So I have this habit of getting into fandoms really late. Like, I hear about some new tv show/movie/book and I hear the hype spread all through fandom about how awesome it is and, at some point, I got burned by the hype. I'm not sure when or where. Maybe it was nothing major, but I developed a habit of not giving new fandoms a chance until they were better established. I think to keep from being perpetually disappointed.
The downside to this is that when I discover fandoms - Otalia, West Wing, Iron Man, everything-ever - by the time I get to them, if the fandom isn't new longer producing new canon materials then the end is still nigh. Fandom production is going down hill, and if there is still new canon materials being produced then there's a good chance that the creator's of said material are gonna screw it up on the way out. Everyone tries to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes that is a good thing. The rest of the time it's just fucking things up in new and incredibly suck-i-fying ways for fans. Wheeee.
I say this in the context of Iron Man. Iron Man 3 is in production now. Robert Downey Jr. is currently fulfilling the last movie of his contract and the Iron Man series so far has been fucking perfect. RDJ IS Tony Fucking Stark. He sells better than any other actor I've ever seen and he makes it look like a hell of a lot of fun. But...Tony and Pepper are established. RDJ even comment on that at comic con himself, something along the lines of Iron Man being the only superhero ever really shown in an established relationship. This knowledge makes me antsy as fuck. I looooooove established relationships. When done well, they are the payoff that every shipper has been waiting for. They don't have to be boring, sucktastic and full of unrealistic drama. They can be awesome.
But every television writer ever has seen the established relationship get boring and instead of reinventing the fucking wheel to reflect a non-boring, sucktastic established relationship, they try to reinvent the wheel where they break the established relationship in some new and awesome way. Only there's this. There are only so many ways to break an established relationship that has that much fan support so as to make it worthy of OTP status, without making the breakup either a) contrived as fuck or b) making us hate the characters beyond all hope of ever liking them again. Then? Some shows get repeatedly almost canceled (looking at you Chuck) so they have to find multiple ways to break the characters up again and again. Until we just fucking hate them and all the contrived bullshit and want them to "die in a fire." A phrase that I hate, but seems entirely apropos at the moment.
This contrived bullshit happens to me a lot when I enter formerly awesome fandoms that are heading out the proverbial door. So what I'm putting out there in the universe, is for Iron Man to please not fuck this one up. Because I seriously <3 Tony and Pepper and can someone please do this established relationship thing, rightly already? I'm sure there's at least one example out there that's not obviously coming to mind for me, but that's another excellent reason to do it right. Show them how it's done. I'm begging you.
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