WTF? Fic moment of the day

[transemacabre]

I was a-gog at this throwaway line in an Avengers fic found on A03:

"[Bruce had] spent last Christmas sweating in a Maori hut in New Zealand. His hosts had known it was Christmas but they didn't care, and honestly neither had Bruce. Bruce had more important things to do than spend money and wear sweaters, and in the end he'd been able to trace that tribe's dysentery outbreak to donated foodstuffs from overseas."

Like, wait, WHUT? Okay, this raises so many questions.

-- Maori tribe in huts? Really?
-- Why did this Maori tribe have dysentery from donated food from overseas? Why were they eating donated food from overseas in the first place? I mean, it's New Zealand. Not really a place that, even during national disasters, needs donated food (from aid workers?) sent to it.
-- Even if these hypothetical hut-dwelling Maoris got dysentery, why do they need Bruce Banner to care for them? Why not go to any of NZ's excellent, free hospitals and partake of that godless socialized healthcare?
-- It's 20-fucking-14, I'm pretty sure it's not a Thing for Maoris to be aware of the existence of Christmas.
-- I don't give a shit what anyone says, that is straight copy-pasted from Medecins Sans Frontieres website, with cholera replaced by dysentery and Haiti replaced with NZ.

Comments

[redcandle17.livejournal.com]

I suspect the writer had vaguely heard of the Maori and knew they were "tribal," and knowing nothing else about them or New Zealand, she/he decided to use them as generic dark-skinned people Bruce could be a White Savior to.

ETA: I read it, and the writer sounds very young, like a high school kid.

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

It's so confusing to me, because on one side Bruce is sort of a White Savior in canon, which could totally be talked about; but the author ups the ante by shoehorning in this tribe of hut-dwelling Maoris. Like every group of brown-skinned people is interchangeable. Next week, join Bruce Banner on his mission to bring clean water to the impoverished Hong Kong tribe!

[redcandle17.livejournal.com]

LOL. You jest, but it's probably already happened in some other fic out there.

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

I jest only to keep from crying ;)

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they'd heard something vaguely about the Wellington earthquakes of recent years and got things screwed up?

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I wish adolescents would "write for the drawer" in old notebooks, as we did when I was that age, rather than embarrass themselves publicly online. I'm reminded of some dreadful stuff I saw in a historical-fiction fandom a few years ago: some teenager depicted 18C domestic life with running hot water, shampoo, and nail varnish and lipstick of the modern type in modern containers. In my head, I nicknamed it "Valley Girls in Paniers". I've also seen people comment, when picked up on historical/geographical/cultural gaffes, that they "can't be bothered" to do the research, "they're writing fanfic, not an essay for school": but to me, why bother writing for a fandom if you can't make the effort to find out a bit about the time/place/culture you're using?

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

What makes me crazy, and this is not just for history-based fandoms, although common in them, is when fanfic writers can't be bothered (or as you might say, arsed) to do any research and so set all their fic in modern-day AUs. There's a massive fandom for the recent Les Mis movie; and 3/4ths of the fic is set in present-day American (not even French!) universities, or coffee shops, or high schools. That's why, despite being all squee about the movie, I dumped that fandom like a hot potato. Why the fuck even bother reading Les Mis fic if it's going to be set in Milwaukee?

The reason these AUs are so popular is that, of course, they're EASY to write. "Write what you know": extraordinary characters and situations mapped onto painfully ordinary American life.

I also did a lot of early scribbling in my notebooks when I was a kid, and played make-believe in the backyard or in the woods behind my house. Quite a bit of it was proto-fanfic; having adventures in Narnia, etc. I'd like to think it helped me improve as a writer for when I did get online at age 16.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

What makes me crazy, and this is not just for history-based fandoms, although common in them, is when fanfic writers can't be bothered (or as you might say, arsed) to do any research and so set all their fic in modern-day AUs.

Yes: that is sheer laziness. Another thing that bugs me are modern-self-insertion-character dropping into settings where that simply isn't appropriate. In something like Doctor Who, it can be made to fit with the universe depicted, but any more vapid "modern girls falling into Middle-Earth" and I will ask Bob if I can borrow the Orcrist to slice and dice 'em!

I also did a lot of early scribbling in my notebooks when I was a kid, and played make-believe in the backyard or in the woods behind my house. Quite a bit of it was proto-fanfic; having adventures in Narnia, etc.

Same here, using old desk-diaries to write in! But I didn't hear the term 'fanfic' until the 1990s, by which time I was in my 30s, and had thought it was just a quirk of mine. (Just as I didn't know until I was in fandom circles online that h/c wasn't just a personal quirk, either!)

I'd like to think it helped me improve as a writer for when I did get online at age 16.

I didn't get online until 1997-ish, by which time I was in my early 30s.

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

I got into fandom in like late 1998 or early 1999, so I would've been 15! X-Men was the first fandom I ever read, but it was awhile before I started writing.

Fandoms been around for a bazillion years, since people started writing Gilgamesh's adventures in cuneiform, or maybe before that. It took a loooong time to coalesce into the form we know it today. Imagine a coffee shop AU with Gilgamesh/Enkidu! Jesus! (or should I say Bel?)

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Fandoms been around for a bazillion years, since people started writing Gilgamesh's adventures in cuneiform, or maybe before that. It took a loooong time to coalesce into the form we know it today.

Oh indeed! One of the great examples of it, I think, is the expansion of the Arthurian corpus in the Middle Ages, as you get people making up stories about OCs and sticking them on by saying, "He's a Knight of the Round Table you've not heard of before!" The Guenevere/Lancelot ship was, I suspect, invented by someone who was squicked out by her original canonical ship (with her husband's nephew/son).

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

There were even over-invested shippers way back when, like the ones that harassed Alcott to make Jo/Laurie endgame in Little Women. I think she even admitted that she had Jo marry some other dude and Laurie marry Jo's little sister just to fuck with the rabid shippers.

[candyflosskillr.livejournal.com]

I'd laugh but it's lamentably true that outside of NZ, no one knows much about NZ. Even Australians struggle, but that said, I struggle with general knowledge of Australia and further afield. Which is why, as writers, we research our shit before posting and being laughed at for our inaccuracies and dumbfuckedness.

- Cut and paste theory seconded, in fact, all your theories listed are seconded.

Everyone in NZ knows when Christmas is, even if it's only for the retail sales. :P

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

My poor little Kiwis! *pinches y'all's cheeks*

A lot of dumb shit could be headed off if people would just ask questions, but then what would we have to gawk at?