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questionablygourmet · 5 years

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I Like This Show A Normal Amount: Will Graham As Autistic Representation

In a previous meta post about Will, I briefly alluded to my appreciation for Will as good autistic representation, and for Free-For-All Friday, @tin-can-paladin prompted me to do as I’d said I might and write a Thing about that. (Hopefully today is the day I actually get this post finished and up!) So here we go.

First of all, this post will be starting from the premise that Will is an autistic character. I don’t particularly care if Hugh’s said he’s not; whether or not he meant to, he and Bryan gave us an autistic-coded character and I reserve the right to be delighted about it! (Actually, that’s not quite true - I do care, in the sense that I wish he hadn’t said that, because acknowledging portrayals of characters on the spectrum that aren’t a walking fucking stereotype played for lulz *cough BBT COUGH* or as a tragedy inflicted upon their neurotypical family members as being on the spectrum is Important. But whatever.)

This post will address aspects of Will as a character, but also to an extent how he’s handled in the wider context of the show, and why that matters.

Agency

This was my primary focus on that previous Will meta post, but in context of autistic representation, I think it’s an important thing to highlight in this post as well: Will Graham is a whole-ass adult in control of his actions even when other characters don’t think so (see: Alana, Jack, et al in late season 1) or are actively trying to subvert that (see: Hannibal, You Asshole).

Autistic characters in various media are all-too-frequently infantilized and handled as though their environment/circumstances completely dictate their behavior. Will both implicitly and explicitly (“You can’t reduce me to a set of influences” - ironically for a later part of this post, the next thing he says mentions behaviorism), resoundingly rejects this, and I love that as part of his narrative in general but also as an autistic character in particular.

Empathy

This one’s gonna be a doozy. There’s a lot to talk about here that all generally falls under the heading of “autism and empathy,” so I’ll do my best to stay organized.

First, the simplest: He cares! So! Deeply! And complexly! And we know that throughout the show!

Frankly, this in particular massively exacerbates my irritated wish that the creators would explicitly acknowledge him as autistic because holy shit the stereotypes he combats with this. Autistic people in the real world have widely varied, diverse relationships with empathy and compassion (which are different things, and I have some beefs with the way the show uses the word “empathy,” but that’s a digression and this is already going to be a long post), but media largely erases this, conflating difficulties with normative, neurotypical-passing social behavior with inability to empathize, and/or display compassion, and/or even feel emotions (FFS).

There’s a related point about “normative-passing social behavior” that I want to expand on a bit, here: we see a lot of profound differences in demeanor for Will over the course of the show, and that’s something I’ve seen interpreted as manipulation sometimes when it really isn’t. (Not to say Will is not manipulative/capable of being manipulative, because he is, very! But not everything calculated is necessarily manipulative, and I see the two conflated a lot and that annoys me.) Will has, to my eyes, four basic social “modes.”

I’m Dealing With Most People With Whom I Have No Particular Antipathy Or Affection - Aloof, and either standoffish or polite depending on how his boundaries are being treated. He’s not particularly interested in making people comfortable when they’re making him uncomfortable (and being a white dude generally enables him to take this attitude without big repercussions), and people frequently make him uncomfortable.

I’m Dealing With Someone I Perceive As Vulnerable - Exaggeratedly calm, kind, careful. He’s trying to connect and provide comfort and support. He’s minding his every move and word because he doesn’t want to cause harm incidentally. (Abigail, Peter, Walter, etc. and to some extent, Margot, though with her it’s mixed with other attitudes.)

I’m Dealing With An Enemy - This is where the manipulativeness (and even, particularly in the cases of Bedelia and Hannibal, cruelty) comes in. He’s minding his every move and word because he wants to elicit a specific response from the person he’s interacting with. (This comes into play with Jack and Alana at various points even though they are rarely full enemies.)

I’m Dealing With A Trusted Friend - Has neither the deliberation of 2-3 nor quite the standoffishness of 1. He’s neither projecting an image appropriate to a specific kind of fraught social situation, nor actively trying to deflect attention and interaction. In my opinion we really only see this with Hannibal (in season 1 and then with flashes of it in 2 and 3) and Molly, though he gets close in a handful of moments with Alana, Beverly, and Jack.

All these modes deal with a) to what extent he is acting, and b) why he’s acting. And I love that we get to see this breadth of social interaction modes from him, because that is an accurate and sensitive portrayal of an autistic adult, reflecting the often-dramatic differences in “difficulty setting” of an interaction - how and to what extent are we expected to (or otherwise have a need to) mimic neurotypical mannerisms? What are the stakes of the situation? These are explicit considerations for a lot of autistic people, and Will demonstrates that vividly throughout the series.

Another way in which empathy and social interaction come into play in terms of autistic representation is that Will can and does form strong social bonds - not very often, because the way most other adults treat him isn’t conducive to it, but with people who display acceptance/a lack of judgment for his non-neurotypical reactions and behaviors, and importantly, who don’t treat him as Other for the way he can reconstruct crime scenes, we see that can form very strong bonds. Hannibal is obviously the prime example of this, but also Molly, and to a much lesser extent, Alana and Margot. (Though Jack refers to him as a friend and they have some friendly interactions, their bond is not a strong one and not at all marked by the kind of humanizing acceptance it takes to get truly close to Will.) People who accept who he is, and who are neither threatened by his skills nor dependent on them.

Finally, in this section, let’s look at the crime scene reconstructions and “getting inside killers’ heads” bit.

