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alloftheblackwidowfeelings · 3 years

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Kid Natasha stalked away looking upset when Melina was comforting Yelena. What did you make of it? Was she shrinking away from Melina's gentleness? From the always present knowledge it was part of an act, even if it felt so real? Or was she reacting to Yelena's vulnerability, so easily on display, so unacceptable in the Red Room? Was there some resentment that she wasn't treated so kindly at the same age?

I feel like I keep saying this about this movie, but this is another one of those situations that I love because every read is awful but also every read informs Natasha's adulthood differently.

I'm gonna go into detail with each of these, and a few more besides, because it's so bad and that makes it so good.

The one thing I think we 100% get from it is how each of them has adjusted to living as a family: Melina knows how to play her part well (with an asterisk). Yelena accepts this as the norm. And Natasha is in that awful in-between place, where she knows she's living in a lie but everything around her insists it's true and even if she has three years of proof of consistency, she doesn't trust it- which, later that day, she's shown to be right not to trust.

Is Melina a good mom? She definitely plays the part of a good mom. She definitely knows how to put on the performance of being a good mom. I don't know if that's the same thing, and more importantly, don't know if Nat or Yelena would think it is; pretty much everyone i know who has significant trauma struggles to reconcile the facade presented to the world against what really went down, and that has to be even harder when the facade was presented even to them. Alexei and Melina both insist they played their roles to perfection, but they were roles. Part of that seeps in. At the end of the day, Natasha was willing to pick up a gun to protect Yelena, while Melina and Alexei were both just fine putting Nat and Yelena in a plane to be shot at.

How did Melina feel about all of it? We know she couldn't have kids of her own (she's been cycled through 4x); we know she doesn't want to go but not only does so anyway but also tells Yelena they're going "home" (echoed, obviously, later with the pigs- "go home where it's safe" even though the home she took them back to was anything but). Was being a parent an act for Melina the way it was for Alexei? Was she comforting Yelena because she was supposed to? Or was she offering what she'd never gotten but wished she had? Natasha said that what Melina had given them was what got them through the Red Room, but how much was intentional parenting and how much was performing and how much was playing house in between experiments in the SHIELD labs? Melina says she didn't raise them to be weak; how much was involved in that?

(The girls do backbends for fun in the backyard; we know gymnastics and ballet are part of Red Room training for Widows. How much of Melina's parenting was preparing them for the world and how much was preparing them for the Red Room? Was it to help them or because she had to?)

After at least two years in the Red Room (because we know Nat was younger than six when she started and this mission has been three years), it's pretty amazing she's able to respond to gentleness as well as she does. How could it not seem like a trap? Yelena isn't a spy; she's living the life the family set up. But Natasha is old enough to see the cracks and know she has to pretend not to.

And seeing Yelena's vulnerability, as you said, must have been terrifying, because vulnerability came with consequences. We see in Cuba that Nat wants to protect Yelena; it must seem like Yelena, crying just from falling down, is painting a giant glowing neon target on her own back. Or is this the RIGHT way to behave? If being better at undercover means showing weakness, what is a baby Widow supposed to do? And how does this reflect in how Natasha as an adult responds to vulnerability, when she needs to offer it and when she needs to (but often can't) accept it?

There's also the theory that she felt responsible for hurting Yelena- did she not want to get in trouble? Did she not want to deal with her guilt for harming her? Did she just not want to see Yelena hurt? Or was she remembering a time when hurt children did not get kisses and firefly lectures, when girls face off in a ring and snap each other's necks?

I feel like all of these are very real possibilities and all of them are terrible but fascinating to explore, and the only thing they have in common is that Natasha, especially as a kid, has absolutely no sense of what is a logical consequence of any given act. The same things that were unacceptable in one context were encouraged in another. The Red Room clearly got under her skin but then she had to spend three years pretending it didn't, and then get right back into it. I mean, shit. It was, what, twelve hours between being encouraged to call their "mom" about Yelena's scraped knee, and Alexei telling her to not try to protect her sister from being kidnapped to the Red Room, which Nat knows for a fact is an abusive murder factory because she's lived there and doesn't want to go back?

Yeah, there's no read here that doesn't hurt.

