the Maria Hill/Steve Rogers AO3 tag

[tielan]

Note to self and f-list: the Steve/Maria tag on AO3, now includes stories which are about Maria being kind of pathetic after Steve, when he really wants someone else.

*wince*

On the other hand, it also contains utter and absolute gems like chiseled out of brick now. Which you need to read. Go on. This post (and everything else in your life) can wait.

Unless you're in a meeting that you really have to pay attention to. Or about to go into one. (Like me.)

Okay, and unless you're not into WIPs. Although it's kind of a series of little interactions.

Steve tripping over his tongue! Maria being droll and humourous. Awkward, messy sex (to start with). Adorability. And holy cow I just hit the action and yet now I actually need to pay attention to what's going on in this meeting.

WHY IS LIFE SO UNFAIR?

Although it did provide me with this fic, so there is yet balm in Gilead...

Comments

[hickumu]

*le sigh* Sadly, I tend to try and avoid WIPs, because I get too wrapped up about thinking about them and wishing they were updated and it just...gets to me. Does it at least say how many chapters they're planning to write? I love that feature on AO3.

[tielan]

It seems to be three parts long, I suspect she's finished the story, and Part 2 got posted this morning.

So hopefully done in a couple of days?

[hickumu]

...oooh, never mind then. *_* I'm a bit burnt on the really good fic I read where chapters came out every couple of months and you had fuck all idea of how many the author was planning until the last two. This, however, sounds like it might actually get done.

*crosses fingers and settles down to read*

[majoline]

What? Reallly? >:(

Anyway, will check out the link now!

[tielan]

It's marked as Steve/Bruce as well, and categorised 'M/M' in genre. From skimming the first three parts, it looks more like Steve/Maria is the fakey pairing before Steve works out that he'd rather have Bruce.

Which is fine - whatever floats your boat. I just didn't much like the way they portrayed Maria.

[majoline]

*nods* I don't mind whatever pairings when people sell them to me, and I don't mind people dating one person and then another, but fakey pairing trope fic just doesn't ring right to me normally, and I have less tolerance for it when it's a character I really admire, if that makes sense.

[tielan]

I'm very picky in my pairings, although there are some "not my usuals" which I'm flexible in, and some which I will only read after someone has dragged me kicking and screaming to sit in front of the computer in a headlock.

But in the 'not my usuals' I do need the characters to be portrayed respectfully (especially my favourites).

eg. I wrote "Like Fish Needs Bicycles" which involves all the members of the Avengers asking Maria out at some point - so it was going to have 'fakey pairings'.

However, I tried to make it clear that they all admired Maria, and that Maria admired them, too, even as she rejected a relationship with them for whatever reason.

On second (third?) thought, I just realised the fic with the fakey Steve/Maria also had an "infidelity" tag on it. :/

[majoline]

I think the key word here is respect.

[tielan]

That is very very true...

[beatrice_otter]

Most character/pairing tags (sometimes even fandom tags) that I am interested in checking out on AO3 have a *high* percentage of fics where I look at and go o.O ... and back away slowly.

Never look at the Rumplestiltskin/Belle tag in Once Upon A Time. Just ... don't. The woobification of a villain and the dumbing down of a heroine so they can have happy schmoopy fluff is ... wow. There are some good fics, but eep. (The Regina Mills/Emma Swan tag is *slightly* better.)

That's a ... really *odd* mutiliation of Maria's character. I mean, I can see uberbitch villain easier as a distortion.

Then again, there really aren't any women in the Avengers movieverse that I'd expect to see an in-character version of them being pathetic, and some people simply can't seem to get by if someone isn't being a weak idiot about Twu Wuv.

[tielan]

She wasn't outright pathetic, but she also seemed kind of oblivious to the fact that Steve wasn't really there when they went out. Which doesn't seem like any version of Maria at all in the multiverses.

I am fairly picky with my choice of depiction of female characters because they're so rarely depicted well - by which I mean 'positively' and 'as a multi-dimensional character'. Unfortunately, with characters like Maria, I don't usually get to be picky.