I have complex feelings about this aspect of the show, or more precisely, how other characters talk about his reconstructions and serial killer profiling - they (even Hannibal, to an extent) talk about it in mystifying terms, and I thoroughly dislike the term “empathy disorder” that gets thrown around so much in seasons 1-2 to explain what he does. Will is apt to testily correct people that he just interprets the evidence, and that is exactly what he is doing. His vivid imagination coupled with years of active study of criminal psychology allow him to take that interpretation a lot farther than anyone else would, and sometimes make intuitive leaps that the other characters can’t follow. But it’s clear that this intuition is founded in concrete evidence, as we frequently see him stymied when he doesn’t quite have enough of it, much to the frustration of Jack, who is particularly shitty about treating him like an oracle.

I like that Will gets to stick up for himself and correct people on several occasions, but I wish the ableism and the Othering was less pervasive amongst the other characters because it makes me want to slap them. I find that I really appreciate how most of the fic I’ve read since entering the fandom thoroughly and often explicitly rejects the pseudo-magical divination and/or Crazy Person With Magic Brain angle.

Perspective

There was something I was reaching at that was eluding me in my first attempt at this draft, and then I ran into an excellent article about writing autistic characters that suddenly and thoroughly solidified it for me. It’s really brilliant; it discusses and illustrates the strong difference between a behavioristic (see previous reference) approach to characterization and a humanizing one. Behavioristic analyses divorce themselves from the actual mindset and experience of the subject, whereas humanizing portrayals display the subjective experience of the person who is perhaps behaving in a way other people may find confusing.

Since Will is the main point of view character in the show, we get front-row seats to his subjective experience and can therefore more properly empathize with him. An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. The behavior that Jack and various other characters are exasperated, impatient, and/or unnerved over all looks pretty reasonable when we know how Will is experiencing the crime scene, or are seeing his nightmares and hallucinations along with him! And while the nightmares and hallucinations in season 1 are a matter of encephalitis and trauma rather than neurotype, it still matters that we’re led to understand something of what he goes through, from his own perspective rather than an outside one.

It’s incredibly necessary emotional context moving forward in the show, giving us an autistic character who is flawed but deeply human and whose darkness we can understand.

#hannibal #will graham #my meta #meta #thanks for the nudge to actually write this #it was difficult enough that it probably wouldn't have happened without said nudge #but i really wANTED to write it so #I Like This Show A Normal Amount

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blancheludis · 5 years

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Fandom: Marvel, Iron Man Characters: Tony Stark, James “Rhodey” Rhodes Rating: G

Summary: “Why don’t you always listen to me?” Rhodey asks, exasperation familiar on his tongue by now.

“Sorry.” Tony sounds so much smaller than usual. That should have been warning enough that something is wrong, but Rhodey is too tired to think.

Distantly, he registers that Tony does not move for the longest time but remains at his desk in the darkness, just sitting there. Stillness does not fit Tony, but that is something he can worry about in the morning. Sleep comes for Rhodey finally, uninterrupted by the noise of a keyboard clacking and Tony talking to himself every now and then. It is the best Rhodey has slept in a while.

A/N: @iron-man-bingo

Rhodey cannot sleep. It is two am on a Thursday. He has classes in the morning and a test to study for. While he loves Tony, having to share a room with someone utterly without regard for anybody’s needs but his own can be rather exhausting indeed.

When Rhodey blinks against the exhaustion and pounding headache, he finds Tony sitting at his desk, tinkering. It might be the lack of sleep, but what Tony is doing looks somehow less coordinated than usual. His hands are not in a flurry, he is not muttering under his breath.

“Turn off the goddamn light, Stark,” Rhodey calls, wincing at his own voice aggravating the headache.

He expects protests and a dry remark, rounded up by one of the terrible nicknames Tony likes to give him. Instead, it cannot take more than four seconds until their room is plunged into darkness.

“Sorry,” Tony says, sounding so much smaller than usual. That should have been warning enough that something is wrong, but Rhodey is too tired to think.

Tony is like that sometimes. He gets quiet and almost introverted for a short time, before jumpstarting right back to his exuberant self. The first time it happened, barely a month after they met, Rhodey had asked what was going on but gotten such a tongue-lashing in return that he never tried again. That boy, for all his smiles and willingness to please, has the uncanny ability to reduce people to tears without much effort if he needs to. Since then, Tony’s quiet phases have just become another quirk of him. Nothing that Rhodey should try to decipher.

“Why don’t you always listen to me?” Rhodey asks, pleased that life actually turned out the way he needs it for once.

In the morning, Tony is not there. His bed looks untouched, which is not unusual in itself, but his laptop is buried under something that looks like parts of a microwave, and Rhodey doubts that Tony could have taken that apart without waking Rhodey. Which raises the question what Tony, notorious for his inability to sit still, did the whole night if he neither slept nor worked.

Rhodey gets up and goes to shower, taking his time. The headache from the night before is almost gone, and hot water helps.

When he comes back to the room, Tony is there, wearing the clothes from yesterday. He looks as if he has been waiting for Rhodey, and jumps up with at least a hint of the manic energy always accompanying him.

“Good morning, platypus,” Tony greets with a smile. The nickname rolls almost reluctantly over his tongue. “How about some coffee?”

Rhodey stares dubiously at the paper cup that Tony is holding. A tendril of steam curls up from its lid, and the printed logo tells him that this is from his favourite bakery in town.

“You got me coffee?” Rhodey asks, noticing himself how suspicious he sounds.

Wincing almost unnoticeably, Tony reaches behind him and procures a paper bag. “And bagels.”

Rhodey stares. It is not that Tony is not thoughtful. Since coffee is about the only thing he drinks regularly and without prompting, it is not unusual for him to bring Rhodey a cup too. Getting one from a bakery across town, however, together with food, which Tony often forgets normal people need, is altogether rather alarming. Were they not standing in their room, Rhodey would suspect that Tony blew it up and thought this was an appropriate apology.

“The sun has been up for, what? Half an hour? And you already went out?” Rhodey asks dubiously, although he accepts the offered goods lest Tony decides that ungrateful people do not deserve them. “What happened to you?”

