Story: "No Winter Lasts Forever" (Part 6)
May. 16th, 2013 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis story is a sequel to "Love Is for Children," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," and "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," and "Birthday Girl."
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanova, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hulk, Steve Rogers, Betty Ross, JARVIS, Bucky Barnes, Nick Fury.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Mind control. Inferences of past child abuse and other torture. Current environment is supportive.
Summary: A mission in Russia introduces the Avengers to the Winter Soldier. Steve wants Bucky back and will stop at nothing to make that happen. Everyone else helps however they can.
Notes: Asexual character (Clint). Aromantic character (Natasha). Asexual relationship. Sibling relationships. Fix-it. Teamwork. Canon-typical violence. BAMF!Avengers. Vulgar language. Drama. Rescue. Hurt/Comfort. Emotional whump. Survivor guilt. Friendship. Confusion. Mind control. Memory loss. Slow recovery. Nick Fury makes stupid-ass decisions. Fear of loss. Fluff. Nonsexual ageplay. Making up for lost time. Tony Stark has a heart. Games. Trust issues. Safety and security. Howard Stark's A+ parenting. Obadiah Stane's A+ parenting. Food issues. Multiplicity/Plurality. Sleep issues. Non-sexual touching and intimacy. Yoga. Personal growth. Family of choice. ALL THE FEELS. #coulsonlives.
Begin with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. Skip to Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11.
"No Winter Lasts Forever" Part 6
Soon Clint and Natasha came into the kitchen and sat beside Steve. Phil cast a careful look at Natasha, but she seemed to be more or less back to her usual state of calm reserve. "We should finish the debriefing today," she said, "and then I wish to begin the interrogations."
"All right," Phil said as he put breakfast on the table. What with one thing and another, Black Widow hadn't gotten to hunt recently. Given any of the rank-and-file prisoners who didn't recognize her, she could seduce the information out of them. For the ones who did know her reputation, well, she had other methods. This would give her an excellent chance to release some stress on legitimate targets. "I'll make sure your part of the debriefing gets scheduled first. You can peel off for interrogation after that, and rejoin us later for group analysis."
"Agreed," Natasha said. She licked her lips.
Then Phil turned his attention to Bruce and Betty. "Are you two staying in the lab here, or coming to SHIELD with us?"
Bruce looked up, his mouth full of waffle. SHIELD still made him nervous.
Betty answered for both of them, "Bruce is staying in the lab. I'm coming to SHIELD to pick up the captured gamma equipment that they want us to study, and what little is left from Stark Industries for Tony."
"I'm coming in with Natasha," Clint said. He wolfed down ham and eggs as fast as possible. "Steve, what about you?"
"I'll come too," Steve said, cutting his ham into neat pieces. "It was my call to refocus the mission; I need to answer for that."
"I approved it," Phil reminded him. "Let me deal with Director Fury on that account, and you just concentrate on giving a detailed report of the action. We've been wanting to get the Winter Soldier for a long time. What happened yesterday actually exceeded our previous projection of a best possible scenario."
"Best possible ...?" Steve said, his voice cracking.
"No casualties on our side, nothing more than trivial injuries. Original mission goals met. Winter Soldier contained, with nothing but a scratch that healed by the time we got him to SHIELD medical. With you and Natasha as anchors, we have a good chance to break the brainwashing and recover his original personality," Phil said, ticking off the points on his fingers.
They finished breakfast expeditiously and then went to work. Betty disappeared with several SHIELD lab techs, their animated chatter bouncing off the metal walls. She makes friends like bees make honey, sweetly and busily, Phil observed.
Clint and Natasha had plenty of experience with debriefing. They went through the interviews and written reports at a brisk pace. Then Natasha headed eagerly for the prisoners. Information was about to flow.
Phil managed his own debriefing with professional grace. When the Winter Soldier came up, though, Director Fury got a glint in his eye that made Phil uneasy. Fury uses people. This could get ugly if he tries to manipulate the Avengers right now, or worse, Bucky. I'll have to watch the situation closely, Phil realized.
Steve had less experience than the rest of them, but he made up for it with determination. His account of the battle was precise and thorough. Nobody challenged his decisions. He had handled himself and his team well in the face of difficult and rapidly changing circumstances, with excellent results in the end. Everyone was thrilled to have the Winter Soldier in hand.
"Do you think they'll let us see him?" Steve asked when they regrouped in Phil's office after a collective debriefing session.
Clint and Natasha looked at each other but said nothing.
"Based on the reports I have, Bucky is still unconscious while the doctors try to flush out a bunch of foreign chemicals from his body," Phil said. "They're finding substances associated with cryonic suspension, state-dependent memory, and suggestibility. The progress looks good, but it's going to take some time."
"If he's still got that much in his system, then he's not long out of storage," Natasha said. "No wonder he didn't recognize me. We'd gotten to where, somewhere toward the end of our first day together or into the second, he'd think he knew me even without prompting, and by the next he could remember bits of our joint missions. It came back faster if he had me there to tell him things. I think he may have been primed for that kind of input, and I simply ... coasted along with it."
"But Bucky will be okay, right ...?" Steve said. Huge and hopeful, his eyes turned to Phil.
"That's very likely, although there are no guarantees. I'll see what I can do about a visit," Phil said. He had to pull a few strings, but he managed to convince one of the more sympathetic doctors that a five-minute visit from Steve and Natasha wouldn't do any harm.
They fell into place around Bucky as if choreographed. Phil stopped at the foot of the bed. Steve folded his massive frame into the flimsy plastic chair. Natasha perched on the edge of the bed like an autumn-red leaf alighting on a snowdrift. Clint stood watch at the door, clearly uncomfortable, but unwilling to abandon his teammates.
Even though Phil didn't know Bucky, it hurt to see him lying so still and silent in the narrow white bed. The Winter Soldier had been such a valiant, ferocious enemy for so long that it was eerie for him to be reduced to this vulnerability. It just seemed wrong.
The whole scene brought up painful memories for Phil. The soft whirr and beep of the equipment scraped along his nerves. The sharp smell of disinfectant made it just a little harder to breathe. Too many times Phil had lost people this way, or gotten them back ... not entirely whole. He concentrated on maintaining his composure so that he could support those who needed him now.
Phil looked at his assets, grateful again that they had survived the mission. Clint could have passed for a statue. Natasha's face showed no emotion, but her shoulders were taut and Steve's cheeks were wet. Phil's Starkphone chimed. He took a deep, steadying breath and then said, "Time."
Natasha leaned down to kiss Bucky on the forehead. "Доверяй, но проверяй," she whispered to him. Trust, but verify.
"We'll come back when we can," Steve promised, trailing his fingertips through Bucky's hair. "I swear I won't abandon you again, never again." Then he followed Phil and Natasha out of the room, dragging his feet every step of the way.
Phil knew that Steve tolerated the separation only because the SHIELD doctors could do things for Bucky that Steve couldn't do himself. It was not trust, but reliance, and fragile at that. I really hope Fury doesn't do anything stupid, Phil thought. It wouldn't take much to destabilize this situation all over again.
* * *
Notes:
Interrogation is the art and science of extracting accurate data from unwilling informants. Enhanced interrogation is torture. In order to be effective, this requires a superlative understanding of both the psychological and physical aspects. Getting accurate answers entails figuring out which techniques will work against a given target, applying them, preventing the person from dying too soon, and sorting truth from falsehood. Most torture amounts to brute force abuse of mind and body; it is rarely subtle. Therefore, it is considered unreliable. Excuses aside, torture is usually done for personal and/or institutional gratification, not because it elicits usable information.
However, canon establishes Black Widow as brilliant and subtle. Both in psychological and physical combat, she uses finesse rather than brute force. Therefore she gets results that most other people could not. It is indeed possible to perform that well, something that opponents of torture prefer to deny or overlook -- but it takes someone about this caliber to do so. It's extremely rare to find that skill set at a high enough level. While I don't dwell on them much in a series this gentle, neither have I removed these core traits from her character.
Dealing with manipulators is difficult because they often gravitate to positions of power, disguise their manipulations, or both. They also cast the blame on other people and never consider what they themselves might be doing wrong or could do better. Consider common manipulation tactics. Here are some examples of manipulative behavior. Learn how to identify and cope with manipulators. Now think about this material in the context of Nick Fury's dialog and behavior in the movies.
All kinds of triggers can reactivate associations with unpleasant past experiences. It is difficult for anyone to forget painful memories. This is particularly a concern for people with PTSD. There are strategies for dealing with and letting go of painful memories.
Unconscious people may perceive some of what happens around them, especially sounds and touches. Gentle words and contact can help them feel better.
Доверя́й, но проверя́й.
Transliteration: Doveryay, no proveryay.
Translation: Trust, but verify.
[To be continued in Part 7 ...]
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanova, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hulk, Steve Rogers, Betty Ross, JARVIS, Bucky Barnes, Nick Fury.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Mind control. Inferences of past child abuse and other torture. Current environment is supportive.
Summary: A mission in Russia introduces the Avengers to the Winter Soldier. Steve wants Bucky back and will stop at nothing to make that happen. Everyone else helps however they can.
Notes: Asexual character (Clint). Aromantic character (Natasha). Asexual relationship. Sibling relationships. Fix-it. Teamwork. Canon-typical violence. BAMF!Avengers. Vulgar language. Drama. Rescue. Hurt/Comfort. Emotional whump. Survivor guilt. Friendship. Confusion. Mind control. Memory loss. Slow recovery. Nick Fury makes stupid-ass decisions. Fear of loss. Fluff. Nonsexual ageplay. Making up for lost time. Tony Stark has a heart. Games. Trust issues. Safety and security. Howard Stark's A+ parenting. Obadiah Stane's A+ parenting. Food issues. Multiplicity/Plurality. Sleep issues. Non-sexual touching and intimacy. Yoga. Personal growth. Family of choice. ALL THE FEELS. #coulsonlives.
Begin with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. Skip to Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11.
"No Winter Lasts Forever" Part 6
Soon Clint and Natasha came into the kitchen and sat beside Steve. Phil cast a careful look at Natasha, but she seemed to be more or less back to her usual state of calm reserve. "We should finish the debriefing today," she said, "and then I wish to begin the interrogations."
