I found a Tony Stark

[beccaelizabeth]

I decided I like this icon because you can see Tony, he's working, he's creating something, and all his brilliance is showing. The whole glowy heart thing is an easy metaphor but it works. And with his hand glowing too it looks like he's catching hold of something, like when he's working on the hologram displays, like he's got an idea in his hand ready to be made real. But it's also ready to blow shit up. So, all the parts.


I've been thinking about what I'm looking for in Avengers fic and something I read for college about how a lot of stories are about making us look for solutions in the idea of the good master. Like, if there are bad masters, we don't look for systemic wrongs, we don't think hey maybe we should get rid of masters, we just invent the ideal master, and then write romance about them to make it all kinds of desirable. I don't know, I read it a bunch of time ago, I can't find it now, but that's how I remember it.

So, what is it about the Avengers that is desirable? Wanting to be them? I'm having dreams of being Tony Stark and they're not all the being lost in a train station kind, so yeah, that's part of it. Part of science fiction's promise is if you apply brain you can get solution, you can invent your way out of whatever problems, so you've got that side that values the smarts, and that's achievable. Not being a billionaire inventor achievable, just, you can think your way through problems and build your own way out. Kind of sort of achievable anyway, sometimes what needs fixed is large social systems. But then he privatised world peace, so hey, individual solution to system problem! Fun! And also, stuff going boom. All that power in the palm of your hand. Awesome.
... yeah, I had a totally different point, but, I totally want to be Iron Man. I'm just like way too lazy and would have given up in that cave and also am not a genius. But hey, you never know.
ANYway, my point was, that's not the only side. Wanting to be, and also wanting them.
Because if someone's going to take all our money and spend it on weapons, then hey, this is the shiny way to do it. Lets make the military industrial complex sexy while calling it bad. Speeches about weapons proliferation being a problem sitting right next to action sequences where the coolest weapons are always on our side. Something for everyone!
Tony would be a terrible boss. But in the same ways as a lot of classic romance dudes. He's terrible because he's not paying attention. But then, hey, wow, he notices all that hard work you put in, kissing now! Happy endings!
... sometimes I would kind of like to like Tony less. I mean, that was the first thing I noticed about him in the first minutes of the first film, that he was being a total sleaze, that it would probably work on me, that I would have kind of preferred to be immune.

But part of the power fantasy and the good-master fantasy is the thing where Tony is all screw you, I'll fix it myself. To elected officials. And, well, everyone else too. He has all the money, he has all the toys, he clearly knows best. Of the many and varied ways he screws up, aiming wrong is not on the list (thus far). If he goes to blow up bad guys, they are indeed very bad, and get very blown up. His problem is always just not having done this sooner.

... it bugs me that the appealing parts of the movie contradict my pacifist politics, but, it's kind of like fancying someone, sometimes stuff just seems really hot even if you know it would be all kinds of fail in practice.

So Tony Stark is all that power that collects around money and weapons and private armies, or security contractors, whatever you want to call them. And it looks like he rejects it but it's also like he decides he's the only one should have all that shiny, or at least the only one who should decide who has it. And then he makes it look hot.

Kind of wish that didn't work on me.




But Captain America is a whole different spin. He's not special, he's just a kid from Brooklyn. And when he's standing up against Nazis and that Red Skull dude who is all about how they're the most special, that's who you want as a hero, the everyman, the guy who knows from being bullied but won't back down.
But Captain on him is a weird rank. He's a leader, but only once he's been aimed at an enemy. He'll do everything to get his men home, but he's not the one making the big political decisions.
Right now he's kind of the good servant, the strong champion. He's not King Arthur, he's one of the knights.
Does that change? I don't know. I only watch the movies.
So he's giving orders, including to Tony, and he's not precisely Fury's to aim by the end of the movie, but...
The way he got his power was to just hand himself over to people to make him into a weapon. (That's part of the appeal, the want-to-be, that he started out only able to really CARE about this stuff but by caring enough got handed the power to make a difference.) And he's a decent guy, he's someone who'll stand, he's there to represent the better dreams of America as a land of equality and working together for freedom and justice and all that good shit... but he kind of makes me uncomfortable because there's so much hierarchical stuff in there around him.
If he was King Arthur in training he'd be a good king one day. But, right now, he's not that guy. And it bothers me, because if America has a good dream, it's that the everyman can always rise. There shouldn't be a ceiling on it.
All I've seen is the origin though, how he works out is going to be interesting.
I'm kind of dubious though, because there's two things to do with him, and one looks more popular. Take him straight from the war against Nazis to the war on terror and you compare/contrast the two. If he's just going to be making it look like it's all the same, fighting the good fight, then that's a problem. Terrorists in caves with big missiles again. Terrorists suck, but the war on terror has significant suck of its own. So that's the other thing to do with him, bring him to the future and have him make sad puppy eyes at what we've done to it, and then set out to fix it.
Fanfic goes places I like with that, but I'm sort of apprehensive about canon. Don't know the stories' politics at all, only have one acceptable answer.