Tony’s face settles into a familiar smirk, which has Rhodey relaxing. That is the Tony he knows. “My, Rhodeybear, I looked deep into my soul last night and decided that altruism is my new thing.”

Snorting, Rhodey turns towards his desk. “Yeah, I believe that when I see it,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Probably wouldn’t even then.”

Tony is a good person, but much too absentminded to be altruistic. One day, he might build something to save the world and everybody in it, but Starks are not made for smaller scales. He will always forget about the needs of the people closest to him.

“You wound me,” Tony quips, sounding almost honest. He is becoming too good at acting.

Sitting down at his desk, Rhodey rips the bag open and inhales the sweet scent of fresh bagels. He offers one to Tony, who unsurprisingly declines.

“Your robot heart can take it,” Rhodey says, not without fondness. “You’ll just switch out the dented part.”

The next time Rhodey comes to their room, he thinks he has taken a wrong turn somewhere. It is clean. For the first time since moving in, he can see most parts of the floor. His own desk is not cluttered with Tony’s things anymore. Dirty clothes are not gathering dust in a corner waiting for the day when they do not have anything to wear anymore before they are finally taken down to the basement to be washed.

In all of that clean glory, Tony sits on the floor in front of his bed, one of his notebooks before him, and stares at a blank page. When he notices Rhodey, he jumps to his feet, looking almost shy.

“What happened here?” Rhodey asks, rubbing his eyes to make sure he is seeing correctly. Even the beds are made, with nearly military precision.

Waving his notebook in the air, Tony shrugs. “Got stuck on a problem.”

That happens sometimes, and it mostly ends with Tony drowning Rhodey in endless theories and loud thinking. He also has a dozen other projects to switch to. Even drinking or going out to party only to abandon everything and everyone once he has got his mind back on track are more likely than Tony Stark willingly picking up a broom.

“So you – went on a cleaning spree?” Rhodey asks, voice dripping with scepticism.

In turn, Tony merely nods eagerly, a wide smile on his lips that is somehow lacking its usual edge. “You always complain that I don’t know how to pick up after myself.”

“And you don’t,” Rhodey replies without missing a beat, then narrows his eyes. “Wait, did you pay some of the girls to clean our room?” He makes a mental note to ask around later and make sure that Tony did not go overboard. It would not be the first time either. That boy really knows nothing about boundaries – or what his money is worth.

“Treason!” Tony calls. He takes an erratic step forward, and raises his right hand into the air between them. “Do you wanna see the blister I got from the mop?”

With resounding vehemence, Rhodey tells him, “No.” It will not help much, never has, but he has never been one to roll over without complaint. “But I’m sure you’re going to show it to me every other minute, whining and use that as an excuse to never use a mop again in your life.”

In the hopes of delaying that, Rhodey finally walks fully into the room, skirting around Tony with practiced ease, and puts his bag down in the freakishly empty place next to his desk.

“That was the plan, yes,” Tony replies somewhat weakly, but when Rhodey looks back at him sharply, Tony is not any different than usual. He shrugs with his left shoulder and wears a lazy grin.

Thinking he must have imagined this – Tony is never weak – Rhodey accepts this by rolling his eyes.

“It’s a really big blister,” Tony adds with some glee. He holds up his finger again, comes towards Rhodey almost threateningly.

“I believe you.” Because Rhodey fancies himself a good friend, he glimpses at Tony’s hand nonetheless and finds indeed a blister. Since he does not want to encourage Tony, though, he crosses his arms in front of him and looks resolutely away. “No, no, stay away. We talked about personal boundaries, remember?”

When Tony’s finger stabs Rhodey’s jaw, he can do nothing but huff in resigned amusement.

“But you love me?” Tony asks, his eyes wide and pleading.

Not too gently, Rhodey pushes Tony out of his way, barely believing that he does not have to stare at the floor to avoid stumbling over something.

“As long as you stay on your side of the room, I do,” he jokes. Glancing back at Tony, he amends, “You can come over if you ever feel the burning need to use a mop again.”

Rhodey is fuming. This is easily one of the worst days of the term, and Tony, trailing after him without a care in the world, is not making it any better.

First Pauline, his girlfriend of three months, broke up with him, telling she could not take it anymore that he seems more interested in taking care of his kid roommate instead of making time for her – which Tony promptly proved to be true by calling for Rhodey after he set fire in the lab. Again.

Then Tony, who was banned from the labs for the week – as if that ever stopped him from making things explode – decided that he could eat – he never eats when Rhodey tells him too – and followed Rhodey and some other guys from the ROTC to lunch, and proceeded to ignore all their increasingly mean jokes by snuggling closer into Rhodey’s side and scribbling some formulas on a napkin.

Rhodey cannot even blame his friends. From a distance, Tony is just some annoying kid, too fluent in sarcasm, and with a superiority complex a mile wide. It has taken Rhodey weeks to make his peace with the fact that Tony is simply unused to interacting with other people and being taken seriously. All that bluster, Rhodey is sure, is a defence mechanism. It would still be nice to be left alone every once in a while.

To make an already ruinous day worse, Tony had spoken up in the middle of some story the others were telling, calling Rhodey sugarplum with his usual unaffected seriousness, to get him to hand over more napkins.

Rhodey had seen his friends’ faces, had seen the remarks on their lips as their mocking laughter washed over him. Naturally, Tony laughed with them. He seems to be unable to realize when the atmosphere in a room is turning against him, and always reacts with making himself even more available as the butt of other people’s jokes.

Suffice to say, Rhodey excused himself quickly after that, too tired to deal with keeping up the charade of being social.

They are on their way back to the dorm, Tony close at Rhodey’s side, muttering under his breath while he stares at his napkins.

“Hey, platypus,” Tony speaks up as they walk into their room.

