Age of Ultron: 'ship report
May. 1st, 2015 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethOkay, so, I'm self aware enough to know there's something I had to get over before I could watch this movie and not sulk about it. Because I had heard about the 'ships before I went in, and they were not my preferred sort. And people who are squee about the movie when I am not squee, they maybe thinking I'm bitter, but I don't think so? I mean, we have so many canons already, this isn't precisely new, we'll make versions of characters from the bits we like. But okay, here's my thoughts:
SPOILERS for Age of Ultron
Relationships: Natasha/Bruce , Clint Barton / Laura now-Barton (married, long times)
... I've just realised that the lack of married couples in most fandoms makes characters with the same last name and a / between them look really weird. Also, that I'd like to know her maiden name, and not just for tagging purposes. That whole sense of knowing she existed before the movie and outside of the 'ship.
Okay, Natasha/Bruce I can buy as depicted here if they're both epic unhealthy. It's not a 'ship, it's an ongoing plea for therapy. Her actual pitch is I'm a monster too we'll run away together. That's not ... no, nope, that's not good.
And it's not the good bits of Natasha/Bruce as I've seen them anywhere else. That way round she's already come to terms with the nasty stuff, together they realise there are no monsters here. Bad shit happened to them and they learned bad things to cope with it, but people are not monsters, they can be more than the worst days, they can cope and rise up.
This movie had Bruce threaten to kill someone without turning a little bit green, and that's... that's the wrong way, that's what he was so afraid of he made a Hulk persona in the first place, that's not good.
Meanwhile Natasha is being used to manipulate Hulk and Bruce more effectively, get them to flip persons on command, make him convenient, by making her his handler.
If this is what they bring out in each other? No. Walk away. There are seven billion people on earth and a great many of the others haven't beat each other up and manipulated each other and felt like monsters together. Elsewhere is probably healthier.
And Hulk does indeed walk away. Yaay big guy. It's probably just fear, but, you know, that's... that's a healthy fear, by then. She pushed him off a tall thing so he'd go green after he refused to. Hulk exists to protect Bruce. Leaving is self protective.
I just don't see why the movie did this to the two of them. People who 'ship them wanted their best selves in the ship, not this mess. People who don't 'ship them are going to bounce off the premise hard from the get go.
And why 'ship Nat with anyone? Her story arc last movie was superhero, in this one it was woman stereotypes. The story diminishes her.
So I very did not like that one. You might have noticed from my earlier review. Very no good.
But I like the idea of Clint and Laura. Which may seem surprising when compared to my epic Clint/Coulson fanfic reading. I get some somewhat irrational feels every time the writers shut down the possibility of queer readings on a character by making them het, but since they were thinking of them as het all along, that's... that's unhelpful. Thing is, given that my ongoing go to sleep Mary Sue epic involves me being married to Clint and us in a relationship with Coulson, this shuts down nothing. Even the raising his kids part is my happy place. And I like their kitchen. And have spent the last couple years collecting decorating magazines. His ongoing house remodelling would suit me fine.
The farm I'm less sold on, I'd have no clue what to do out there, and raising kids effectively alone, no, nope, even my daydream self needs a team for that, kids can outnumber grown ups loooooong before the number of bodies tips to that side. Being in the middle of nowhere such that a jet can land unnoticed, not my cup of tea at all. So a Clint who loves his farm is a different dude than the one I had in my head or my tiny Hawkeye collection where he's a landlord in New York. City mouse has opportunities for constant rebuilding and also nearby... everything. And far fewer things I'm allergic to. Like green. I'm ... not logically allergic to green, but not having sorted out which bit of the gardens I am in fact allergic to, it feels that way some months.
So the Clint in the film is not my daydream Clint, but the being married is not the reason. The one advantage to Laura being ... loving, supportive, and otherwise blank, is I can fit my fan self in there. She's a mask, like Coulson was but more so, a blank where a certain kind of identification through admiration can go. Cool. I can daydream as her now. Ish.
Clint having settled down with something constructive to do? Pretty cool for him.
Clint being married since he joined SHIELD? An entirely new vein of story to mine. Like, we know Nat is Auntie Natasha, do we know they're not in a poly relationship where she feels slightly left out due to infertility meaning all the babies are from the Bartons but the Bartons try to bring her in and reassure her, hence the naming the baby? That's a perfectly available reading.
