Janice Rand and Our Fear of the Feminine

As much as I love Star Trek, it was made in the sixties, which means... Well, there are problems.  And for me, a lot of these issues center around one person.

If you think "Wow, she really doesn't look into that," you are right.  This is from The Enemy Within, where Kirk gets split into two halves, and one of them tries to rape Yeoman Janice Rand.  There are actually a few times in TOS that something like this happens, but it's the only time that it's not something an enemy does to one of the crew.  This time, the assailant is Kirk (admitably, not Kirk-Kirk, but as far as Janice knows, this is the boss, her Captain).  "I didn't want to get you in trouble, but you were hurting me, you scared me." --She says afterward, while crying.  The 'good' Kirk is there, understandably baffled and insisting it wasn't him, and everyone else is questioning Yeoman Rand, trying to understand which one of them is lying.  It's... well, a little too real, and not the way I want to imagine the future dealing with these kinds of things.

But then, Technician Fisher steps in, and restores all of my faith in humanity.  He is an extremely minor character-- in fact, this is the only time we ever see him in the series.  He's just a geological technician who happened to be walking by Yeoman Rand's quarters when she needed help.  He helps her then, as I think most people would, but later he goes the extra mile.  When there is doubt that Yeoman Rand is telling the truth, he goes to bat for her.  "Do you know what you're saying?  This is the Captain!"  "I know what I'm saying.  And I know what I saw."

There he is, Geological Technician Fisher:  My current hero.

Janice Rand is the most sexualized woman on the show-- or at least, the most sexualized reoccurring character.  This is in spite of the fact that we never seem to see her romantically involved with anyone, in fact her main role seems to be having other people inflict their sexual desires on her.  Being Janice Rand seems to be a really scary thing.

I think this is why, despite being a reoccurring character who has as much or more screen time as any other woman on the show, we don't really care about Yeoman Rand.  She's just a sexy lamp, right?  Well, no, she has personality traits-- we know, for example, that she likes to paint.  We know she's a diligent crew member.  (Kirk initially didn't want a female Yeoman, but when he saw how efficient and professional Rand was, he changed his mind.)  So, why don't we like her?  Why don't we remember her?

I have searched several archives now, and have yet to find any works from her perspective that are longer than 1 chapter.  Yet Uhura, or Chapel, we are very ready to imbue with agency.  I think it's right up there with hating pink because it's a 'girl color'.  She is our disgust with the ideal of passive femininity.  We don't like Janice because we don't like the things she shows us about being a woman.

And I don't like what it says about us.  So today, I'm not going to give you something to read, I'm going to give you a promise.  I will include Janice Rand.  I will believe in her.  Whenever I write something in the Star Trek universe, I'm going to remember her.   (And Technician Fisher.)

The Origin Story

I think it's time to talk about where slash fiction came from, as a genre.  You may think that gay porn on the internet always was and always shall be, but everything came from somewhere.

To boldly go, my friends.  To boldly go.

In fact the whole terminology of the genre came from Kirk and Spock (Kirk/Spock to imply a romantic pairing, as opposed to Kirk & Spock).  I would argue that in the case of Kirk/Spock, there is such a preponderance of evidence that this is not a theoretical pairing, but one intended by the writers.  And by 'would' argue, I mean I will definitely argue with you about this.  At length.  With references.


I believe in Kirk/Spock like some people believe in God.

Like small children believe in Santa.

So epic is their love, and is my love for their story, I'm about to recommend an INSANELY long story to you. This is more than a novel.  It would be two reasonably sized novels.  This story is an investment, a commitment.

But it is worth it, all the way.  I have read this story, in its entirety, at least 3 times-- that is how much I loved it.  It is a story that I can say legitimately changed me, with moments of such strength that they still cross my mind.

The first time they kiss.  That shining moment on the bridge, in the impossible 3rd space of the City on the Edge of Forever.  They became real to me, like something that I lived.  A beautiful place that I went to, and can never see again outside of my mind.

I can't recommend this story to you enough.  If you have the time to believe, the link is below:

Observations

Sex and Wish Fulfilment

So, you remember before when I left you hanging with the question, why do we think that people writing fanfiction are kind of pathetic?  Well, we're going to talk about it a little bit now.

In the traditional romance novel, the heroine was supposed to be kind of like Bella Swan in Twilight-- a sort of blank slate that would be easy for anyone to slot themselves into.  Their characteristics are deliberately vague for this reason.  More modern romance novels go for more of a superwoman, so that the fantasy is not only getting the 'hero', but also being the heroine.  Both of these methods have a hamartia-- as a woman reading this, you're left with the idea that your dreamy hero would never go for a loser like you, because you're not (insert thing you're insecure about here) enough.

Fanfiction generally takes the route of yaoi-- which if you're not familiar, is a genre of manga and anime that focuses on m/m pairings.  These manga are written for a very targeted audience-- women.  NOW the fantasy removes women from the equation entirely, which can remove the whole self esteem issue completely.  "It's not that I'm not good enough, no woman could be, as they are gay."  It also gives you the option of two dreamy heros.