"All right," Phil said as he put breakfast on the table. What with one thing and another, Black Widow hadn't gotten to hunt recently. Given any of the rank-and-file prisoners who didn't recognize her, she could seduce the information out of them. For the ones who did know her reputation, well, she had other methods. This would give her an excellent chance to release some stress on legitimate targets. "I'll make sure your part of the debriefing gets scheduled first. You can peel off for interrogation after that, and rejoin us later for group analysis."
"Agreed," Natasha said. She licked her lips.
Then Phil turned his attention to Bruce and Betty. "Are you two staying in the lab here, or coming to SHIELD with us?"
Bruce looked up, his mouth full of waffle. SHIELD still made him nervous.
Betty answered for both of them, "Bruce is staying in the lab. I'm coming to SHIELD to pick up the captured gamma equipment that they want us to study, and what little is left from Stark Industries for Tony."
"I'm coming in with Natasha," Clint said. He wolfed down ham and eggs as fast as possible. "Steve, what about you?"
"I'll come too," Steve said, cutting his ham into neat pieces. "It was my call to refocus the mission; I need to answer for that."
"I approved it," Phil reminded him. "Let me deal with Director Fury on that account, and you just concentrate on giving a detailed report of the action. We've been wanting to get the Winter Soldier for a long time. What happened yesterday actually exceeded our previous projection of a best possible scenario."
"Best possible ...?" Steve said, his voice cracking.
"No casualties on our side, nothing more than trivial injuries. Original mission goals met. Winter Soldier contained, with nothing but a scratch that healed by the time we got him to SHIELD medical. With you and Natasha as anchors, we have a good chance to break the brainwashing and recover his original personality," Phil said, ticking off the points on his fingers.
They finished breakfast expeditiously and then went to work. Betty disappeared with several SHIELD lab techs, their animated chatter bouncing off the metal walls. She makes friends like bees make honey, sweetly and busily, Phil observed.
Clint and Natasha had plenty of experience with debriefing. They went through the interviews and written reports at a brisk pace. Then Natasha headed eagerly for the prisoners. Information was about to flow.
Phil managed his own debriefing with professional grace. When the Winter Soldier came up, though, Director Fury got a glint in his eye that made Phil uneasy. Fury uses people. This could get ugly if he tries to manipulate the Avengers right now, or worse, Bucky. I'll have to watch the situation closely, Phil realized.
Steve had less experience than the rest of them, but he made up for it with determination. His account of the battle was precise and thorough. Nobody challenged his decisions. He had handled himself and his team well in the face of difficult and rapidly changing circumstances, with excellent results in the end. Everyone was thrilled to have the Winter Soldier in hand.
"Do you think they'll let us see him?" Steve asked when they regrouped in Phil's office after a collective debriefing session.
Clint and Natasha looked at each other but said nothing.
"Based on the reports I have, Bucky is still unconscious while the doctors try to flush out a bunch of foreign chemicals from his body," Phil said. "They're finding substances associated with cryonic suspension, state-dependent memory, and suggestibility. The progress looks good, but it's going to take some time."
"If he's still got that much in his system, then he's not long out of storage," Natasha said. "No wonder he didn't recognize me. We'd gotten to where, somewhere toward the end of our first day together or into the second, he'd think he knew me even without prompting, and by the next he could remember bits of our joint missions. It came back faster if he had me there to tell him things. I think he may have been primed for that kind of input, and I simply ... coasted along with it."
"But Bucky will be okay, right ...?" Steve said. Huge and hopeful, his eyes turned to Phil.
"That's very likely, although there are no guarantees. I'll see what I can do about a visit," Phil said. He had to pull a few strings, but he managed to convince one of the more sympathetic doctors that a five-minute visit from Steve and Natasha wouldn't do any harm.
They fell into place around Bucky as if choreographed. Phil stopped at the foot of the bed. Steve folded his massive frame into the flimsy plastic chair. Natasha perched on the edge of the bed like an autumn-red leaf alighting on a snowdrift. Clint stood watch at the door, clearly uncomfortable, but unwilling to abandon his teammates.
Even though Phil didn't know Bucky, it hurt to see him lying so still and silent in the narrow white bed. The Winter Soldier had been such a valiant, ferocious enemy for so long that it was eerie for him to be reduced to this vulnerability. It just seemed wrong.
The whole scene brought up painful memories for Phil. The soft whirr and beep of the equipment scraped along his nerves. The sharp smell of disinfectant made it just a little harder to breathe. Too many times Phil had lost people this way, or gotten them back ... not entirely whole. He concentrated on maintaining his composure so that he could support those who needed him now.
Phil looked at his assets, grateful again that they had survived the mission. Clint could have passed for a statue. Natasha's face showed no emotion, but her shoulders were taut and Steve's cheeks were wet. Phil's Starkphone chimed. He took a deep, steadying breath and then said, "Time."
Natasha leaned down to kiss Bucky on the forehead. "Доверяй, но проверяй," she whispered to him. Trust, but verify.
"We'll come back when we can," Steve promised, trailing his fingertips through Bucky's hair. "I swear I won't abandon you again, never again." Then he followed Phil and Natasha out of the room, dragging his feet every step of the way.
Phil knew that Steve tolerated the separation only because the SHIELD doctors could do things for Bucky that Steve couldn't do himself. It was not trust, but reliance, and fragile at that. I really hope Fury doesn't do anything stupid, Phil thought. It wouldn't take much to destabilize this situation all over again.
* * *
Notes:
Interrogation is the art and science of extracting accurate data from unwilling informants. Enhanced interrogation is torture. In order to be effective, this requires a superlative understanding of both the psychological and physical aspects. Getting accurate answers entails figuring out which techniques will work against a given target, applying them, preventing the person from dying too soon, and sorting truth from falsehood. Most torture amounts to brute force abuse of mind and body; it is rarely subtle. Therefore, it is considered unreliable. Excuses aside, torture is usually done for personal and/or institutional gratification, not because it elicits usable information.
However, canon establishes Black Widow as brilliant and subtle. Both in psychological and physical combat, she uses finesse rather than brute force. Therefore she gets results that most other people could not. It is indeed possible to perform that well, something that opponents of torture prefer to deny or overlook -- but it takes someone about this caliber to do so. It's extremely rare to find that skill set at a high enough level. While I don't dwell on them much in a series this gentle, neither have I removed these core traits from her character.
Dealing with manipulators is difficult because they often gravitate to positions of power, disguise their manipulations, or both. They also cast the blame on other people and never consider what they themselves might be doing wrong or could do better. Consider common manipulation tactics. Here are some examples of manipulative behavior. Learn how to identify and cope with manipulators. Now think about this material in the context of Nick Fury's dialog and behavior in the movies.
All kinds of triggers can reactivate associations with unpleasant past experiences. It is difficult for anyone to forget painful memories. This is particularly a concern for people with PTSD. There are strategies for dealing with and letting go of painful memories.
Unconscious people may perceive some of what happens around them, especially sounds and touches. Gentle words and contact can help them feel better.
Доверя́й, но проверя́й.
Transliteration: Doveryay, no proveryay.
Translation: Trust, but verify.
[To be continued in Part 7 ...]
(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-16 06:01 am (UTC)Also, so much heartache for these guys. I just wanna pat them all on the head and cuddle them and make everything better. Especially Phil right now, who holds himself together so very well and seems like he might need a Flip day sometime after this all wraps up.
Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-16 08:18 am (UTC)That seems to be the consensus opinion: bend over, insert head.
Bonus points for artistic use of punctuation to convey the bricklike plummet of fate towards Fury's skull.
>>Also, so much heartache for these guys.<<
Yeah, it's a bumpy ride. There will be more tears.
>> I just wanna pat them all on the head and cuddle them and make everything better. <<
Sooth. They need all the help they can get, with what's coming.
>> Especially Phil right now, who holds himself together so very well and seems like he might need a Flip day sometime after this all wraps up. <<
He might. Certainly he does a lot of the emotional support while other people are falling apart.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-16 06:26 am (UTC)Can't wait to read more!
--Siren
Thank you!
Date: 2013-05-17 02:32 am (UTC)Yeah, pretty much everyone sees that coming. ;) I didn't load the canon, I'm just playing with it.
>> and I WILL NOT hesitate to put together an angry mob to hunt him down should he hurt Bucky or any of the team in any way, shape, or form. <<
There does seem to be a mob gathering, doesn't there? Imagine that.
>> Very good job getting people emotionally involved here. <<
I love it when that happens! I aim to show the characters as people.
>> I just want to kill Fury, comfort Phil, Betty, and the Avengers, and I'm rooting for Bucky :) <<
Have faith in Bucky: he did a large part of the raising of Steve, which should tell you a lot about his personality.
>> Can't wait to read more! <<
Yay! That's good to hear.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-16 06:50 am (UTC)really, it's all but inevitable. He's consistenly mucked up where the Avengers are concerned, so there's no reason to think he won't keep right on doing it now.
He's gonna be lucky if it's only Phil that's in the room when he opens his great gob and stuffs his feet in sideways. With just Phil, the resultant shitstorm will be more contained than it would be any of the rest of the team was in there, because the rest of the Avengers (except perhaps Nat. Perhaps) would end up telling the teammates that weren't in the room, and then Fury'd have the entire team hunting him down.
Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-17 07:11 am (UTC)*boggle* That scene actually IS in chapter 9.
>> really, it's all but inevitable. He's consistenly mucked up where the Avengers are concerned, so there's no reason to think he won't keep right on doing it now. <<
Yes, Fury has a well-established pattern of behavior in canon. The clue, he has it not.
>> He's gonna be lucky if it's only Phil that's in the room when he opens his great gob and stuffs his feet in sideways. With just Phil, the resultant shitstorm will be more contained than it would be any of the rest of the team was in there, <<
Phil is generally good at de-escalating problems. Not ordering Hawkeye to shoot Thor in New Mexico was an excellent example of that.