Adding Coulson to it involves spinning stuff from whole cloth, but that is nothing new in this corner.
Though I think it's now movie canon that Fury brought Clint in and all the stuff we wrote as Coulson's, the extra close unbreakable work relationship and being the one and only person trusted with the secrets and so forth, that's actually Fury.
I won't be shipping Clint/Fury. ... I thought my reasons were maths, but then realised that Steve/Tony has an age gap like that and Xavier/Magneto has being old. Possibly it's race. I'd hate it if it were race. But it might be. I mean, if everything else about them is what we'd been writing Clint and Coulson as, then... *sighs*
From some angles the thing with Clint being married with children is helpful to Clint/Coulson, because it finishes explaining why Coulson hasn't told Clint he's alive. Like, layers of cheating angst? Possible even in acknowledged poly relationships, easily resolved. But layers of not wanting to endanger the kids? That explains everything. Coulson was trusting the system up until he stopped trusting himself, and without trusting himself he wouldn't get involved with those tiny lives. Add to this the whole thing where I stopped watching Agents of SHIELD while he was still trying to talk May into promising to kill him, which he wouldn't want his beloveds around for let alone their tiny childs, and we have a complete explanation for the utter absence of contact.
... yes we didn't need it, given that we're making this stuff up out of an absence in the first place, but we have it.
New canon does nothing to the story I've been trying to write, on account of the thing where trans!Clint and dragon!Coulson is a departure from canon already. Though I can now see how to AU my AU to incorporate it. Which isn't actually helping.
But part of why my Clint in fic is purple and not the MCU and Ults red is I am drawing on Fraction's Hawkeye and not very much on MCU Hawkeye on account of his prior bare existence. So now MCU went all Ults in the backstory, okay, does nothing to my canon selection process, I was already ignoring a universe where he was married.
Having feels about imaginary people having imaginary relationships in some but only some versions of fictional universes: humans, what are we like?
SPOILERS for Age of Ultron
Relationships: Natasha/Bruce , Clint Barton / Laura now-Barton (married, long times)
... I've just realised that the lack of married couples in most fandoms makes characters with the same last name and a / between them look really weird. Also, that I'd like to know her maiden name, and not just for tagging purposes. That whole sense of knowing she existed before the movie and outside of the 'ship.
Okay, Natasha/Bruce I can buy as depicted here if they're both epic unhealthy. It's not a 'ship, it's an ongoing plea for therapy. Her actual pitch is I'm a monster too we'll run away together. That's not ... no, nope, that's not good.
And it's not the good bits of Natasha/Bruce as I've seen them anywhere else. That way round she's already come to terms with the nasty stuff, together they realise there are no monsters here. Bad shit happened to them and they learned bad things to cope with it, but people are not monsters, they can be more than the worst days, they can cope and rise up.
This movie had Bruce threaten to kill someone without turning a little bit green, and that's... that's the wrong way, that's what he was so afraid of he made a Hulk persona in the first place, that's not good.
Meanwhile Natasha is being used to manipulate Hulk and Bruce more effectively, get them to flip persons on command, make him convenient, by making her his handler.
If this is what they bring out in each other? No. Walk away. There are seven billion people on earth and a great many of the others haven't beat each other up and manipulated each other and felt like monsters together. Elsewhere is probably healthier.
And Hulk does indeed walk away. Yaay big guy. It's probably just fear, but, you know, that's... that's a healthy fear, by then. She pushed him off a tall thing so he'd go green after he refused to. Hulk exists to protect Bruce. Leaving is self protective.
I just don't see why the movie did this to the two of them. People who 'ship them wanted their best selves in the ship, not this mess. People who don't 'ship them are going to bounce off the premise hard from the get go.
And why 'ship Nat with anyone? Her story arc last movie was superhero, in this one it was woman stereotypes. The story diminishes her.
So I very did not like that one. You might have noticed from my earlier review. Very no good.