Just like that, Rhodey has enough. He whirls around so that he towers right over Tony, ignoring the way Tony’s eyes widen at that.

“Could you please stop calling me those bullshit names?” Rhodey snaps, louder than he intended. Then again, he is not in the right state of mind for moderation.

Ever since coming here, his whole life seems to be circling around Tony. Somehow it has become his duty to make sure that Tony eats and drinks and makes it to class on time at least sometimes. Or that Tony does not end up partying the whole weekend, drinking alcohol despite being seriously underage, too often falling into beds other than his own.

His friends call him Tony’s babysitter and, most of the time, it feels like he is just that. Rhodey expected college to be different. Most days it is not even that bad, but even his well-tested patience has a limit.

“I – what?” Tony asks, shrinking back.

It has never been this obvious just how much smaller Tony is compared to Rhodey. Now, though, he stares down at Tony, seeing the way he draws up his shoulder, face scrunched up into an expression of surprised guilt and something that could have been fear but passes too quickly for Rhodey to analyse. He almost wants to take a step back and apologize but then Tony opens his mouth and keeps talking. He does that a lot, and it never ends well.

“I thought you lik-”

A glare is enough to shut Tony up, but it does not satisfy Rhodey enough to let things go.

“If you’re going to insinuate that I like being called sugarplum by a fifteen-year-old kid in front of my friends, you’re sorely mistaken.” Later, Rhodey knows, he will regret the derision with which he said kid. Right now, though, he just wants Tony to understand that not everything is about him all the time. “If I did, I’d have invited my mother along. Oh wait,” he says in an acidic tone, “you weren’t even invited, you just trailed after me as you always do.”

With that, Rhodey turns away from Tony, wilfully ignoring the way his face falls. Time and again, he let Tony draw him in, with the easy charm that comes so naturally to him, and the very liveliness of him. None of that makes up for the way Tony always seems to take, and it sometimes feels like Rhodey just does not have anything more to give.

“I’m sorry,” Tony says in his back, sounding smaller than Rhodey has ever heard him.

He is too angry to pay that much mind, though. A laugh scrapes up Rhodey’s throat, entirely devoid of humour and too heavy in the loaded silence between them.

“Give me a break. You’ve probably never been sorry in your life,” he says, whipping back around, conveniently forgetting the way Tony sometimes sounds when he is calling home. “But then things usually go your way anyway.”

To give Tony some credit, he stands a little straighter at that, and looks directly at Rhodey. “I mean it.”

The problem is, Tony always means it, but then he goes and messes things up again and again anyway. It is one of those inescapable laws of the universe, and Rhodey is tired of waiting to pick up the pieces.

Pulling his lips into something that is half-smile, half-snarl, Rhodey says, “Sure you do.”

He turns his back on Tony, hoping that, for once, he will get the message that Rhodey is not interested in continuing this conversation. Rhodey cannot win it anyway. He picks up the assortment of clothes on his bed, only to let them fall carelessly to the ground. Usually, he is not like that – one of them has to take care that they do not drown in filth – but all Rhodey wants right now is to fall into bed and mourn his broken relationship with Pauline and forget about the weeks of teasing he has ahead of him from his friends. He wants to sleep and wake up to find it was all a bad dream. Life never is, though.

“Is Rhodey okay?” Tony asks suddenly. He is still standing close to the door. His face is scrunched up as if he is doing complicated math inside his head instead of dragging out an already dead argument.

“What?” Rhodey asks, and stops bending down to get his shoes off. He feels himself glaring.

His back painfully straight, even while his shoulders look ready to hunch over, Tony clarifies his question firmly, “Is it okay if I still call you Rhodey?”

A dozen suitable answers lie on the tip of Rhodey’s tongue. That he likes this one. That it reminds him of home. That Jim would only add to his homesickness. That Rhodey sounds like the name of someone he can imagine becoming with time.

He is still angry, though, and hurt. So he grimaces like he has tasted something bitter, and says, “As if I could stop you.”

Without waiting for an answer, Rhodey then leaves the room, fuming and heartbroken. He gets as far as their floor’s common room before he feels bad. It is not Tony’s fault that Pauline broke up with him or that the other ROTC guys like to make fun of Rhodey for basically being a glorified babysitter – and not minding it too much either.

He likes having Tony around. The kid is brilliant and funny and there is never a boring moment with him. Sometimes, though, he is just too much. Too loud, too full of energy, too quick to jump from one topic to the next, simply too everything.

Still, Rhodey’s chest aches when he thinks of Tony’s face just now. The nicknames might be ridiculous, but they are simply part of who Tony is. Rhodey does not mind them, and he should not have shouted at Tony because of them.

Taking a deep breath to calm down, Rhodey turns around and walks quickly back to their room. With Tony it is best not to let things stew. When he comes back, however, Tony is already gone. His backpack is still there, just like his shoes and jacket. With Tony that does not have to mean anything, however.

Settling down on his bed with a sigh, Rhodey decides to wait. The day passes by while he cannot concentrate on his homework. Dinner time comes around but Rhodey chooses to silence his stomach with granola bars instead of risking to miss Tony’s return. Night falls and Rhodey sleeps fitfully. In the morning, Tony has still not returned.

Tony reappears without comment five days later. Ignoring the bags under his eyes and the way his greasy hair stands up in all directions, he looks like he is all right. Upon noticing Rhodey in their room, he stills in the doorway, but catches himself quickly.

With a curt, “Hi,” he turns towards his side of the room, apparently willing to forget all about their argument.

As much as Rhodey would like to get back to normal, he cannot let this go as easily. He has had days to calm down, to realize that, without Tony, MIT is lonely and somewhat boring. He is friendly enough with most of the people in his classes, but of all the people he could have had a deeper connection with, he chose the kid genius he is sharing his room with.

