I'm going to take this off a slight side rant- I love reading fic because well it's easy, quick, often amusing, and something that doesn't involve me having to entertain myself.

But one of the things I almost notice in anything based off the movieverse is like the almost instant friendship after the battle because of the battle. I get the warriors in arms thing but this isn't ancient Greece.

So this all ties into when I'm sitting there watching the movie, the only familiarity or closeness I really see is between Coulson and Stark and Pepper; Clint and Natasha. Bruce and Tony have a moment, Hulk and Iron Man have a moment. Steve and the team have a moment. Thor and Loki have antagonist moments and then the movie's over.

We know that's not true though because we see Clint and Coulson in Thor. But when Natasha talks to Steve about him-- it's almost like she considers him to be a comic relief. But Clint just did whatever Coulson asked in Thor so obviously he's more the 'do what I'm told and ask later' kind of person.

That's why I think there my favourite two as a ship was when I watching the movie only Clint and Natasha seemed to really have any kind of connection outside of course the obvious Tony/Pepper and the last minute Coulson/Stark/Potts friendship.

With that said their hired guns so they probably are the most likely to fit into any situation because it can be always it's their job. Natasha in Russia, Clint not going after Thor, Natasha watching Stark- all tasks they get asked to perform. Who would be the most adaptable the person with the free choice... Stark or the two people getting a paycheque?

---

Now going back to fandom, I prefer reading team fics because I loved the movie. Why have an Avengers fic without the team? I do read stand alones and hey even canon pre movies but ultimately I like seeing the team involved in some way shape or form.

I don't write a lot for many reasons most popular reason is I suck and I know I suck. 2nd reason is I could speak English better. 3rd reason I'm an artist. But when I do, they 90% are christmasy exchange fics or kinkmeme fics without porn because I like to challenge what little writing capability I have. And it's very small but I try.

That being said-- the challenges I have accepted involved the entire team minus one attempt at a crossover since I had never done in the 12 years since I had written my first fic (star wars) and that fic involved Clint. Every fic I've done in Marvel have involved Clint and Natasha front in centre because I like how they fit into the mold more than everyone else. Stark is his own hero, Steve is the kid you feel sorry for, Thor is the jolly alien, and Bruce is the tragic anti-hero. But besides putting them first-- I go with situational characterization.

I borrow from the comics if the prompt leans that way, Marvel canon 90% of the time (Marvel wiki basically tells me what facts to take into account and which to discard), and 10% whatever works to what little advantages I have as a writer. So that means Clint and Natasha have to like 70s rock music because I little absolutely nothing about modern music, sarcasm goes a long way (because to me it comes natural-- truthfully if we played who are you the avengers version I probably most like Stark painful as that is to admit), and drinking is avoided almost entirely because I know next to nothing about it (until recently when I asked for some information).

That in mind, it's impossible for to decide who a prankster is vs. the grumpy one. I see them all fitting together with everyone having reluctant feelings about except maybe Clint who I think in my head would just do it because someone told him to.

....

Wow so that went totally off topic-- sort of.

Yeah I definitely agree - as much as we all wanted to see the team immediately BECOME the team, they separate at the end of the movie. There are still definite connections between them, but they're not immediately a unit. They can work that way, but it's not second nature. Not yet anyway.

Stark is his own hero, Steve is the kid you feel sorry for, Thor is the jolly alien, and Bruce is the tragic anti-hero.

That's an interesting take. I see them all like anti heroes of sorts, because there is sadness to all of them - to me it feels like Tony doesn't really believe he is a hero. he's a guy who can cut the wire, but not the hero, that's reserved for Steve, who is bitter and sad and lost because everything he knew, his entire life, all of his friends, culture, reality? It was taken away from him and he feels like an alien in his own world which had spun forward without him. I really feel for him, since I can relate to how he's feeling.

Bruce is this brilliant man and a good person, and also a kind person, but after his accident he can't control himself. Or he can, but just barely. He thinks of himself as a monster, because that's how many people see him - this absolutely horrible and dangerous monster. he is aware how damage he can do, so he removes himself from human company and people he loves because he doesn't want to hurt them. Thor's life might have been the best, but I think it's obvious that the loss of a brother - and he still thinks of Loki as a brother - is really tearing him. We all know what Clint and Natasha have been through, and even though they are on SHIELD's payroll, I'd say the movie focuses on each character's humanity and basic human needs. So it's really interesting to look at how Clint and Natasha interact with the rest of the Avengers, and imagine (and write) about how it might continue after the film, because they're ultimately human. I think they have the hardest time accepting the team and team!trust, because they're used to trusting each other; so establishing true team dynamic always takes time and struggle, and it might be easier for Clint - he's lived in a circus, he has less trust issues than Natasha does.

