Steve tends to date for long stretches of time, from what I can tell, in on/off relationships with the same women.
This is where my relative lack of Steve canon works against me, but it seems to me that this could make things difficult to work out, relative to his relationship with Tony, because if he tends to be with the same women on and off, there's kind of an expectation there that eventually one of those women will become a permanent relationship. I get that feeling about Sharon, in particular.
I, personally, have always found it important not to ignore the women in slashfic; slash gets a bad enough name as it is for its removal of women from the picture, and to ignore them entirely (or worse, bash them) isn't the way to go, in my opinion.
I don't intentionally set out to ignore the women; I didn't even realize I was doing it until I started writing this post. It was an interesting realization! But do admit, even thinking about the options consciously, I'm not sure what other way to handle them. Because the focus of my stories is always on the Steve/Tony romance, rather than any accompanying plot, bringing any of their romances into the story is only inevitably going to lead to the same subplot (breaking up) or conversation (why they aren't together anymore). I find it...boring.
Which isn't to say that I wouldn't really enjoy reading a story that got into those ideas in depth, but while I'd be interested enough to spend a couple of hours reading it, I'm not interested enough to spend days or weeks writing it.
So if we don't want to ignore them, but we don't want to write a break up story, but we do want to write a Steve/Tony romance...what do we do? I'm at a genuine loss, and I suspect other slash writers are, too, which is why I suspect so many slash writers just leave them out. (Some writers, of course, do it because they have issues, but I don't want to get into that particular discussion. :-) )
I'm sure you see other ways that bringing the canonical romantic interests into the story could work. Any favorites?
It's more interesting, I think, to deal with a breakup, or with Steve realizing his sexuality, or something to that effect, than to pretend they don't exist.
Heh. And I just finished saying that I don't find break up stories interesting! Steve realizing his sexuality could be really interesting, though it's not my preferred storyline. (Obviously, since I haven't even written a bit of it!)
But is also seems to me that both break ups and examinations of sexuality are stories that are are 90% about one of the two characters and only 10% about the characters as a pair. My favorite part of any given story in any pairing is how the two guys interact with each other and their developing relationship, which means that any story that's 90% about only one them--either one--is going to be less interesting to me.
I know that my stories have a bias towards stuff happening to or with Tony, but I think it's also accurate to say that while his character may be the site of the "action", the actual story is about him and Steve together. For example, the action in AMOM is the Extremis messing with Tony's brain and his resulting need to bond with someone, but the story is all about how this impacts his relationship with Steve.
(Oh, and as for that last question - Diamondback, Diamondback, Diamondback
*grins* I thought you'd say that! I have yet to run into her at all, but she does seem a bit random. Did they try to build up that relationship at all, or did it come out of nowhere?
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This is where my relative lack of Steve canon works against me, but it seems to me that this could make things difficult to work out, relative to his relationship with Tony, because if he tends to be with the same women on and off, there's kind of an expectation there that eventually one of those women will become a permanent relationship. I get that feeling about Sharon, in particular.
I, personally, have always found it important not to ignore the women in slashfic; slash gets a bad enough name as it is for its removal of women from the picture, and to ignore them entirely (or worse, bash them) isn't the way to go, in my opinion.
I don't intentionally set out to ignore the women; I didn't even realize I was doing it until I started writing this post. It was an interesting realization! But do admit, even thinking about the options consciously, I'm not sure what other way to handle them. Because the focus of my stories is always on the Steve/Tony romance, rather than any accompanying plot, bringing any of their romances into the story is only inevitably going to lead to the same subplot (breaking up) or conversation (why they aren't together anymore). I find it...boring.
Which isn't to say that I wouldn't really enjoy reading a story that got into those ideas in depth, but while I'd be interested enough to spend a couple of hours reading it, I'm not interested enough to spend days or weeks writing it.
So if we don't want to ignore them, but we don't want to write a break up story, but we do want to write a Steve/Tony romance...what do we do? I'm at a genuine loss, and I suspect other slash writers are, too, which is why I suspect so many slash writers just leave them out. (Some writers, of course, do it because they have issues, but I don't want to get into that particular discussion. :-) )
I'm sure you see other ways that bringing the canonical romantic interests into the story could work. Any favorites?
It's more interesting, I think, to deal with a breakup, or with Steve realizing his sexuality, or something to that effect, than to pretend they don't exist.
Heh. And I just finished saying that I don't find break up stories interesting! Steve realizing his sexuality could be really interesting, though it's not my preferred storyline. (Obviously, since I haven't even written a bit of it!)
But is also seems to me that both break ups and examinations of sexuality are stories that are are 90% about one of the two characters and only 10% about the characters as a pair. My favorite part of any given story in any pairing is how the two guys interact with each other and their developing relationship, which means that any story that's 90% about only one them--either one--is going to be less interesting to me.
I know that my stories have a bias towards stuff happening to or with Tony, but I think it's also accurate to say that while his character may be the site of the "action", the actual story is about him and Steve together. For example, the action in AMOM is the Extremis messing with Tony's brain and his resulting need to bond with someone, but the story is all about how this impacts his relationship with Steve.
(Oh, and as for that last question - Diamondback, Diamondback, Diamondback
*grins* I thought you'd say that! I have yet to run into her at all, but she does seem a bit random. Did they try to build up that relationship at all, or did it come out of nowhere?