And I can absolutely understand people who see this as the text not committing to a single read, but to me, it's the text allowing for all the reads at once. This movie had to straddle the line of being a PG-13 movie about severe child abuse, and it leans heavily on giving us just enough to make any read we could figure out feel horrifying.

I think I might feel differently if Nat had more of a future in the MCU, which- as far as we know at this point and hopefully subject to change- she does not. For me it's a kaleidoscope of pain, and every possible twist reveals new ways for us to interpret Natasha. And if we're not going to get new things to interpret, I like that we have this many lenses to use on what we've already got.

#allofthereplies #Anonymous #Black Widow movie spoilers #BW spoilers #Ohio 1995 #Melina Vostokoff #Natasha Romanoff #Yelena Belova #cw: abuse

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ohmymerlyn · 4 years

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this is the face of someone who deserves to live happily ever after in his own personal wonderland

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allofthefeelings · 4 years

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A Good Thing about the rumors the Black Widow characters spent a few years undercover as a family is that it gives me a way to look at fanart of young!Nat and young!Yelena without cringing, because based on everything I understand about canon, them fighting OR showing affection could both be enough to get one or the other killed.

#Black Widow #Black Widow movie #BW spoilers #BW speculation #cw: abuse

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queenspy · 4 years

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black widow au where black widow isn't played by a transphobe, marvel stops treating weight like a joke, and the women in natasha's life aren't erased

#ooc.#black widow spoilers /#bw spoilers /#spoilers cw

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officialcharactersimp · 3 years

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Best of Friends

Summary: "Like they were in the red room together and they’re best friends and now talking all about stuff yknow and accidental confession of feelings OwO" is the actual note I left myself

A/N: sdaklfjsdsf fluffy it's just fluffy ok leave me alone I had the want to write it and so I did. I also have 2 more parts already (one almost finished, one half-finished). WC: 1.2k

my carrd masterlist

please reblog my posts!!! it feeds my soul and fuels my writing :)

CW: fluff :3; maybe minor bw spoilers?? don't think so but just to be safe; mentions of sexytimes; reader says no thanks to sexytimes and yelena is like ok that's fine :); reader was a widow but that doesn't mean they haven't since discovered that they are not in fact cisgender :)

“Have you ever had a crush on anyone?” Yelena asks you. You sit up and look at her. She sits up too, crossing her legs and adjusting herself on the queen-sized bed. You’d managed to snag an apartment with two bedrooms, but both were cramped and there wasn’t a common space to sit—just a bathroom and hallway-turned-kitchenette between the two rooms, so you both often ended up in one of your rooms to hang out. This evening, it was hers.

“Yelena, I’ve been in the red room since I was six, same as you, and it’s not like I’ve really met anybody in the past month and a half,” you say. “I’ve been mind controlled for all the years I would have a crush.”

“Well, we still felt things,” she said, looking at her lap. “We just couldn’t do or say anything.”

“Did you have any crushes?” you turn the question back onto her.

“Oh, of course. A few little ones, but there was always one that never left me alone,” she sighs. “I spilled my beans, now your turn,” she pokes at your knee.

“Alright, alright, I had one or two, too, mostly later on,” you admit.

“You were quite a late bloomer,” she recalls, making you blush. You were the last of your class to get the hysterectomy, considering they preferred to do it one you were “fully matured.” “I’m only teasing,” she assures you.

“I know, Lena,” you say.

“So who were yours,” she grins.

“No way!” you scoff.

“Okay, just the biggest one, and I’ll tell you mine too,” she says. “We’ll do it at the same time.”

“Alright, alright, fine!” You yield, heart beating so hard you swear it’s visible.

“3…” Yelena begins

“2…” you say.

“1!” you both shout.

“You!” you both shout in unison. An almost dopey grin spreads across her face as you slap your hand over your mouth in surprise, letting out a shrill laugh.

“Do you still?” you ask after a minute, your blush spreading down across your chest.

“Do you?” her question answers yours.

“Mhm,” you nod bashfully.

“I’ve crushed on you since we were 11,” she admits.

“I was 15,” you giggle. “I had all these dreams about kissing someone, and before I woke up I would see it was you, but only for a second,” you said softly.