I so totally heart teamfics. I'm beginning to realize that most of my favorite shows/books/etc tend to involve some kind of an ensemble/team cast more than one singular hero. Firefly for instance, is one of my faves, and it's as much the character relationships that get my attention than the actual plot/action.

Avengers of course is much the same for me. None of these characters exist in a vacuum and I love that fact. It makes playing everyone off each other that much more interesting, because every relationship is going to have an impact on the other relationships in the team. They'll draw each other together or push each other away without even knowing it.

With Clint and Tasha especially, there's the way both are clearly connected to Coulson, then the way it's his experience with Tasha that has Steve sign off on Clint coming along for the ride. Bruce acts as a buffer between Tony and Steve, and it's Tony's immediate trust of Bruce that pulls Hulk into the team.

That sort of emotional action and reaction just fascinates me, I think.

Also, is anyone else totally freaking THRILLED to hear the Coulson really does live news???????

Also, is anyone else totally freaking THRILLED to hear the Coulson really does live news???????

YESS!!!!!!!!!

I'll start by admitting that I'm a sucker for fics that have the team all moving into "Avengers" Tower. That said, I don't really see that happening, or see the team bonding together, in any kind of instantaneous fashion.

Can anyone recommend fics that explore them coming together/moving into the tower?

Hm. I'm afraid i'm not good for fic recs ( cybermathwitch could be better for this, and inkvoices as well) - but here is one fun bit. At the end of the movie, Tony and Pepper are looking over designs for other Avengers apartments. So, moving into the Tower is sort of canon, or there's at least intent and good will on Tony's part. WHICH I LOVE.

Also agreed on the bonding thing. They definitely won't be bonding quickly, but that's something I do enjoy about them.

I have a couple actually! Very little shipper-type relationships but lots of the team as a whole.

http://archiveofourown.org/series/19228 This is the "Offers of Home" series and it is a blast for seeing the whole time find a safe place. It actually goes pretty heavily into the Pretender and SG1 fandoms, and the most recent part crosses into the Nolan-verse Batman fandome, but the first 5 are strictly Avengers fic!

Another that has an absolutely fantastic view of the team ending up living together (though in Malibu instead of the tower) is "Life as a Treehouse" but as it's got Clint/Coulson and Tony/Steve I'm not sure this comm has the audience for it lol.

Okay I lied, I do have a rec - I managed to find this fic which has utterly wonderful team moments - the best story about team bonding I've read so far - Of Languages (http://archiveofourown.org/works/410746) by QueenRiley. It does deal with The Tower but not directly. However it's a wonderful read.

I've done some fics that involve the team myself, I can link you to them if you want.

I'm actually working on a piece called "Meet the Avengers" that explores the team learning to work together as a team and moving into the tower. I wanted it to be four or five short stories, focusing on different members of the team, and I have two of those already written.

The story is told from Pepper's point of view, because I thought it would be interesting to have an outside observer watching the team come together, but there is some background C/N threaded throughout each of the stories.

The main problem I'm having is that I started writing the story before I saw Avengers, and now the end gag of my first story doesn't work. SAD TROMBONE.

I can't really do anything about it from here (I'm on my phone at work which is not conducive to reccing) but I know I have some and will get to them, tonight. Are not overtly 'shippy fics that still focus on Clint and Natasha interacting with the rest of the team ok? Y/y? I also have some shippy ones too.

Yes and yes and yes! Thank you, I know you have wonderful recs. :D And I really wanted to leave the honor of reccing to you.

One of my favorites, it just gives me all the happy feels:

One quick rec:

To Be Modified As Necessary (http://archiveofourown.org/works/415792) by ignipes is funny and sweet and about learning to live together.

Ooh, adding recs! Here's a favorite Clint/Natasha move into the Tower fic:

Five Times An Avenger Accidentally Woke Natasha Up (http://archiveofourown.org/works/531885) by Margo_Kim had me on the floor laughing, and is a great look at team dynamics when Clint and Natasha decide to take Tony up on his offer of moving in.

Edited 2012-10-20 12:24 am (UTC)

Oooh AWESOME! Thank you for the rec!

