I bet Hawkeye's gonna have ARMS again and it will be beautiful. Also, I bet Widow's gonna be witty. *happy sigh*

YES!!! OMG the ARMS. Those thick luscious vein-y arms.

I'll see your arms and raise you his gorgeous ass. Please lets have some back shots of all the Avengers.

Officially-released media from AOU, including press tour shenanigans, goes here!

Two new press tour pics from tumblr:


(source (http://jeremyrennerdaily.tumblr.com/post/116135406731/access-hollywood-with-two-super-human-from))


(source (http://nathansfillions.tumblr.com/post/116136122828))

EVERYONE LOOKS SO GOOOOD

Love this one - 24 minutes of interview goodness
(http://youtu.be/zq7Er_jNNvM)

Interesting how they paired them up:

RDJ - by himself
The Chrises
Scarlett and Mark
James Spader and Paul Bettany
Jeremy and Cobie

This is where we can speculate based on spoilers we've all seen! I set up the title of the thread to be an automatic spoiler warning.

It's not spoilery, since it's an official thing, but oh, woe, they have done some damage to my heart with the new EW article confirming a thing.

Anyone want to talk about the spoilers or is it too soon?

So here's my thought, based on the things about "greater fate" and "personal cost" that Scarlett Johansson mentioned in a press conference (link in a comment above): that Bruce thing won't last, and she picks up Thor's hammer to smash Ultron.

Nooooo. I'm actually less bothered by Bruce/Natasha than I am by Clint being married. Both because the Bruce/Natasha thing won't last, IMHO, and because Natasha is my fandom bicycle. But Clint belongs only with Natasha. And to randomly have him married and with kids just makes no sense in the movies. Noooooooo.

Seeeriously!

Clint's family was so random I thought for sure they were going to die. Or that they're a Scarlet Witch hallucination/mental manipulation.

Just kidding, I've convinced myself that Clint's family is a Scarlet Witch hallucination and no one is going to tell me otherwise.

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Well ... that happened. And I've found myself back here to lament with all of you lovely people after an extremely extended hiatus. I'm off to work so I'll post more here later tonight, but I'm just honestly very, very disappointed. Mostly because of the inexplicable characterisation of Natasha, and the drawn out dramatics that were Natasha/Bruce. Like, I don't mind them as a ship, just not the way they were done in this movie. And the rest of it was a bit of a mess as well - cliched villain, overly CGI fight scenes.

Ugh. Yeah, a more nuanced discussion is clearly needed on my behalf haha, as well as a lot of fanfic to serve as a balm. I'm still going to see it again, and hopefully I can focus more on the positives this time than the negatives? Because I'm sure they were there. I had a lot of fun in the first half of the film (or at least up to Clint's farm). In retrospect the decision to go in un-spoiled probably hurt me a bit here, because I was so thrown through a loop here that it really hurt my enjoyment of the redeeming bits in this part of the film (which there were! many!).

I actually thought that Natasha's characterisation followed on well from Winter Solider, so we've gone from a Natasha in Avengers who 'bargains for one man' and brings a team together to find him, to Natasha in Winter Solider who says 'who do you want me to be?' and then exposes herself and SHIELD, to this Natasha who seems to have gone soul searching and decided that she's a monster, but she could 'run with that', who's decided what kind of people she can be with... only at the end to realise that maybe the reason all her friends are fighters is that she is too, that she can't walk away, that whilst she was interested in Bruce because he was different that isn't, after all, what she is. And I love at the end how she's side by side with Cap, that whilst she's wistful of what she could have been with Bruce, not necessarily over Bruce himself, that she's made a choice, decided her place is as an Avenger. Can't wait to see how they develop that further! Bar flirting could have gone better though *side eyes*.

Yeah, I didn't see Bruce/Nat. I saw Nat trying to start something with Bruce, to try out this person that she thinks she is, and Bruce saying no, and then it not going anywhere.

In retrospect the decision to go in un-spoiled probably hurt me a bit here, because I was so thrown through a loop here that it really hurt my enjoyment of the redeeming bits in this part of the film.

Same here. I think I would have enjoyed the movie a lot more if I had known a few things beforehand. But I had decided to stay spoiler free and had gone in with such high hopes. In a way I probably set myself up to be disappointed. *headdesk* I have to watch it again at some point and hopefully I'll enjoy it a lot more then.