“You used to throw your hand over the side of the bed, into the gap between ours. I always put it back when I saw, for your elbow’s sake, but sometimes I would hold it just for a second,” she confessed. “Oh my god, that’s so creepy,” she lamented.

“It’s okay, Lena,” you put your hand over hers. “We had so little comfort or contact there, I really don’t mind. It’s kind of nice to know, actually,” you say.

“So long as you don’t think I’m creepy,” she says with relief.

“Aw, of course I think you’re creepy. But not because of that,” you laugh, making her shove you with her free hand playfully. She interlaces your fingers and squeezes.

“You’re creepy too.”

“Thank you,” you hum softly.

You both sit there for a bit, holding hands and smiling at each other, basking in the moment you’ve both daydreamed about for years inside your mental prisons, a spark of hope and joy finally realized.

“What do you say about making your dreams come true?” she says, cocky and mischievous.

“Like, kissing?” you ask. She nods. “O-okay, yeah, that’d be nice,” for someone trained in keeping their cool, you’re failing fantastically at it in this moment.

“Still so innocent somehow,” she hums, bringing a hand to the nape of your neck, then sliding it to the back of your head to pull you in gently. She meets you halfway and then her soft lips are on hers, gentle and reassuring. You bring your hands to rest lightly on her waist, letting your eyes close and your body relax.

Without your surgery done until later, you never went on many missions that involved seduction, and you’ve never kissed a girl. Her lips are so fucking soft.

“So sweet,” she pulls back, resting your foreheads together. You press your noses together and smile. “Is it everything you dreamed of?” she smirks.

“And more,” you confirm.

“You want some more?” she teases.

“Yes please,” you say, trying not to sound too desperate.

“I’m more than happy to oblige,” her voice sounds a little husky as she pushes you back down to lay on the bed, settling over you before kissing you again.

“Lena,” you gasp between kisses. “How the fuck are your lips so soft?” you ask.

“Chapstick, dekta,” she says back when she can. You stick your tongue out at her, a little whimper of surprise making its way out of your throat as she takes it as an opportunity to slide your tongues together and gain entrance to your mouth.

You follow her lead, letting her explore and tentatively doing the same, trying to contain any more of your sounds. You’ve never kissed anybody like this before. You’re floating on cloud nine in the whole situation, hardly able to believe it.

“Let me hear you, dekta,” she says when you pull back for air. “You always sound so cute, I’ll bet you’re downright adorable when you whimper for me,” she says.

“Okay, okay, I will,” you say. “Just don’t stop, please,” you beg. She chuckles and goes back to kissing you, and now you let out all the little whimpers and whines that were trying to escape beforehand. She hums happily into the kiss.

“Absolutely precious,” she confirms. “So good for me,” she praises, you whine a little louder. “You like that?” she asks. You nod frantically. “Like it when I tell you how good you are? How about when I tell you that you’re my favorite?” she presses further. You hum happily, flushing red again.

“So cute,” she says, nuzzling her face into your neck. You run your hands up and down her back, enjoying the pressure of her body on yours and relaxing.

“I’m not cute,” you say. “I’m a trained killing machine.”

“Still cute,” she says. “Even if it’s just for me to see,” she kisses your jaw. You feel one of her legs slotting between yours. “Unless you want to keep it here tonight,” there’s no pressure or expectation in the question, so you answer honestly.

“Can we just kiss and cuddle?” you ask. “I’m just—it’s not you, it’s just a lot—“

“It’s okay, dekta,” she hushes you. “I know, it can be a lot. Don’t worry. There’s plenty of time for me to take you apart later,” she says with a smirk you can hear.

“Is that a promise?”

“Just you wait, mladenec,” she says. “But for now, come here,” she rolls you both to your sides and brings her lips back to yours. She doesn’t have to tell you twice.