So, then I read mostly fic where Tony and Steve end up crazy in love with each other. Which on some levels can resolve those uncomfortable political whatsits, because Tony very much cares what Cap thinks of him. He's trying to live up to that guy's opinion. He's listening to the moral authority of the everyman. Which does not restore him to the whole democratic process (seriously, rich dude pissing off elected dudes, not cool), but makes progress while leaving the happy power fantasy stuff in there. And also, because Tony apparently trumps the US government and Steve is the boss of Tony, we have the ordinary guy as the boss. And just by the power of being really appealing and also obviously right.
So, you know, got to love that.


... doing political analysis of my fic kinks is just a bit navel gazing. Also, since I consistently go for scientist/soldier pairings without all those specific features, probably a bit redundant. I seem to have a whole make/break happy place. *shrugs*




I've also been reading Clint/Coulson, and have discovered very specific preferences despite the whole utter lack of canon to work from. Like, we can all agree Coulson is unflappable suit guy, but anything else we're making up. Yet I have very specific boundaries on what I'd like made up. Like, he's not Clint's partner in the field, the fights as one unit kicks all the ass secret undercover together dude. That's Natasha. At least based on the film that's plausibly Natasha, and they have that thing where they've always got each other's back. There's some fics which leave me feeling that Black Widow got cut out and this other dude got pasted in, even though I know next to nothing about all of them. Possibly am sensitised to swapping out girls for guys. It's not a good thing.
(I tried looking for all the awesome Black Widow fic. I kept finding fic where she's in the tags but it's actually all about Steve/Tony or Bruce/Tony or, generally, m/m. I'm a slash fan and yet I'm still getting fed up of this. Was there always this little het? did the women always disappear even when we have awesome ones to play with? *sad pout*)

So I was thinking on what role I think is Coulson's, and I was thinking there's a ton of stories about the Good King (and swapping a bad one for a good one), but I think I'm looking for the Good Middle Manager. Or Good Supervisor. The Boss, but the sort who also has a boss. Then he's the guy who's mostly the calm voice taking in all the input and giving you back the view you can't get from the middle of the scrum. He's giving orders, and you can trust they'll be the right orders. Or if they'll go to shit, he'll take your word for how, and back your play when you get yourself out of it. The dude in charge has to answer to the whole outside world, but the guy in the middle just has to answer to the Director. He's there to get the results his boss needs and yet keep his people safe. He'll risk himself, but it's not his main job. His job is making sure everyone else does their jobs, and that they can do their jobs, get the resources they need, get the time they need. He knows the difference between independence and insubordination, and can keep his people the right side of that line, without mistaking it for the line about unquestioning obedience. He's the boss so awesome he makes everyone else more awesome.

Most of that also fits Good Captain. Which is a thing I already knew about me, that Captain is one of the good words.

So applying all that to Coulson involves quite a lot of making stuff up, but apparently it's what I'm looking for in those fics, a particular role all about making other people's roles work better.

Him personally being totally ninja, while also canon, is sort of unnecessary to my happy place.
Though ninja in a suit is another type I have reader history with.



Clint having a personality at all at this point either comes from the comics or from the grand tradition of Making Up Awesome Stuff. Sometimes I fear to find out which is which, because canon can be far crazier than fandom, but... *blinks*. So far I like the intensity of focus, the noticing things, and the whole sniper thing of doing the least damage for the most result. If he's also a snarky smart alec, that sounds like fun.

... the bird themes, nesting, fan apparent consensus that he lives in the air ducts, and my ridiculously strong feelings about high tech bows and trick arrows, not so much my favourite things, but sometimes also fun.



Bruce... one of the guys at the science fiction group, his favourite character is the Hulk. He's all, who wouldn't want to get huge and smash things? And I'm more with Bruce on this one, because really do not want. I guess Hulk is polar opposite of snipers. He does the most damage with the most result. Except thus far the usual result is more of those who should be his own people shooting him, so, most damage least wanted result. The whole 'I have an army' 'We have a Hulk' is pretty awesome, but, no, that's just not a relaxing fantasy at all. So he just makes me twitchy. Don't make him angry goes too many bad places.
I have recently been remembering when I actually liked science. I stopped studying it but it was pretty awesome sometimes. Peaceful and methodical and when you have a question you can get an answer by applying the small things you already know until you figure out a bigger thing. There is no problem too huge for science.
Banner good Hulk scary?
Not my idea of fun.



