wherein Liz whines about The Dark Knight fanfiction

[edenfalling]

Apropos of nothing in particular, I have the oddest feeling that most people writing fanfic for The Dark Knight were not watching the same movie I saw. At all.

I came out wanting to read Rachel/Harvey and Rachel/Bruce triangle fics; Bruce/Rachel/Harvey threesome fics; police procedurals; Ramirez post-movie or pre-movie genfic; Harvey pre-movie genfic; stories in which Gordon's personal life falls apart while he copes with his new job and his 'betrayal' of his friends; stories that tie up various loose ends (like Coleman Reese, who must certainly have been hauled in for questioning now that Batman is wanted for murder); and stuff like that.

I don't think that's an unreasonable list.

But.

About 90% of the fic I have seen -- leaving aside the generally awful Bruce/OC sagas -- is Batman/Joker (wtf?), Joker/Rachel (seriously, wtf? that is not romantic; he was going to kill her and forget her within ten seconds), Joker/Harley (watch me not give a damn; Harley is only interesting with Ivy anyway), and Joker/OC (even more wtf than Joker/Rachel).

...

Heath Ledger's performance was amazing. But the Joker is not much of a character. He is a cipher. As they say, he just wants to watch the world burn. And what can you do with a character like that? They used him brilliantly in the film, and by his nature he cannot grow or change, so where do you go from there? Nowhere.

Which is why I have little interest in reading about him. Especially not in porn (ick) or romance (so massively OOC that I am not even going to bother discussing it).

...

I managed to stave off my initial impulse to write Iron Man fanfiction, but I have a sinking feeling that I may not be so successful with The Dark Knight. This time, you see, I have genuine plot bunnies. *sigh*

Comments

[edenfalling]

Hang on while I go hunt down some links...

Okay. Here we go:

Exclusive, Intimate, Content, by Gater101, is a nice look at Bruce and Rachel from Harvey's POV.

The Four Men Who Want Batman and the Woman Who Gets Bruce Wayne, also by Gater101, is a series of five character studies: Harvey, the Joker, Lt. Gordon, Bruce, and Rachel.

One Night, by auzziewitch, is Bruce/Rachel the night before Harvey's press conference, when she stayed over at the penthouse.

Wise Up, by coffeemione, is an OC-heavy story dealing with the Gotham police department in the wake of the film, as they begin to hunt Batman for real. It's a WIP, though, and only the first chapter is up.

Batman Revealed, by vballmania23, goes AU from Harvey's press conference; in this world, Bruce confesses during Harvey's dramatic pause.

Roses and Revelations, by windsweptsilence, is a little window into Natasha, the Russian ballerina, who is far from stupid.

Ballerina and the Billionaire, by Jen K, is another Natasha POV.

The Job Interview, also by Jen K, deals with Coleman Reese after the movie.

Ten Minutes, by E Kelly, is Rachel in the last minutes of her life, thinking back and thinking forward.

Pathera writes some interesting short character studies.

January Thaw, by Zeil, seems to be heading toward some variation of Bruce/Rachel/Harvey, but only two chapters are up so far.

Call Sign, by arjuna74, is a Joker character study. (See, I have nothing against Joker!fic. What I mind is Joker!shipfic.)

Method, by shiny_n_new, is another Joker character study, equally creepy.

Tabloid Headlines, also by shiny_n_new, is a post-film Gordon character study that also attempts to tie up some loose ends from Harvey's murder spree.

...

There were a few others, but these links are all I have the patience to backtrack right now. *sigh*

[lynati-1.livejournal.com]

*thank* you. I appreciate running them down for me. (And I imagine there are others who do, too.)

[slowmercury.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the list! I'm glad to have someone's advice for fic; I looked once on my own and that was enough to scare me off. The same happened when I looked once for Superman and Spiderman movie fics; I'm starting to think that maybe it's a superhero movie thing. Although I've seen some X-Men that aren't too bad...

[edenfalling]

*puts on internet pseudo-sociologist/anthropologist hat*

Partly it's a function of fandom size -- less fic overall means less goodfic -- but since there are some small fandoms where the ratio of goodfic to badfic is much less dire, I think it really does also relate to the type of source material. Big action movies seem to bring out the (you know, there is no way to say this politely) screaming fangirl and fanboy ninnies. The small fandoms with intelligent fic have much more obscure source material, which means that you need a higher level of committment to get into them in the first place, and that tends to weed out the dilettante squee!fans.

Also, superhero movies tend to paint with an even more basic moral brush than many other action movies, and action movies aren't subtle to start with. So even when you get something that raises moral questions -- like Iron Man or The Dark Knight -- people tend to overlook them and pounce on 'he fights bad guys!' or 'omg LUV!' instead.

And then there's the tendency to turn any intense connection into sex and/or romance, which baffles me utterly, but appears in every damn fandom I've ever so much as glanced at, no matter how little narrative or character sense such attraction would make. Since action movies often deal in heightened emotions -- a byproduct of life-or-death situations -- there's a lot of emotional intensity flying around, which leads to a lot of really bad shipfic and/or porn.

Finally, I think an awful lot of these writers are teenagers, and most teenagers have A) no perspective and B) not enough practice at writing. So their stories tend to lack a good understanding of adult character motivations; to suffer from bad spelling, grammar, and punctuation; to be badly plotted and paced; and to be unfortunately superficial.

*sigh*

At least we still have the source material!