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falllpoutboy · 3 years

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my spoilery review of bw

first let my acknowledge my hypocrisy by saying that i know i said i wasn’t going to watch or support this movie but eventually my mom convinced me to put it on so we watched it at home on our pirate site 🤷🏾‍♀️ i am not giving disney my money for a film that should’ve came out five (5!!!!) years ago; spoilers under the cut ⬇

that being said the biggest highlight of this film was

the action set pieces, especially the budapest chase and the prison breakout scenes

the different atmosphere of the film setting it apart from the standard marvel, for a majority of the film (i would say 2/3) it actually felt like a action-spy thriller

the emotional story told that tells a very important lesson/moral of the story: that women should always have the ability to make their own choices in life and it is exemplified through many plot points within it (how yelena broke free of control and bought that green vest for herself, her first personal item, how pre-shield agent nat chose to sacrifice dreykov’s daughter and by the end of the movie chose to save her being trapped in that room knowing she would have to fight her again, and how the recovered widows went back for yelena and co) it’s honestly quite a powerful message for women around the world who aren’t liberated and don’t have the power to choose what to do with their lives

the biggest con of this film of course, the fact that THIS MOVIE DIDN’T OUT IMMEDIATELY AFTER CIVIL WAR DID 5 YEARS AGO!! it would’ve been the perfect bridge between cw and iw and it makes the decision to kill her off in endgame even worse than it already was. think about it: the post credits scene for endgame could’ve been the same exact post credits scene from bw, yelena going to visit nat’s grave and getting the assignment to kill clint from val (also setting up fatws). it is the most frustrating thing as an mcu fan to watch, as good as this movie is, the fact that its 4-5 years too late is the most upsetting part.

#black widow spoilers #bw spoilers #gonna make a another post talking abt taskmaster and the widow family bc i have some thoughts on that #scarjo's performance is roughly the same as her performance in endgame so take that with a grain of salt #everyone else did okay #florence pugh is good #the child actor who played young natasha was great

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rusofobnikocourek · 4 months

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[version with colours]

the translation is kinda rough bc for me it's rlly difficult to translate poems but still I PROMISE I'VE TRIED

CW: spoilers to manga, flashing lights, poor editing skills

there's also black-white version (i'm not sure which one looks better, ig maybe BW, but i've made the colorful one bc i wanted colours to have some meaning?? anyway)

black&white version here

credits:

i've found this sound on tiktok and as far as i understand it's a mash-up cover to 'Mary on a cross' with lyrics being replaced with a poem of Ukrainian writer, so:

lyrics — Vasyl Symonenko's poetry, "скажи,ну хіба не фантастично"

melody — Ghost, 'Mary on a cross'

cover — (link below)

#rontoto #kamonohashironedit #kamonohashi ron no kindan suiri #ron kamonohashi #totomaru isshiki #and my poor editing&translation

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dreadnought-dear-captain · 4 years

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You Asked, I Told

**Contains spoilers for Baghdad Waltz up to chapter 36 and the movie Soldier’s Girl (noted below); CW for some general discussion on the subject of writing about childhood sexual abuse**

Hello everyone!

I’m so sorry I’ve been so neglectful of my inbox and slow to answer Ao3 comments lately :( I have so, so many wonderful asks here, and I want to push out a few batches of answers in the next couple of weeks. I’m a little over 2/3 of the way through Chapter 37 of BW, which will probably be hovering around the 20k word count. But Bucky and Steve will be having their first therapy session! With Claire Temple! And it’s going to be… Well, it’s Bucky and Steve, so stay tuned.

You are too kind, and I’m actually bummed that BW has changed people’s enjoyment of other fics, because this is not the first time I’ve heard this, and it’s certainly not my intent. I’m glad you enjoy the minor characters here, because they have been very fun to create. I have loads of backstory that will never see the light of day, and I adore them so much. As to the second part, I’m reading this as your wondering a couple things: 1) perhaps questioning Steve’s level of devotion to Bucky (or just marveling at it, if this is a rhetorical question), and 2) perhaps also questioning Thor’s assessment that Bucky is the guy you fuck, not the guy you settle down with.

In terms of Steve’s love, some would say that Steve is clearly devoted because Bucky is a very hard person to be in a relationship with, and the fact that he’s still even around is a sign of his devotion. Others would say that he hasn’t done enough to show how much he loves him, that he should do more, because Bucky is suffering so much and needs a lot of support now. We all have our own interpretations of what “enough” is, and I see this a lot in the comments section of BW. I appreciate multiple perspectives on this, and I think we all come at this from our own experiences on one side or the other of relationships like this. I think readers tend to fall on the side of one character or the other, and the Bucky people might err on the side of believing that Steve is not doing enough (or doing the wrong things) and the Steve people might err on the side that Bucky, although clearly suffering, is not considering the ways in which Steve is devoted and the ways in which he hurts Steve. I love both of these characters and am not overly devoted to either, so I see both of their perspectives and aim to write from both sides.

