Dude, this is super interesting and I'm so glad you posted it here where it's really easy to read because (bad person) I was ignoring it on tumblr (tumblr is terrible for discussions.)
But but (to copy) YES! THIS! THIS POST!
Oh were to start: Actually, best to start here: I am very good at blanking things I don't like. I am very good at compartmentalising, and I am very good at forgetting things I don't like. I, like you, love Clint Barton and I, like you, despise Clint/Coulson. As I ship Clint/Natasha, my problem for finding fic is not as big as yours (aside: AO3, while wonderful, is terribly for finding genfic), but you do have to wade through SO MUCH CRAP to find what you want because of this meta-tagging-however-you-referred-to-it. Partly, I guess this is because AO3 is still in beta mode. So I guess we could get a bunch of people together to request segregating relationship tags etc to make this easier. But yeah. This is something that comms on LJ do SO MUCH BETTER. And why I am forever grateful to be_compromised for existing. (Another aside: read cat_77 stories for gen Clint and Natasha, which very little Coulson, if I remember correctly. She's on AO3 too.)
Erasure of female characters and - what did you call it? - doubling down on heteronormity? Is super irritating even though, like you, I do often read it. But it's an evolution, right? Because in SPN I read some really disturbing shit, because it was fandom standard (there was a icon once: SPN fandom; where RPF is the moral high ground. It's true. Everything's going to be awful if incest is your standard) but I can't read Thor/Loki for that very same reason (also, Loki = meh. And Loki fans are crazy weird). I can’t read Clint/Coulson because Coulson = Avengers dad so it's incest to me. Also Coulson = meh now. It's a weird desensitisation thing where, because it's fanfic, it doesn't matter. Or something. And you should have seen some of the stuff I read when I was in bandom. I mean, I'm grossed out just thinking about it. But I had no other frame of reference and no one pointed out that it was weird or wrong. I just thought that's what fandom was. (Another aside: education in school regarding rape/consent would have helped A LOT in realising that it was weird - and I went to good schools and had pretty good sex ed.)
The only other thing is the problem I have with the other side: the people who point out that there are HUGE problems with fandom (and here are) but sound sanctimonious and make me - (break out the tumblr words) a white, privileged, straight (for arguments sake) cis female - feel like a bad person for exactly the same reason they're defending all these marginalised groups; because that's how I was born. And sometimes I feel the whole argument is terrible because a lot of people are shouting and a lot less are actually listening. And I'm not saying it shouldn't continue (because it should) but the internet is my escapism, you know? I don't want to come on it to find that people's whose opinion's I might otherwise agree with seems to think I'm worth less because I happen to be part of the majority.
So. That's a thing.
ETA: Oh! But I never explained why I mentioned the blanking at the beginning. Basically, I can search through AO3 and almost not see all that stuff I don't want to. I can do it with tumblr and LJ too - it's how I got by without tumblr saviour for so long. As such, while many of these things annoy me when I think about them, I can not think about them and get on dandy and grand.
But yes. Woobiefying villains pisses me off (even more so with Loki because it ignores the fact that we have, for the first time in a good long while, been given a genuinely interesting bad guy, and because Tom Hiddleston is attractive, he has to be retconned into a good guy because bad guys can't be attractive or whatever.)
And sometimes MCU fans just annoy me because the MCU is, by an large, pretty inclusive and intelligent and clever, and people so often miss the point. But I guess that's true for many fans. Missing the point is sort of where the internet lives.
no subject
But but (to copy) YES! THIS! THIS POST!
Oh were to start: Actually, best to start here: I am very good at blanking things I don't like. I am very good at compartmentalising, and I am very good at forgetting things I don't like. I, like you, love Clint Barton and I, like you, despise Clint/Coulson. As I ship Clint/Natasha, my problem for finding fic is not as big as yours (aside: AO3, while wonderful, is terribly for finding genfic), but you do have to wade through SO MUCH CRAP to find what you want because of this meta-tagging-however-you-referred-to-it. Partly, I guess this is because AO3 is still in beta mode. So I guess we could get a bunch of people together to request segregating relationship tags etc to make this easier. But yeah. This is something that comms on LJ do SO MUCH BETTER. And why I am forever grateful to
Erasure of female characters and - what did you call it? - doubling down on heteronormity? Is super irritating even though, like you, I do often read it. But it's an evolution, right? Because in SPN I read some really disturbing shit, because it was fandom standard (there was a icon once: SPN fandom; where RPF is the moral high ground. It's true. Everything's going to be awful if incest is your standard) but I can't read Thor/Loki for that very same reason (also, Loki = meh. And Loki fans are crazy weird). I can’t read Clint/Coulson because Coulson = Avengers dad so it's incest to me. Also Coulson = meh now. It's a weird desensitisation thing where, because it's fanfic, it doesn't matter. Or something. And you should have seen some of the stuff I read when I was in bandom. I mean, I'm grossed out just thinking about it. But I had no other frame of reference and no one pointed out that it was weird or wrong. I just thought that's what fandom was. (Another aside: education in school regarding rape/consent would have helped A LOT in realising that it was weird - and I went to good schools and had pretty good sex ed.)
The only other thing is the problem I have with the other side: the people who point out that there are HUGE problems with fandom (and here are) but sound sanctimonious and make me - (break out the tumblr words) a white, privileged, straight (for arguments sake) cis female - feel like a bad person for exactly the same reason they're defending all these marginalised groups; because that's how I was born. And sometimes I feel the whole argument is terrible because a lot of people are shouting and a lot less are actually listening. And I'm not saying it shouldn't continue (because it should) but the internet is my escapism, you know? I don't want to come on it to find that people's whose opinion's I might otherwise agree with seems to think I'm worth less because I happen to be part of the majority.
So. That's a thing.
ETA: Oh! But I never explained why I mentioned the blanking at the beginning. Basically, I can search through AO3 and almost not see all that stuff I don't want to. I can do it with tumblr and LJ too - it's how I got by without tumblr saviour for so long. As such, while many of these things annoy me when I think about them, I can not think about them and get on dandy and grand.
But yes. Woobiefying villains pisses me off (even more so with Loki because it ignores the fact that we have, for the first time in a good long while, been given a genuinely interesting bad guy, and because Tom Hiddleston is attractive, he has to be retconned into a good guy because bad guys can't be attractive or whatever.)
And sometimes MCU fans just annoy me because the MCU is, by an large, pretty inclusive and intelligent and clever, and people so often miss the point. But I guess that's true for many fans. Missing the point is sort of where the internet lives.