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13 May 2016 @ 08:32 pm
ATTF: Headcanon, fanon and tropes  
Hello Best of Bars!

Time for a little Friday something.  Most of us here write fan fiction, and those of us who don't, read it.  Or make cool art.  And when you do any of these things, you will have come across things that make you go, "WAIT.  Did they just make that up?  No -- can't be.  It's too familiar.  Must be from ..."

Chances are, you've come across fanon.  Some idea or factoid that has turned up so often, it's become Truth.  Like those things:

- Coulson recruited Clint.
- Natasha drinks tea.
- He made that different call because he watched her care for civilians/children/a kitten.

That's fanon -- fan-made canon.

If you're the only one who has one of those ideas, that's head canon.  Sometimes, you get the ultimate compliment from a reader:  "head canon accepted."  And if that happens often enough, your brilliant idea can turn into fanon!

Finally, there are the fanfic formats we all love so much, people have turned them into bingos:  the good old tropes"  H/C, friends-to-lovers, body swaps, sex pollen...

All of it adds up to making fan fic into something comfy and familiar that you can pull over your shoulders like an old blanket at the end of a tiring day at the coal face of life.  So, here's the challenge:

-  Tell us your favourite fanon and tropes -- ideally with a fic rec? (And yes, fic self recs are cool!  Help our newbies find your stuff!!!)
-  Or give us a three-sentence fic with one!
-  Which are the ones you can't stand, and wish that they would disappear back under the rock whence they crawled?
-  Tell us your favourite head canon(s)!
-  Maybe you have an instance where your head canon turned up in a movie and you had that delicious moment of wondering whether Joss Whedon read your fic?

Go forth and prosper -- all weekend long! (It's a three-day one here in Europe, so yay! us...)

Things to remember:
1) Always label NSFW (Not Safe For Work) stuff in the title and post under a cut.
2) Fic and artwork needs to have a rating and warnings (or you can say that you’ve chosen not to use warnings).
3) For people with annoying internet connections, say in the title if a comment is graphic/images/gif-heavy and post picspams under a cut.
4) Have a damn good time! (Because if that’s not happening then this post has clearly failed.)
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[identity profile] kiss-me-cassie.livejournal.com on May 14th, 2016 01:06 am (UTC)
Oooh! I love fanon and canon and tropes!

- Tell us your favourite fanon -
1. That, yes, Coulson recruited Clint
2. That Natasha is clueless in a kitchen and prefers overly sweet, highly processed foods (I accept/discard the tea thing at will. *g*)
3. Phone calls between Natasha in CA and Clint in NM during Iron Man 2 and Thor, respectively

- and tropes -
1. Clint figured out that he loved Natasha first and showed her in many little ways that took her forever to figure out
2. Avengers Tower game night
3. SHARING A BED

- Or give us a three-sentence fic with one! -
I'm gonna have to come back for this, since my head is currently filled with hockey/ice skating stuff

- Tell us your favourite head canon(s)
1. Bobbi/Clint/Nat. (Or alternately, Laura/Clint/Nat because Shelley and Andibeth are KILLING me with those three! Or does that make it fanon instead? :))
2. That while Clint and Natasha are devoted to each other, they have a fairly open sexual relationship
[identity profile] alphaflyer.livejournal.com on May 14th, 2016 07:57 pm (UTC)
YES to sharing a bed. I may have succumbed to that particular trope (http://archiveofourown.org/works/594646) once upon a time myself ...
[identity profile] alphaflyer.livejournal.com on May 14th, 2016 08:04 pm (UTC)
Okay, so I had two instances that convinced me somebody over at Marvel was reading my fics, turning head canon into, well, canon. First was the Natasha-puts-her-feet-on-the-dashboard scene in Winter Soldier, and then that scene in AoU with all those Chinese food containers...
[identity profile] foolondahill17.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 10:11 pm (UTC)
Don't want to brag but the "Teach me" line from the Doctor Strange trailer was obviously taken from my Civil War fic. Granted, spoken by a different character in a slightly different context...but I still like to think I had something to do with it :)


[identity profile] sugar-fey.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 02:07 am (UTC)
Great topic!