As for Bucky being too “wild” and not being the kind you marry/settle with, I don’t know if we can really trust Thor’s assessment of this situation. He didn’t know Bucky for long, and the time he knew him was at a time when Bucky was pretty low in personal insight. Although Bucky has proven himself adept at committing to an arduous career and excelling greatly, Bucky still does struggle to commit in relationships. But to say that he’s “wild” could be a bit of a misnomer. Pan the camera one way, and he looks like a fun and wild party guy who loves to drink and fuck and has a charismatic, wild personality that is irresistible. Pan the camera the other way and you’ve got someone who’s desperately trying to manage his emotions with alcohol and sex and sometimes can’t, a guy who is essentially “wild and charismatic” because he has trouble with emotional and interpersonal regulation due an extensive history of trauma. As he works to uncover and confront his history, we will have to see how things unfold and whether he commits to engaging with care for himself after his rift with Scott.

I hope this addresses your Ask!

I have had a good deal of interaction with the military system in my life through various channels and have also done a LOT of research. For every military-heavy chapter, I look over a ton of regulations (even weapons manuals - fun!), talk to Army veteran friends and associates who are very generous with their time, watch documentaries, scour the internet for hours and hours and HOURS and just do… a lot. Which is part of why this fic is so slow to come out.

I just want to say thank you for this. I don’t know if this comment still holds for you, because I received it between chapters 35 and 36, but this is one of the things that I feel the absolute most anxiety about when I post this fic. The last thing I want to do is write anything that is going to be exploitative, especially since I know how many people in the general population have experienced childhood sexual abuse. I agonize over how much detail to include, because I don’t want to include unnecessary details just for shock value. However, I also don’t want to avoid the content if it’s part of the character’s internal experience. In chapter 36, for example, it was important for me to convey what it was like for Bucky to experience an intrusive memory of his abuse, because that is consistent with how I write the internal experiences of my characters. It’s part of my style and part of why people read BW, I think. To back away now because it contains this kind of content would be a disservice to the character and his experience, because this is important to his life and the person he’s become.

But I also don’t want it to just be an opportunity for readers to be like ohhhhh all the DETAILS WOWWW. So with everything that I write, I strive to think - what is the purpose of what I’m including? Is this consistent with the way a network of traumatic memories would operate? What’s the cue in the environment that would light this up? If the purpose is character development or plot progression, I can justify including the details. In chapter 36, for example, it was important for us to see that Bucky is allowing himself to remember his past, that it’s dysregulating him, which lead to his rift with Scott and his relapse. All character and plot points. But if it’s just for funsies or for some Jerry Springer-style reveal to shock the readers, or anything even close to that, I would try my hardest to screen for that. As for creating an arbitrary tragic backstory for some other character to heal, I can see how that would be a tempting thing to do for a writer. Although this is a part of Bucky’s history, and although there could be times when he feels like it defines him, challenging that may also be part of his journey. And I’m sure Steve would love if he could heal Bucky with the power of his love (or cock magic) alone. If only.

Thanks so much for this.

This is a good question. As you’ve seen, people certainly can have profound functional impairment when their symptoms come to a head, to the point where hospitalization is sometimes the best option. Bucky has made great strides in his recovery and has accumulated a lot of skills from AA and DBT that he didn’t have before, even with a meltdown and a relapse thrown in there. I know it’s sometimes really hard to see how far he’s come, but he’s traveled lightyears from overdosing at the Holiday Inn on Long Island.

That being said, this reaction isn’t extremely promising, given the implication that these are just the first real burbles of his traumatic past rising to the surface. I’d say a few things could happen as more of this starts to emerge.

1) He could do as you say, decompensate, have a lot of trouble functioning in his daily life, maybe go into some sort of partial hospitalization or inpatient hospitalization. This option would allow him to be in a controlled environment, the kind of place where he might be able to manage this stuff without other demands getting in the way.

2) He could rely very heavily on coping skills and social supports to manage this stuff as it comes up, and maybe it doesn’t overtake him completely. This would be extremely challenging because it would require him to reach out for help and accept it.

