#and like meanwhile the king's been going through some care bear movie style what the fuck am i doing development

[mxbitters]

i just wish i could write some sort of high fantasy story that’s like based around  identity, particularly queer and racial identity, and also my hatred for colonizers but unfortunately i am Really Bad At Fiction,, also idk if it’d be considered high fantasy but regardless.. i.  i like my idea a lot..

#it's about these two boys who were like in a crew of bandits and were inseperable #one of them is indigenous (like..elf-ish idk how to make new things) and the other is whatever the equivalent of white in this world is #and like they kinda grow up together and at one point they're like really cute and like having big philosophical spiritual conversations #and like the former is in love with the latter and the latter.. idk let's say internalized homophobia #and anyway aforementioned white boy finds out he's the Long Lost Descendant Of A King whoop-de-doo #and so like he's told to go do it because he deserves to live a good life and the character i Relate To Too Much eventually leaves the bandi #bandits* because he doesn't want that to get in the way of their relationships. but something leads to something else and then like #the new king decides to seize the land they had lived on for millennia including sacred land and that's the last straw obviously #and so the character i am Projecting Onto re-enters this group and basically gets a fuck ton of pissed off people and monsters on his side #and like meanwhile the king's been going through some care bear movie style what the fuck am i doing development #and so like they push these assholes off their sacred land and then he realizes that lo and behold the government's shit and he like #he kills the old white guys or something (theyre probably sorcerers.. getting their power by sucking the life out of innocent people) #and maybe....... OOH maybe AHHHHHH by killing the old white sorcerer assholes the life goes back to the innocent people #and the final boss or something is the hardest battle of all probably bc he also has to fight his former friend/lover (catradora vibe ???) #bc he's used as a shield or something i dunno.. anyway once he kills the strangely mitch mcconnell looking asshole his bfs life comes back #and he's like what the fuck happened and then like they abolish the government and they all live in happy anarchy <3 #damn i came up with that whole last half just now.. #maybe i can write this but it won't be good lmao.. #hmm. can everybody tell i'm queer and lakota because yeah.. #this worldbuilding is gonna be a lot.. wait my friend's a dm maybe they can help if they don't mind.. AHHHHHH #wild. WILD #ideally a comic would be cool but i can't draw many angles..huh

[synthient]

So today I went “oh yeah, my university library/online database access is gonna be cut off soon. I’d better hurry up and research any last important topics I wanna know about”

.....and then I spent an hour doing very important 4Kids History Research

a summary:

It’s the 80s. Reagan-era deregulation has hit TV broadcasting, and most of the laws that used to limit the amount of kid-targeted advertising stations could air have been whooshed away.

Enter My Little Pony, Transformers, Care Bears, etc. And enter the company that will be 4Kids: Leisure Concepts Inc. 

Leisure Concepts is a “licensing company,” which evidently means “glorified toy marketer.” Their big claims to fame include: pitching Thundercats to Rankin Bass (and getting Thundercats toys into Burger King), and helping a mall outlet store set up its Budweiser Dog Mascot merch displays

Now it’s 1995, and the CEO of Leisure Concepts is openly, proudly talking about getting the company “vertically integrated” ajghalkhsg

Vertical integration was a form of Old Hollywood monopoly where companies like Warner Bros/MGM/Paramount owned the production (movie studios), exhibition (movie theaters), and distribution (advertising) of their movies. It was outlawed in the 50s for being Very Blatantly A Monopoly

But with all the Reaganism going on, I guess LC is confident they can get away with it lmao. They already have distribution/advertising, obviously, so they start working to assemble a production division. They’re thinking about calling it 4Kids Productions

At this point, Leisure Concepts has no intention of getting into the anime business. The first show they produce through their 4Kids arm is......a live-action Wrestlemania-style martial arts show???

Meanwhile, in 1997, a 4Kids employee takes a business trip to Japan for a toy convention, stumbles across the first few episodes of the Pokemon anime while he’s there, and goes “Dude. We could sell so many toys of this shit”

Leisure Concepts has apparently worked with Nintendo before (selling “Super Mario Bros. Christmas lights and ornaments” and “Game Boy shampoo” zkjgksgk), so they’re able to make a deal for the US licensing rights to Pokemon.

They still have zero intention of getting into anime dubbing. The deal they’re offering to the Pokemon Company is “We’ll find an American TV network for you to air your 20 minute toy ad (ahem) show on, set you up with some nice US toy companies, and take a percentage of the profits.”