Darcy, as our wish fulfilment vehicle, is a nice combination of both types of heroine.  We don't have enough information about her from the Thor movies to prevent us from imagining a lot of her characteristics.  But she's not a totally flat character either, and has enough sass to make her dialogue interesting.  And in any fantasy, we need a hero.

And really, if you're like me, there's only one choice.

If you didn't just sigh girlishly, I don't know if we can be friends anymore.

Now, my heart does belong to Tony/Steve, but if we have to do the hetero thing I can get down with some Darcy/Steve.  This is like the dark chocolate truffle of wish fulfilment.  Who doesn't want to imagine they're Kat Dennings as Darcy, getting it on with Chris Evens as Steve?  De-li-ci-ous.

Only, well, here we are, smack dab in what makes fanfiction 'icky'.  It is about fantasy fulfilment, which usually means sex.  Like, a lot of sex.  A lot of kinky sex.  (For some reason this hits me more when I hear it read.  Maybe it's the realization that, not only did someone write this story, but someone also took the time to record it, with cheesy sound effects like an old school radio show.  I tend to giggle like a Japanese school girl.  It's a problem.)  When women read or write about sex, it makes us uncomfortable.  Why is that?  Is it because women aren't supposed to enjoy sex?  Or do we assume that these women are writing these stories because they aren't able to have this sort of sex, so it feels like we should be embarrassed for them, exposing their desire so openly?  Or, are we embarrassed because we're having a sexual experience with these women by enjoying their work?  Some things to think about.

If you're in the mood for a little wish fulfilment of the dark chocolate truffle variety, enjoy the link below.  *The suggestion below, while containing plot, does have a lot of sex, so if this is not your bag, be aware*

Direction Series (as a podfic) and Direction (text)

Darcy Lewis and the Alternate Timelines

So now that we've talked about kidfic, I want to talk about their spiritual brother.  (And no, I am not talking about MPreg, because they are my absolute least favorite thing.)  I am talking about alternate timelines.

The appeal of the alternate universe is obvious-- it lets you give your characters a fresh start, play with their dynamics in new ways, and fix some of the holes in the narrative presented to the audience.  Some holes are easier to fix than others, and often times the community at large will find a particular answer so appealing that they essentially become a kind of secondary canon.  This is especially true for pairings, thus the term OTP (One True Pairing).  Because the medium of film especially is limited, fans have to extrapolate a lot from a very small amount of source material, and this leads to generally agreed upon ideas about characterization that come from one very small incident.

For example:  At one point in Thor, Darcy Lewis mentions that along with losing all of their equipment and research, Agent Coulson also confiscated her ipod.  This is now a feature of almost any story involving Darcy.

My point here is that when you hold a microscope over something that was really not intended to be scrutinized so hard, you end up finding a lot of cracks.  There are two ways of dealing with this:  You can try to come up with some kind of explanation, or you can just chuck some parts of the official story and go you own way.

We're all a bunch of tabloid reporters, is essentially what I'm getting at.  Hawkeye was briefly in the Thor movie!  So briefly he is in like one scene! And he never talks to anyone but Coulson as far as we know!  But this one scene is, in my opinion, the entire reason why Darcy/Clint is such a popular pairing.

Darcy is an interesting case,  because she's kind of the fangirl self insert.  It's pretty easy to imagine that you're Darcy.  Darcy is the fandom bicycle.  She gets paired with pretty much everyone... except, weirdly, Tony, the internet seems pretty sure that she's his daughter.  (I am 100% behind that one, by the way.  If it's not Tony/Steve or Tony/Pepper, I want no part of it. )  Most of the Darcy fanfiction that's out there is basically about her becoming a strong, capable adult-- and since she's the audience avatar, I see this as an extension of the worry that most young adults have about being directionless.  So, what do we as a collective mass do to Darcy, who we see as ourselves?  We make her powerful, and sexy, and valuable.  I don't think I've seen her portrayed in a negative light, ever, in any of the transformative fiction I've read.  It's kind of beautiful.  Darcy is the self love that we never knew we had.  She always loves the Avengers, because, well, WE love them.  And they love her too, because isn't that the ultimate fantasy-- to imagine the things that you love, love you back.

Darcy is also a great way to fix a lot of plot holes, because when you squint at her, she doesn't really make sense.  How can anyone afford to be an intern for 3 years?  How, exactly, did they get her picture of Thor into the DMV database?  These aren't big enough questions to distract you from the movie, but under the microscope, they become kind of... nagging.

So below, ranked in no particular order, are my Darcy recommendations.

