musings about the avengers and hp fandoms

[nerakrose]

i realised earlier today that part of what i really love about the avengers fandom is that it's a lot less slash based than any other fandoms i've been in. in the sense that it doesn't really matter what i write, there'll still be an audience for it. there's not this pressure to put a slash between two characters and write only that and post only that, i can write a gen epic if i want to and it won't be seen as a lesser fic for it.
there's a lot of freedom in that fandom and i'm finding that most of the ideas that pop into my head, whether i write them down or not for potential future use, are much broader on the fluffy gen-hardcore gaysex spectrum than anything i've done before. before i'd dismiss an idea out of hand if it wasn't slash-centric, but now i have no such constraints.

case in point: i've created 5 works for this fandom and out of those 5 works there is:

- one pure gen fic: burning bridges (natasha, clint and phil)
- two mainly gen (i see them as gen, however there is slash in the background): how to become a superhero (tony-centric brofic with bruce wayne, side of tony/steve and background clint/phil) and agent sitwell: bnf (sitwell-centric crackfic with background tony/steve and clint/phil)
- one human/artificial intelligence fic: love in these modern times (clint/jarvis, crackfic of sorts)
- and only one purely slash fic: the suit porn fic (tony/steve)

i've created 30+ works (fanart included) for the harry potter fandom and not a single one is gen. (in my old fandom, whose works i've pulled offline, there were some 30-40+ fics and not a single one of those was gen either.)

DISCUSSION TIME.

in HP i feel like genfics are frowned upon and not really given space to - sure, there are always gen prompts and fics in multipairing fic fests, but even in the rhethoric you see it: those are always referred to as multipairing fests even if it also allows no pairings. the genfics generally seem to get a lot less readers than slashfics, too. it seems that people are divided into pairing corners and aren't very open to new pairings/gen fics. how is your experience with the HP fandom?

i haven't taken part in any avengers fests (though i've signed up for my first one) but i get the impression that it's an everything goes fandom. people seem open towards pretty much anything, so long as the fic premise sounds interesting to them.

i'm going to wager a guess that part the reason is the places on the internet these fandoms have their "homes" in. HP hangs out a lot on LJ, which is journal and community based, so one has to join specific communities for specific things. someone who joins only remusxsirius, for example, won't be as easily "exposed" to other pairings or genfics than someone who watches potterslash. i haven't been able to find a catch-all community for HP fics, which i take to mean as a sign that people aren't interested in going beyond their own OTPs.
the avengers fandom, on the other hand, is a lot less on LJ (though there are communities) and seems to have their homebase on AO3, which structurally is very, very different. just by visiting the avengers fandom on AO3 one is subject to every single new fic in the fandom, regardless of whether it's gen, het, slash or whatever else. there aren't communities to post the fic to, there is just the archive, and only the tags specifiy what the fic is. and if your fic isn't slash, gen, het or multi, there's an 'other' tag. the whole structure of the site invites a broader variety of fic simply because it's easy to post it due to fewer constraints. one doesn't have to fret over finding a comm on LJ for the fic if it doesn't fit into the ones that one normally uses.

thoughts? agreements? disagreements? other?

Comments

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

I'll just read anything in Avengers fandom :P Ao3 makes everything wonderful.

I agree though. There seems to be less pressure to put slash in and even if there is slash, there's less pressure to put sex in which is pretty much a must have in HP. It all just seems so relaxed.

[nerakrose]

it really does. and yeah, me too :P

yeah! if i can get out of writing the sex it's nice to know it's not a bad thing.

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

Ao3 all the time. I have such trouble wanting to read anything anywhere else now. Like why would I read on the browser when I could have the ePub? I love the fact that pretty much the most viewed and likely kudosed Steve/Tony fic ever is pretty much gen and has more side pairing action than the main one. Imagine if that happened in the HP fandoms. There would be a riot.

I mean most Clint/Phil fics don't have sex. I think most people don't think it needs to be there. I haven't read too much shb in a while, and I think it's more likely to turn up there, but it's not exactly expected. Avengers just seems like a more relaxed fandom in so many ways. I can't really imagine pairing wars or much fandom wank happening where it can be seen by a lot of people because most things happen on Ao3 where people would have to reply to fics with it and Ao3 is just not that sort of place, or on tumblr where you'd have to live in the tags to see it. Deviating from the original topic now...