“I’m sorry,” Rhodey says as he gets up from his bed. Some conversations require him standing on his own two feet. Admitting his guilt certainly belongs to them.

Tony looks up in surprise, then schools his features into something neutral, almost serene. “Don’t be,” he says too cheerfully. “You were right.”

Frowning, Rhodey shakes his head. He wonders whether it is a good idea to argue about who wronged whom here. He cannot let this stand as it is either, however. Before he can say anything, Tony speaks up again.

“It though about getting my own flat next semester.”

For a long moment, the words do not register in Rhodey’s mind. Instead, he analyses the way Tony’s body is slightly angled towards the door instead of facing Rhodey fully. He is fidgeting with the hem of his sweater – one he stole from Rhodey – but his face does not belie his nervousness.

“You – what?” Rhodey exclaims in confusion. “Why?” How did they get from forgiving each other – at least that is what Rhodey was aiming for – to Tony wanting to move out, already planning their lives from this point out?

Tony’s nonchalance is obviously fake, but he pulls it off well enough that Rhodey’s spinning mind believes him. “The room is getting a bit small, don’t you think?” Tony asks with a shrug, looking at their assorted belongings, blending in so well with each other, no matter that they come from so very different backgrounds.

Regretting that he has stood up now, because this is a conversation Rhodey really should not try to navigate on weak legs, he sits back down on the edge of his bed, patting the place next to him in invitation. Tony does not move.

With a small sigh, Rhodey asks, “You do realize that it will be hard to find something that fits my budget?”

It is not impossible, and Rhodey wanted to look for a job anyway to unburden his parents a bit, but this is happening a little bit too fast for his tastes. He stops his mental calculation of how much money he could spare, when he registers that Tony has not yet answered. When he looks up, he finds Tony staring at him, forehead creased.

“What are you talking about?”

Rhodey allows himself to grin for a short moment, although there is arguably nothing funny about this situation. “I’m not going to let you move out alone,” he then says as firm as he dares, trying not to sound like the nanny his friends accuse him of being. “You won’t survive on your own.”

A lot of consequences of this remain to be thought through, of course, and Rhodey is not sure it is a good idea at all to let Tony Stark, no matter how mature he can be for his age, move into an unsupervised flat with only Rhodey as company. He has already proved time and again that he is powerless in the face of Tony’s working binges and self-destructive need to go out and party to forget who he is.

He feels like he should try to convince Tony to stay here in the dorms. They have managed well even with how little space there is, no matter how large Tony’s ideas and projects get. Tony looks determined, though. That might change on its own, given time. Right now, there is no moving him, Rhodey knows that from experience. So, it is simply a question of navigating this to keep it from turning into a disaster.

“Why would you want to come with me?” Tony asks, sounding honestly surprised. “I’m trying to give you space here.”

A small voice nags at the back of Rhodey’s mind. Truly, what is he doing here? Living with Tony is not all fun and matchless inventing. Most days it is not too bad, but all Tony does happens in superlatives. He is not happy but exuberant, not sad but downright catatonic, not interested but obsessed. If something strikes his fancy, he throws his entire being into it. He has never spared a single moment to think about self-preservation. He is a walking bomb. No one can tell when he is going to explode next, and it often seems like Tony does not care at all who gets caught in the blast – least of all that he is always going to be in the centre of it.

Still, it is out of the question that Rhodey will let Tony go anywhere of his own. This goes beyond the babysitting duty MIT put upon him, and beyond thinking of Tony as a younger brother of sorts. They are friends, simple as that. Arguing about insignificant things like pet names and proper hygiene and personal space will not change any of that.

“Tones, I appreciate the thought,” Rhodey says gently, while making it clear that he will not change his mind, “but I don’t want more space.”

Instead of reassuring Tony, this seems to upset him even more. He walks forward, stops right at the invisible line separating their halves of the room. Determination settles on his features, and that never bodes well for anyone.

“I’m constantly getting on your nerves,” Tony begins with a harshness that is solely directed at himself. “I don’t let you sleep. I steal your clothes. I keep you from going to your classes.” The way he forcibly snaps his mouth shut tells Rhodey that he has a dozen more points to add to that list, if given the chance. “Everyone’s still laughing about you for getting stuck with the pathetic little rich kid.”

Rhodey stares and stares, trying to get a hold of Tony’s thoughts that are swirling almost audibly around his head. His eyes are wide and his hands clenched. They are on the precipice of something, and Rhodey is aware that one wrong step could mean to irreparably break something here.

“Tony, what is going on?” he asks quietly, as non-threatening and unassuming as he can.

Even as the question hangs between them, the reasons for this are crystallizing themselves rather clearly in Rhodey’s head. This is Tony running away. He does not want to mess up this friendship, so he is going to take himself out of the equation. Rhodey has to bite down on the need to get up and pull Tony into his arms. It is too soon for that.

“I was trying to do what you told me,” Tony insists stubbornly, as if it is Rhodey who is being ridiculous here.

Frowning, Rhodey tries to think of what he did. Surely, this could not have been triggered by his outburst over the stupid nicknames. Things like that usually ricochet off Tony like they have never happened.

“You’re not making sense,” he says and notices the pleading entering his tone. “Maybe start from the very beginning.”

Right in front of his eyes, Tony shrinks. The line of his shoulders finally crumbles as he pulls his arms around himself. His eyes are wide and sad, his lips twisted into something bitter. When he talks, though, his voice retains the stubborn insistence that it is Tony himself who is in the wrong here.

“You said I should listen to you more,” he says simply, bringing Rhodey up short. “And – well, I’m doing everything wrong. I’m too loud and too messy, I don’t sleep, I can’t cook. I argue too much and listen too little.”

Weakly, Rhodey argues, “You basically just described your entire self.”