Thor... is a great big puppy person. I don't know, I keep trying to have some opinions on Thor, but I pretty much stop at big puppy. For Loki I have all the (predictable) feelings, Loki is that guy I know from many, many other fandoms, I'm not impressed with me for my Loki feelings. But Thor is kind of ... there.
I'm kind of dog phobic... okay, if the hairdresser's teacup chihuahua made me all twitchy as hell just by existing, it's not 'kind of', it is not in rationality land at all. But with Thor it's kind of the opposite problem, he's logically this big scary guy, but... puppy.
Thor being a Prince and his kingdom having politics, it seems like he's the obvious for the whole wishing for a Good King saga. Usually monarchy stories are kind of like that bit in Buffy where Buffy says she has to go out and her mum says if you don't it'll be the end of the world, everything's the end of the world when you're 16! Only in Buffy world it's literal. Monarchy stories mean your family drama really is the end of the world, or the kingdom at least. Science Fiction monarchies? They upped it to three worlds.
So, Odin's parenting skillz get an unflattering spotlight there.
But it's also kind of about how politics screws over family.
Like, they've been raised in the shadow of the Last Good War, the big one, the one all their parents fought in and made glorious names for themselves. The one they're too young to know anything about except from stories. And at the start of Thor he's waiting for his own Good War, because what he's learned from the stories is that's the way to go, pick your war and kick all the arse, everyone adores you.
I fear by the end of Thor that hasn't been much questioned.
And they'd also ended up believing in good guys and bad guys and their duty to kill the bad. It's not just moral disapproval, it's launching attacks. They've been raised to hate.
But Loki, for him finding he's adopted is on an emotional scale kind of like finding his birth parent was a nazi war criminal. He's been raised to hate and fear, and now he finds that's what he is. Where does he have left to go? If he rejects his birth parent he can stay a good little Odinson and take hate to the next level, turn it to patricide and genocide.
Thus doing things Odin chose not to, but somehow Odin never managed to teach his sons *why* not.
Parenting: fail.
But Loki emotion crash too, because what can he do, that rejects the monster he's been taught his blood comes from? Whatever he does it rejects part of what he learned from growing up Odinson. Either break with his father's commands or accept the monster side.
He just pretty much broke instead.
Pretty little monster.
He should hang out with Avengers more, they and their monsters would be fiiiiiine with his, if they met another way or even now got the chance.
See? All the Loki feels.
Thor was the title character, but what did Thor learn in his own movie? And how did he learn it?
I'm still trying to figure that. I might be interested if I thought he'd changed much.

Until I figure out Thor, *big shrugs*




I have few thoughts on Nick Fury. He's a lying liar who lies, but usually I like that in a guy. Manipulative. Angry boss man. Another example of the guy who thinks he's more right than his overseers. And another example of the movie agreeing with him. Clearly all these elected/selected boss people should just get out of the way and let the chosen do all the violence. :eyeroll:
I did like the bit where he's making plans for after the apocalypse. Act like the world will keep turning. It's a kind of faith.
But also has plans for all the apocalypses. And still gets out of bed of a morning. Thus far: winning.



Natasha: I watched Iron Man 2 where she kicks all the arse and wanted a whole movie of her doing that. But most of that film we don't see her, we see Tony Bait. Which is intelligent, red headed, and intimidating, but we knew that. Thus far from movies we have learned she's tiny and feminine and cute and people who believe all that are about to get really thoroughly broken. She's loyal as hell and she's making up for a lot of red in her ledger. She can read anyone and get all the answers, even/especially without asking any questions. And whatever you think you've seen in her is only what she wanted to show you.
Which makes her kind of hard to get a handle on to write.
Or figure out what I want to read.
Aside from her writing herself.



So, all that, stuff I like about the Avengers.
Not very coherent stuff.


Today's job required cooperation of my mum, who was going to be here some hours ago but went in to volunteer-work instead. So I just typed until I ran out.
Which is now.

Comments

[philippos42]

Clint is pretty different in the comics, I think. Movie Clint is so quiet, comic-book Clint not so much.

There is one big similarity: He was involved with Natasha at one time I think, and later his wife was Bobbi Morse--a somewhat similar action heroine.