[nerakrose]

hahayeah! XD people would strike up a fuss about proper posting and whatnot. XD (i'm with you on ao3. i only read stuff on LJ these days if it's HP fic.)

i'm of the opinion that we don't really need sex in anything, but then that's me. XD and yeah. the only stuff looking like wank i've seen have been discussions on some of the tumblrs i follow. and they've never been tagged so people from the tags won't wander into the discussion either. tumblr can be incredibly contained when it comes to that sort of thing, which i just regard as a huge plus. it keeps things from exploding. :P

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

(I have been known to see a fic on LJ in Avengers fandom and then refuse to read it when there's no Ao3 link. It's a sickness)

I don't mind if there's sex or not. If someone wants to put it in then go for it, if they don't want to then it's not going to hurt anyone. I won't not read something because it has sex in and I won't not read something because it doesn't have sex in. When authors are told they should put sex in when they don't want to, that bugs me. I'd say Avengers fandom has lower rated fics on the whole because of it. I think the only time i've seen wank was when I was in the Pepper tag looking for something specific. People shouldn't tag the wank stuff because people don't want to see it. It's much better if it's just nice and self contained on a few people's dashes.

[nerakrose]

(hahaah oh you. XD i have read some stuff on LJ but mostly i don't. :P)

yeah, same. :)
oh there's wank sometimes in the tags, but i don't go to the tags anymore. only if i feel like looking for new blogs to follow or something... i found a bunch that one time i went scouring the tags for superhusbands fanart and for a bit it was all there was on my dash. XD

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

(Sickness. I can't help it. :P)

I've completely given up on tags. It was too much with all of the stuff on my dash. I need to get rid of people on my tumblr tbh. It takes too long to go through everything.

[nerakrose]

same. i'll do it when i come home. <.< i'm following some 129 blogs or something >.

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

I'm closer to 80 and it's just far too much.

[kitty_fic]

Good question about a general HP comm for posting fic? You've got me curious now.

I'd say your best bet for those type of fics would be in 'all HP fests', but even then you're right and they aren't terribly popular...

There was the friendship fest which wasn't pairing related also...

*ponders*

[nerakrose]

last time i looked i couldn't find one. :/

there's a gen comm called hogwarts_gen or something, but i don't think it sees a lot of traffic. i think it's a structural thing; LJ is very "boxy" in that comms tend to be very specific. and then there's the fact that one has to post to comms in order to have people read the fics because the stuff you put on your journal isn't going to be immediately visible to everyone else.

[hollys_tree]

Yes, I think HP has always been pairing based. Maybe is wasn't always like that, I could imagine that when canon was still open there might have been more fic focussing on the world than the relationhips. But I came in after canon was closed, so... basically H/D is all that interests me. I turn to H/D fic for the romance. I don't need sex in a fic (mostly) but I find gen pretty boring most of the times.
Now I feel bad for writing that but I just don't get from it what I want.

I read gen and friendship fic in Glee though and the only Hunger Games fics I read were gen too. So I guess it really depends on the fandom.

one doesn't have to fret over finding a comm on LJ for the fic if it doesn't fit into the ones that one normally uses.
One of the many reasons why AO3 is so awesome. :D But HP was and will ever be LJ based I think, it's too old to turn to AO3.

[nerakrose]

yeah, i think it has too (and it's not a bad thing). i also only got properly into the fandom after the canon was closed. the first few fics i read way back when i was 15 or something were all about trying to predict or fix things (case in point, h/d fics pre ootp, hbp and dh), whereas now where everything is fixed, it's a lot more about the romance between various characters and playing around with the universe at the same time.

and you know, there's nothing wrong with not wanting to read genfics :P i agree that HP genfics tend to be really boring. i never want to read them anyway and when i do, i get disappointed about 98% of the time. v.v i've found that not to be the case with the avengers - in fact, my favourite avengers fic is a 90k+ mostly gen (slash on the side) and my other favourite is robot fic, so...yeah. XD

haha yes XD i don't even want HP to turn to AO3. i like that it's over here. (though i do wish more people would crosspost their HP fics there just so i can download them <.<)

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

It is the gen fic to end all gen fics though :P

[nerakrose]

it really is. XD both of them actually. i mean i know botfic is tony/steve but it's not the SOLE focus. it's a fic about dummy where the end result is still related to dummy and not hey look tony and steve finally got together. :P

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

Sci could have left the Steve/Tony out and I'd still love it as much as i do now. It's just Tony and Dummy and everything hurts but it's wonderful at the same time. I can't wait for the next part with Jarvis. Also, Dummy's only reference for relationships is Steve and Tony going at it in front of him. I'm surprised he didn't do worse when contacting Curiosity.