In turn, Tony winces, not nearly as impervious as he usually is. He is downright vulnerable, so this must have eaten at him for quite some time now.

“I know,” Tony shrugs, failing at appearing nonchalant, “that’s why I was trying to change.”

Rhodey cannot remember when he said that he wanted Tony to change. Well, there are a thousand instances when he tried to get Tony to listen, but he never does. It is true that Tony has been unusually compliant these past weeks, at least sometimes. He kept his working at night to a minimum, actually using the lab instead of turning their room into a battlefield of machine parts. He did not invite people over during the week without asking for Rhodey’s permission. Then there were the times he brought Rhodey food as if that is not something he usually frowns at.

He can see it now, Tony trying to be better, whatever that is supposed to mean, trying to curb down on doing all the things that annoy Rhodey on a regular basis.

“For me?” Rhodey asks, although he already knows the answer. It is pressing against his sternum, pushing the air right out of his lungs.

“Yes.” Tony smiles as if it is a good thing they have cleared this up, like Rhodey should be glad for Tony being willing to upend his entire being for him.

Utterly helpless, Rhodey can do nothing but stare. There is this fifteen-year-old kid standing in front of him as if he is waiting to be punished. It is usually so easy to ignore how young Tony really is, because his brain is so much older, because he can behave like he is a part of some sophisticated society, because he has a list of issues several miles long that no child should have.

Taking a deep breath, Rhodey pats the free space on the bed next to him again, firmer this time, making it into more of an order than a question. Surprisingly, Tony comes. He visibly hesitates to cross into Rhodey’s personal space, which breaks Rhodey’s heart. Then he is there, smaller and more insecure than Rhodey has ever seen him.

“Do you know why I like you, Tones?” Rhodey asks, firmly emphasizing the nickname. No one else calls him that, so this is solely theirs. “Because you’re brilliant and erratic and you don’t let anyone tell you what to do.”

Apart from Rhodey, apparently. Longing to be liked can do that to a person, but Rhodey has already come to think in terms of we whenever it comes to their life here.

“You have no personal boundaries. Yes, that can be annoying as hell, but I don’t call the left side of my bed your side for nothing. And, yes, it’s been nice not to be the only one keeping the room clean. But it’s all right.” Rhodey prefers having to suffer Tony’s chaotic self over having fake peace and quiet.

“You don’t have to change.” Slowly, as to not startle Tony, Rhodey leans towards him and bumps their shoulders together. It is usually Tony who drapes all over Rhodey without invitation or finding it strange at all, but Rhodey does not want him to think that Tony is the only one taking comfort from having a friend close. “You shouldn’t. Not for anyone. Especially not for me, because I like you how you are, very much.”

Tony is silent. That in itself is not a good sign. It means he is thinking too much, twisting Rhodey’s words around until they fit the narrative inside his head, which never ends well for him.

“I don’t –” he stammers, “I mean, what –”

He is not leaning away from Rhodey, though, so that is as promising a sign as Rhodey can hope for.

“You’re my friend, Tony,” he intones firmly, allowing no doubt about the truth of that statement. “Not this weirdly eager to please version of you. But the chaotic you.”

The one blasting ACDC at two am because he got stuck on a math problem. The one thinking coffee is enough to keep his body sustained. The one with the sharp tongue and no care in the world for what others might think of him. The one Rhodey has come to see as his best friend.

When Tony does not answer, Rhodey, smiles at him. “You don’t have to say anything. I’m just telling you how I feel, and that I want you to stay just the way you are.”

Tony swallows audibly but glances up at Rhodey with hope in his eyes. He looks altogether more vulnerable than Rhodey has ever seen him

“Come here,” Rhodey says and opens his arms. It takes Tony only a fraction of a moment to sink into his embrace, relief written over his features.

They hold onto each other, even while Rhodey swears eternal revenge on the morons who made his Tony this insecure inside his own skin. So what if Tony can be a bit much at times. He gives so much back, too, it is all worth it.

“Thank you, Rhodey,” Tony whispers against Rhodey’s chest, apparently unwilling to separate from him again. Rhodey does not mind in the least.

“Not that I’m complaining,” he asks in a cheerful tone, intent on lifting the mood, “but did you stop calling me stupid nicknames to because you thought I didn’t like it?”

Immediately, Tony tenses in Rhodey’s arms. When Rhodey does not move, does not let go of him, he relaxes again. He lifts his head just enough so that they can look at each other.

“Want me to change that, sugarplum?” Tony asks, a small smile playing on his lips.

Rhodey smiles back easily. “I want you to do what you want,” he says and it feels like a promise. “I’m just enjoying the ride.”

#fanfiction #Iron Man Bingo 2019 #writing #tony stark #james rhodes #mit era #college #tony is a mess of a human being #but what else is new #insecurity #misunderstandings

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emeraldnebula · 6 years

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Thoughts on the comic book industry, Part 6

I've been touching on this on and off during this prolonged rant about the state of the comic book industry, but there's no way to continue this rant without going into detail on this point. It's at least half the reason the industry is in such ruin, and it's a big reason why the major publishers are so unwilling to get with the times and get their acts together.

Over the past 3 decades, the major publishers have cultivated a core audience of regressive, close-minded, selfish fanbrats who (a) are in lockstep with the tastes and preferences of the Big 2, (b) are resistant to any kind of beneficial change, and (c) are ready and willing to excommunicate anyone who, shall we say, "isn't of the body." Essentially, what little remains of the readership is a twisted hybrid of Landru from Star Trek and the Buddy Bears from Garfield. (Although I suppose another Star Trek villain, Gorgan, applies as well – "Our purity of purpose cannot be contaminated by those who disagree.") All the awful stereotypes associated with geek culture? These are the people on whom those stereotypes are based.