Okay, I haven't seen the movie yet, but I am WILDLY glad that I'm going in spoiled because otherwise it sounds like I might run out crying. (Yes, I'm way too invested in a fictional relationship- I've made my peace!) Okay, I put these thoughts in another comment, but I'm adding them here. Again, I don't see the film for another week, but I already feel pretty strongly about these things, so here goes!


Why This Doesn't Fly for Me
- Let me say up front that I love Joss Whedon and respect his considerable talents. That being said, did he watch the movie that he wrote and directed a few years ago? Here's the thing - if I was married to a guy whose partner acted towards Clint the way Natasha did, I'd have a divorce lawyer on speed dial. Because, yeah...no. Just...no.

- I know it was Scarlett Johansson's call, but again, if my husband's partner was wearing symbolic jewelry devoted to her partner/my husband? I would now be dialing that divorce lawyer.

- Joss Whedon has said on numerous occasions that Hawkeye is a loner. A loner with a hidden wife and kids? Okaaaaay...

- One of the world's premier assassins has a family and kids at home. Sigh. Why I don't think that's well thought-out is a much longer conversation. You've read the same fanfics I have - I just don't...well, I just don't. There are ways people have sold me on it with Natasha and Clint, but either one of them is capable of fending off the evil ones who would try to take their family. Leaving vulnerable loved ones behind? Like I said, longer discussion.

Fanwanking It
- It's Barney's wife and kids. Barney, being the skeazeball that he is, bailed on his family and Clint stepped in the way that family should be there for each other. His nieces/nephews even call him Dad now. Yeah.

- I haven't seen the movie yet. Don't care. That's how I'll be watching it.


Denial isn't just a river in Egypt, folks! Also, I'm never leaving this 'ship. You can pry it from my cold dead fingers. CLINTASHA 4EVER!!! :D

I think you should wait until you watch it :)

That said, I see no problem with denial fic or it being Barney's family that Clint adopts, I think that'd be interesting to explore!

....aaaaand I'm a bit conflicted.

I came out of the cinema grinning like a loon, because baby bartons and sam wilson and WOW, basically, and I had a blissful 24 hours or so when I was just so happy. Then I started thinking more about it.

As a Clint fan, I loved AOU. As a Natasha fan, I disliked it (not hated, not rejected outright, not let's-burn-joss-wheldon-at-the-stake, just disliked). As an MCU fan, I liked it.

I think the main reason people are reacting so negatively about the direction Clint and Natasha are going as characters is because, for all this time, we've been operating on fanon, not canon, and we've built up this complex world - but it's not the world of the MCU, and we're going to have to accept that. I can understand why people don't want brucenat, but it happened (sort of). It's canon.

I'm the sort of fan who finds it very hard to ignore canon, so not everyone is going to feel the same way. I am surprised, though, at how little people seem to be excited about Clint being a husband and a dad. I mean, after all this time, all the complaining about the lack of Clint we got in the MCU, now people are angry that he has a life? Fandom confuses me. Those kids were so cute, oh my god. And I saw enough of Laura to want to know more about her (which probably will lead to fanfic, tbh).

I mean, we did still get some Clint and Nat gems: Natasha calls Clint her best friend! Clint's reaction to not being about to find Nat in South Korea! Clint's kids calling Natasha 'Auntie'! Laura and Clint naming their baby after Nat!

My approach to Clintasha from this point in is probably going to be platonic. I was a post on tumblr once about Soulmate AUs, suggesting that your soulmate doesn't have to be your romantic significant other, but could be your best friend, a coworker, a sibling, a teacher, whatever. There are all different kinds of love. To me, Clint and Nat are soulmates, but that doesn't mean they're together.

I enjoyed it too! THE BANTER :D The screen time! And yes, all those gems. The morse code, hell to the yes!

I commented (too much lol) below, but yes to this: I think the main reason people are reacting so negatively about the direction Clint and Natasha are going as characters is because, for all this time, we've been operating on fanon, not canon, and we've built up this complex world - but it's not the world of the MCU, and we're going to have to accept that I think we forget how much fanon we built on how little MCU canon, and what we borrowed from the comics.

Also, are we calling it Bruce/Nat when it's Nat trying to start something with Bruce and it doesn't go anywhere? I mean, I can absolutely accept the Bruce/Nat part of fandom calling it that when we called Avengers Clint/Nat *grins* but is it? *is curious about opinions on this*

Edited 2015-04-26 06:29 pm (UTC)

While everyone is welcome to discuss your reactions on this thread, please be mindful of the rules of this community, which have been restated in this post. Please be civil and respectful of each other and this community. If you really want to say something that goes against the rules of this community (no ship bashing/no character bashing), please do so in your personal journals.