But I like the idea of Clint and Laura. Which may seem surprising when compared to my epic Clint/Coulson fanfic reading. I get some somewhat irrational feels every time the writers shut down the possibility of queer readings on a character by making them het, but since they were thinking of them as het all along, that's... that's unhelpful. Thing is, given that my ongoing go to sleep Mary Sue epic involves me being married to Clint and us in a relationship with Coulson, this shuts down nothing. Even the raising his kids part is my happy place. And I like their kitchen. And have spent the last couple years collecting decorating magazines. His ongoing house remodelling would suit me fine.
The farm I'm less sold on, I'd have no clue what to do out there, and raising kids effectively alone, no, nope, even my daydream self needs a team for that, kids can outnumber grown ups loooooong before the number of bodies tips to that side. Being in the middle of nowhere such that a jet can land unnoticed, not my cup of tea at all. So a Clint who loves his farm is a different dude than the one I had in my head or my tiny Hawkeye collection where he's a landlord in New York. City mouse has opportunities for constant rebuilding and also nearby... everything. And far fewer things I'm allergic to. Like green. I'm ... not logically allergic to green, but not having sorted out which bit of the gardens I am in fact allergic to, it feels that way some months.
So the Clint in the film is not my daydream Clint, but the being married is not the reason. The one advantage to Laura being ... loving, supportive, and otherwise blank, is I can fit my fan self in there. She's a mask, like Coulson was but more so, a blank where a certain kind of identification through admiration can go. Cool. I can daydream as her now. Ish.
Clint having settled down with something constructive to do? Pretty cool for him.
Clint being married since he joined SHIELD? An entirely new vein of story to mine. Like, we know Nat is Auntie Natasha, do we know they're not in a poly relationship where she feels slightly left out due to infertility meaning all the babies are from the Bartons but the Bartons try to bring her in and reassure her, hence the naming the baby? That's a perfectly available reading.
Adding Coulson to it involves spinning stuff from whole cloth, but that is nothing new in this corner.
Though I think it's now movie canon that Fury brought Clint in and all the stuff we wrote as Coulson's, the extra close unbreakable work relationship and being the one and only person trusted with the secrets and so forth, that's actually Fury.
I won't be shipping Clint/Fury. ... I thought my reasons were maths, but then realised that Steve/Tony has an age gap like that and Xavier/Magneto has being old. Possibly it's race. I'd hate it if it were race. But it might be. I mean, if everything else about them is what we'd been writing Clint and Coulson as, then... *sighs*
From some angles the thing with Clint being married with children is helpful to Clint/Coulson, because it finishes explaining why Coulson hasn't told Clint he's alive. Like, layers of cheating angst? Possible even in acknowledged poly relationships, easily resolved. But layers of not wanting to endanger the kids? That explains everything. Coulson was trusting the system up until he stopped trusting himself, and without trusting himself he wouldn't get involved with those tiny lives. Add to this the whole thing where I stopped watching Agents of SHIELD while he was still trying to talk May into promising to kill him, which he wouldn't want his beloveds around for let alone their tiny childs, and we have a complete explanation for the utter absence of contact.
... yes we didn't need it, given that we're making this stuff up out of an absence in the first place, but we have it.
New canon does nothing to the story I've been trying to write, on account of the thing where trans!Clint and dragon!Coulson is a departure from canon already. Though I can now see how to AU my AU to incorporate it. Which isn't actually helping.
But part of why my Clint in fic is purple and not the MCU and Ults red is I am drawing on Fraction's Hawkeye and not very much on MCU Hawkeye on account of his prior bare existence. So now MCU went all Ults in the backstory, okay, does nothing to my canon selection process, I was already ignoring a universe where he was married.
Having feels about imaginary people having imaginary relationships in some but only some versions of fictional universes: humans, what are we like?
no subject
Date: 2015-05-01 12:22 pm (UTC)wow I will not jump all over them wording is hard fic is hard but
WOW so much wrong.
Because the first thing we do when there's new women? Get rid of them! Devalue them! Call them liars! FFS, wrong wrong wrong WRONG WRONG WRONG wrong and oh so predictable damn it this is what we do with nice things.
I think it's the 'just' that does it. I mean, if they said Laura is a surrogate and nanny, I don't think I'd have blown up. They clearly have a close and caring relationship. with kissing. so I don't think 'just' belongs in fanfic. Also carers are not 'just' anything.
but I will not say this at other people's fic.
they can think what they like.
I can strop about it here.