things in Avengers fic
Mar. 14th, 2013 01:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI keep reading fic where there's the Avengers and then some SHIELD agent sent to supervise or liaise with them. Usually Coulson, given the / I read.
I do not keep finding fic where Natasha and Clint are the SHIELD agents sent to supervise and liaise with the rest of the Avengers.
But we know Natasha was sent to assess potential personnel, and Clint was sent to go stare at sensitive projects to see if they're going wrong. So those are jobs that they do. Already. For SHIELD.
Yet in fic it's Avengers vs SHIELD, sometimes with Coulson in the middle. Sometimes Avengers all being mad at Fury for lying about Coulson's death, so they close ranks around Coulson so SHIELD won't mess him around any more.
... I think it's much more interesting if Coulson faked Coulson's death, and manipulated Fury in the process, because whoever tells Natasha would have to believe it and she wouldn't believe them unless they'd seen it with their own eye(s).
So then the question becomes, why would he need to manipulate Natasha?
If she was believable about not minding about regime change... one man's death would make what difference?
But if there's a real chance of her following Clint if she decides he switched sides for Reasons, then her allegiance would be primarily personal, not to SHIELD as a whole. Then one man's death could motivate her strongly, if that man had given her as much reason for personal loyalty as Clint has.
The common fic scenario where Clint made another call and then had to persuade his handler Coulson makes that one make sense.
If Coulson thinks that his death will mean enough to enough people that it will bring them together to fight an overwhelming foe, what kind of guy is he that he'd do that to them?
Just from Tony's press conference fresh back from Afghanistan you can know that people dying for him is like huge major button, or possibly a fault line crack. His whole life shifted last time he got hit there. Who would do that to him again on purpose?
And having made all these significant connections to people, what kind of guy could fake his own death and just walk away from his life to make it stick?
If he was only gone for the length of the battle then the whole Initiative falls apart. If he's going to do that he's got to go all in on it. Toss the whole Coulson identity, or at least intend to.
Possibly I think this is more fun because I have not seen fics doing this at all. Always he has heroic death and then miraculous medical save. Only once so far was it actually an LMD, which to me is the scenario best supported by the source text, since otherwise Tony mentions LMDs for no actual reason. If it is a Clue it is more fun. So I figure Coulson went and got an LMD to carry a big gun to shoot Loki and have heroic motivational fake death. That's a story I've not seen. Even the story with the LMD had him using one for Reasons and not for manipulating Avengers with.
Coulson is the guy who turns up to arrest Obie or try and stop the Destroyer, so he's got that action hero badass thing going on. But he wears suits appropriate to who he is meeting with. Like, when Pepper is Tony's assistant he wears a suit that doesn't quite fit and isn't particularly expensive and generally suits someone who talks to PAs and schedules appointments. When Pepper is CEO he wears fancy expensive perfectly personally fitted suit with a Name, suitable to someone who meets boss people when he feels the need. His presentation is as deceptive in its way as Black Widow's, but his cover story is Agent Coulson of SHIELD, he just makes it seem to mean nobody-much when that's useful. And he's the guy giving Tony the prompt cards with a cover story, and it's not his first rodeo. Coulson is as much a manipulative liar as any other SHIELD agent we know. That's his job. Which he appears to be really good at.
But that's not the story fanfic goes with.
What people want out of Coulson fic appears to be the story of the loyal and steadfast and true, the good middle manager who insulates you from the big boss, the guy who always has your back. Fury is a lying liar who lies, so who can you depend on at SHIELD? Is a very good appealing story. And it can even be true, within SHIELD, for how he treats SHIELD agents. But seen from the perspective of outsiders, even Avengers... yeah, no, getting them to dance is his job and he'll use as much truth as necessary to get that done.
I was thinking about the Hulk movie and how it doesn't precisely fit with the Avengers movie. Hulk movie says Banner was working on a radiation protection, not knowing that it was meant to recreate the super soldier serum. Avengers movie has Coulson tell Steve that Banner made himself big green while trying to make super soldier. (I could be remembering wrong about either or both of those and it makes my point go boom if I am.) Simplification or manipulation? If Coulson wants Steve to react to Banner in a particular way, in a positive way despite the complications, that would be the angle to present. And then Coulson is super fanboy of awkward slight creepiness. Which is cute and we all identify and it gives us the signed cards moment. And since he owns said cards, probable extreme fanboy for true. But. If the guy giving the briefing still wants to seem like nobody-much to Steve... that would be one kind of camouflage.
There's a fun twisty manipulative super spy character if you spin things one particular way.
And yet, nobody seems to want to.
Is interesting.
I have read a few pages from the 616 comics, the Secret Avengers thing? In those, Clint and Natasha are Avengers first, both chronologically and in terms of allegiance, so probably that's where that interpretation is coming from, soaked from the comics. But in those also Coulson is super secret manipulative spy guy, messing with memory. Messing with Clint and Natasha.
If fans like Coulson because of a certain set of interests revealed in fanfic, if we're identifying with the fanboy and wanting a good steady loyal and true guy, this characterisation could epic crash and burn.
But there's a lot of stories in it.