I've always loved the 'Natasha only drinks tea' fanon. I don't want to be presumptive, but I wrote Natasha drinking tea in one of my very early fanfics (just after the movie had come out), and then I started noticing it in other fanfics too. I certainly don't think my fic was solely responsible, but I like to think I contributed to the fanon in some way. ;)

I've always been a sucker for the friends-to-lovers trope. An oldie but definitely a goldie.
[identity profile] alphaflyer.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 10:08 pm (UTC)
I think you absolutely did contribute to that fanon! It's a cumulative thing ... I did my bit by having her drink a chai latte in my first ever Avengers fic... (way after yours)
[identity profile] icecream-junkie.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 10:36 am (UTC)
This post just made me wonder if I actually have any head canon for this particular pairing or the MCU in general. I can’t really think of much except maybe our two favourite assassins patching each other up after a mission, but I guess that’s fanon rather than my personal head canon. It’s weird, because I have other ships where I have a very elaborate back story that’s completely made up of fanon and head canon. With some of those I sometimes even have a hard time remembering what’s actual canon and what’s not.
However, the MCU is the one fandom where I multiship and am generally open to various kinds of storylines and AUs (or at least a lot more than in other fandoms). Maybe that’s the reason why I don’t have any real head canon.

Although, come to think of it, Natasha babysitting the Barton kids, while Clint and Laura are out on a date probably counts. She’s trying her best not to appear too thrilled every time Clint asks her to babysit, although she secretly loves spending time with the kids, because it allows her to be a kid herself. After all, she’s never had an actual childhood.
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[identity profile] jackwabbit.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 02:08 pm (UTC)
I love the idea of what I call "friendship plus." Not romance per se, but a relationship so deep as to be rather impossible to define. One forged in battle and so much more than romantic love. One where secrets are shared (and kept). One where the other is more important then jobs, orders, etc.

And my head canon agrees that MCU Clint saved Nat because of her sparing and innocent when she didn't have to. Or wounding instead of killing. Something like that.

My pet peeve is the "patching you up in the field/hotel/whatever after a mission" trope. What is the obsession with removing the bullet (and not just by fans, but studios)? And suturing wounds? Neither of which is appropriate in most, if not all, cases? Sigh. It's an occupational hazard, I know, but can someone please give these people some antibiotics and IV fluids before even considering sealing a contaminated wound or removing a fragment that may not be causing any harm and even if it is can be removed later, when risk of life-threatening hemorrhage and infection are decreased? And if they're stable, maybe they could, you know, wait until qualified care? But mostly, antibiotics.

Field dressing is one thing, but, as they say about bullet removal, well:

There was a time when this was standard practice, and that time is called "Before Antibiotics."
[identity profile] foolondahill17.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 10:03 pm (UTC)
Haha YES to the whole removing-the-bullet thing. Really bugs me too! Bullets aren't made of lead anymore and won't cause blood poisoning...treat for blood loss and infection, and wait for the doctors :)
[identity profile] jackwabbit.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 11:13 pm (UTC)
Even if they were still lead, it's not like you get lead poisoning in hours. Or days. Sigh.

I ignore most everything medical in entertainment, because I get it. Dramatic effect, limited time for, say, antidotes or sedatives to work. But the bullet thing just makes me crazy. Contraindicated! Unless superficial or in a joint...um...nope.
[identity profile] alphaflyer.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 10:11 pm (UTC)
I can't remember (sometimes it's hard distinguishing one's own writing from fanon) but I think I've done the stitching up thing in a ficlet once. Sterilization courtesy of Albanian raki.... But YES on the bullet removal.
[identity profile] jackwabbit.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 11:16 pm (UTC)
Basic sutures don't bother me too much in the grand scheme of things. If clean, and, um, antibiotics. That said, it's not like skin sutures do much for the types of wounds that Hawkeye and Black Widow are likely to get. They probably need ligatures, deep sutures, subcutaneous sutures, then skin sutures. Maybe some tendon or muscle repair, which still often break down. Just not some wimpy line of simple interrupteds on the skin. So, thus my twitch. ;)
[identity profile] spyforaday.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 02:52 pm (UTC)
I just love a classic slow burn, friends-to-lovers fic. That is my absolute fav. Can't get enough it. Love to write it and love to read it. And, for my money time, there's no better combo for that than our perfectly imperfect assassins.

