Shipping and AO3

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I wrote up something here in response to The Niche which was based on this on tumblr.

Feel free to respond here or there. Thought we could use a conversation starter.

Comments

[chelseagirl]

Reading this and still feeling very much the fandom outsider for my interest in female characters, whether in f/f f/m or gen relationships . . .

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

It just means they aren't juggernauts. I do try to get more women into my versions of the MCU.

I have gotten a bit stymied populating my Stargate MCU fusion, because I want a mostly female hard sciences team. So, if you've wanted to pitch source, introduce me to more women of science fiction.

[chelseagirl]

I just mean Carol and Peggy and Jessica and etc. Characters who seem to be beloved but never really breach the heights of fandom popularity. Enough folks write them that I have stories to read, and when I write them I get responses, so it's all good. But what I consider a massively popular story is apparently a tiny fraction of the kudos for some of the juggernaut pairings -- something I never really think about until one of those "your most popular story" memes makes the rounds of my flist, and then I'm startled at the contrast.

[This isn't meant to be a sulk; my first book came out this summer and I'm putting my writing energies elsewhere for the most part. It's just an observation that the M/Ms dominate the charts so very obviously, which isn't necessarily what I see as I seek out the stories that interest me as a reader.]

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Ah! Well, this is one of those places where statistics answer a question possibly different than the one asked. You almost need to skim off the juggernauts (which are for many Reasons going to lean White Men either representationally or characterwise) to see what else is going on.

W00T on your Book!

Peggy is operating in that valley of Research Needed, Source Misuse and Thankless Job. Which is to say one has to be Ginger Rogers to write her. ;) Unless one gives her a cameo, which I did because I had Issues with how the Russos managed her in The Winter Soldier and source has only escalated since then.

[chelseagirl]

Thanks re. the WOOT! It's pretty giddy-making exciting. Now, of course, the thing is to write the next one.

I was more of an Agent Carter fan than I was a MCU fan, and I have an even 10 Peggy stories on AO3 at the moment, all tied to the series. So my perspective on that closing dance in Endgame was "well, that's nice, except two seasons of Peggy getting on with her life postwar is now kind of moot, isn't it?" (From an emotional standpoint, even if she still goes on to direct SHIELD.) But a popular Agent Carter story might get 30-40 kudos; I know Stucky and Stony get a lot more than that . . . .

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Mouth to ear.

I've only been able to see the first season of Agent Carter, solely Blu-Ray release of second season...
Thing is, per the Time Travel Theory they used, the Peggy Carter dancing isn't MCU main continuity. She's indistinguishable from Peggy up to the moment Steve interjects himself into her timeline. Just like there's 2012!Loki running about with the Tesseract and 2014!Gamora never met Peter Quill... Because of the Infinity Stones 2014!Gamora is in 2023 MCU and 2012!Loki may appear should it suit Disney, Marvel and/or large suitcases of Lincolns and Hamiltons.

Oh, yeah! Stucky and Stony can rake in kudos and may even get comments. I've got never to be requited mutual past pining in my AU along with rare pair.

I've been trying to ignore all Word of God commentary by the Russos because they keep trying to have their cake and eat it too. Get it on the screen or let it go. Head canons are for fans.

[reinadefuego]

It's kinda the unfortunate downside to there being so few female characters in the source material to begin with, and is pretty representative of AO3 as a slash juggernaut.

[chelseagirl]

Yeah, I mean, I could list a few dozen female characters offhand who interest me a lot, beginning with Carol, Peggy, Jessica, Nat, Buffy, Willow, Scully, Wynonna, etc etc etc. But I do tend to seek out media with significant female representation, with some exceptions.

I find plenty of fic that's female-centered, whether gen, f/f or f/m. AO3 is large enough that there's room for us all. But then in lists like this or in memes or etc, I'm startled by how marginal all of that apparently is.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I don't really seek out media anymore--I used to watch a lot of tv and then I read a lot. Now, what I do mediawise tends to be predicated on fandom and access. Somethings I might be into will probably be gif set only.

My reaction may give an impression of my view.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

It is true that many sources are short female characters. I think I read that on average (which means some sources are much worse) there is one significant woman to every five men of note.

I was also around for how Samantha Carter was treated- sometimes the reasonable anger towards TPTB got directed at the character or in fact Amanda Tapping, and instead of critiquing the poor writing and directing choices of Canon (I'm staring right at Stalker Peter) fandom leaned into the vexing character beats.

AO3 is a slash juggernaut; many of the older zine fandoms that were het either never made transition to the internet or are still on private archives/author websites. Remington Steele and Scarecrow & Mrs. King are two I've read in, and I've written a little of the first.

In the wake of the excellent acceptance speech of the henceforth Astounding New Writer Award, I think we should examine Why and How we've got the media and fandom landscape that we do. Some of it is works that do have women in better proportions so satisfy their audience writing fanfiction isn't the itch that say The Sentinel was during original broadcast. I've not run any statistics but my gut sense (from mailing lists) is due South fandom produced fewer procedural stories than comparable media. The niggle that sent fans to their keyboards were relationship based, whether that was slash, het, gen, or the elusive femslash.

[chelseagirl]

I was around for the transition from zines to online posting, but my main fandoms then were Forever Knight and Buffy, which were pretty gender balanced and had plenty of het ships as well as slash -- and of course in Buffy, canon f/f.

After that I drifted in and out of fandoms, due to a change of where my energies were focused, and I stayed on LJ, then DW mostly to stay in touch with friends I'd made through fandom. I got back into writing fic through Yuletide maybe five years ago, and perhaps it's not surprising that in the smaller fandoms exchange, I've matched on requests for stories that were f/m or f/f oriented: The Hour, The Bletchley Circle, Halt & Catch Fire.

For whatever that's worth.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Ah! I came in post Perpetual September but frequently am the only non-digital native about.

I watched Forever Knight, but not the episode That Didn't Happen; read about that online. Buffy I only know by osmosis; it was on cable. SG-1 I didn't actually see until sometime after 2005 iirc.

I missed most of LJ, joining them possibly mere months before DW. Besides MCU I've done Wilby Wonderful and a book series and that's pretty much it for 21st century fandoms.