Yays and Nays
May. 10th, 2012 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn case anyone is wondering, the reason why I haven't reviewed this week's Borgias episode yet is that I haven't had a chance to watch it. I'm currently at a conference in Rudolstadt. However, something you can do at conferences now and then is reading fanfiction.
Before I get to my recs: I think I have identified my off turn for reading fanfic in Avengers fanfic quicker than usual. You know, the part of the summary that makes me go "hell, no!" and look for another story. In Avengers stories, this is anything resembling the phrase "Loki needs a hug". I'm not against redeeming the genocidal little twerp per se on fanfic, but for me that would have to start with not only the writer but also Loki himself acknowledging he is a genocidal little twerp (and when I say "genocidal", I'm actually referring to events from Thor, not The Avengers, because if I read one more time that in Thor, Loki was the wronged party throughout, I'm tempted to aquire a tesseract and send the commenter in question to the Frost Giants, who would have been wiped out entirely, global scale, if Loki had succeeded in his plans). Not with Avenger X, or the entire team, deciding that he's really a fluffy kitten that needs to be stroked.
(A longer post is brewing on why some villains do it for me in terms of fannish love and some don't, though I can find them interesting, and ditto for some redemption stories; I think a key criterium is the willingness on the part of the villain to accept responsibilities for his or her actions instead of continuing to be an eternal 13 years old in "nobody understands me, everyone is so mean to me, anything I do is always someone else's fault" mindframe. The reason why Faith's story is arguably the best redemption story in the Jossverse isn't because she had it tough or there were extenuating circumstances but because Faith got to a point where she stopped blaming others, notably Buffy, turned herself in to the police and spent some time in prison, and that she did it not because she got a soul or because she wanted a better relationship with someone, but because she didn't want to continue as she had been and let others pay for her issues.)
The Black Widow, of course, is one of the Marvelverse characters starting out as villains and becoming heroes. Her origins were retconned repeatedly, but one of the many reasons why I want a Black Widow movie is that the hints we get there about Natasha's past make me think the version the movieverse will/would go with would include Natasha doing bad things, not simply having bad things done to her. Note that Natasha doesn't either glorify her past or make apologies for it; she owns it, it made her what she is now, and she acts on that, but not in a way of entitlement that the world owes her anything; the reverse. As opposed to certain Asgardians, she's actually an adult. And not surprisingly in most of the stories I'm going to reccommend today.
A now finished Natasha and Bruce centric series full of prickly distrust and mutual issues but also slowly accepting and letting down guards. Great to read, and the parallel transformation of the Avengers from misfits thrown together by necessity into actual friends feels very real, too.
Love is for children: this one transfers the current version of comicverse Natasha's origin story into the movieverse (which means heavy tie-ins to the Winter Soldier story, aka the most popular Captain America tale wherein it turns out his WW II sidekick Bucky was transformed into a master assassin by the KGB). Dark, with a smidgeon of hope and really well written.
The Hammer and the Ice: short but elegant AU in which Jane Foster has Erik Solvig's role in The Avengers
Choosing Anger: excellent Bruce pov throughout the film.
and now for two meta recs:
Great Natasha meta, specifically on how the script presents her. I concurr with the poster in every regard.
Meta on the various relationships between all of the characters, for which I even braved tumblr, because it's such a joy to read.
Before I get to my recs: I think I have identified my off turn for reading fanfic in Avengers fanfic quicker than usual. You know, the part of the summary that makes me go "hell, no!" and look for another story. In Avengers stories, this is anything resembling the phrase "Loki needs a hug". I'm not against redeeming the genocidal little twerp per se on fanfic, but for me that would have to start with not only the writer but also Loki himself acknowledging he is a genocidal little twerp (and when I say "genocidal", I'm actually referring to events from Thor, not The Avengers, because if I read one more time that in Thor, Loki was the wronged party throughout, I'm tempted to aquire a tesseract and send the commenter in question to the Frost Giants, who would have been wiped out entirely, global scale, if Loki had succeeded in his plans). Not with Avenger X, or the entire team, deciding that he's really a fluffy kitten that needs to be stroked.