That was a great read! Thanks!

I love the team dynamics! There are so many interesting places they can take it in the second Avengers movie.

This may be a little off-topic- but I like to imagine Natasha, Pepper and Coulson all having lunch together and plotting.

Not to ditch Coulson (I really hope they bring him back and Fury was a lying liar) but I like to picture Natasha and Pepper eventually getting together to swap coping strategies for living with/dealing with the rest of the team.

Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy46FcwflPI) is a team!vid that gives me ALL THE FEELS.

Also, as far as team dynamics go, I think Joss Whedon says it best: "These people shouldn't be in the same room, let alone on the same team -- and that is the definition of family."

because i found it totally hilarious that the premiere for the avengers was may fourth (I C WHUT U DID THAR!) this one is especially fun and full of geeky stuff: may the fourth (http://archiveofourown.org/works/445156) by irnan

and i'm sure there's more out there that includes a lot of ALL THE CHARACTERS (i remember reading one with betty, pepper, darcy and jane also being in the tower and hanging out but rawr, i forgot to bookmark it and now i can't find it) but it's hard to find a team!fic that i like (read: natasha/clint with ALL the cast of MCU [including betty fucking ross!] and tonnes of female friendships (jane and betty and bruce and tony geeking out over SCIENCE! imagine that awesome for a bit) with some excellent space bro times [like darcy dragging thor and natasha to an all night romero marathon cos no one else wanted to go and tony was all: 'WHY DON'T WE JUST WATCH IT HERE COS I HAVE THOSE! plus, pizza.' and darcy's all: 'because i like GOING OUT and seeing other people's faces besides yours Tony!' so natasha would be down cos yay, a break from tony and thor is all, 'are there hot dogs?' and when they get back clint asks how it was and is sorry he didn't go but he can't see stuff like that after the chitauri {he kind of thinks they were zombies too} and loki and natasha is all, 'it was fun and i get it.' then there's cuddles.]) cos wow, there's a lot of slash that goes along with it and i don't read those. i'm frightfully vanilla in my tastes. but! when this:

(http://sunny-serenity.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/864/382864)

showed up on tumblr last week (was it last week?), this happened...

so my brain went: i wonder if bruce was all, hey i wonder what glow in the dark alien thing i'll get from this vending machine... 'tony, do you have four quarters?' and tony's all, 'why are you asking me just cos i'm a billionaire? fine, i see how it is banner. i thought we were friends.' and bruce is all, 'NO! it's just you know, you're the only other person here wearing normal clothes. like, jeans with pockets. it's not like i can ask thor for change, you know?' and then clint gives him four quarters. and steve is all like, 'THAT costs a DOLLAR? what happen to the fifteen cent cracker jack toys in the box?' natasha's all, 'inflation.' and tells clint that was nice of him to help bruce out. thor is all, 'does this trinket serve a purpose or is it just an amusement?' tony explains that it's just a silly toy that parents get their kids so they stop fidgeting while they order and then thor would want one. and bruce is all, 'no guys, i just wanted a souvenir for this moment.' and is all, '...sorry, i didn't mean to cause so much drama.' clint is all, 'i'm tired can we go home now?' yeah. i would watch a whole movie of them just doing shit like that all day. ALL. FUCKING. DAY.

not even kidding. if they did laundry in the basement of clint's crappy hole in the wall apartment in alphabet city, i would watch that. also, grocery shopping cos that shit would be hilarious!

Edited 2012-10-19 09:00 pm (UTC)

I actually have a question that has to do with the subject of the day. A friend and I were debating about this last night because I've been stretching my wings at writing team!fic. I can get most of the team down fairly well, I think. The connections in the movie are pretty easy to transpose onto the page: Clint/Natasha, obviously, and then you've got Tony and Bruce having a moment, Tony and Steve having a moment, Steve and Coulson, Natasha and Bruce, etc. etc.

And...then you have Thor. Who comes in last in the film, and for all intents and purposes is kind of like an orbiting satellite around everybody else. He's just sort of there. Like, he has a minor connection to Clint, I guess, though you only see them in the same shot twice, and there's always that connection to Coulson (WHO LIVES), but the rest (apart from the villain)? I have no earthly idea how to write him interacting with everybody else. And even worse, I don't know how to do it without turning him into the butt of the joke. Basically, I want to give him his fair shake, but he's just so completely different that I have no idea how to do that. I also don't have much to go on because I've never read the comics and I get distracted whenever Idris Elba isn't on screen in Thor (I may have a problem). He's like the sore thumb of the Avengers to me. Every role he would normally play in anything I write (big guy, not pop-culture savvy, good heart, good leader) is already taken by Steve, and Thor is just kind of...extra.