But none of the networks they try selling Pokemon to want the Weird Japanese Animal Collecting Show. LC can’t accept that answer--they’re convinced, no matter what they naysayers think, that this is the toy-selling opportunity of the century

Finally, LC throws up their hands and goes “Fine! We have our own [brand-new, tiny] production company [that we’ve never used for anything besides making a bizarre campy martial arts show] now! If you idiots won’t take the show, we’ll dub it ourselves!”

And somehow, they manage it? They pull together enough translators/actors/etc to Dub This Damn Toy Ad practically overnight?? And apparently they get around the issue of not having a TV network by offering the first few episodes to stations for free???

Anyway, the next thing anyone knows, MSNBC is running segments on Pokemania, Pokemon is on the cover of Time Magazine, and every children’s anime producer in Japan is suddenly flinging their shows at the feet of 4Kids (which has literally never breathed in the anime business’s direction before this). 

And that’s how 4Kids faceplanted into becoming the world’s most (in)famous dubbing company when they Just Wanted To Sell Toys

[dontcallmecarrie]

Natasha's judgment is so off for a spy. Could we get insight as to how they're thinking? I know you wrote a chapter but maybe some backstory or such to explain why she dislikes Tony on principle? Why she's so quick to insult Maria and choose Steve? Is she caught up in the goodness and honestly Steve seems to project? Does her judgment on his decisions become biased bc she's used to reading ppl who mean harm not ppl who unintentionally/subconsciously harm? Does Steve make her feel like she's good

I’ll see what I can do to clarify this in-story, because odds are you’re not the only one who’s seeing it. Hopefully, though, at least some of my reasoning showed through.

Under the cut, because cue meta and you guys know how much I ramble when I get going:

There’s several factors to it all:

First and foremost, there’s the unreliable narrator thing to consider. 

JARVIS, for instance, hasn’t trusted her since before she stabbed Tony in the neck, back in IM2. 

Add to that how he died trying to protect Tony [and at least managed to give a bit of a warning, when the Penthouse Incident happened], coming back online [with all the trauma that entails, even if he doesn’t quite show it], to see Natasha doing absolutely nothing while Tony was a flick of the wrist from a snapped neck, and you get a budding Skynet who harbors absolutely no goodwill towards Natasha Romanov [and it shows through in his POV, even if it’s hopefully subtle].

Tony’s slightly more chill, but he’s known that Natasha doesn’t like him, and after the disaster that was his sole attempt to reach out towards Bruce, well…once bitten, twice shy. 

Then, during the Penthouse Incident, he’s 50% on the defensive while the other 50% is in shock because JARVIS died and only Maria Hill even cared. [That he was being attacked was secondary, at that point.] So when someone’s attacking the only one who gives a damn about JARVIS, Tony’s not exactly feeling very charitable towards the woman who introduced herself as Natalie Rushman. 

…also, anyone notice the codependence going on between Tony and JARVIS? There’s a reason I’ve been warning for it.

As for my take on Natasha’s perspective: I did my best, and hopefully my dislike didn’t show [much]. 

Thing is, TWiFFON is a spitefic at heart.

I started it in reaction to the turn the fandom took when it comes to Tony Stark especially after Civil War, so I’m not going to be exactly very friendly towards Natasha [or anyone on Team Cap for that matter, if you guys haven’t already noticed]. 

And that leads me to the next point.

Fun fact: I actually like Natasha, for the most part. Her characterization throughout the entirety of the MCU’s been through the wringer, fluctuating from movie to movie, though, and I took advantage of that when I outlined this fic.

See, Phase1-and-pre-AoU!Natasha’s got a good head on her shoulders. Her, I like: she’s badass and loyal to people rather than institutions and ruthless enough to do what’s necessary to keep her people safe [gee doesn’t that sound familiar]. She’s outwitted Loki [even if he was under the influence of the Scepter at the time], and survived the Red Room, for crying out loud! [If you’ve read my fic idea Welcome to the Family, you know that’s the one I had in mind at the time of writing.]

…however, that’s not the Natasha we’ve seen recently.

Phase2-especially-post-AoU!Natasha didn’t think to call the genius who’s company she infiltrated during a time they could’ve really used his expertise, didn’t see the problem in letting the fugitives she’d been helping chase go, and didn’t think twice about attacking the Crown Prince of a monarchy that just lost its King. I know it’s probably just bad writing in general [where the hell did the Bruce/Natasha thing even come from? Or the wanting a kid thing?! Canon or not, that’s just…nope], but still.

She unironically tried to go “I’m not the one who should watch my back”, in Civil War, despite having painted a target on anyone she ever worked with [yes I’m still salty about it], so it really should be no surprise that this is the Natasha I have in mind when writing TWiFFON. [Not very nice, but like I said, spitefic.]

