kitewithfish (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kitewithfish) wrote2012-05-22 08:51 am
kitewithfish) wrote2012-05-22 08:51 am
A lost post....
NOTE: I started writing a post a couple weeks ago, apparently, and never posted it. It's mostly just some incomplete thoughts on comic book characters, but I didn't want to throw it away entirely. Please accept, dear internet, this flawed child of a fractured mind.
So, last night, in a first of Avengers induced mania, I typed up some of my thoughts on a comic book pairing from Avengers Academy, Hazmat and Mettle, who show some major signs of being MEANT FOR EACH OTHER in comic book terms: they have powers that literally prevent them from easily seeking standard-human like people as romantic or sexual partners.
That's a very comic booky version of a sticking people into a relationship without really wanting to be in one. And, frankly, it's more common for writers to take the more obviously angsty alternative: two people who CANNOT HAVE SEX because of powers. (See: Rogue AKA "Life Force Sponge" and Gambit AKA "Don Juan de Bayou". Or, in fan traditions, Ben Grimm AKA The Thing "Mobile Cinderblock" and Alicia Masters "Squishy Soft Person") And sticking two people together while alluding to their sexual problems is a long tradition of comic books, which should be upheld along with inadvertent temporary genderswaps and finding out your sweetie is an alien.
And I've loved the aspect of two people being stuck together out of nothing, ya know? I kind of love the idea that you can just meet someone and BOOM. You've got a future together. And fandom has a LOT of ways of doing that.
Soulbonding is the biggest one, where two characters (usually just two) have some bizarre weird moment where they are stuck together and have some kind of psychic connection forever and ever amen. Soulbonding fics (at least the kind that I used to read a lot) tend to start out with two people who either soulbond randomly, without meaning to (Imprint: J2 RPF, nonspecific mentions of child molestation by mass_hipgnosis, or being forced into it to save someone's life (A Meeting of Minds: Tony Stark/Steve Rogers, explicit, by Nix)) They have to create (or reshape, if they already knew each other) a relationship around the fact that they now have this person that they simply cannot get away from.
Why I liked it: At the time I was reading a lot of these, I was in my first serious romantic relationship. It was a lot of work, trying to get to know someone and trying to be awesome to that person and trying not to screw things up even when I really didn't know what that would look like. I didn't know if it would "work out" (whatever that meant) and while there were some major basic things for a life-long buddy that I clearly knew I wanted (no bodyshaming, vaguely feminist at least, smart and a funny, kind but not wishy-washy, solid), getting to know another person that deeply is damned hard work.
So, last night, in a first of Avengers induced mania, I typed up some of my thoughts on a comic book pairing from Avengers Academy, Hazmat and Mettle, who show some major signs of being MEANT FOR EACH OTHER in comic book terms: they have powers that literally prevent them from easily seeking standard-human like people as romantic or sexual partners.
That's a very comic booky version of a sticking people into a relationship without really wanting to be in one. And, frankly, it's more common for writers to take the more obviously angsty alternative: two people who CANNOT HAVE SEX because of powers. (See: Rogue AKA "Life Force Sponge" and Gambit AKA "Don Juan de Bayou". Or, in fan traditions, Ben Grimm AKA The Thing "Mobile Cinderblock" and Alicia Masters "Squishy Soft Person") And sticking two people together while alluding to their sexual problems is a long tradition of comic books, which should be upheld along with inadvertent temporary genderswaps and finding out your sweetie is an alien.
And I've loved the aspect of two people being stuck together out of nothing, ya know? I kind of love the idea that you can just meet someone and BOOM. You've got a future together. And fandom has a LOT of ways of doing that.
Soulbonding is the biggest one, where two characters (usually just two) have some bizarre weird moment where they are stuck together and have some kind of psychic connection forever and ever amen. Soulbonding fics (at least the kind that I used to read a lot) tend to start out with two people who either soulbond randomly, without meaning to (Imprint: J2 RPF, nonspecific mentions of child molestation by mass_hipgnosis, or being forced into it to save someone's life (A Meeting of Minds: Tony Stark/Steve Rogers, explicit, by Nix)) They have to create (or reshape, if they already knew each other) a relationship around the fact that they now have this person that they simply cannot get away from.
Why I liked it: At the time I was reading a lot of these, I was in my first serious romantic relationship. It was a lot of work, trying to get to know someone and trying to be awesome to that person and trying not to screw things up even when I really didn't know what that would look like. I didn't know if it would "work out" (whatever that meant) and while there were some major basic things for a life-long buddy that I clearly knew I wanted (no bodyshaming, vaguely feminist at least, smart and a funny, kind but not wishy-washy, solid), getting to know another person that deeply is damned hard work.