(This ramble brought to you by my neighbours having a smoke alarm thing at two in the morning. Thanks. so much.)
I do not keep finding fic where Natasha and Clint are the SHIELD agents sent to supervise and liaise with the rest of the Avengers.
But we know Natasha was sent to assess potential personnel, and Clint was sent to go stare at sensitive projects to see if they're going wrong. So those are jobs that they do. Already. For SHIELD.
Yet in fic it's Avengers vs SHIELD, sometimes with Coulson in the middle. Sometimes Avengers all being mad at Fury for lying about Coulson's death, so they close ranks around Coulson so SHIELD won't mess him around any more.
... I think it's much more interesting if Coulson faked Coulson's death, and manipulated Fury in the process, because whoever tells Natasha would have to believe it and she wouldn't believe them unless they'd seen it with their own eye(s).
So then the question becomes, why would he need to manipulate Natasha?
If she was believable about not minding about regime change... one man's death would make what difference?
But if there's a real chance of her following Clint if she decides he switched sides for Reasons, then her allegiance would be primarily personal, not to SHIELD as a whole. Then one man's death could motivate her strongly, if that man had given her as much reason for personal loyalty as Clint has.
The common fic scenario where Clint made another call and then had to persuade his handler Coulson makes that one make sense.
If Coulson thinks that his death will mean enough to enough people that it will bring them together to fight an overwhelming foe, what kind of guy is he that he'd do that to them?
Just from Tony's press conference fresh back from Afghanistan you can know that people dying for him is like huge major button, or possibly a fault line crack. His whole life shifted last time he got hit there. Who would do that to him again on purpose?
And having made all these significant connections to people, what kind of guy could fake his own death and just walk away from his life to make it stick?
If he was only gone for the length of the battle then the whole Initiative falls apart. If he's going to do that he's got to go all in on it. Toss the whole Coulson identity, or at least intend to.
Possibly I think this is more fun because I have not seen fics doing this at all. Always he has heroic death and then miraculous medical save. Only once so far was it actually an LMD, which to me is the scenario best supported by the source text, since otherwise Tony mentions LMDs for no actual reason. If it is a Clue it is more fun. So I figure Coulson went and got an LMD to carry a big gun to shoot Loki and have heroic motivational fake death. That's a story I've not seen. Even the story with the LMD had him using one for Reasons and not for manipulating Avengers with.
Coulson is the guy who turns up to arrest Obie or try and stop the Destroyer, so he's got that action hero badass thing going on. But he wears suits appropriate to who he is meeting with. Like, when Pepper is Tony's assistant he wears a suit that doesn't quite fit and isn't particularly expensive and generally suits someone who talks to PAs and schedules appointments. When Pepper is CEO he wears fancy expensive perfectly personally fitted suit with a Name, suitable to someone who meets boss people when he feels the need. His presentation is as deceptive in its way as Black Widow's, but his cover story is Agent Coulson of SHIELD, he just makes it seem to mean nobody-much when that's useful. And he's the guy giving Tony the prompt cards with a cover story, and it's not his first rodeo. Coulson is as much a manipulative liar as any other SHIELD agent we know. That's his job. Which he appears to be really good at.
But that's not the story fanfic goes with.
What people want out of Coulson fic appears to be the story of the loyal and steadfast and true, the good middle manager who insulates you from the big boss, the guy who always has your back. Fury is a lying liar who lies, so who can you depend on at SHIELD? Is a very good appealing story. And it can even be true, within SHIELD, for how he treats SHIELD agents. But seen from the perspective of outsiders, even Avengers... yeah, no, getting them to dance is his job and he'll use as much truth as necessary to get that done.
I was thinking about the Hulk movie and how it doesn't precisely fit with the Avengers movie. Hulk movie says Banner was working on a radiation protection, not knowing that it was meant to recreate the super soldier serum. Avengers movie has Coulson tell Steve that Banner made himself big green while trying to make super soldier. (I could be remembering wrong about either or both of those and it makes my point go boom if I am.) Simplification or manipulation? If Coulson wants Steve to react to Banner in a particular way, in a positive way despite the complications, that would be the angle to present. And then Coulson is super fanboy of awkward slight creepiness. Which is cute and we all identify and it gives us the signed cards moment. And since he owns said cards, probable extreme fanboy for true. But. If the guy giving the briefing still wants to seem like nobody-much to Steve... that would be one kind of camouflage.
There's a fun twisty manipulative super spy character if you spin things one particular way.
And yet, nobody seems to want to.
Is interesting.
I have read a few pages from the 616 comics, the Secret Avengers thing? In those, Clint and Natasha are Avengers first, both chronologically and in terms of allegiance, so probably that's where that interpretation is coming from, soaked from the comics. But in those also Coulson is super secret manipulative spy guy, messing with memory. Messing with Clint and Natasha.
If fans like Coulson because of a certain set of interests revealed in fanfic, if we're identifying with the fanboy and wanting a good steady loyal and true guy, this characterisation could epic crash and burn.
But there's a lot of stories in it.
(This ramble brought to you by my neighbours having a smoke alarm thing at two in the morning. Thanks. so much.)