3) He could find some way to stop this process altogether by resuming drinking or some other maladaptive coping behavior. This would be very tempting for him, especially as things get exponentially more difficult.

Importantly, Bucky is still the same person as he was before, in terms of the primary effects his traumatic history has had on his life. What’s really in question here is his ability to face his memories and the truth of his own experience, which he can’t run from anymore because his old compartmentalization and avoidance strategies are falling apart. I think a lot will depend on whether he continues to make himself an island or whether he lets others close to him to support and assist him in this process. So much of the latter depends on trust and his sense of personal and emotional safety, which have been deeply shaken by his experiences. This makes everything so much more challenging. We’ll have to see how it all unfolds!

Thanks for the Ask!

**CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE**

UGH. Okay, I rented this DVD from Netflix when I got this Ask, because I thought, hey, why not… and then it sat on my shelf unwatched for about seven weeks. Netflix probably thought I just kept it. Obviously I have a pretty thick skin, given the shit I write about, but I was dreading watching it. The sleeve gives the plot away, so I knew what was coming, but God, kill me.

I died over a lot of the military inaccuracies, but it’s a TV movie, so it kind of gets a pass I guess. And it took place at Fort Campbell, Bucky’s least favorite place on Earth! This movie is also a creature of its time, which was fascinating in itself - a cis man playing a trans woman (megasigh, although admirably well), the commentary after from people on an active DADT policy still in effect, which was incredible. It seems so ridiculous to me now that it was ever in effect, especially when I recall the arguments against allowing open service for LGBQ folks (“but they’ll look at my butt in the showers!!”), and I wonder what kind of world we would have if Bill Clinton had gotten his way when he was elected and didn’t have to compromise with DADT.

It was very interesting to hear Barry’s sexuality being questioned so much because he was in love with a trans woman. The film makers talked about him “discovering something about his sexuality” because he was in this sexual relationship with her — like what? There was a lot of implication throughout the film and special features that trans women aren’t real women. And perhaps some of this stuff speaks to some level of sexual flexibility that might be present in someone who’s happy to give oral sex to a woman with a penis etc., so okay, I can buy that perhaps. But a small amount of flexibility is not necessary sexual confusion or radical sexual discovery, and it’s certainly not gayness or a sign that he’s not straight (though he may have been somewhere else on the sexuality spectrum, but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with having romantic/sexual feelings for a trans woman). But there was an odd cissexist/transphobic thread that ran through the whole film, even though the actors and production team were clearly very enthusiastic about the story and sensitive to the characters. And Barry’s mother was straight up like “maybe they were just friends, who knows.” [sigh] I dunno.

But to the point of what actually happened to Barry - God. That was rough. It reminds me of kids who are bullied for being gay perhaps because they’re not masculine enough, etc. and end up killing themselves, even though they’re not gay. His death was brutal and shocking and horrible, and it gave me kind of a “Boys Don’t Cry” feel for me, but in reverse? If that makes any sense. The way he was ostracized by his peers made me sad, especially when he was working so hard to integrate into his unit, and it reminded me of all of the people who were victims of the witch hunts prior to DADT and even after, how lonely that must have been, how devastating to one’s career and connections to their military family. It’s one of the reasons Bucky tried so hard to appear either extremely occupied or extremely straight. But overall, I thought the movie did a good job of making this a love story and not fetishizing Calpernia’s trans-ness, and I thought it was pretty balanced and nuanced for a 2003 movie trying to tackle this subject matter. I’m glad I watched this, even though the end was awful. I think I left feeling kind of good about the love story, imperfectly told as it was.

Thanks for the rec!

**END SPOILERS**

Oh god, I am so bad about Tumblr and everything else. I’m sorry for being so bad at all the tasks of maintaining a presence on social media etc. and yeah. I feel bad about it. I’m basically a social media renunciate in my personal life (my job is YOU NEED A LINKEDIN and I am cry), so it’s really not a habit in my fandom life. Thank you for your support (and the EG dig <3), and I’ll keep plugging away!