[nerakrose]

yeah :D i mean, i knew going into the fic that it would be steve/tony and it was pretty apparent in the fic where it was going (with the whole dummy assessing everyone around tony thing), but it could've been on a friendship level and still meant the same.
ahaha yes. XD reminds me, i was thinking for the jarvis fic that i need to have dummy get excited about mini bots and stuff. XD

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

Yes, I mean we pretty much had the ending pegged other than the soul-crushing, heartbreaking decisions Tony had to make, but friendship could have worked out just as well. As long as there was petting, Dummy would be happy. Mini bots! I want Dummy and mini bots so much :D Not gonna lie. My proudest achievement in the Avengers fandom will always be giving Sci baby bot feels because that's not the way bot feels are supposed to work. She gives them to us.

[nerakrose]

yeah. :) the petting might just about have killed me. haha :D there will be. or should be. either way, dummy. :P

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

I could probably just read gen fic about the bots forever as long as it's well written. I'm having Dummy withdrawal. And Sci fic withdrawal in general. But at least in October we know for certain we'll have a new Sci fic all in one go with art.

[nerakrose]

yeah :D me too. and october can't come fast enough. XD

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

I think there's another Toasterverse before it chronologically though, so we may get that beforehand *crosses fingers*

[nerakrose]

Fingers crossed

[epithalamium]

Hmm, I don't know much about the Avengers fandom because most of the activity I see is from my dashboard and I don't track tags but I agree about the HP fandom being more slash-based and more specific. I guess it has to do with the sheer number of characters in all the seven books: people need specific communities or it'll be impossible to keep track of them all. Not that I'm saying that the Avengers have less to work with, considering the wealth of canon from the comic books etc, but idk (by which I mean I really don't know, I have a sad lack of knowledge regarding superhero comic books D:).

I guess one of the nice things about the Avengers is that the characters all have a franchise of their own? Like, I could be an Iron Man fan and like the Avengers because Iron Man is there. And I'd like to read gen Tony fics because I like him. And I'd read other fics with him and other people for the same reason. HP, on the other hand... well, I like characters there and I'd read gen fic of them if there were any, but mostly what makes them more interesting is how they interact with other people. I'd read Marauder gen fics because I like the Marauders. I might not enjoy a fic that focuses on Remus if his friends aren't there with him. Actually I find it funny that while there's a community for Remus--anything Remus, gen, het, slash--there isn't one for Sirius. When I draw Sirius by himself, I have to post at blackfamily or something. >.>

Other fandoms, on the other hand... I spent some time at the BBC Sherlock fandom, and while most of the fanwork focuses on Sherlock/John, other people post fics with other pairings or even gen (we're talking about Sherlock, so I mean. Asexual!) I guess that's where LJ tags are useful. >.>

The Inception fandom is a bit more like HP in that it has specific communities for specific ships. Most of them are Eames/Arthur stuff, though. :P

I guess the most varied I've ever been is with the Havemercy fandom. XD Though most of my fanart is Rook/Thom, I've drawn some gen stuff, as well and people don't really care what you do because they like specific characters rather than ships?

eta: Whoa, this was a long comment.

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

I just want to say: "I know who Rook and Thom are now and everything makes sense :D"

[epithalamium]

Hee, Rook/Thom. Possibly one of the most 'slap in the face' ships I've ever shipped. XDD But yay!! \o/

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

I have no shippy feelings towards them yet. I've not got far enough. Just knowing who they are makes me so much happier though :)

[epithalamium]

I read the book years ago, but never really got down to shipping anyone because I found Royston/Hal a bit saccharine. I had shippy feelings about Rook/Thom, but PLOT TWIST. Haha. It took me years to get over it, I guess. XDD

[mrs-jack-turner.livejournal.com]

I'll let you know how I feel when I've read more :)

[nerakrose]

you're probably right. i mean, there are a million comic book characters as well, but the fandom is mostly movie based, so... basically, the fandom history is that it started with the civil war story arc (2007) because angst and tony/steve and then the movies started happening (iron man in 2008) so some movieverse stuff started happening as well. and since before the avengers movie came out it's been, i dare say, 90% moviverse. so all the old fandom classics are comic book verse ;D

i'd not considered that! but it makes a lot of sense. :D (there's a comm for sirius - sirius_black ;D i didn't know there was one for remus, though...)