Out of the stories that try to explain these things, my favorite has to be We'll Run Like We're Awesome.  It's one of the few Darcy fics to, so far, have no romantic pairings-- it's just very focused on her and her relationship with her father, Tony Stark.  It's well written, emotionally nuanced, and ongoing, so if you like being able to binge read an entire story in one go, you may not be satisfied to wait, but it's worth it. Click the link to check it out: We'll Run Like We're Awesome

I will not lie to you, the end of this one made me kind of depressed.  It was this line, specifically:

"Years later, Darcy will remember the days spent at the Malibu house as some of her best. She will speak of it (carefully edited for content) to her grand-nieces and -nephews, and they will humor her, just a funny old woman holding up her stories of superheroes and gods like trinkets."

Because, right there, you just killed my happy ending.  I know that if your family thinks that your superhero stories are you making shit up, it means that eventually, you stopped being with them, and I know that's the way of the world and totally realistic, and you just stomped all over my heart, you really did.  Bruce/Darcy, because some people like that kind of thing: She blinded me with political science. Which is also available As a podfic

Finally, I would recommend Simple, Not Easy, if you feel like you really need to get your Clint/Darcy on, if only for the image of Loki as a drunk baby sloth.

We'll get into the idea of Darcy/Steve next time, because I really want to talk about how fantastic podfics are, and this post is already too long to get into it.

A.I.s and Lullabies

I would like to discuss the difference between the two terms, 'fanfiction' and 'transformative work'.  As you can see from the title of this blog, I obviously have a preference, but when talking to other people, I generally used the term fanfiction.  So, what's the difference?

Fanfiction is more commonly used, and there is a sort of... pejorative connotation to it.  Fanfiction is seen in the same light as a bodice ripper-- and actually, I think that this is very telling.  Fanfiction is coded feminine, just as romance novels are, and it suffers from the same prejudices.  It is sexual!  It's pathetic!  It's girly! 

So, why do we think that?  Why do these things cause us to feel that those reading and producing this work are, on some level, disgusting?

For now, I'm going to leave that question dangling out there, and talk to you about the last thing I read that made me cry.  This is a piece of transformative fiction which has no romance, and no sexual content whatsoever.  That's right, it's a kidfic.

Kidfics are actually pretty popular.  In some cases, I think because we find antisocial behaviors to be more acceptable in children.  When you look at a teenager or a young adult or an older adult who is lashing out or obviously damaged in some way, the feelings you have tend to be different.  You're annoyed at them for inconveniencing you with their problems.  You are trying to decide if they're a threat to you.  Sure, you might feel sympathy or compassion, but on some level, you would like them to just get over it already, god!  They're supposed to have put on their big girl panties and gotten over it already.  Life's hard for people all over.  We're able to access our compassion and understanding for children much more easily, because it's easier to say "This is not your fault.  You just don't know how to cope yet, because you're young."

 Kidfic allows the writer to imagine a way to make all the bad things that have happened to a character go away.  Are there any superheros out there who haven't had horrible, soul crushing childhoods?  Because if there are, I can't really think of any.  Batman, Spiderman, Captain America, even Superman-- all members of the Dead Parents club.  Of course, these heroes at least had the benefit of having their dead parents be good people, and good parents.  That is usually one of the primary differences between supervillians and superheros, actually.  We have a few examples of this-- Hawkeye had shitty parents, which is why his brother Trickshot was a villian for a large swath of their history, and the same can certainly be said for Lex Luthor, Loki, and almost any other villian.  Reason #1 to hug your children, The world does not need more supervillians. #LokiOdinsfault

I would say that one of the best examples of this in the Marvel Universe has always been Tony Stark.  Because, wow, A+ parenting there, Howard.  Let's just slow clap it out for you.  

When we see Tony, it's always him as adult, and we find his personality quirks and his coping mechanisms amusing and annoying.  In our hearts, we are all Pepper Potts, whining "Toooooony!"  At him while he tomcats around with a drink in his hand.  But... seriously, what happened to him to make him put up such fucking insurmountable walls?  There are, in that man's past, a long line of adults that have failed him and have used him, starting with his parents and Obie, and extending to everyone but his butler, Jarvis.  When we seem him extending love to anything, it is mostly machines, because they are safe.  But, he's a grownup, so we're free to blame him for his issues-- and, I'm not really saying we shouldn't.  Poor little rich boy, etc.  He's a survivor, and a real person, and everything about him is not just a straight line drawn from his traumas.  He get to be someone who was forged by his experiences, not broken by them.  It's something to be proud of.  But I do think that we should, at some point, look at him and see the 5 year old that he once was, and let it break our hearts a little.

It has always been my secret fantasy that Howard did find Captain America, partway through Tony's childhood, and THEN dies and leaves him to be raised by Steve.  That is seriously my dream.  It is my happy place.  

In search of this happy place, I found A.I.s and Lullabies, which is not that story.  This is a story that brings you that 5 year old, and makes you look at him, and fall in love with him, and then it takes him away.  And yeah, I cried.  For who he could have been, and for who he is.

So, should you like to have a similar emotionally cathartic experience, you may click the link below.

 A.I.s and Lullabies