Please, please no worries!! I didn’t take it like that. I just want people to know that I’m working really hard and would get these out to you so much faster if I could. I know you’re all waiting and I wish I could deliver faster, but alas, adulthood. And I want these chapters to be as good as I can make them and sometimes writing is just really fucking hard, especially when your characters are falling apart. I do love them and telling this story and sharing it with all of you, so thank you for being awesome <3

I will have more “You Asked” soon! Thank you so much for dropping me these messages. I am thrilled to get them, and I promise I will get to them all.

#you asked #asks #send me asks

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justreadingfics · 5 years

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Thoughts on Endgame?

Oh, my…

Spoilers under the cut.

First of all, let me clarify this. Despite the hate they get from the fandom, I’m a fan of the Russos. I think they had a great part on making MCU as big as it is now, by

making some damn good quality cinema content, like The Winter Soldier and Civil War, my two favorites. I always liked marvel films, but it was those two that hit me hard and dragged me deep into the fandom. Captain America being as great as he is now is a result of an amazing work by Chris Evans and the Russos, imao.

About Endgame: I think it’s a PHENOMENAL movie. I love it. Not ever a movie has brought me so many different emotions like this one! Cap grabbing the hammer? Epic. The climax battle scene? Unforgettable. They knew how important these scenes were and filmed them to be huge and poetic, which they are.

I’ve watched the movie 3 times and I’m getting ready for my 4th in a couple of weeks. All the times I watched it, the emotions got stronger and stronger. I LOVE THIS MOVIE. Tony’s death? I already expected that and I really liked how they handled the whole thing. Nat’s death? A great service for BW movie. NEBULA???? I’M IN LOVE WITH HER.

Did I love everything? Of course not.

I wish I could enjoy Steve’s end more… It’s not about ships. I haven’t cared about romantic

Stucky for a long time now, and we all knew Staron wouldn’t happen on mcu.

I get why they did that, and I could enjoy it and appreciate it more if they had explained the whole timeline/parallel reality better. I mean, what the hell happened there? I’ve seen a lot of theories, but all of them still have one or more plot holes.

I absolutely hate the theory that there were two Steves in the same timeline and he being Peggy’s husband all along. For me, it taints the movies so far, specially TWS and CW (my very favorites). And if it was a different reality, how did he come back to his old one to give Sam the shield (loved that, btw)?

This kind of troubles always happen when they use

time travel. It shouldn’t matter so much, and I’m trying not to dwell on it.

I understand why they chose that end for Steve and I think it fits his MCU version if you consider it represents a full circle for him, but I wish they had explained it better… who knows, maybe in another movie/series.

Well, all in all, I LOVED AVENGERS: ENDGAME and I’m really happy I could experience it. I always thought about Star Wars and how it was back then. Now I’ll be able to tell other generations how crazy this whole thing was.

#avengers endgame spoilers #avengers: endgame spoilers #a4 spoilers #endgame spoilers

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seekingxanadu · 3 years

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Hi, I don't Know your stance on Stephanie Brown but please take a look at what the CW has done to her in Batwhaman.

I like Steph. There is an interesting story to tell about her. Villain's daughter who became a hero. Her personal tragedies can be used to make her a well-rounded character. That said, I am not a fan of the Steph as NW narrative- in fact, loathe it lol.

As for BW, the news said the show would use Cluemaster and then showed Steph. I'm kinda concerned that they will make her CM, I really hope not. I hope she is Spoiler. (One fear: hope they didn't give her red hair because she will be Batgirl. Similar to how Rocksteady thought some Batgirl was Robin's gf so instead of asking DC they randomly paired Babs with Tim.)

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alloftheblackwidowfeelings · 3 years

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I feel like we should talk about Nat's tendency of allowing herself to be physically harmed to achieve her goals in situations where there are arguably other options that don't involve her getting beat up.

Anon, this has been straight-up murdering me for the past two weeks, and I love it.

(Content warnings for self-harm and suicidal ideation, because I think when we’re talking about the Widows’ self-preservation instincts that can’t b e left out of the discussion.)

Because it’s not just Natasha. All the Widows prioritize their own safety significantly underneath the mission. Their objective is more important than them personally. And while it’s easy to point to what was done to them- how Dreykov’s control meant he determined it, as epitomized by the Widow who had to self-terminate- we also see it elsewhere, from Melina not wanting to leave Ohio but going anyway to Yelena being willing to sacrifice her own life to kill Dreykov.

