved the Captain and liked Bucky too. Winter Soldier is one of the greatest MCU movies in my eyes and I was pretty eager for the hunt for aforementioned Soldier that was supposed to happen in Civil War. It was a horrible, puke-inducing ride instead centering around the magnificience of... (wait for it) unreasonable dick-measuring. (The main problems with real life politics, oh my gosh, I could go on for literal hours, days even.) Zero communication, zero intellect, zero empathy, zero thinking, zero making fucking mature decisions. To sum it up critically.
Like a bad fanfiction - every character is kinda OOC, the plot could be interesting but decides to concentrate on a kindergarten level cat-fight instead, there are depths completely thrown under the bus, the world's "mightiest heroes" act more selfishly than Loki on a bad day and everyone is way too emotional and crazy in a not so funny way. It's like watching Bella fucking Swan's multiple attempts at badly choreographed suicide to get a glimpse of her wayward lover - on infinite repeat. (and damn me, I liked those movies in an angsty teenager sorta way, oh how I evolved)

On a side-note, someone wrote about Tony being a supervillain and that's a total headcanon for me, omg. In my angry years I fixated on this idea like crazy and there are so many fices.
For example:
Avengers: A Deal with the Devil (314822 words) by IBegToDreamAndDiffer
Chapters: 74/?
Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Characters: Tony Stark, Loki (Marvel), Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Thor (Marvel), Pepper Potts, Nick Fury, Phil Coulson, Stephen Strange, James "Rhodey" Rhodes
Additional Tags: Dark!Tony, Dark!Loki, Magic, Tony and Loki are not nice people in this story, Explicit Sexual Content, Explicit Language, Magical Contracts, Romance, Avengers!bashing, Magic!Tony, God!Tony, SHIELD will fall
Series: Part 1 of Avengers: Centuries
Summary:

... or with the Norse God of Mischief and Lies. Tony has a proposition for Loki. Loki would be lying if he said he wasn't intrigued.

It's golden. (Sue me, I like some Avengers-bashing on rainy days)

Anyway, TED talk aside, feel free to love who you want, write the fics you want and share your opinions and be a free fan for the fun of it. I stand right next to you. <3

[minoanmiss]

OH MY GOODNESS. *hugs you* Thank you so, so, so infinitely much for this long and reassuring and wonderful comment, which arrived in my inbox on a not-great day and just made me feel all kinds of better.

you deserve a muuuuuuuuuuch longer reply than I can manage right now because RL, but I HAD to thank you (and agree with you about how awesome CATWS was an how sucktastic CACW was. Ugh.)