(A longer post is brewing on why some villains do it for me in terms of fannish love and some don't, though I can find them interesting, and ditto for some redemption stories; I think a key criterium is the willingness on the part of the villain to accept responsibilities for his or her actions instead of continuing to be an eternal 13 years old in "nobody understands me, everyone is so mean to me, anything I do is always someone else's fault" mindframe. The reason why Faith's story is arguably the best redemption story in the Jossverse isn't because she had it tough or there were extenuating circumstances but because Faith got to a point where she stopped blaming others, notably Buffy, turned herself in to the police and spent some time in prison, and that she did it not because she got a soul or because she wanted a better relationship with someone, but because she didn't want to continue as she had been and let others pay for her issues.)
The Black Widow, of course, is one of the Marvelverse characters starting out as villains and becoming heroes. Her origins were retconned repeatedly, but one of the many reasons why I want a Black Widow movie is that the hints we get there about Natasha's past make me think the version the movieverse will/would go with would include Natasha doing bad things, not simply having bad things done to her. Note that Natasha doesn't either glorify her past or make apologies for it; she owns it, it made her what she is now, and she acts on that, but not in a way of entitlement that the world owes her anything; the reverse. As opposed to certain Asgardians, she's actually an adult. And not surprisingly in most of the stories I'm going to reccommend today.
A now finished Natasha and Bruce centric series full of prickly distrust and mutual issues but also slowly accepting and letting down guards. Great to read, and the parallel transformation of the Avengers from misfits thrown together by necessity into actual friends feels very real, too.
Love is for children: this one transfers the current version of comicverse Natasha's origin story into the movieverse (which means heavy tie-ins to the Winter Soldier story, aka the most popular Captain America tale wherein it turns out his WW II sidekick Bucky was transformed into a master assassin by the KGB). Dark, with a smidgeon of hope and really well written.
The Hammer and the Ice: short but elegant AU in which Jane Foster has Erik Solvig's role in The Avengers
Choosing Anger: excellent Bruce pov throughout the film.
and now for two meta recs:
Great Natasha meta, specifically on how the script presents her. I concurr with the poster in every regard.
Meta on the various relationships between all of the characters, for which I even braved tumblr, because it's such a joy to read.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 08:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 09:14 am (UTC)For the record, while I don't think Joss Whedon will direct it (he's got a lot of other projects mentioned, and my guess is Marvel, if they do a Black Widow film, would want that sooner rather than later to benefit from the current reactions), I hope he'll have some creative imput in the story development, because it was his writing for Natasha that caused me to fall in love with the movieverse version of her after already liking the comicverse one but frustrated at the lack of writing for her in IM 2.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 04:54 pm (UTC)And yet I have all the feels and read even atrocious OCC woobie fic for him. :\
*Some of which comes from Hiddleston himself in interviews, but he has to play the character and has to be entirely sympathetic with him so I understand his sentiments there a bit more than the fandom wide "needs a hug thing."
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 05:44 pm (UTC)1.) Loki saves the life of Thor or whichever Avenger the author wants to pair him with. I can actually see this happening with Thor, both for "nobody gets to kill you but me" reasons and, depending on the skill of the author, repressed love. Saving anyone else for reasons unrelated to mind messing plans, I don't buy right now, but my big problem comes in the next step, which is:
2.) The Avenges are reluctantly impressed. Then they find out Loki had a childhood ranging from "never felt accepted, was horrified at adoption discovery" to "was abused by Odin on daily basis and beaten up by Thor for good measure", depending how thick the author lays it on, and realise the poor dear had it worse than any of them and just needs to be loved.
3.) What absolutely never happens: Loki having to confront any of his victims. I'm pretty sure those 80 people he killed as a warm up, or all those who died when the Chitauri attacked NY, or, for that matter, Phil Coulson's family would not be impressed by him saving his brother's/Avenger X's life. And any author who wants to sell me on a redeemed Loki would have to make me first believe he actually cares about all these people.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 05:57 pm (UTC)I do hate the "never felt accepted" thing as justification for immediate forgiveness though. Too much bad blood from when we were 13 year olds infecting fandom, I imagine. (I still read those stories though, I mean, even though they're often bad on top of OOC but Loki has sucked my reason and my taste out of my brain.)
Also, completely off topic, but I found this on tumblr and thought of you. http://squiddishly.tumblr.com/post/22782544339/i-submit-this-to-you-without-comment. I think anything Babylon 5 will make me think of you but this was pretty epic. :)