We see that they’re all kind of cogs in a machine, at least in the mind of Dreykov and his associates. They seeing the girls as interchangeable and only valuable insofar as they’re useful. The Morocco mission shows how much the Widows don’t even blink at unpleasant tasks, right up until being forced to actually self-destruct. It’s that ingrained in them.

As much as I’ve always argued that Nat’s primary motivator is protecting people, especially girls, it’s striking to see how MUCH they show that here, how she is happy to repeatedly put herself in harm’s way if it means that someone else doesn’t get hurt, or at least she’s not responsible for hurting them. The scenes with the Widows where they’re going for lethal and she’s desperately trying not to, they have the Steve-in-Winter-Soldier parallel but they’re also somehow even worse because Steve is making a conscious choice, even if it’s a bad choice- shout-out to everyone who remembers the “was Steve suicidal at the end of WS?” discourse- and I don’t know that Nat does fully realize the choice she’s making there.

And the thing this does for me is cast so much of what we know about Nat from earlier in a different light. All the things she’s done that were dangerous but heroic- I don’t doubt that it was her wanting to do good, but how much was also her not remembering (or not even realizing) that she’s allowed to have regard for her own safety too?

And I don’t think the other Avengers, or SHIELD, know. It’s so much better and hurtier if they see Natasha how we did, foolhardy but brave. When Nick says that Romanoff is comfortable with everything, he thinks she is, and she thinks she is, and they don’t realize the chasm between what they mean by it, and honestly the more I think about this the more I am in agony. Because how much did they ask her to do because they thought she was normal-human-levels of okay with things when she was actually just not aware that not-okay-with-things was even an option for her?

When she faces off against Loki or Hammer or Pierce, when she lets the Hulk come after her, when she stands on Sokovia and comments on the view- this is all stuff she can do, because the only thing at stake is her health and her life, and how much or how little does she value that? When have we seen her prioritizing in a way that puts her needs first? Because the closest I can come is in Civil War, when she wants to protect the family despite none of the family being willing to protect alongside her. (In a lot of ways this makes BW the conclusion of her unfulfilled goal in CW; Nat’s biggest concern is that family can stay together, and even though it’s a different family, she does eventually manage it with someone.) Even there, it’s Natasha attempting to prioritize the group; I’m not sure if Nat even knows how much she wants them okay for the well-being of the group versus how much it’s for herself until she figures it out at the end of BW- and even there she only uses a parachute to get YELENA to safety and then puts herself in freefall!

And to be clear here I don’t think she actually DOES realize the extent of this by the end of the movie. I don’t think if you went to Natasha and were like “so how about that behavior that amounts to passive self-harm because you will always prioritize someone else?” she wouldn’t even acknowledge it, because it’s just What Heroes Do, and while we in the audience have seen the internal conflict that prompts in most MCU protagonists I don’t think Natasha has. And I don’t think she realizes the impact of not having a serum or a metal suit or magic. I think- and I feel like her conversations with Yelena support this- that Nat sees heroism as atonement and doesn’t realize that there are kinds of selfless heroism that don’t involve fully disregarding the self as anything but a symbol for other people to use, the one who does the poses to be on the magazine covers to show that there’s good in the world, rather than being someone whose life is worth living just because she’s her.

Like I have spent so much time being angry over the five years in Endgame, where we saw so many Avengers give up while 3.0 were the only ones who kept working, and I did not remotely understand what MMRR said they were going for, with Natasha not realizing what was happening and just throwing herself into it. And to be clear, the idea that she was pathetic for not moving on from heroism after the snap is still crap. But the idea that it’s yet another manifestation of Natasha not realizing that her life is not just there to be used but also there to be her life, that she doesn’t need to keep bleeding to stop others’ pain? That’s the good stuff and I wish they’d put it in there, because it puts so many new spins on her sacrifice and make it so much more about Natasha than about a plot hole that needed filling.

Anyway I’m still a fucking wreck over this and I love it, thank you for opening these wounds!

#allofthereplies #Anonymous #Black Widow movie spoilers #BW spoilers #Natasha Romanoff #Black Widow #cw: self-harm #cw: suicidal ideation

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