The non-spoilerish part is that I really enjoyed this film :D I wanted banter, and there was glorious, glorious banter and snark and sass. YES! (I want to icon all the quotes, please and thank you.) Going to watch it again on Tuesday night.

I've put together some intial reactions over my lj but I'm going to need that second watch to put together some proper thinky thoughts. In the meantime, my initial thoughts on Clint and Natasha:

The facts: Clint is married with three kids and a farm. Natasha attempts to start a relationship with Bruce. (Yes, attempts. It does not take off.)

From a fandom point of view the things I want to say are:
- I think we’ve been building Clint/Natasha fanon for so long now that we forget how little we actually got of Clint in MCU canon.
- the Steve/Tony, Clint/Coulson, and various other ships seem to manage fine without any canon confirmation. We at least have confirmation of a past relationship in comics.
- Marvel films aren’t one-offs, they’re an on-going ‘verse and things can always change.
- Age of Ultron introduces some dynamics that actually I find fascinating and think it’s going to be fun for our corner of fandom to explore.
- in fanfic we can do whatever we want. Personally I don’t think Age of Ultron is going to affect my demon, space, and zombie AUs ;) And actually this new canon makes me want to write some canon compliant fic again, go figure.
- There’s always OT3. Always go for OT3 – make love, not ship wars!

So, we learn more about the Red Room and Natasha’s past and we get way more screen time for Clint. And they both get to be sassy, YAY.

It’s an interesting twist for those of us who’ve seen Clint as older/more mature/settled in comparison to a Natasha who’s still finding herself, because here we find a Natasha who feels she can’t have a family, that she’s a monster, and here we have a Clint who has a family and has brought ‘Aunt Nat’ into it.

I see the Bruce/Nat (do we call it Bruce/Nat if nothing happens between them?) as a continuation of the Steve/Nat that didn’t really happen – further exploration of her character through her interactions with others. If Winter Solider was ‘what do you want me to be?’ then Age of Ultron seems to be Natasha having decided what she is and therefore what she can and can’t have – that she’s a monster and can’t have a family, but can ‘run with’ that. Only by the end of the film there’s still that red in her ledger and she realises that she can’t walk away. That she may have joined SHIELD to escape another life – Red Room or freelance or whatever you like – but that this life, the Avengers, is now a choice. That maybe all her friends are fighters because that’s what she is too. That she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be. Making it great to see her taking a place beside Steve at the end there, a kind of senior Avenger and leader, and yet also the wistfulness of her letting go of not just being with Bruce but what she could have been with Bruce.

And let’s take a moment to reflect on Natasha not trying to lift the hammer. In the comics there’s an alternative universe where she does and become a Goddess and saves the day. Here, is she worried about not being able to lift it or worried that if she can what does that mean for her? Of course she might just not want to take part in the testosterone test ;)

I see Natasha’s character arc having been: playing roles in phase one, committing herself to ‘bargaining for one man’ and bringing a team together in Avengers, being exposed in Winter Solider by making the choice to be exposed (bringing down SHIELD, challenging what she’s been a part of, putting everything she is on the internet along with SHIELD), and now in Age of Ultron she’s starting to build herself back up from the ground up. I’m looking forward to what we get for Natasha next!

Clint gets emphasised as the human on the team, and that the team needs that. He gets to be the Avenger this time that shows they have things to lose – family, Pepper, Jane, they all have people. A lot of his arc is also the writing setting the audience up to think that Clint’s going to die at the end, but Clint being the human element in a film where we get Ultron and Vision is interesting. Clint is in the regeneration thing that Ultron says is what’s going to replace Ultron and then uses to make Vision. What does this say about evolution and technology? There’s thoughts in this film about legacy, children, and the future… Rewatch needed for proper thinky thoughts.

And I want to see more around that farm, the details like the target in the barn and the kid’s drawings and Clint being into handiwork and….

Laura: is she a SHIELD Agent or ex-SHIELD Agent? What’s the backstory here? What kind of woman welcomes the Avengers into her house? Hell, what kind of woman has Nick Fury staying in her house with her family?

