I hardly ever write ship-fic

It was the epic tale of the love between an elegant ocean liner and the scrappy tug that lived for every return of the liner to her home harbor--until that cold night, when they said there were ice bergs in the shipping lanes . . .

Sometimes it feels like sickness. The whole plot just popped into my head.

Why portmanteaux when you can Stark spangled Banner (I hate the pairing, but the name is golden)?

HA. Almost as good as Pepperony.

Stark spangled Banner

I want to see this. Anyone got recs? I tested the waters of AO3 and found too much Darcy/anyone to even deal with. Yes, I am lazy.

too much Darcy/anyone to even deal with

I re-watched Thor recently, and was driven to wonder just where the hell the Darcy I see in fic came from.

In terms of pairings falling into the too much to deal with category for me, I find myself scrolling past what feels like scads of Tony/Loki. Uh, no thanks.

I find myself scrolling past what feels like scads of Tony/Loki. Uh, no thanks.

For me, it's all the Clint/Coulson. I mean, I like them both very well and I have no particular objection to it, but it's not my thing either and it seems to be everywhere. If you don't ship Clint/Coulson or Tony/Steve, that's like 70% of fic off the table, it seems like, but I suspect that's an overestimation. At least the fandom has reasonable amount of diversity so that you can pick and choose.

I think Darcy/anyone is like what some Teen Wolf people were talking about Stiles/Derek. It's not the canon. It's the archetype to which fandom is drawn to. Darcy is non super-powered, snarky, pop-culture savvy and spunky, attractive but in a curvy real-person way and not in tall willowy Gwenyth Paltrow way, thus makes for a good fangirl stand-in. From there, you basically ship her with anyone that particular fangirl finds attractive.

I've read scads of Darcy fic because I mostly read het, and basically it's Natasha or Darcy if you want ladies in your pairing fic. Some Pepper. Very little Jane. But she's extremely prone to Mary-Sue-ism the way Consuela described it a while back, so I end up hitting the back button a lot. Bah.

Yeah, I rarely bother clicking if I see Darcy listed as one of the characters - odds are even if it's a gen story it'll be about a hipster graduate assistant somehow becoming the muse/mentor for an entire group of adults that apparently wandered clueless through their empty shells of lives for decades (or centuries!) before meeting her.

I think Darcy/anyone is like what some Teen Wolf people were talking about Stiles/Derek. It's not the canon. It's the archetype to which fandom is drawn to. Darcy is non super-powered, snarky, pop-culture savvy and spunky, attractive but in a curvy real-person way and not in tall willowy Gwenyth Paltrow way, thus makes for a good fangirl stand-in. From there, you basically ship her with anyone that particular fangirl finds attractive.

I can see that.

What would the archetype be? I mean, Stiles/Derek has been established as Nerd/Clam. Darcy's kind of LBD, but there has to be another word for her. Hmm.

I have more tolerance for Darcy fic than Vonnie, possibly because I just like the outsider-view, and even though she's a canon character, she's sufficiently outsider for me (I barely remember her from the movie). So I've read some Darcy/Steve and some Darcy/Clint, although the Clint in those stories doesn't bear much resemblance to the one in The Avengers.

A good source for recs, particularly for het or gen, is Astridv on DW: she posts a rec a day, and most of them are good. She's on my flist, so I get a steady stream of decent fic that way. She's also posting the occasional Unusuals and Bourne Legacy rec (she's a big Jeremy Renner fan, obviously). If you like Clint/Natasha, or gen, she's a good place to start.

Zen, here's a couple of Stark Spangled Banner stories I've saved to delicious. [link]

Those two stories are pretty decent and the second one deals with demi-sexuality, which is an interesting read. The second one also has a short prequel, which while you don't have to read it, probably wouldn't hurt.

My biggest problem with many of the stories I find in Avengers fandom is that too many of them only use the movie as reference, when there is a wealth of canon based on all the Marvel comics. There are meta posts on LJ and tumblr where you can find lots of links to specific issues that fill in a lot of blanks, especially if you want to slash Steve/Tony. I find the stories that use the comics much more interesting to read.

Plus, too often, stories based just on the movie totally woobify Tony and turn Steve into a raging homophobe.