I have opinions about Steve Rogers

[stellahibernis]

In particular I have a laundry list of stuff of how Steve is portrayed in fandom that to me is very much at odds with canon (insert disclaimer not all fic and meta writers here), and the one that annoys me today is:

Why is Steve (and occasionally Bucky as a package deal, but more often it seems to be just Steve) so often treated in fics like he isn't a fully functioning adult capable of making his own decisions?

I'm always annoyed when he is just sort of part of the Avengers rather that in the lead, because he would want to be part of making the decisions, but when it stretches to the rest of his life? Even more annoying. I've seen stuff like others picking his clothes as a routine, choosing his apartment and decoration, organizing his social calendar etc. And I get it's hard to draw the line between helping (because he does need support and I love found family stories where it's functioning and mutual) and just hijacking his life like he's a child, but the latter is unfortunately common.

Very common seems to be someone, usually Pepper, confiscating his twitter account, and I'm always like, he's not in your charge nor is he your employee, what right do you have? He has a right to be stupid on internet if he wants to, and frankly, I don't think he'd be as prone to getting into pointless flame wars as he's portrayed. CATFA makes it pretty clear he's fully capable of restraining himself when there's no point in blowing up (look at the training montage, the others bully him relentlessly and he just takes it bc there's nothing to win by protesting).

Further more, what makes people think Steve would go for any of that? We know he used to want to get by on his own before the war and had a chip on his shoulder the size of contiguous US about it, that just doesn't go away, and so the way he just maybe mildly grumbles about the above stuff just doesn't work for me.

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In other news, the Steve centric Endgame trailers are raising my hopes, and I'm trying to push it away because I'd love for the movie to have Steve in its heart the way Avengers movies so far haven't, but I just don't want to be disappointed.

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Also I'm going to have to find a place to camp at for the afternoon, I've been working from home due to an afternoon meeting (which was supposed to be much closer to home than office), but it was cancelled. However, we'll have the water cut off for the afternoon, so I'll still have to go, bc I need my afternoon coffee. I guess I'll go see about the workspaces in our new central library.

Comments

[sciatrix]

My favorite trope in Steve-centric fics is when hapless publicists are assigned to him explicitly to coordinate those sort of things, and he does end-runs around them and makes their lives difficult because he's fundamentally a contrary bastard who does not like being managed.

Which is abundantly clear in his own canon as well as in several of the group Avengers films, and in particular ties into who he was pre-serum in a way that is so fundamental to his character that I am, like you, very "mmmmm..." about that kind of portrayal in fiction.

[stellahibernis]

It is always such a delight to find stories where he's written well, as the complex character he is. Unfortunately in fandom characters often get stripped of a lot of nuance, but with Steve I don't always understand where some fandom used characteristics of his come from, among those that he'd let people just manage his life like that.

[the_megs]

YES! to all of this.

[finch]

I don't have anything to add to this but it makes me so "YES THIS" that I have to subscribe to you. XD

[stellahibernis]

:D Undoubtedly there'll be more opinions on Steve around here, I have a bunch.

[mmouse15]

Yes, this, exactly. Steve is very smart, very contrarian, and he wouldn't put up with being "managed" very well.

Love everything you said here!

[stellahibernis]

Every time something like this comes up in fandom I wave my both hands dramatically at the whole of canon in my head, bc it really should be obvious. :D

[perspi]

oh, yes, to all of this! There's one fic I liked from the POV of Steve's beleaguered publicist -- it fully acknowledged his contrary ways, and the publicist was *awesome*. Steve himself did learn to bend, a little, but it was clearly because he was actually listening to her very good advice, and she learned a bit about Steve, too, so it was mutually satisfying, and also rather funny.

Ah, dang, I'm gonna have to go find it, aren't I?

OK, I misremembered a little -- Steve didn't bend at all, but the publicist is a gem: Steve Rogers: PR Disaster.

[stellahibernis]

I've read that one, it is funny!

To me it's fairly reasonable to expect that Steve would be very reluctant to do any PR stuff after he got out of the USO circuit and to real action. I don't think he'd find it meaningful, deep down in a way that would make sense to him, even though I'm sure he'd understand on the intellectual level that you can raise awareness on a lot of issues via media.