So, that’s a good chunk on my approach to Natasha, right there. The rest involves her backstory.

I’ve yet to read a comic, but via tumblr and Phase 1, I got the feeling that the Red Room isn’t exactly very kind. [No comment on Phase 2′s interpretation bc I hate AoU with a passion rivaled only by Civil War.] As such, I can extrapolate from there that Natasha’s had some hardcore training, and to be fair, she’s very good at what she does, and her confidence in her skills is mostly justified.

However, she’s been born and raised as a living weapon, a child soldier and spy: that skillset is not exactly conductive towards being an analyst, or tactician.

Infiltrate consulates and take out hit squads singlehandedly? Sure. Reading people for the short term so she can use that to her advantage? Absolutely. But what she gets up to later on in the MCU is nowhere in her job description [coughcough*analysisinIM2*cough]. She can make a decent facsimile of it, sure, but she just isn’t qualified to diagnose people [though I have a headcanon for that scenario that explains why, but that’s something for another post].

But she can read people very well, and since it’s worked thus far, Natasha doesn’t think twice about it. Due to the life she’s had, she doesn’t look back, which I completely understand because if she had she might’ve drowned in regret because I get the feeling the Red Room’s upbringing was nothing less than cutthroat. Those two things get a special mention because of how she’s introduced to Tony.

Now, let me backtrack a little: I’ve done some meta before on how good Tony is at masks, enough so that he’s fooling everyone even as he’s dying. He grew up in front of the cameras, and learned how to work them from a master of the art [his mom, in my AUs].

So, when a spy rocks up expecting a show, Tony puts it on, and Natasha buys it. I don’t doubt she twisted some things to suit the analysis at the end, of course, but between his public image and his masks, Natasha ends up falling in the same trap everyone else does.

Anyone who gets close to him knows it’s bull, but since Tony in TWiFFON is more guarded than ever before, and he’s not about to let Natasha in now.

As for Steve Rogers…Tony’s image is a general “everyone knows” thing; it’s subtle and low-key “oh what’s he done now? Another Fashion Week Fiasco?” Kardashian-style sort of thing, which is part of why Natasha fell for it. Steve’s image, on the other hand, was blatant propaganda since the start and only became more so over time […I wonder what the Second Red Scare would’ve looked like, in the MCU now, ngl], so for Natasha, with her Red Room upbringing, it’s pretty damn easy for her to tell. 

From when she first meets Steve, and later on down the road, it’s a no-brainer to look past the propaganda and notice the lonely man who’s adrift in a world that’s moved on without him. And from there, it’s very [almost scarily, for someone who’s very guarded when it comes to personal stuff] easy to make friends. 

Steve sees Natasha where others see the Black Widow, which isn’t something many people do [Phil and Clint’re the exception, not the norm], though, so it makes sense that she warms up to him so quickly. Plus he’s a good man, and given the life she’s had, Natasha can fully appreciate just how few of them there are in the world.

And since we’ve already established that Natasha’s fiercely protective of the few people she likes, it makes sense she’s just as fierce to attack if the situation ever arises.

During the Penthouse Incident, Natasha’s immediate take-away of the situation was: Tony’d fucked up somehow and needed to own up to it, meanwhile Maria Hill was on his payroll, defending him when he was in the wrong, and had a gun pointed in the general direction of the people she liked more than the people she didn’t. Of course Natasha was going to yell at her for it! 

And it wasn’t like Thor was going to hurt Tony or anything, his hand was obviously positioned in a way that was meant to be nonlethal and if he’d really wanted to kill Tony his grip would’ve been different.

After the fact, once Ultron’s made clear just what he is, she’s mildly apologetic about it. But since she didn’t really like Tony anyway and Maria Hill seemed to have forgotten about it, well, it wasn’t like it was anything major anyway, right?

...meanwhile, Maria’s very good at hiding her grudge and venting whenever she’s at one of the SWORD meet-ups while the others are patting her on the back while continuing to plan Phase 3 and checking out rich protocols, but that’s a story for another day.

Also: bear in mind that Natasha, in my AUs, has the Red Room’s version of the serum, so she forgets that not everyone’s as durable as she is. [that’s the only explanation for why I see her being so chill during That One Scene because the alternative’s incoherent internal screaming]

#behind the scenes #meta #if you're going to be evil might as well do it right meta #now the time is here for iron man to spread fear #if you're going to be evil might as well do it right #The War is Far From Over Now #Natasha Romanov #Headcanon #kinda #canon went screwy years back here's my attempt to fix it