If you think the Big 2 don't give a shit about the integrity of their characters, or about the quality of the stories, or about the legacies they're supposed to be caretaking...well, neither does their core audience of choice. The tiny minority they cater to may make a lot of noise about preserving the "history" of the characters, but they define that history purely by their pet incarnations and dismiss everything outside of that. For DC, the "history" its target audience wants preserved is the 1986-2011 period (or, for what's left of the Superman fandom, 1986-1999 only), with a burning, outspoken contempt of anything that doesn't bear at least a surface similiarity to it. Hence "Rebirth," despite being a creative and sales failure, being praised to the skies on social media. For Marvel, what's left of its audience doesn't give a damn about the company's history at all; they just accept whatever's thrown their way. There's a reason why the term "Marvel Zombies" existed long before the comic of the same name. That same willful ignorance and disregard of the history and legacy of the Big 2 even extends to the creators they choose to lionize or condemn. If it's a creative team or a specific era the fandom has decreed holy writ, they can get away with anything they want and the worst aspects of that era will be whitewashed or made excuses for. But if its creative teams or eras the fandom doesn't approve of? Everything about it, no matter how innocuous or even based in the franchise's existing history, will be excoriated as an abomination. Everything the remaining fandom upholds or tears down has nothing to do with the actual history of the industry and everything to do with their personal tastes.

(By the by, this also extends to comic book adaptations as well. Whoever the fandom chooses to rally behind can do no wrong regardless of how destructive and ruinous their ideas are, while filmmakers the fandom chooses to hate can't win no matter how respectful they try to be.)

It also doesn't help that the target readership of the major publishers also shares the same nihilistic, meanspirited attitude so prevalent in most comic book stories now. It's not uncommon for the remaining fandom to justify malicious event-gimmicks with comments like "Why should the heroes' lives be nothing but rainbows all the time?" (This was an actual defense for Cry for Justice/Rise of Arsenal, I kid you not.) Characters behaving horribly, like Lois Lane being emotionally abusive or Batman being willing to betray and assault the people closest to him (his physical attacking of Alfred in All-Star Batman in particular) gets praised as being "badass," "cool," "strong and empowering," etc. Hell, even Spider-Man openly admitting that he was making his deal with Mephisto for purely selfish reasons – that he didn't want to honor Aunt May's wishes to die peacefully because he didn't want to feel guilty about his mistakes leading to her death – was praised as heroic and noble even though he explicitly stated his intentions on-panel. And look at the SJW characters Marvel's been pushing for years. Many of them are hostile and unlikable people, and yet the readership will defend them by accusing naysayers of sexism, racism, and any other politically-charged insult they can think of. In a lot of ways, what passes for comics from the Big 2 these days is, in essence, glorified Mary Sue fiction, with the creators and the remaining fandom glorifying themselves and their pet choices.

And as a result of this, many characters who were once noble and honorable are turned into absolute jerks, characters who once had depths and layers are reduced to one-dimensional cutouts with no real personality or soul, and characters with a history of being unlikable get exalted and showcased at the expense of all else. And what's left of the fandom wants it this way, because it feeds their own sense of superiority and allows them to project themselves onto the characters. If you dare to point out that certain characters have been stripped of their humanity and nobility and are just one-note, shallow husks, the remaining fandom will assert that such characters are "cool" and "deep," and that you're just an idiot or a fan of another character who doesn't know any better. If you point out that certain female characters are consistently portrayed as selfish, entitled, and cruel for no good reason, you'll be accused of misogyny and "not being able to handle strong women." And so on. To point out flaws and failings in the fandom's golden calves of choice is tantamount to personally insulting the fandom itself. Which is the same mindset DC and Marvel have when faced with criticism.

There's also an insane, utterly baffling refusal to even consider even moderate, reasonable updates and/or changes to certain properties, whether it's long-overdue costume upgrades, shedding outdated tropes or settings, or even replacing old creative teams who've overstayed their welcome with fresh blood. Over and over again, you'll hear "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" as a catch-all excuse to never change anything at all, no matter how necessary those changes are or if the old creative teams are completely out of anything resembling fresh ideas. In some cases, the industry's target audience will point to said old creators' past successes (if any) as an excuse to never replace them with new talent. And if the fandom decides they won't accept any new talent, there's no excuse they won't use to dismiss or demonize said new talent. Back in the early 2000s, for example, Ed McGuinness, Doug Mahnke, Mike Wieringo, and other creators working at DC were repeatedly bashed for being "too manga" for the fans' liking. Never mind that Mahnke's work doesn't look anything like manga, never mind that Wieringo had previously worked at DC during the '90s on high-profile books, and never mind that McGuinness owed his style more to American animation. They were replacing old, worn-out talent that the fandom didn't want to let go of, therefore "too manga" was seen as a valid excuse to hate their work. Even artists like the late Darwyn Cooke and Eric Powell have been bashed for being "too cartoony" or "too childish," despite it being well-known that cartoony art styles are much harder to pull off because you can't hide behind a lot of detail.

The refusal to accept anything but old, stale creators on the same properties ad nauseum often extends to a refusal to even consider artists drawing anything but the same damn thing over and over again. With Superman, you still have, decades after the fact, people wanting nothing but Curt Swan or Curt Swan imitators drawing the books, never mind that the franchise visually stagnated during the Bronze Age as a result. With creators like Darryl Banks, Scott McDaniel, Mark Bagley, and – before his career-ending stroke – Norm Breyfogle, fans don't want them drawing anything but their "signature" characters, and are actively hostile to even the suggestion that those artists could or should draw anything else. Speaking from personal experience, I've found that 90% of the time artists love drawing something other than their usual fare. But talk about this with the comic book fandom that exists now, and they treat it as an insult to the artists and an unnecessary risk because "you're making them draw things they have no affinity for." The idea of comic book artists being versatile and able to draw any kind of subject matter doesn't even occur to them at all, and they treat it as an affront if you even suggest it. Again, all they want is stale, stagnant comfort food, even if it conflicts with what the artists themselves would want to do.