>> because the rest of the Avengers (except perhaps Nat. Perhaps) would end up telling the teammates that weren't in the room, and then Fury'd have the entire team hunting him down. <<
The team loyalty binds stronger than anything else, at this stage. It's starting to affect relationships with other groups. You'll see a little more of this as the story develops.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-17 07:31 am (UTC)*stares* Holy shit. I was just joshing, you know, the old 'countdown to doomsday' thing. and I managed to pick the number of chapters left? Wow.
Also, thanks for the warning. Now I know how long I have to build the fallout bunker. *snicker* And the torches and pitchforks for us commenters to help the Avengers hunt Fury down with. *grin*
That's going to be a fun chapter.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-17 08:34 am (UTC)Gotta love synchronicity. Part of it may simply be that, in this instance, we're both working with an awareness of Western-standard plot structure. If you were able to guess, that means I probably have the timing right. I can do other ones; I have a couple series that are written in Eastern structure, for instance, like the Origami Mage, and I've done stories in Native American style where the magic number is 4 instead of 3.
>> Also, thanks for the warning. Now I know how long I have to build the fallout bunker. *snicker* And the torches and pitchforks for us commenters to help the Avengers hunt Fury down with. *grin* <<
Yes. You should be able to figure out the patterning, given that context.
>> That's going to be a fun chapter. <<
Hawkeye: "You and I remember Budapest very differently."
Black Widow: "I don't see how that's a party."
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-17 09:04 am (UTC)Well, to be completely honest, I mostly went with 3 to not write out the whole countdown and potentially annoy you.
But you do have a point, because it's really clear that Fury is going to need to be heard from soon, regarding the capture of Winter Soldier. We've heard from just about everyone else on the subject in one way or another, and the only thing we've heard from Fury is 'debrief, now, fuckers'. And sure, you could write the story without that coming up, but it'd be awkward as hell, because this is FURY, and he's going to have to chime in at some point. He's like Dumbledore in that regard (do not get me started. I write in the HP fandom, fix-its only, because I fucking HATE Dumbledore, and can happily rant about that fucker for days). And he's going to want to chime in soon. So ... yeah, mostly guess, but partially not. I can *feel* that showdown coming.
>>Hawkeye: "You and I remember Budapest very differently."<<
The line that has launched a thousand fics. Because seriously. I wanna know WTF went down in Budapest that made Nat think it was no different than aliens invading Manhattan. And I ain't the only one. There has to be one hell of a story behind that.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-19 08:30 am (UTC)Yeah, that fuse is burning down.
>> We've heard from just about everyone else on the subject in one way or another, and the only thing we've heard from Fury is 'debrief, now, fuckers'. <<
Fury makes a lot more sense if you figure that he thinks everything is about what he wants.
>>And sure, you could write the story without that coming up, but it'd be awkward as hell, because this is FURY, and he's going to have to chime in at some point.<<
Can't skip major conflict points without destabilizing a story, unless there is a reason why the viewpoint character(s) wouldn't be there when the shit went down. Even then it's dicey.
>>He's like Dumbledore in that regard (do not get me started. I write in the HP fandom, fix-its only, because I fucking HATE Dumbledore, and can happily rant about that fucker for days). <<
Yay! I hate him too. I think Dumblefuck is one of my least favorite characters in that series. He does things even most evil characters won't do, the scene on the tower with him forcing Snape to kill him while Harry watched is a case in point. At least Voldemort is honest.
>>And he's going to want to chime in soon. So ... yeah, mostly guess, but partially not. I can *feel* that showdown coming.<<
Oh, good, I'm glad that I set the tension well enough for it to be so tangible.
>>The line that has launched a thousand fics. Because seriously. I wanna know WTF went down in Budapest that made Nat think it was no different than aliens invading Manhattan. And I ain't the only one. There has to be one hell of a story behind that.<<
*laugh* Yeah, me too. I also want to know why Clint had such a different perspective.
Hell, maybe she was tripping on something. There's a scary thought.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-19 09:49 am (UTC)*Everything* about Dumbledore pisses me off. I had him pegged as at best a manipulative bastard as of the first chapter of the first book, because he left a fifteen or sixteen month old toddler on a doorstep. At night. On November 1. In ENGLAND. That fact alone had me giving him the stink-eye from the get-go.
What stuns me is that I've had people argue with me, dead seriously, that Dumbledore is a great man and a Leader of the Light etc, and that he only did what was best for everyone. Whenever that happens, I have to just sort of stare, because they can't have been reading the same series I was!
The only character I hate more than Dumbledore is Umbridge. And considering I've told people that bitch needs to be flayed alive and then slow-roasted in her own juices, that's saying something.
>>Hell, maybe she was tripping on something. There's a scary thought.<<
Given her history, this is entirely possible. Because didn't the Red Room use drugs on their victims? Or am I thinking of some other nasty-ass group? If they did, she could potentially be vulnerable when exposed to certain types of drugs.
Or hell, it could have been as simple as Budapest happened very shortly after she joined SHIELD, when her grasp of who and what she was away from the Red Room was weakest, and she got shot up with something and reverted.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-20 10:52 pm (UTC)... with people known to be abusive, which means that was deliberate.
>>What stuns me is that I've had people argue with me, dead seriously, that Dumbledore is a great man and a Leader of the Light etc, and that he only did what was best for everyone.<<
I love the fics where Dumblefuck turns out to be secretly evil and undermining the opposition.
>>Given her history, this is entirely possible. Because didn't the Red Room use drugs on their victims? Or am I thinking of some other nasty-ass group? If they did, she could potentially be vulnerable when exposed to certain types of drugs. <<
That matches what I've read, yes. It plays into how I write her in Love Is For Children. The abuse makes her hypersensitive about other people doing things to her body and to any perceptible change in mindstate. The enhancement means that some things don't work on her at all, or don't work as well, or do weird things instead of what they're supposed to do. So ordinary medical care is not as effective an option for Natasha as for most people. (Which is also true for the rest of the Avengers, though the exact details vary; hence their growing attachment to Bruce as a more viable alternative.)
>>Or hell, it could have been as simple as Budapest happened very shortly after she joined SHIELD, when her grasp of who and what she was away from the Red Room was weakest, and she got shot up with something and reverted.<<
Also true. That would make it worse, if she had less of a healthy relationship dynamic as an anchor.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-20 11:23 pm (UTC)Actually, they weren't known to be abusive at that point. Overindulgent as hell with their son, yes. But I don't think even Dumbledore thought they'd abuse Harry at that juncture. He might have suspected neglect might happen due to their overindulgence of Dudley, but beyond that ... yeah.
That said, Dumbledore DID deliberately keep Harry there once the abuse started and became known. He did, after all, have a snitch in the neighborhood, and there is no way in hell she missed the signs, if Vernon and Petunia were half as nasty as I suspect they were to Harry.
>>I love the fics where Dumblefuck turns out to be secretly evil and undermining the opposition.<<
If you are so inclined, check my stuff out. http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherza Dumbledore is *always* a bad guy in my stuff, and actively doing evil things.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-23 07:04 pm (UTC)I considered Professor McGonnagall's description of the Dursleys as "muggles of the worst sort" and her unwillingness to leave Harry there to be a declaration of an unfit home. She's a Head of House: she'd know what to look for. One day in that context might not have been enough to identify, say, physical or sexual abuse but the probability of emotional abuse and neglect should have been obvious. Dumblefuck either did not care, or more likely, considered the situation useful to his plans.
>>That said, Dumbledore DID deliberately keep Harry there once the abuse started and became known.<<
I'm not sure about British or Wizarding law, but in America, educational personnel are required to report even suspicion of abuse. If adults known about abuse and don't do anything, they can be considered accessories. I'd say that definitely applies in this case -- but he's the Headmaster and so apparently above that part of the law, if the Wizarding world even has it. Judging from the shabby treatment of children in general, possibly not. (I pretty much wanted to strangle all the adults in Wizarding Britain after a very short time.)
>>If you are so inclined, check my stuff out. http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherza Dumbledore is *always* a bad guy in my stuff, and actively doing evil things.<<
Thanks! I'll do that.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-23 08:48 pm (UTC)Hmmm. Good point. I hadn't really thought of it that way. I just thought she saw Dudley being himself, and the way the Dursleys treated him and went 'Ugh!'.
>>I'm not sure about British or Wizarding law,<<
I looked that up, actually. The UK didn't have a 'you must inform athorities if you suspect' type law until 1989. So IF the wizarding world followed mundane laws (which they really, really don't, or the laws that made it impossible for werewolves to live anything like normal lives that Umbridge authored would never have happened) Dumbledore and co wouldn't have had a *legal* responsibility to get off his ass until then.
Like I said, I'm not entirely sure Dumbledore *knew* there would be trouble when he dropped Harry at the Dursleys. But I'm also sure he was *hoping* there would be, because I agree with you. He wanted control of Harry, and the best way to do it would be to take a horribly abuse child and 'rescue' them from durance vile.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-23 09:22 pm (UTC)Fair point.
>>But I'm also sure he was *hoping* there would be, because I agree with you. He wanted control of Harry, and the best way to do it would be to take a horribly abuse child and 'rescue' them from durance vile.<<
... from the perspective of someone who knows little or nothing about child abuse and its impact on human development. Because the first thing that usually happens is that the person's ability to trust is impaired, which is pretty clear in Harry's behavior and becomes more so over time. At the very beginning he hoped that he would be rescued. He rather quickly discovered that the wizards were just as intent on fucking him over as the Dursleys, just in different ways.
This is why I like stories where Harry tells them all to go fuck themselves, and leaves, or even joins Voldemort.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-23 11:12 pm (UTC)Yeah, exactly. That's part of the problem with Dumbledore. He's fricken a hundred plus years old (exactly how far over, is somewhat debated). Back then, *whipping* kids was pretty much normal.
It doesn't excuse Dumbledore at all, because if he was going to run a fricking school, he needed to be aware of how things had changed since he was a kid.