And as for how Natasha ties into all this, I want to know about ‘Aunt Nat’. How does that work? Was it the kids or Clint who got her an arrow necklace? She seems to know Laura and the kids well, what’s the history there? They’re naming a kid after her!

And Nat is Clint’s ‘best friend’ and he’s so worried when she goes missing, and their morse code moment, and I still love these two :D

Are we going to have OT3 fic where Natasha eventually feels she’s allowed things like a family and realises there’s one that’s been waiting for her all along? Will something happen to Laura or Clint’s family in the future? Could, in some twist with Agents of SHIELD, Clint end up doing some kind of West Coast Avengers thing with Bobbi? What about the continuing adventure of Clint and Natasha BFFs? Oh the possibilities! And that’s only in the canon.

What’s everyone’s thinky thoughts?

Edited 2015-04-26 06:24 pm (UTC)

Alright. Saw it yesterday, had some time to think, and... Well. It's a fun, well-paced action movie. Just, when I think about the characters, question marks and grumpyness start to appear. Slight caveat: I had no other chance than seeing it dubbed, and the dubbing was awful, so there's a chance some nuances were literally lost in translation.

- The good thing first: the kinda relationship they gave Clint and Nat would've been absolute ship catnip for me if he wasn't married, and actually kinda makes me ship them harder. They know each other, they trust each other, she not only is one of probably like two or three people at SHIELD/Avengers who know he's got a family, but she knows that family too, and he names one of his kids after her. However, I can't seem them getting together at this point in canon. Not as long as he's married. And given what, in that kinda movie, usually happens to end a marriage, I don't want him not to be married, if that makes sense? So I'm not really sure where that leaves me in terms of the ship. Gotta figure that out.

- The Clint Barton on screen is not one I recognize as Clint Barton, at least not the version from the 616 that I spent the last year and a half falling so very hard for. His 'development' in this movie revolves around his family. We still don't really know much more about him as a character other than that he's a husband and a father, has a good heart and can shoot and is quippy, and there's not been much else in terms of backstory. He's one-dimensional. There's some character traits he does share with 616!Clint, but they're more general, and no of that really makes me feel like they're supposed to be the same character -- and that's coming from someone who always did keep her Clints separated and didn't ~expect them to be totally the same. But most of what really makes 616!Clint my fave isn't there in the movie version and I'm so frustrated, because adding just a little more background and throwing us a bone or two would've been SO EASY given his scenes in the movie.

- Actually pissed off about Natasha. I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that the guy who invented Buffy looked at Natasha Romanoff post-TWS and all he could think to do with her was "let's let her go after a guy and angst about the fact that the Red Room had her sterilized and she couldn't have kids anymore". Until the very end, that's basically what her storyline consists of, and even at the end there, whether she struggles with her decision to put the mission above Bruce at end because she chose a path for herself and now has to come to terms with it or because she lost his trust and chance for romance is anyone's guess, because it's not in the text at all. Not even going to comment on the actual Bruce/Nat bits at all, because I am biased in that regard -- the whole 'he could flip out on her at any moment' angle to the ship is terribly squicky to me.

That said, I would very much like to hear more positive takes. I don't ~want to be grumpyfacing, and if you think you have something to add that could sway me, please do share.

I was happy with sassy Barton, and I guess not too concerned about him not being filled in too much because I'm happy to play with fanon and just pleased he got more screen time. I know it must have been a nightmare trying to juggle all the different characters in that movie, give them all something, and yet not kill the overall film.

For the Bruce/Nat that never takes flight, I've said in my comments that I see this as Natasha's 'who would you like me to be?' in Winter Soldier now becoming, having been stripped down at the end of Winter Soldier, someone who's decided she's a monster and would do best with Bruce, the idea that that's the kind of life she could have, and hey, it could consist of trying not to kill people, and being lured by that... only to realise that maybe 'all her friends are fighters' because that's who she is too. And then standing by Cap at the end, a second in command or alternate leader of the Avengers, finding her footing, her place in the world. So she can leap forward from there. But i'm aware that's an interpretation.

Loved the motorcycle parts and Natasha being the one to rescue the cradle, once again the person who gets the job done! And deciding not to try picking up the hammer, whether because she doesn't want the answer or because she doesn't want to join in the testosterone fest ;) And that she knows about Clint's family, is having one of their kids named after her, is Auntie Nat! I need to watch it again to weigh up Natasha, Maria, Wanda, and the other ladies' roles in the film, but I didn't feel they were sidelined, although everyone could have had more screentime.