So, specifically, any tips on writing Thor from Clint's POV/from Natasha's without making him a goofball idiot? Or should I just throw my hands up and give in to the inevitable? Anything anybody can throw my way would be helpful.

I think Steve and Thor have a brothers is arms kind of bond in the movie that could translate into a bros outside of their time/ culture bonding inside the team (the team shakes out to me as Clint + Natasha, Steve + Thor, Tony + Bruce). Maybe use their similarities to make a bond? And Thor and Clint could bond over food (cliche, but believable).

To me Thor is someone who has seen so much and is still a giant Labrador at heart. He brings so many years of experience and immense love to the table.

thor is most definitely Other when it comes to the team and in the books has a hard time adjusting to working with instead of commanding and controlling but that's mostly cos comic!thor can be a butt, a control freak and immensely I Do What I Want Cos I Am A God and King. i think with movie!thor he's much less that and more simple. if he's confused, he asks questions. if he's happy, he smiles. if he's mad, he scowls. he's fairly uncomplicated in MCU.

i also think that fandom tends to wash over his crazy strong racism and prejudices. i mean, he's declaring GENOCIDE on the Jotunn in the first half of his movie and just because he sacrifices himself for the greater good to be worthy of rule in the latter half does not mean YEARS of his bigoted xenophobic mentality is suddenly washed away. (okay, so maybe he's just as complicated in the movies as he is in the comics... wow, i have a lot of thor feels.)

ALSO-- interesting point you made about clint & thor not sharing a lot of screen time. i think thor would be more friendly with natasha by nature. she probably reminds him a lot of sif and his mother. strong warrior women who take no guff from him.

with steve, i think there's a band of brothers kind of connection. they fought back to back very well in the movie and when steve was taken down thor got all ragey with the car tossing. superficially, they both also really favour red white and blue colour schemes. i read this one fic where they hit up denny's

every denny's in america (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8292963/1/Every_Dennys_in_America) by sookie starchild

Edited 2012-10-19 08:42 pm (UTC)

Thor is a warrior, at the heart of it - he's straight-forward, far from stupid and yet he thinks in straight lines more than corners (unless it is military, because he knows how and when to sneak). So, I think he'd get along with Steve and Clint (if you have Clint doing Army before SHIELD, anyway).

He's also been raised a prince, which many people forget - he knows politics, albeit politics of another world. He's been raised in a Viking-esque culture, so I'd take less points from the comics and more hints from the Norse? Their cultures are not exactly the same, and yet, the Norse worshipped his kind. But he's been raised with a rich background of stories and culture - he has his own culture, which I find a lot of fics forget in favour of laughing at him.

And, yeah, he's xenophobic - he's been raised xenophobic, and no matter that he is genuinely trying to get over it and through it (presumably with no help from his culture - not sure about his peers or parents), he's got an arrogance and a superiority there that's not going away, and really shouldn't be forgotten. But at the same time, he's got a genuine wonder about him, too. Steve is...similar, but different. Very different. Steve is a kid, and in Avengers, he's a bitter one - Thor is older, far more experienced, with a genuine love for battle that Steve just doesn't have. But if Steve had to watch Bucky fall by accident, Thor had to watch as his brother deliberately let go - he saw his brother try and kill himself, and I think that's still bouncing around his skull, no matter what Loki is doing now.

But I don't think Natasha would think him a goofball - she's a spy who can, presumably, take on different cultures. She can recognize that he's been raised to be a leader and a prince, and he's an ally now. So, I think she'd take the time to understand him? I personally have a fic planned where they talk about siblings, as my Natasha was sisters with girls from the Red Room, and one of them, later, was massively self-destructive in 'doesn't care how many people die' way towards the end. So, in that fic, that is a point of shared grief and understanding between them - that sometimes you love someone, and it doesn't help and you have to let them go. (Not that...Thor is letting go of Loki for a while, he's too innately loyal for that.)

I guess maybe at the heart of it - view the team from Thor's POV first, if you can, and then flick it back to how they view him. The Stories That Stay With You is one of the best Thor-from-his-POV fics I've ever read, and has a lot of the team in it.

...and I'll stop babbling, oops.