>>He rather quickly discovered that the wizards were just as intent on fucking him over as the Dursleys, just in different ways.<<
This is why I wanted to KILL Rowling when she killed Sirius off. Because while Sirius fucked up back in '81, I tend to forgive him, because damn near anyone would go off the rails when their best friends end up getting killed 'because of them' (granted, it wasn't Sirius that killed them, but he was the one that talked James and Lily into using Peter, so he'd be feeling like he HAD).
But he *broke out of jail* when he found out Pettigrew was in Hogwarts. With Harry. He more or less instantly offered to let Harry live with him, once he'd managed to reassure Harry he wasn't an insane, traitorous, murderous bastard of the first order. And he dropped fricking *everything* to be near Harry and help Harry again and again. He was, in short, the only adult in the series that gave a damn about Harry as Harry, rather than 'The Boy Who Lived'.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-25 07:17 pm (UTC)From my perspective, he shows some of the signs that come up in long-lived characters that they aren't able to handle the lifespan properly -- a growing inability to treat others as real people, a focus less on the present than on future machinations, etc.
>>This is why I wanted to KILL Rowling when she killed Sirius off.<<
Agreed. Because what that says? You have no right to be loved, to be safe, to have a childhood. Any attempt to gain these things will be punished. Any offer of them will be taken away.
That's not just abuse; it's emotional torture. And it sends a dangerously wrong message to kids who are suffering abuse, the same bullshit they've already heard from their abusers. Funny how you never hear of anyone wanting to ban the books for that. I wouldn't ban them, but I'd want to have a serious ethical discussion about what goes on in them, because the examples are so not healthy.
>>He was, in short, the only adult in the series that gave a damn about Harry as Harry, rather than 'The Boy Who Lived'.<<
Agreed. And that's why he had to go: because with Sirius alive, Harry could have escaped the trap, and there goes the rest of the series.
It's one thing when a person chooses to get involved in mayhem. It's quite another when they are forced to. This whole series has a child soldiers angle that really bothers me. Not just Harry, but Draco and everyone else -- they don't get a childhood, they don't get a proper education, they just get yanked into a war the adults should have handled a long time ago and didn't and are now fobbing off on the kids.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2023-08-10 11:39 pm (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2023-08-11 12:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-16 10:22 am (UTC)One hopes this will act as a bit of life-lesson for him. But I doubt it.
Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-17 07:55 am (UTC)Oh yeah, that it does.
>> OTOH, I can see him doing this, and then then the blow-back from the team is going to take his scalp off... Steve isn't going to budge, and Fury will hit that and bounce. Then the rest of the team will fall in and dog-pile Fury one way or another. <<
Captain America is canonically the immovable object when it comes to matters of morality. You might as well try to argue with a Quaker who's listening to God in silence. That argument is going all kinds of nowhere.
>> One hopes this will act as a bit of life-lesson for him. But I doubt it. <<
Based on the movies, Fury is like ... clue-teflon. Lessons just don't seem to stick to him.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-18 02:52 pm (UTC)-Wynjara
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-18 05:48 pm (UTC)Another favorite is "The clue, he has it not."
(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-16 10:28 am (UTC)Steve is still the little scrappy guy who needs his big brother. I love that.
And Clint... How does he feel about being dragged through all of this? Why does he insist on coming in with them?
Thoughts
Date: 2013-05-17 07:02 pm (UTC)I'm happy that this works for you. I had some thoughts that it might pose a problem for this series given the overall gentle tone. But I just don't like altering certain fundamental aspects of character, and Natasha is fundamentally dangerous. Sometimes the difference between a hero and a villain comes down to nothing more than where you aim the danger. She's like a bogeyman: she only hunts the wicked.
>>Steve is still the little scrappy guy who needs his big brother. I love that.<<
Yay! That's a huge theme in this story. They need each other, and oh the clings both way. But Steve is the one who's been thinking about missing Bucky all this time, and it's got him wound up tighter than a watch spring.
>> And Clint... How does he feel about being dragged through all of this? <<
Not good. It's bringing up personal issues for him, even though he doesn't know Bucky.
>> Why does he insist on coming in with them? <<
1) Clint is one of the professional spies on the team, so dealing with SHIELD and delivering pro-level debriefing is part of his job. Him doing that makes it easier for other people, like Bruce (still skittish about SHIELD) and Tony (hates meetings), to stay home without starting an argument over it every time.
2) He won't readily leave his teammates to deal with hard things alone. While he's not great at comfort, he is great at standing guard, so that's what he does. Because nobody else is in any shape to do that.
He did bug out earlier when the doctors were just discussing what to do with Bucky when first brought to SHIELD, because that was miserable for Clint and not something he could help with. Here, he can guard the door and help his friends feel safer, and he'll do that even though being there makes him uncomfortable.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-07-30 03:59 am (UTC)Sometimes the difference between a hero and a villain comes down to nothing more than where you aim the danger. She's like a bogeyman: she only hunts the wicked.
In this case, I think it's more than that: it's how the danger is aimed. If your Natasha were cut loose from Phil and Clint, even assuming that the manner of cutting loose wasn't psychologically harmful to her, I think she'd either turn nonfunctional or villain simply because what there is of her moral code needs a touchstone to function long-term.
In the scene where Natasha takes Clint's surname, you refer to a mission where their cover was a married couple, and Natasha panicked about her instincts seeing Clint as prey instead of brother/partner. (By the way, I really like how you handle her sexual orientation. It's hard to tell if Widow-ing is natural or programming or both, but she doesn't care and it can be managed in a healthy way, so her adopted family also doesn't care as long as it's managed, and offers a support structure for managing it. That's nice to see.) I get the feeling that that might not have happened if Clint or Natasha had suggested the cover. Because they know and trust each other, they know and trust each other's orientation, and they're good enough spies that I think they could have laughed about the absurdity in private while maintaining in public.
But the cover came from authority, and specifically from the authority that Natasha expects to direct her orientation. Even (or especially) present-day Coulson giving that order to present-day Natasha in the wrong framing would have triggered the same result. Natasha manages her orientation by aiming it at appropriate prey, and while she can differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate on a mission without requiring a handler's input, it seems like it's because she's had enough handler input to evaluate from their perspective instead of her own. Without her most trusted handler or her most trusted partner to double-check her evaluations against, prey-selection gets . . . more morally dubious, let's say. Very easy to lose track of where someone falls on the spectrum of "acceptable", "unacceptable", and "more data required".
Part of me wants to see how your aromantic Natasha would handle a friends-with-benefits situation, with a partner (or partners) who was . . . hm. Less prey and more competition, if that makes sense? It's hard to explain exactly, it just seems like that might be a healthier long-term sexual outlet for her, especially if they cut loose from SHIELD, which removes "SHIELD interrogation rooms" and "SHIELD missions" from her reliable hunting grounds. Someone who accepts and enjoys mutual hunting, or being exceptionally challenging prey, or both, while maintaining a healthy non-romantic interpersonal relationship. Of course, the hard part is finding that someone . . . And I don't know if it'd fit the themes of this series even if I'm reading your Natasha right and you were interested in exploring it, so. :) Just something that's been in the back of my head.
On that note, I'd also love to see more of JARVIS' relationship with the non-Phil team, and/or Pepper and/or Rhodey interacting with the now-actually-healing Tony in particular and the team in general. I haven't seen Iron Man 2 or 3, so I can't comment on their relationships there, but I adored the first Iron Man in part because I fell in love with Pepper and liked Rhodey. No, they certainly don't handle Tony as well as this Phil does, but they're coming from the background that you're writing against. (That is, you mentioned somewhere that one reason you're writing this is to portray healthy behaviors in the hopes that it encourages people to develop them themselves, because a lot of people act in unhealthy ways without realizing how or why.) Pepper and Rhodey appear generally well-adjusted, and certainly more well-adjusted than Tony, which means they don't necessarily have the arsenal to interact with him that Phil does. They certainly don't have the status to be stand-in authority until Pepper becomes CEO instead of PA, and even then it isn't the right kind of authority, particularly since they fall into a romantic relationship because the media industry is stupid about mandatory romance. They still stick by Tony for a long time, even under a hell of a lot of pressure to break away, even before Tony starts to fix himself in Iron Man 1, and without wanting to take advantage of him in the usual ways like his money or his bad habits. So it'd be nice for this Tony to either get his non-Avengers friends back, in a mutually healthy relationship, or have a clean break if that's what needs to happen. Again, possibly outside the scope of your intent with this series, and I don't know if it'd interest you to write about it; I just wanted to mention it while I'm writing. :)
(On that note, Tony needs to make a Hulk-useable Starkpad some day, particularly if Phil's going to follow through on that conversation with Bruce about alternatives to vocal communication for Hulk. Ahem. Is it obvious that my two favorite Avengers are Tony and Natasha? :) )
Anyway. I hope this all makes sense, even if I'm reading some or all of it wrong? And I'm looking forward to seeing the next installment either way, as long as you still enjoy writing them. :)
-S
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-08-01 04:58 am (UTC)Yay! I'm happy to hear that. This series gets great comments. A lot of folks have chimed in with professional or personal experience where things resonate strongly for them.
>> Ageplay definitely isn't an angle I would have thought of for Avengers fix-it fic, <<
Blame it on Natasha. Her line "Love is for children" got me thinking how all the Avengers had been abused one way or another, most as children, and how inner child work can be used for healing that kind of trauma.
>> or a category of story I would have gone out of my way to look for, but I'm glad I gave your stories a shot. <<
This is the first time I've written ageplay, because it's not usually my thing either, but it was the plotbunny that Would. Not. Die. Now I'm glad I gave it a chance.
>> Even when a scene doesn't grab me emotionally, it's still interesting, and both the stories and the footnotes are educational. <<
That's good to hear.
>> I hope you keep writing it for as long as it interests you, and I hope that that's a long time. :) ) <<
As long as I can spare the time for it, at least. I've got another story going currently.