Apparently there will be an extended version of this film because they cut so much, or so Amazon tells me. More screentime for everyone please!

Spoilers, ahoy!




Was anyone else like 300% convinced that Clint was gonna die? Like, I was freaking out the whole movie because I was completely sure they were building up to his death.

He really did have all the hallmarks for the doomed character. It's either "About to retire" or "He's got a baby on the way." Insta-death for that character. So yes, I was pleasantly surprised that he made it.

The sterilization thing is what fills me with epic rage. Because it so arrogantly makes the assumption that this complicated woman's total worth boils down to the fact that she can't bear children. Screw you, Whedon, (for the first time I have ever said that in anger) and you too, Disney.

That said, I loved the Clintasha bits, the Banner relationship has NO chemistry and felt like Joss chucking something at the wall to see if it would stick, and I was SO right that NO ONE drops Natasha Romanoff out of a plane on a motorcycle- unless it's Clint Barton.

Edited 2015-05-01 06:26 pm (UTC)

So it's wrong that Natasha might be upset over something that happened to her without her consent and removed a giant possibility from her life? Nowhere in this movie does anybody say that Natasha's worth boils down her to inability to bear children. Nobody said that. Natasha calls herself a monster, but it's in terms of the graduation from the Red Room program that had horrible side-effects, and we can infer from flashbacks of a figure with a hood over its head and Natasha pointing a gun that it was pretty brutal.

I have seen this argument over and over again, that the fact that Natasha might want kids makes her somehow lesser or less complex and it's just not true. Wanting kids and normalcy when you've seen as much as she has? That's not weakness. That's a genuine human yearning that a lot of people have, and the fact that Natasha--who has this horrible, horrible past where her childhood and ability to interact with other humans normally stripped from her--can feel those things is probably a big deal for her.

And Natasha had so many other scenes in the movie. She interacted with so many other characters and dealt with huge philosophical questions like "How far is too far to protect the earth?" So, really, the only people boiling the character down to her infertility are the ones removing that scene from the narrative and saying that this scene was the only thing that defined Natasha's worth.

So after watching the film a few more times *whistles innocently* I went and wrote a lot of thinky thoughts over here including a lot about Natasha, and a bunch of other stuff, and it's long so I'm not pasting it here as well *grins*. But that's thoughts as coherently as I can make them. There may need to be fic so I can try to get my thoughts over better ;)

Thinking of adding new tags, but I don't want them to be spoilers! Also, help us to come up with some fun tags!

I'm thinking we need one for age of ultron set fics, something OT3-ish (which I figure could also count for Bucky, Bobbi, or whoever else?), something non canon compliant...

fanwork: age of ultron
fanwork: aou divergent
fanwork: back on the farm
fanwork: threesome

Thoughts from the bar?

I like these a lot.

I just watched AoU. In general I loved the movie, it was funny and sarcastic and Avengers as a team always makes me smile.

Clint having a family we didn't know about is really strange but I can mostly live with that. He's very secretive, in this film we get to know him better but in general we only knew about his close relationship with Natasha and how amazing they are as partners. Do I think is weird that he has a wife and kids? Yes but is not impossible in this universe.

Clint having a family opened up so many questions about his relationship with Natasha, because what they have is love, maybe not in the romantic sense but they're partners that are deeply connected. We all saw that in the Avengers movie, Nat would do anything for him and Clint will always have her back. I bet this will the beginning of several plot bunnies for all the writers in this community.

Natasha, I think i will have to watch the movie again to have a better idea about her, I liked most things about her characterization in special at the end of the movie when she thought this was the end. There was something beautiful about that scene with Steve, they will probably die but she's calm about it, she knows who she is and she's surrounded by her team, is not a bad way to go.

It felt to me as she was playing a part in her interactions with Bruce, Natasha has so many layers that maybe this is the real her but sometimes I couldn't recognize the Natasha we have seen since Iron Man 2. She looked lost and sometimes pushing into a relationship that from the outside is impossible. Looks like she relates more to the Hulk than Bruce, she likes them both that's for sure but in my opinion, she has much more in common with the monster inside Bruce.

Even if my favourite couple Nat/Clint got Jossed after this movie, I will continue to ship them and happily live in denial.


Edited 2015-05-03 06:12 pm (UTC)

Denial is a great place, I hear! ;-)