i never spent much time in the bbc sherlock fandom...mostly because i kept seeing porn >.< i mean, i'm still IN it, inasmuch as i still follow and like and reblog sherlock blogs on tumblr, but it's just as much guy ritchie sherlock as it's jeremy brett sherlock and the conan doyle originals... i'm just a sherlock holmes fan all around XD i don't need the stories. i was a while in the guy ritchie sherlock fandom and i didn't like it much. v.v it was all porn there as well. v.v

i'm noticing that havemercy is varied :D but i think that's also because it's canonically very varied? i mean. i ship caius/alcibiades like death but i wouldn't mind gen fic with them because bros! i don't need there to be so much shipping though obv i ship everything XD

[epithalamium]

Does that mean I won't be so lost in the Avengers fandom, as long as I watch all the related movies? It's always a concern when I try to look into fandoms with a serious comic book base (like X-Men), since there's so many things going on. Arcs and retcons and stuff. D: So scary!

Ah, yes, sirius_black! I only found out about it after I sort of strayed into other fandoms. XD There's remus_centric and remus_lupin for Moony, tho.

And I know what you mean about the Sherlock fandom. I do like the cuddly JohnLock stuff, but anything beyond that is kind of hard to swallow. >.> (I've read some Mycroft/Lestrade fics, though, because I think there's more chances of that happening than Sherlock being sexually intimate with anyone.)

Yes to Havemercy! I mean, I ship all the ships, but I'm all right if they're all BFFs and only BFFs because they're pretty cute that way, anyway. (All right, I'm not really a Rook/Madoka fan, because I have lots of problems with it, but anyway.)

[nerakrose]

you'd be pretty safe just watching the movies. and as for the comic verse ones, there's an excellent post here: http://cap-ironman.livejournal.com/703399.html (there'a cap!butts galore as well) to clarify the differences between the verses. i haven't read everything yet and likely will never get around it all, but even then i can read the comic verse fics just fine, so long as i know which verse (because there's more than one verse, haha) the fic belongs to. :) screw the retcons. they're only confusing if you intend to read the entire avengers catalogue from the beginning up to now. :P

ohh i didn't know those. XD

i have a giant soft spot for lestrade/mycroft, but only really because i think it's sort of cracky? XD i haven't read much in way of fics but i have fanart cropping up on my dash every now and then. <3

yes :D i don't get rook/madoka at all. i got the CREEPS when madoka kissed rook, even if i knew it was really have and not madoka doing it, but i was all DDDDDDDDDD: all the same.

[epithalamium]

I just checked the link and cap!butts, hee. It is now part of my memories. XD And I mean it in a literal and LJ sense. The X-men retcons alone are making my head spin, so I guess I'll stay with my one-shot graphic novel shit. >.> (No chance of anyone doing a Sandman retcon, is there? XDD)

because i think it's sort of cracky?

THIS exactly. I can read as much porn as I want, because it's really nothing to be serious about. :P And anything with Mycroft and Lestrade in it is bound to be fun.

i was all DDDDDDDDDD: all the same.

IKR. I was really waiting for people to react (like Thom? Badger?) except nothing happened. Haha. Aside from which, I still wasn't over the fact that I expected Thom to give Rook mouth to mouth resuscitation, and it didn't happen either. How come Rook gets 'kisses' and Thom doesn't? :/

[nerakrose]

cap!butts! i really like that post. it's hilariously written as well :D because you know. comics. don't make sense, so why try? XD

haah :D totally. XD

IKR i was like WHAT WHY HOW ARE PEOPLE OKAY WITH THIS
i agree about the mouth to mouth, i was waiting for it and then i was cruelly let down. v.v

[epithalamium]

Apparently, Dani Bennett ships Rook/Madoka. XDD Someone asked them if they had 'guilty pleasure' ships in the series, and when I read that Rook/Madoka was one of them, I was like, 'Oh, okay.' :(

Haha, Thom. Poor Thom. And he got a faceful of sand for his troubles. :P

[nerakrose]

But why D':

Poor Thom. xD he hates sand so much. xD

[epithalamium]

My first thought really was 'BUT WHAT ABOUT BADGER' No. :(

And what about Havemercy basically shipping Rook/Thom? I mean, that comment about her not being a professor didn't come out of the blue. >.>

[nerakrose]

that too :(

haha yeah XD she said it even in havemercy. i mean. all that talk about them being like two peas in a pod and all. XD