>> In this case, I think it's more than that: it's how the danger is aimed. If your Natasha were cut loose from Phil and Clint, even assuming that the manner of cutting loose wasn't psychologically harmful to her, I think she'd either turn nonfunctional or villain simply because what there is of her moral code needs a touchstone to function long-term. <<
It would depend on the circumstances, I think. If she still had the rest of the Avengers, she could turn to them for guidance. If not ... that's harder to guess. She has done a lot of healing, but she still doesn't have a good sense of boundaries. She needs someone to tell her what's okay and what isn't. That's why she is so vulnerable to Director Fury giving her morally shady orders -- even Phil, sending her to kidnap Bruce at the beginning of the movie. I think she might try to find someone reasonable as a guide. But if the split went badly enough, she might just say fuck it and watch the world burn.
>> (By the way, I really like how you handle her sexual orientation. It's hard to tell if Widow-ing is natural or programming or both, but she doesn't care and it can be managed in a healthy way, so her adopted family also doesn't care as long as it's managed, and offers a support structure for managing it. That's nice to see.) <<
I think it's both. Some people have a naturally predatory instinct. In a healthy person, it gets channeled into things like consensual dominance or sadism or whatnot. The Red Room shaped it in a far darker direction. Phil and Clint help Natasha view it in the same class with her assassin skills: valuable against enemies, and not something to turn on civilians or allies. This works.
One reason that Natasha loves Clint so much is that she finds him restful to be around, because he's asexual. He doesn't rouse her predatory instincts the way some people do. She has a tendency to sniff around men -- even allies -- just enough to assure herself that she could roll them if she had to. Kind of like the way "Natalie" played Tony, flirting with him just a little, but not accepting his advances.
>> I get the feeling that that might not have happened if Clint or Natasha had suggested the cover. Because they know and trust each other, they know and trust each other's orientation, and they're good enough spies that I think they could have laughed about the absurdity in private while maintaining in public. <<
It's possible. If they had analyzed a crucial target and concluded that nothing else would get them close enough, they might have suggested posting as a couple, but it's really not something they'd want to do. Most sibling would find it creepy, I think, though some would laugh about it. The most important difference is that if it had been their idea and they had time to accept it, they could have discussed what safety measures would help them stay grounded and safe.
>> But the cover came from authority, and specifically from the authority that Natasha expects to direct her orientation. <<
Actually, I know what button that pushed, and why it threw her so badly: because that's what the Red Room did to her. They shaped her sexuality according to their needs, and they didn't care if it made her uncomfortable.
>> Even (or especially) present-day Coulson giving that order to present-day Natasha in the wrong framing would have triggered the same result. <<
Yep. She can and will do some seriously creepy things in pursuit of her duty, but there are some things even the Black Widow doesn't want to do. Everybody has squicks, and Clint + anything remotely sexualized is one of hers.
>> Natasha manages her orientation by aiming it at appropriate prey, and while she can differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate on a mission without requiring a handler's input, <<
... well, sort of. She can grasp categories like "minors are not prey" and "known criminals may fairly be chosen as prey on the fly." But it gets fuzzy if, say, a random guy gropes her on a bus. Is he a civilian because he's not connected with the case, or a criminal because he's assaulting her? Is he, in fact, an enemy agent pretending to be a random guy on a bus? That's when Natasha needs a handler in her ear to make the call.
>> it seems like it's because she's had enough handler input to evaluate from their perspective instead of her own. <<
Yes. Phil is still helping Natasha build a sense of personal boundaries and moral guidelines.
>> Without her most trusted handler or her most trusted partner to double-check her evaluations against, prey-selection gets . . . more morally dubious, let's say. Very easy to lose track of where someone falls on the spectrum of "acceptable", "unacceptable", and "more data required". <<
Yes, precisely.
>> Part of me wants to see how your aromantic Natasha would handle a friends-with-benefits situation, with a partner (or partners) who was . . . hm. Less prey and more competition, if that makes sense? <<
I think that's what probably evolves with Black Widow/Winter Soldier in some timelines.
>> It's hard to explain exactly, it just seems like that might be a healthier long-term sexual outlet for her, <<
It probably would be, although it would take very careful work to develop that.
>> especially if they cut loose from SHIELD, which removes "SHIELD interrogation rooms" and "SHIELD missions" from her reliable hunting grounds. <<
Well, the Avengers could set up their own options for that. They have no shortage of funds and facilities; Phil is looking into their clout to see if it's feasible.
>> Someone who accepts and enjoys mutual hunting, or being exceptionally challenging prey, or both, while maintaining a healthy non-romantic interpersonal relationship. <<
It's not impossible, just difficult.
>> Of course, the hard part is finding that someone . . . And I don't know if it'd fit the themes of this series even if I'm reading your Natasha right and you were interested in exploring it, so. :) Just something that's been in the back of my head. <<
I'll keep it in mind just in case. As a general rule, I'm going light on the "adult" topics of sex, alcohol, etc. in this series. There's a little bit, because Bruce and Betty are together, and Tony has a drinking problem and sleeps around, but most of it's offstage. These are supplementary threads rather than main ones for this series.
>> On that note, I'd also love to see more of JARVIS' relationship with the non-Phil team, <<
I may do a little more with this. So far, JARVIS is closest with Tony and then with Phil. Bucky and Steve are growing warmer, though; Bruce also likes him.
>> and/or Pepper and/or Rhodey interacting with the now-actually-healing Tony in particular and the team in general. <<
I've made a few oblique references to them, but they haven't seemed inclined to interact in this series much. *ponder* I think it's because Pepper has stepped out of Tony's personal life and serves more as a friend and professional partner. There is a bit of offstage interaction with Pepper in the next story, though.
>> I haven't seen Iron Man 2 or 3, so I can't comment on their relationships there, but I adored the first Iron Man in part because I fell in love with Pepper and liked Rhodey. <<
I liked them a great deal better in IM1 than in IM2, and IM3 was ... fun to watch on the screen, but kind of a hatchet job in characterization.
>> No, they certainly don't handle Tony as well as this Phil does, but they're coming from the background that you're writing against. (That is, you mentioned somewhere that one reason you're writing this is to portray healthy behaviors in the hopes that it encourages people to develop them themselves, because a lot of people act in unhealthy ways without realizing how or why.) <<
Yes, that's true.
>> Pepper and Rhodey appear generally well-adjusted, and certainly more well-adjusted than Tony, which means they don't necessarily have the arsenal to interact with him that Phil does. <<
It's really a mismatch of toolkit. Pepper has executive ways of managing people, and Rhodey has military ways, and those don't work very well on Tony. He's averse to authority in general. He can deal quite well with equals -- which is one reason that Bruce was the first person to get Tony to swear off certain reckless behaviors in the lab -- but to deal with someone who outranks him, Tony has to want it or he freaks out and goes into a bucking frenzy. And he sucks at listening to people under him.
>> They certainly don't have the status to be stand-in authority until Pepper becomes CEO instead of PA, and even then it isn't the right kind of authority, <<
I think a big part of Tony's problem is that nobody ever seems to want him just for himself. Everyone around him growing up was a friend or employee of his parents. Then most people were Tony's employees, like Pepper and Happy. Rhodey seems to be a friend rather than employee, but the military connection really hinders that relationship. It's why the Avengers have a hard time convincing Tony that they like him and aren't just hanging around for his money, or power, or because they want him to build them stuff. We are this far into the series and that hasn't sunk in yet (thank you "Natalie" for hammering on that injury).
>> particularly since they fall into a romantic relationship because the media industry is stupid about mandatory romance. <<
Yeah, that really sucks. *ponder* I'd love to see ace!Pepper and aro!Tony as best friends instead of lovers.
>> They still stick by Tony for a long time, even under a hell of a lot of pressure to break away, even before Tony starts to fix himself in Iron Man 1, and without wanting to take advantage of him in the usual ways like his money or his bad habits. <<
That's true. Rhodey risked his career to get Tony out of Afghanistan.
>> So it'd be nice for this Tony to either get his non-Avengers friends back, in a mutually healthy relationship, or have a clean break if that's what needs to happen. Again, possibly outside the scope of your intent with this series, and I don't know if it'd interest you to write about it; I just wanted to mention it while I'm writing. :) <<
I will bring them in if I see a good place for it. If you want to see Pepper and Tony, though, they're in "Saving the Heroes."
>> (On that note, Tony needs to make a Hulk-useable Starkpad some day, particularly if Phil's going to follow through on that conversation with Bruce about alternatives to vocal communication for Hulk. <<
Yes, those are on the list of things I'd like to explore, probably in the "Bruce-and-Hulk get a clue" story.
>> Ahem. Is it obvious that my two favorite Avengers are Tony and Natasha? :) ) <<
Yes. It's cool that everyone has favorites! I do have an idea for a Tony and Natasha story, because at some point they need to deal with the shit in their past, better than they have so far.
>> Anyway. I hope this all makes sense, even if I'm reading some or all of it wrong? And I'm looking forward to seeing the next installment either way, as long as you still enjoy writing them. :) <<
This is a wonderful discussion; thanks for taking the time to write it out!
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-08-01 06:53 pm (UTC)> It would depend on the circumstances, I think. If she still had the rest of the Avengers, she could turn to them for guidance.
True in theory, but it doesn't seem like this Natasha has bonded enough with the other Avengers to . . . no, wait, I'm wrong, there's Steve through Bucky. Okay, let me amend: if she was cut off from the Avengers. :)
> I think it's both. Some people have a naturally predatory instinct. In a healthy person, it gets channeled into things like consensual dominance or sadism or whatnot. The Red Room shaped it in a far darker direction. Phil and Clint help Natasha view it in the same class with her assassin skills: valuable against enemies, and not something to turn on civilians or allies. This works.
Which is understandable, and a portrayal I like.
>> I get the feeling that that might not have happened if Clint or Natasha had suggested the cover. Because they know and trust each other, they know and trust each other's orientation, and they're good enough spies that I think they could have laughed about the absurdity in private while maintaining in public. <<
> It's possible. If they had analyzed a crucial target and concluded that nothing else would get them close enough, they might have suggested posting as a couple, but it's really not something they'd want to do. Most sibling would find it creepy, I think, though some would laugh about it. The most important difference is that if it had been their idea and they had time to accept it, they could have discussed what safety measures would help them stay grounded and safe.