One of my head canons centers on music. I think Clint is an unabashed fan of 70s and 80s rock. The bigger the hair, the more blazing the guitar, the better. I think this stems from his childhood - music being one of the few things that made him happy.

While in the circus, everybody listened to that music and some knew how to play it. And they gladly taught Clint - keyboard, drums, guitar (I'm clearly channeling Renner here). So he carries the ability to play the music he enjoys...

And sometimes Nat catches him. Like when he thinks nobody is in the Tower, he belts out Elton John's "Your Song" on Tony's grand; or grabs his guitar while waiting to fly out on a mission and strums an acoustic version of GnR's "Sweet Child O' Mine." She remains in the shadows, closes her eyes, and enjoys the momentarily carefree sound of his voice. Which is why, any time they are in a car together, she makes a dramatic point of rolling her eyes but lets him choose the radio station. And on rare occasions will even sing along. Those are the times he lives for...
[identity profile] foolondahill17.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 10:05 pm (UTC)
I love the image of Clint playing "Your Song" :)
[identity profile] alphaflyer.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 10:13 pm (UTC)
YES to the Slow Burn (I actually have a Voyager story by that title -- *ahem*). I'm dying for the MCU to make use of Renner's piano/singing skills. Maybe Avengers:IW will find him -- after the jailbreak -- incognito in a bar, playing Pianoman??
[identity profile] jackwabbit.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 11:18 pm (UTC)
Also yes to the slow burn here. ;)
gabrielle[personal profile] gsparkle on May 15th, 2016 06:33 pm (UTC)
I hate to say it, but the fanon that drives me the most nuts is Clint living in the air ducts. I'm not opposed to the use of them in missions (either of the serious or prank variety), but he must have better things to do besides crawl around all day...

For tropes, nothing gets me like a good fake relationship or undercover-as-married story. Oh, and secret marriages, too :)

I probably have a million headcanons, some I've written about and some I haven't (yet):

1. Natasha secretly loving to be in the kitchen. I usually say baking because I'm a big believer in baking as a method of stress relief and also because it's something she'd never have learned in the Red Room, so it's a little thing she does for herself and herself alone.
2. I like to think of Clint as well-read from picking up books along the way while being in the circus; like, maybe he's not great at fractions, but he's read Plato, or something along those lines. I also tend to think of him knowing a lot about astronomy and astrology from that time in his life.
3. I firmly believe, for no real reason, that both Clint and Nat love karaoke. I also believe that Clint's pretty musical and plays the guitar, and that whenever he sings in Natasha's presence, he changes any names in the song to hers.
[identity profile] jackwabbit.livejournal.com on May 15th, 2016 11:22 pm (UTC)
Good point about the air ducts.

And your use of fractions as something Clint might not be good at reminds me of the Fractionverse Clint. You know, the one who watches TV and can't get his DVR to work so he calls Tony.

Because seriously, you're right. The guy has much better things to do with his time than crawl around in ducts and hang out on rooftops all the time. He drinks beer, watches TV, and walks his dog. ;)
gabrielle[personal profile] gsparkle on May 16th, 2016 02:41 am (UTC)
Absolutely! Honestly, Fractionverse Clint would be just as likely to fall out of an air duct at the worst moment, anyway.
[identity profile] jackwabbit.livejournal.com on May 16th, 2016 08:00 pm (UTC)
Too true. ;)
[identity profile] kiss-me-cassie.livejournal.com on May 16th, 2016 12:14 am (UTC)
UGH. Yes to the air ducts. The first time I came across that I was befuzzled and then I kept seeing it and now... Pass.
[identity profile] sugar-fey.livejournal.com on May 19th, 2016 12:44 am (UTC)
Oh, oh, another fanon I've always loved is Clint being a good singer, which is no doubt Jeremy Renner's fault. ;) But it makes sense for his character.
[identity profile] alphaflyer.livejournal.com on May 19th, 2016 03:39 am (UTC)
Yes yes! And because of that I have always wanted a story in which Clint goes undercover at some night club, where he does a Billy Joel-type Pianoman thing. No doubt it exists ...

There's a lovely Clint/Darcy by Gyzym, called "The Only John Wayne Left in this Town," that is sufficiently early (2012) to have been part of what's set this fanon onto motion.