Then again, that same inability to look beyond their personal tastes is reflected in their willful ignorance of the history of comic books, and even of the nature of comic storytelling. Over and over again, you see the existing fandom claiming to love and protect the "history" of the Big 2, but that history begins and ends with their pet incarnations. How often have you seen DC's pre-1986 history trashed and mocked on both fan forums and comic-centric blogs? A lot. There's very little love, if any, for anything published before Crisis on Infinite Earths. And a lot of times, the fandom will parrot outright lies – be they fan-made or even pimped by the publishers themselves – as absolute historical fact despite what was actually published in the past. (Batman's pre-Frank Miller history and Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson's roles in Spider-Man immediately come to mind as examples of such.) Even worse, sometimes the fandom will pimp their pet creators as being more deserving of creator credit than the characters' actual creators, or even advocate abolishing creator credits altogether if they decide they don't like either the original creators or the creators' estates. As for the willful ignorance of how comic storytelling works, here's a very worrying example: Marvel artist Greg Land is notorious for copy-pasting his old work and tracing/swiping from other sources, including porn and other artists' work. This habit has cost him friends and creative partners over the years. And yet, when his fans came to his defense, not only were his habits excused and defended, but some even made the assertion that Land isn't responsible for telling a story; he's just there to draw pretty pictures and that artists aren't there to tell stories in the first place.

This is a direct violation of what comics are: writing and art coming together to tell a story visually. In many cases, creators write and draw their own work. Visual storytelling is what comics are all about. But because an artist the fandom decided to champion was outed as a hack, some of his defenders decided that the rules of comic storytelling didn't exist, much less apply to said artist.

This should worry anyone who actually does love comics as a medium, because this is the audience the industry has been cultivating over the last 26-32 years. A tiny, whiny minority readership that doesn't have any real love or knowledge of the medium or the characters therein, that only wants the same tired old shit no matter how stale or outdated it is, that mimics the tastes and attitudes of the creators responsible, and is insanely devoted to either no change whatsoever regardless of merit or to extreme and destructive changes by their pet creators. I mean, really, is there any difference between legendary social media bully Michael "ManoftheAtom" Sacal screaming and yelling at anyone who doesn't share his "Iron Age only or else" mentality and creators like Mark Waid and Joe Quesada insulting and bullying anyone who doesn't share their distorted, selfish personal interpretations of their pet eras? Is there any real difference between fans incapable of accepting even minor and harmless updates and creators like Mike Manley going "Fuck your [insert character]!" on Facebook in regards to anything but his pet interpretations of said characters? (Ironically, Manley famously called fans unwilling to accept anything but Frank Miller's Batman "babymen." Apparently he's not capable of heeding his own advice.) Is there any real difference between fans who don't even understand how comic storytelling works at all and editors like Tom Brevoort who defend hack artists by pointing to sales (such as they are) and if their tracing and swiping "looks good"? Is there any difference at all between fans who spout bad SJW/far-left jargon and comic book pros who do likewise? And is there any difference between fanbrats who spew bile toward cosplayers and comic book pros who do the same damn thing? The answer is no. What remains of the comic book fandom is nothing but an echo chamber for the industry and its sycophants. No room for anything other than the chosen dogma, no room for anything resembling growth, change, evolution, or even just new ideas in general.

Making matters worse is that like any echo chamber, there's a huge amount of infighting when it comes to how pure of a fan you are and how devoted you are to the chosen dogma. Let's be honest; comic book fans don't just hate anyone not already in the clique, but they can't even play nice with each other. Male fans will tear each other apart for even slight differences of opinion, and female fans will tear each other apart for the same reason or even for daring to depart from the far-left/feminist/SJW bent of websites like Girl Wonder.org, The Mary Sue, and the Dreamwidth version of Scans Daily. (By contrast, the original Livejournal version of Scans Daily was a far more tolerant and welcoming community than what replaced it.) And when male and female fans collide for whatever reason...forget it. Their agendas are too polar opposite for them to ever have any common ground (the feminist/SJW fans crying sexism over anything that even slightly evokes female sexuality and hardcore male fans whining endlessly about anything that isn't fanservice sleaze). There's a reason why comic book fandom has a such a negative image attached to it. It's so insular, so arrogant, so unwilling to bend from its sense of self-entitlement that there isn't any place for new fans, or even older fans who are far more moderate and willing to accept change as necessary. Nobody's going to want to be part of an industry and/or fan community that tries to dictate what you can't or can't like, what you can or can't think, or how you can or can't treat anyone not already in the existing clique.

Don't ever expect these guys to show any self-awareness if or when it's pointed out that their attitudes are not only strangling the life out of comics, but also giving comic book fandom a deservedly terrible reputation. Any time this lunatic fringe gets called out on its bullshit, they repeatedly, without fail, justify their behavior by calling it "passion." They see themselves as the true believers, the chosen ones to whom the industry truly belongs and thus anything they say and do is A-OK. No, I'm sorry, but that's not how any of this works. Being utter jerks to anyone not already in their clique is not "passion." Being insanely hateful and willfully ignorant while congratulating each other for being "scholars and gentlemen" is not "passion." Demanding and encouraging creative and artistic stagnation is not "passion." Bullying each other over perceived fandom purity is not "passion." And when they make it clear over and over again that their regard for the medium begins and ends purely with their personal tastes, that's not "passion," either. It's just plain being a selfish ass. These people have just as much love for comics as the major publishers do...little to none. It's all about self-aggrandizement for them, and they're too wrapped up in themselves to realize it.

Which is going to bring us to the next issue that needs to be broached, an issue that could and likely will spell the death of the comic book industry as we know it.

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