That's what I was thinking, yeah. (Except for the creepy angle, but that's because I think I'm blurring the lines between them and some of my similar OCs. :) ) If it was a scenario where they felt they needed to make that call, they could have done it in a functional way.
>> But the cover came from authority, and specifically from the authority that Natasha expects to direct her orientation. <<
> Actually, I know what button that pushed, and why it threw her so badly: because that's what the Red Room did to her. They shaped her sexuality according to their needs, and they didn't care if it made her uncomfortable.
That's pretty much what I meant. :) If she was working with Clint under a Red Room handler (while still under conditioning herself), she wouldn't've batted an eyelash at the order, because she expected her personal boundaries to be irrelevant in the face of orders. With SHIELD, she was learning that she was allowed to have hard and soft limits, but was still expected to follow orders. And then she got an order that rammed right into a hard limit, with a handler she couldn't trust enough to negotiate. Ow.
>> Natasha manages her orientation by aiming it at appropriate prey, and while she can differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate on a mission without requiring a handler's input, <<
> ... well, sort of. [snip]
Right. I figured she had to have some baseline ability to differentiate sans-handler, because honeypots can't have an earpiece in 24/7. Except maybe when bedding Tony Stark, because technophilia, but. :)
>> Without her most trusted handler or her most trusted partner to double-check her evaluations against, prey-selection gets . . . more morally dubious, let's say. Very easy to lose track of where someone falls on the spectrum of "acceptable", "unacceptable", and "more data required". <<
> Yes, precisely.
Glad to know I read it right!
>> Part of me wants to see how your aromantic Natasha would handle a friends-with-benefits situation, with a partner (or partners) who was . . . hm. Less prey and more competition, if that makes sense? <<
> I think that's what probably evolves with Black Widow/Winter Soldier in some timelines.
Oh, good point!
>> It's hard to explain exactly, it just seems like that might be a healthier long-term sexual outlet for her, <<
> It probably would be, although it would take very careful work to develop that.
Absolutely.
>> especially if they cut loose from SHIELD, which removes "SHIELD interrogation rooms" and "SHIELD missions" from her reliable hunting grounds. <<
> Well, the Avengers could set up their own options for that. They have no shortage of funds and facilities; Phil is looking into their clout to see if it's feasible.
True, but there's the question of legitimacy. If the Avengers cut loose from SHIELD and didn't hook up with another authority, they'd be fine for things like resources and contacts, and PR spin on anti-supervillain activities would be easy, but they'd need a hell of a lot of clout to spin "our only female member is a sexual predator who uses sex against prisoners" in a favorable way, if it ever came out.
>> Someone who accepts and enjoys mutual hunting, or being exceptionally challenging prey, or both, while maintaining a healthy non-romantic interpersonal relationship. <<
> It's not impossible, just difficult.
Definitely, to both.
> I'll keep it in mind just in case. As a general rule, I'm going light on the "adult" topics of sex, alcohol, etc. in this series. There's a little bit, because Bruce and Betty are together, and Tony has a drinking problem and sleeps around, but most of it's offstage. These are supplementary threads rather than main ones for this series.
Understandable. There's a lot going on in the series already, and it's hard to address the "adult" topics directly when the focus is on "child" topics without delving into, well, squick. It's more -- I mentioned that these characters were clicking with some of my OCs in some ways, right? Well, one of them is wired such that a predator-and/or-competitor cisfemale is basically his dream partner. :) So that made me wonder if a prey-and/or-competitor partner would work for this Natasha, or for a generalized Natasha with the same sexuality.
>> On that note, I'd also love to see more of JARVIS' relationship with the non-Phil team, <<
> I may do a little more with this. So far, JARVIS is closest with Tony and then with Phil. Bucky and Steve are growing warmer, though; Bruce also likes him.
I really like the technophile connection between Bucky and Tony in particular, so it'd be nice to see Bucky's interactions with Tony's AI children. Though as awesome as JARVIS is, the robot-embodied AIs seem like they might be easier for a mechanically-minded individual to get close to. (And now I'm picturing Dummy giving Bucky a World's Best Uncle mug and giggling a lot.)
>> and/or Pepper and/or Rhodey interacting with the now-actually-healing Tony in particular and the team in general. <<
> I've made a few oblique references to them, but they haven't seemed inclined to interact in this series much. *ponder* I think it's because Pepper has stepped out of Tony's personal life and serves more as a friend and professional partner.
I've seen your comments elsewhere about Pepper in particular not being inclined to come on stage, and that all makes sense. I think it's . . . Hm. Okay. One of the things I really don't like in fiction, whether fanfic or original, is when an author forgets that everybody has a supporting cast unless explicitly stated otherwise. Rhodey and Pepper have been part of Tony's life for longer than any of the Avengers, as some of the only human beings Tony trusted who haven't betrayed him. (Hi, Obie.) Happy too, but like I said, I've only seen IM1.
So that means that there are offscreen interactions in which they might notice changes in Tony's behavior, or there's a lack of offscreen interactions which they might notice. (Or there are offscreen interactions and they notice no change at all, which is also a significant data point for Phil's efforts.) And Tony's in a team-unique position of having such close associates who aren't also on the team (Clint and Natasha) or integrated with it (Bruce and Betty, Bucky and Steve/Natasha). Throw in that the Avengers would be hard-pressed to sever without Stark Industries and thus Pepper Potts support, and that Rhodey has War Machine and is therefore a potential emergency team member, with the added bonus of me being a fan of all three characters, and it makes me think about their role in this setting. :)
> There is a bit of offstage interaction with Pepper in the next story, though.
Looking forward to it!
>> I haven't seen Iron Man 2 or 3, so I can't comment on their relationships there, but I adored the first Iron Man in part because I fell in love with Pepper and liked Rhodey. <<
> I liked them a great deal better in IM1 than in IM2, and IM3 was ... fun to watch on the screen, but kind of a hatchet job in characterization.
Yeah, I'm getting that impression from fan opinions. I'll probably bite the bullet and watch IM2 someday, but I'm reluctant to even touch IM3. I like my characterization. I was thrilled to see Tony and Pepper not be romantically or sexually involved. Sigh.
>> Pepper and Rhodey appear generally well-adjusted, and certainly more well-adjusted than Tony, which means they don't necessarily have the arsenal to interact with him that Phil does. <<
> It's really a mismatch of toolkit. Pepper has executive ways of managing people, and Rhodey has military ways, and those don't work very well on Tony.
They are also friends, and generally well-adjusted people, which provides a few more options for the toolkit, but yeah. They don't have the correct tools, the correct position, or the correct incentive. (Friendship is a wonderful thing, but fixing someone who actively objects to being fixed needs a different kind of incentive, in general.)
> I think a big part of Tony's problem is that nobody ever seems to want him just for himself.
Absolutely. Or if they do, then something else gets in the way. (Like, I think Rhodey was friends with Tony before the military connection, and that's why the military made him the SI liason? I may be conflating fanon and canon here. And I wouldn't be surprised if there were other potential honest friendships that got screwed up after the fact by similar things.)
> We are this far into the series and that hasn't sunk in yet (thank you "Natalie" for hammering on that injury).
I just read a really interesting fic with the premise that Natasha actually read Tony correctly, and deliberately gave the "Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no" evaluation to protect Tony's mask. She explains it to Tony as "You didn't want anyone to pity you. So I made sure they didn't." (Paraphrased from memory.) It doesn't mesh with this Natasha, but I really liked that angle, especially since the author turned it into a healthy platonic friendship.
>> particularly since they fall into a romantic relationship because the media industry is stupid about mandatory romance. <<
> Yeah, that really sucks. *ponder* I'd love to see ace!Pepper and aro!Tony as best friends instead of lovers.
Or any-sexuality!Pepper, for that matter. Not that there's anything wrong with more ace characters, but it's nice to remember that just because someone technically fits your sexuality, it doesn't mean there has to be chemistry, or that either of you have to act on it. (I'm pansexual, and lucky enough to have never gotten accused of indecision or greediness or nymphomania myself, but it still sticks in your head.)
>> They still stick by Tony for a long time, even under a hell of a lot of pressure to break away, even before Tony starts to fix himself in Iron Man 1, and without wanting to take advantage of him in the usual ways like his money or his bad habits. <<
> That's true. Rhodey risked his career to get Tony out of Afghanistan.
Yeah. And Pepper never abused her position of trust as Tony's PA, with the most intimate access to his life of basically anyone after JARVIS.
>> So it'd be nice for this Tony to either get his non-Avengers friends back, in a mutually healthy relationship, or have a clean break if that's what needs to happen. Again, possibly outside the scope of your intent with this series, and I don't know if it'd interest you to write about it; I just wanted to mention it while I'm writing. :) <<
> I will bring them in if I see a good place for it.
Good to know! :)
>> (On that note, Tony needs to make a Hulk-useable Starkpad some day, particularly if Phil's going to follow through on that conversation with Bruce about alternatives to vocal communication for Hulk. <<
> Yes, those are on the list of things I'd like to explore, probably in the "Bruce-and-Hulk get a clue" story.
Looking forward to it. Alternative communication methods are an interest of mine, and it's fun to see characters exploring them as primary communication methods.
>> Ahem. Is it obvious that my two favorite Avengers are Tony and Natasha? :) ) <<
> Yes. It's cool that everyone has favorites! I do have an idea for a Tony and Natasha story, because at some point they need to deal with the shit in their past, better than they have so far.
Awesome! I'll be keeping an eye out for it. :)
>> Anyway. I hope this all makes sense, even if I'm reading some or all of it wrong? And I'm looking forward to seeing the next installment either way, as long as you still enjoy writing them. :) <<
> This is a wonderful discussion; thanks for taking the time to write it out!
You're welcome! Thank you for your thoughtful responses, and for the stories that sparked the discussion in the first place. :)
-S
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-08-05 05:01 am (UTC)After Phil and Clint, she is closest to Bucky and Steve, a little more tenuously to Bruce, Tony, Betty, and JARVIS. Losing some of them, I suspect she'd stick with the others out of familiarity. Losing all of them? She would take her time making the responsible party(s) pay for that loss, and not give a fuck about breaking laws or morals in the process.
>> That's pretty much what I meant. :) If she was working with Clint under a Red Room handler (while still under conditioning herself), she wouldn't've batted an eyelash at the order, because she expected her personal boundaries to be irrelevant in the face of orders. <<
Natasha didn't have much concept of personal boundaries at that stage. Even now, more of it is memorized than something she feels internally.
>> With SHIELD, she was learning that she was allowed to have hard and soft limits, but was still expected to follow orders. And then she got an order that rammed right into a hard limit, with a handler she couldn't trust enough to negotiate. Ow. <<
Yeah. Way to lean on old triggers like "everyone uses everyone." Natasha is especially vulnerable to handler abuse because she relies on her superiors to tell her right from wrong most of the time.
>> True, but there's the question of legitimacy. If the Avengers cut loose from SHIELD and didn't hook up with another authority, <<
SHIELD isn't legitimate. They're a shadow organization run by the "World Security Council" who thought it was somehow okay to nuke New York. It's not a proper government branch with responsible oversight. It just has very good cloaking and enough pull to hush up the inevitable leaks when they happen.
>> they'd be fine for things like resources and contacts, and PR spin on anti-supervillain activities would be easy, but they'd need a hell of a lot of clout to spin "our only female member is a sexual predator who uses sex against prisoners" in a favorable way, if it ever came out. <<
That would be a problem for anyone, if it ever came out. Though honestly, news reports indicate that sexual and other predatory behavior is typical when people are placed in power over those who can't fight back. Few can resist the temptation. But people still fuss when it comes up.
>> Understandable. There's a lot going on in the series already, and it's hard to address the "adult" topics directly when the focus is on "child" topics without delving into, well, squick. <<
Yes, exactly. *ponder* It's also that the childhood focus in this series seems to take off some of the pressure that keeps people locked into the traits of their adult personalities. They can go down, make changes, come back up and see the results. Too much adult content is liable to jam that process.
>> It's more -- I mentioned that these characters were clicking with some of my OCs in some ways, right? Well, one of them is wired such that a predator-and/or-competitor cisfemale is basically his dream partner. :) So that made me wonder if a prey-and/or-competitor partner would work for this Natasha, or for a generalized Natasha with the same sexuality. <<
I think the dynamic would work, yes. Some people who are switches like a switch/switch relationship so they can fight -- with varying degrees of seriousness -- over who will be top or bottom in a given session.
>> I really like the technophile connection between Bucky and Tony in particular, <<
Yay! That's good to hear.
>> so it'd be nice to see Bucky's interactions with Tony's AI children. Though as awesome as JARVIS is, the robot-embodied AIs seem like they might be easier for a mechanically-minded individual to get close to. (And now I'm picturing Dummy giving Bucky a World's Best Uncle mug and giggling a lot.) <<
I'll keep that in mind in case I find a place for it, thanks.
>> One of the things I really don't like in fiction, whether fanfic or original, is when an author forgets that everybody has a supporting cast unless explicitly stated otherwise. <<
Okay, that's a fair concern. I think Tony is more attached to the Avengers than to other people. He still knows them, and they're still friends, but they just didn't connect in ways that helped him crawl out of the fucking deep hole that his parents and other enemies dumped him into.
>> Rhodey and Pepper have been part of Tony's life for longer than any of the Avengers, as some of the only human beings Tony trusted who haven't betrayed him. (Hi, Obie.) Happy too, but like I said, I've only seen IM1. <<
True. The relationships are rockier in IM2 (which I'm treating as canon) and crap in IM3 (which I'm generally not).
>> So that means that there are offscreen interactions in which they might notice changes in Tony's behavior, or there's a lack of offscreen interactions which they might notice. (Or there are offscreen interactions and they notice no change at all, which is also a significant data point for Phil's efforts.) <<
That's all true. I think they've probably noticed a little bit, but many of the changes are only visible in intimate contexts. The gradual improvement may or may not be at a level where people would be sure it's a trend rather than a temporary swing.
>> And Tony's in a team-unique position of having such close associates who aren't also on the team (Clint and Natasha) or integrated with it (Bruce and Betty, Bucky and Steve/Natasha). <<
Also true.
>> Throw in that the Avengers would be hard-pressed to sever without Stark Industries and thus Pepper Potts support, and that Rhodey has War Machine and is therefore a potential emergency team member, with the added bonus of me being a fan of all three characters, and it makes me think about their role in this setting. :) <<
I do like their characters. Oh, and there's a very far downline scene sketch of Rhodey, but I don't know if I'll ever get far enough to work it in for real.
Another reason I don't want to add too many characters is that every one complicates the relationships and the plotlines. That's why I'm trying to wrap up some of the current stuff before adding Thor and Loki (who are also commonly requested, and I knew early on would be a good fit).
>> They are also friends, and generally well-adjusted people, which provides a few more options for the toolkit, but yeah. They don't have the correct tools, the correct position, or the correct incentive. <<
Pretty much, yeah. They're less well-adjusted in the later movies though. Which is disappointing.
>> (Friendship is a wonderful thing, but fixing someone who actively objects to being fixed needs a different kind of incentive, in general.) <<
I figure that Tony -- like most of the other Avengers -- has little prior experience with people who want to "help" being actually helpful. They probably wanted to "fix" him so he'd be pleasing and ordinary and, well, not Tony Stark any more. Which is kind of like murder. And maybe things that people tried to do were meant well, but made matters worse for him. So he learned to deal with stuff on his own or not at all, because at least then it wasn't actively exacerbated by other people.
This is why it's being such a challenge for Tony to learn that the people he's with now will, in fact, listen to him and try to find things that really help instead of just faking it and screwing him up even worse.
>> I just read a really interesting fic with the premise that Natasha actually read Tony correctly, and deliberately gave the "Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no" evaluation to protect Tony's mask. <<
I think I've seen that more than once, and it works quite well.
>> Or any-sexuality!Pepper, for that matter. Not that there's anything wrong with more ace characters, but it's nice to remember that just because someone technically fits your sexuality, it doesn't mean there has to be chemistry, or that either of you have to act on it. (I'm pansexual, and lucky enough to have never gotten accused of indecision or greediness or nymphomania myself, but it still sticks in your head.) <<
True. Tony is such a horndog, though, that I find it easier to believe he'd leave alone someone incompatible than someone theoretically compatible but not interested.
>> Looking forward to it. Alternative communication methods are an interest of mine, and it's fun to see characters exploring them as primary communication methods. <<
It's an interest of mine too. I think for Hulk they'll always be auxiliary modes, as speech is, but they give him more options. His natural communication level is nonverbal, emotional stuff.
>> You're welcome! Thank you for your thoughtful responses, and for the stories that sparked the discussion in the first place. :) <<
*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-08-09 05:41 am (UTC)Exactly. If there was something that was a boundary, odds are she wouldn't register it as one, and if she did, she'd still expect it to be irrelevant.
>> they'd be fine for things like resources and contacts, and PR spin on anti-supervillain activities would be easy, but they'd need a hell of a lot of clout to spin "our only female member is a sexual predator who uses sex against prisoners" in a favorable way, if it ever came out. <<
> That would be a problem for anyone, if it ever came out. Though honestly, news reports indicate that sexual and other predatory behavior is typical when people are placed in power over those who can't fight back. Few can resist the temptation. But people still fuss when it comes up.
Point on illegitimacy, and yes, it'd be a problem regardless. I meant more that SHIELD and the WSC have the right kind of pull to keep things hidden, or fake legitimate authority in the public eye when they can't. Whereas the Avengers on their own run into the hero-or-vigilante problem. And the ability to write off or downplay problematic assets. Steve's existance throws a lot of weight toward the "hero" reading, and Tony, for all his myriad flaws and screwups, still knows how to play the media in his favor (and has an army of PR staff under General Pepper to back him up), plus Phil is competent and therefore (one assumes) paying attention to PR, so they should have a decent rep . . . but not the sort that balances out having an actual sexual predator on the team. SHIELD doesn't have a public rep that would be hurt by it, and Natasha works under so many masks that they could easily disavow an exposed mask without dropping her. The Avengers can't do that. If that makes sense? And a shadowy organization spying on people and keeping prisoners in problematic conditions is one thing, but a supposed hero team . . . yeah.
>> Understandable. There's a lot going on in the series already, and it's hard to address the "adult" topics directly when the focus is on "child" topics without delving into, well, squick. <<
> Yes, exactly. *ponder* It's also that the childhood focus in this series seems to take off some of the pressure that keeps people locked into the traits of their adult personalities. They can go down, make changes, come back up and see the results. Too much adult content is liable to jam that process.
Also true, and it does seem like you've struck a decent balance in terms of showing enough adult content to demonstrate changes without losing focus.
>> It's more -- I mentioned that these characters were clicking with some of my OCs in some ways, right? Well, one of them is wired such that a predator-and/or-competitor cisfemale is basically his dream partner. :) So that made me wonder if a prey-and/or-competitor partner would work for this Natasha, or for a generalized Natasha with the same sexuality. <<
> I think the dynamic would work, yes. Some people who are switches like a switch/switch relationship so they can fight -- with varying degrees of seriousness -- over who will be top or bottom in a given session.
Yes, exactly! Or a bottom who just likes to make the top work for it, or etc.
>> I really like the technophile connection between Bucky and Tony in particular, <<
> Yay! That's good to hear.
It just makes so much sense! And I don't know canon-Bucky well, but it definitely clicks with my sense of canon-Tony. :)
>> so it'd be nice to see Bucky's interactions with Tony's AI children. Though as awesome as JARVIS is, the robot-embodied AIs seem like they might be easier for a mechanically-minded individual to get close to. (And now I'm picturing Dummy giving Bucky a World's Best Uncle mug and giggling a lot.) <<
> I'll keep that in mind in case I find a place for it, thanks.
You're welcome. :)
>> One of the things I really don't like in fiction, whether fanfic or original, is when an author forgets that everybody has a supporting cast unless explicitly stated otherwise. <<
> Okay, that's a fair concern.
To be fair, I don't have that concern about anyone else in this series thus far. Phil is the only other one who ought to have supporting cast that hasn't been addressed on-screen yet, but as far as I know that cast canonically consists of other SHIELD agents and the mysterious Portland cellist, which isn't exactly on par. :) You dealt with Betty, you dealt with Bucky, there are reminders that Phil and Clint and Natasha have history together outside the Avengers, and Thor isn't onscreen yet. So that just leaves Tony's supporting cast.
> I think Tony is more attached to the Avengers than to other people. He still knows them, and they're still friends, but they just didn't connect in ways that helped him crawl out of the fucking deep hole that his parents and other enemies dumped him into.
Hm. I think I'm just seeing him as more reliant on those specific people than you are. I mean, canonically he didn't get off on the best foot with any of the Avengers other than Bruce (and Phil with respect to IM1 if not IM2), and he doesn't have much time to connect to them on a personal level on-screen, just as fellow heroes. In this series, you indicated that no real connections get made beyond that till game night gets going. And while game night is huge for everyone, and directly addresses Tony's issues in a way that nobody else has? He's still been with Pepper and Rhodey a lot longer than any of the rest, and they managed to register as "trusted" despite his issues, and stay that way despite the exacerbation of his issues. So I can absolutely see an interpretation where addressing his issues gets him to a point where he can make a clean break with them, or cleanly move them from "dependent on" to "healthy friendship", but I still feel like that'd need to be specifically addressed rather than assumed. If that makes sense?
>> Rhodey and Pepper have been part of Tony's life for longer than any of the Avengers, as some of the only human beings Tony trusted who haven't betrayed him. (Hi, Obie.) Happy too, but like I said, I've only seen IM1. <<
> True. The relationships are rockier in IM2 (which I'm treating as canon) and crap in IM3 (which I'm generally not).
That's probably part of why I'm looking to them more than you are; I haven't seen the rockiness, just heard about it. :)
>> So that means that there are offscreen interactions in which they might notice changes in Tony's behavior, or there's a lack of offscreen interactions which they might notice. (Or there are offscreen interactions and they notice no change at all, which is also a significant data point for Phil's efforts.) <<
> That's all true. I think they've probably noticed a little bit, but many of the changes are only visible in intimate contexts. The gradual improvement may or may not be at a level where people would be sure it's a trend rather than a temporary swing.
Makes sense. Particularly with Tony, whose swings are infamous.
>> Throw in that the Avengers would be hard-pressed to sever without Stark Industries and thus Pepper Potts support, and that Rhodey has War Machine and is therefore a potential emergency team member, with the added bonus of me being a fan of all three characters, and it makes me think about their role in this setting. :) <<
> I do like their characters. Oh, and there's a very far downline scene sketch of Rhodey, but I don't know if I'll ever get far enough to work it in for real.
As long as you're thinking about it, I'm happy. :)
> Another reason I don't want to add too many characters is that every one complicates the relationships and the plotlines. That's why I'm trying to wrap up some of the current stuff before adding Thor and Loki (who are also commonly requested, and I knew early on would be a good fit).
Definitely understandable. I know I'm curious about Thor and Loki, but good Lord throwing them into the mix will complicate things. Even with the series assumption that everyone's willing to make a good-faith attempt at ageplay with everyone else. Complicated.
>> They are also friends, and generally well-adjusted people, which provides a few more options for the toolkit, but yeah. They don't have the correct tools, the correct position, or the correct incentive. <<
> Pretty much, yeah. They're less well-adjusted in the later movies though. Which is disappointing.
Yeah. That's a big reason I haven't tracked down IM2 or IM3 yet, despite how much I liked IM1.
>> (Friendship is a wonderful thing, but fixing someone who actively objects to being fixed needs a different kind of incentive, in general.) <<
> I figure that Tony -- like most of the other Avengers -- has little prior experience with people who want to "help" being actually helpful. They probably wanted to "fix" him so he'd be pleasing and ordinary and, well, not Tony Stark any more. Which is kind of like murder. And maybe things that people tried to do were meant well, but made matters worse for him. So he learned to deal with stuff on his own or not at all, because at least then it wasn't actively exacerbated by other people.
Yes. And then there's Obadiah, surrogate father figure extraordinaire, whom I'm sure Tony read as at least partially helpful right up till the sonic paralytic kicked in.
>> I just read a really interesting fic with the premise that Natasha actually read Tony correctly, and deliberately gave the "Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no" evaluation to protect Tony's mask. <<
> I think I've seen that more than once, and it works quite well.
I've seen a few fics work off the assumption that Natasha read Tony right, and they've generally been interesting, but that's the only one so far where I saw Natasha do it for pro-Tony reasons. I really liked it.
> True. Tony is such a horndog, though, that I find it easier to believe he'd leave alone someone incompatible than someone theoretically compatible but not interested.
On the other hand, Tony's got hordes of interested people who'd be happy to get in his pants, so he doesn't need to pursue someone uninterested. Flirt? Sure, that's his default method of interacting with attractive people. But I can definitely see a Tony who's . . . hm. Who's had enough experience with degrees of consent to take "no" for an answer, even if he doesn't necessarily understand why. Particularly if it's from someone he respects.
In fact, now that I think about it, I'd be surprised by a Tony who pursues people he respects as aggressively as he pursues people he doesn't. He might be hypersexual, he might not, but he seems to treat sex as equivalent to alcohol: a vice that lets you temporarily drown your issues in pleasure. So it's one thing to indulge with other people who indulge just as much, and it's one thing to make invitations you don't expect the other person (see: flirting with uninterested people), but you don't push when someone doesn't need or want it, particularly if "it" is "you" and you already have self-esteem problems. (Read as: "Pepper's too smart to sleep with me and too good to want to.")
And now I'd kinda like to see a fic where Tony covers for someone else with respect to sex rather than alcohol, hah. I've read a few where he tries to overcome his alcoholism without letting the general public know, so he does things like stock his minibars with booze bottles full of juice, and lets someone else with alcohol problems (like Clint or Bruce) in on the secret so they can save face together. But I've only read one where there was a reference to Tony helping someone deal with sex-related peer pressure, and while he was wonderfully supportive in private, they never addressed what happened in public. Which is a shame. But I digress. :)
>> Looking forward to it. Alternative communication methods are an interest of mine, and it's fun to see characters exploring them as primary communication methods. <<
> It's an interest of mine too. I think for Hulk they'll always be auxiliary modes, as speech is, but they give him more options. His natural communication level is nonverbal, emotional stuff.
Makes sense. That's why I lean toward a Hulk-proof tablet rather than, say, teaching him sign language: computer programs provide a lot more options with respect to communication aids, both verbal and nonverbal.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-08-09 05:41 am (UTC)-S
(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-16 02:27 pm (UTC)Radum Person
Thank you!
Date: 2013-05-17 07:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-16 04:52 pm (UTC)Pssst... hey Phil? I hear self-care is... a thing that people do. Just sayin'.
Well...
Date: 2013-05-17 07:14 pm (UTC)Natasha is aromantic sexual. She is also a sexual predator. She uses erotic action to seduce, interrogate, betray, abuse, and otherwise destroy opponents. This is why she only unleashes her sexuality on a mission or other work-related circumstances where she has a legitimate target.
She can't turn it off -- nobody can turn off their sexuality -- but she can aim it. Like many people, she gets antsy if she goes too long without. Antsy Black Widow is not a restful thought, so people try to make sure she has opportunities to hunt.
This is why Natasha feels acutely uncomfortable if anything at all sexually related comes up with the team. She needs to not perceive them as prey, and anything that blurs those lines can cause a serious problem. It tends to make her pull away to protect her people.
Does this help? Given the gentle nature of the series, there are only a few references to how Black Widow's sexuality works, so I can see how it could be confusing. It's not simple even when described in detail.
>> Pssst... hey Phil? I hear self-care is... a thing that people do. Just sayin'. <<
He does take care of himself tolerably well, just tends to focus on other people in a crisis. As long as they're letting him help, he gets something out of that too. It's when they push him away or there's nothing he can do that the friction builds up. Also, Phil tends to need a prompt from someone else in order to take care of himself. You'll see some of that in the story, over time.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-16 08:32 pm (UTC)Well...
Date: 2013-05-18 07:31 am (UTC)That's true ...
>> I'm almost afraid of what he's going to do to the team and/or Bucky. <<
... but what Fury wants and what he can get away with are not necessarily the same things.
Ohmigod
Date: 2013-05-17 02:55 am (UTC)Re: Ohmigod
Date: 2013-05-17 02:59 am (UTC)I customarily post updates daily, usually after midnight. That way if something goes wrong, I've got the next daylight as backup before the project officially runs late. My internet service is erratic, so this helps keep the flow intact.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-17 03:37 am (UTC)oh and and i have to wonder if Fury realizes that one day he is gonna poke the wrong tiger with the wrong sharp stick and will be mauled for it. or dose he just not care?
britewing
Thank you!
Date: 2013-05-18 08:02 am (UTC)I'm happy to hear that.
>> oh and and i have to wonder if Fury realizes that one day he is gonna poke the wrong tiger with the wrong sharp stick and will be mauled for it. <<
Fury has not a clue in the world. He thinks people will keep right on grumbling but still doing what he wants. This is true only up to a certain point.
>> or dose he just not care? <<
All he cares about is accomplishing the immediate goal. He doesn't care about people's feelings or even more practical damage done by his methods. This is carried over from movie canon, and it is a serious character flaw.
That One Anonymous Person
Date: 2013-05-17 04:50 am (UTC)Re: That One Anonymous Person
Date: 2013-05-18 07:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-17 05:49 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2013-05-17 05:54 am (UTC)On interrogation
Date: 2014-06-19 02:37 am (UTC)Re: On interrogation
Date: 2014-06-19 02:48 am (UTC)Natasha's gifts are different. Honeypots are popular in espionage because men really will spill an amazing amount of beans during pillow talk. Aside from that, she has a thorough knowledge of human anatomy and psychology. She doesn't just beat people up. She applies very methodical stress of various kinds, and then observes their reactions.
Different people have weak spots in different places. With several types of manipulation and coercion to choose from, the Avengers can pry information out of more enemies.