Hi everyone, Aster here!!! (I'm lunarvalleysinmymind wherever I'm not archers_and_spies.) Hope everyone has been having fun prompting, I can't wait for this year's fills :D Interrupting all the fun with more fun, which is the article/love letter I wrote for this community last month—I know a lot of you have already read this but I just wanted it to be somewhere on the internet so that a) more people can read it and b) it feels more Official (TM) hehe. I love you guys <3



The Monday before Christmas 2022, a lawyer in Ottawa, Ontario receives a black mug in the mail. She is delighted: snaps a picture of it without remembering to turn off the flash, sends an enthusiastic text to the Discord server in all caps. A year and a half later, it sits proudly on her DVD and action figure collection shelf, white splotches from the dishwasher and all.

The mug’s design proclaims ARCHERS DO IT WITH A RECURVE. The server is titled be_compromised. The woman’s name is—we’ll call her Alpha. But that’s not the point.

( Click for the rest )

So with MCU set in the real world, just expanded a little bit, and our favorite actor and actress doing plenty of other movies that inspire folks to want to imagine them as covers for Clint and Natasha, this is a pairing that frequently makes me poke around the crossover/fusion side of fics.

Honestly, it takes a lot to sell me on most of the actor fusions I've seen, primarily because Jeremy Renner is such a good actor that a lot of the characters that could be Clint Barton undercover just don't strike me as remotely similar. The ones where they make his other characters his backstory are usually worse. But for all that, I love an actor fusion that actually sells me on it, and I even occasional take a twin-fic for guilty pleasure.

Crossovers are even more fun. Seeing Clint and Natasha in the Firefly universe or the Leverage universe, as I have poking around this comm and fic exchanges, is almost always a ball, just to see how they'll translate or the author will mix things up this time.

Do you write crossovers with them? Fusions? Have a great idea for one you haven't written yet? I was totally going to fuse Avengers/Bourne Legacy and make Marta part of Bobbi's backstory before she hit Agents of SHIELD. (I admit, I haven't entirely written off the idea yet.) I'm also knee-deep in a Leverage/Avengers crossover 'verse where Parker was Red Room.

Do you like to read them even if you don't like them? What's your favorite crossover or fusion? What story do you wish someone would write?

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.)

Dearest and most beloved of Bars!

First things first:  IT'S FRIDAY!!!  *ahem*

Today, I thought, we could talk about things that might have happened before our great ship yacht sailed, and how/whether/if the existence of previous partners might feature in the lives of our favourite assassins, and how.

We know from comics canon (possibly, but not definitively modified in the MCU by Agents of SHIELD) that Clint was married to Bobbi Morse/Mockingbird.  How does he react when they run into each other at SHIELD?  How do they get along?  Would she and Natasha be friends?  ("So Bobbi tells me that I should just give up now on you ever putting the cap back on the toothpaste.  Lost cause, she says."  "When did you talk to her??  You guys doing some kind of all-girl conspiracy thing??"  "She also says you like to be scratched behind the ear, like a cat."  "That's total bullshit.  She's having you ...  hmmmm... do that again?")

We also understand from comics canon that Natasha and The Winter Soldier may, at some point, been together.  What was that like?  How, if true, would it impact on Steve's search, and Natasha's willingness to help, beyond handing him the file with a warning? Would Clint be nervous what might happen when Barnes turns up?

Then, there are of course other options.  My burgeoning head canon has Clint having had a fling with Melinda May at some point (strictly friends with benefits, although igrockspock turned that into a former marriage, in her wonderful story Two Truths and One Lie.)  We know May has Nat on speed dial, so what do they text each other about that won't pass the Bechdel test??

Give us your head canons, meta, recs, ficlets, snippets ...  And remember:

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.)

“Barton and Romanoff never have an extraction plan.”  “Fury wanted a lie detector even Agent Romanoff couldn’t beat.”

Did you go EEEP!! the same way I did, when those throwaway lines got thrown away in Season One of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD?  And started to wonder whether we were going to see our assassins pop in on the show?   …  And (after spending a token few minutes being disappointed) felt your own creative gears start to crank up when they didn’t?  Well, here’s your chance to watch/make it happen!

SHIELD was/is a place where chances are pretty good that field agents would know one another.  Coulson is a given – we’ve seen him talking to both Clint and Natasha on screen.  And there's lots of fic involving him and our ship (or one of them ...) out there already. It’s the others I'd like to look at, or the group of them together.  Some thoughts:

-                Melinda May has been “in” for quite some time, but so has Clint (his service photo, which can be seen on one of the screens in “Avengers,” is dated 8/30/99). Do they have a history – as green recruits, partners, friends with benefits, colleagues, or did they get drunk at the SHIELD Christmas party and wake up in Bahrain? (Without prejudice to later relationships!)

-                Has Natasha trained with Ward, taught him what he knows, whupped him, maybe even noticed there was something not quite ... genuine with the guy?  Would Coulson ask her to interrogate him, after the fall of SHIELD?

-                What would happen if Natasha ran into Skye doing a hack job? Who learns from whom?

-                Did FitzSimmons design any of Clint’s arrow heads?  Are they starstruck by Hawkeye, or do they find designing his killware mildly distasteful?

-                Did Natasha ever take that lie detector test what's-his-face mentioned?

-                How do you think Clint would have gotten along with Victoria Hand, or John Garrett?

-                Would “Director” Coulson reach out to Clint and Natasha, now ensconced in Avengers Tower, to help him kick-start new!SHIELD?  Would Maria Hill act as liaison to make it happen?

-                Sitwell.  Go.

Give us your fics or fic snippets, meta, recs, self-recs, icons, idle thoughts! (No pro/anti-Ward wanking please – let’s leave that topic to tumblr…)

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.)

Happy Friday, everyone!

So one of the things I find interesting when dealing in a particular pairing is how fanfic writers 'imprint' so to speak on some of the first epic fics we love for that particular pairing. Otherwise known as, I fell in love with many pairings due to reading epic fics and have met other fanfic writers for those pairings that imprinted on the same fics I did. Certain headcanons are never the same after you read certain fics.

My friends dragged me kicking and screaming (by accident) into the Avengers fandom and Clint and Natasha in particular, but as much as I accept most major branches of characterization for the characters, I imprinted hard, hard, hard on ohladybegood's series, forgeries and fire. Though other fics for these characters have struck me as so, so right since, I've noticed that the ones that work the most for me, that hit me the hardest in reading or writing are the ones that fall in line with the characterizations in these two fics. (Her writing style didn't hurt either.)

Did you imprint any characterizations of Clint and/or Natasha at the beginning of this fandom? Are there any fics that to you are just right or that you strive to match in your own writing?

Obviously, we all write our own headcanons and characterizations and make the writing our own, but care to share your influences or the authors and fics that gobsmack you with their perfection?


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.)

We’ve all seen them, those blow-uppy action movies.  The kind that ends (or middles, because the very last thing is usually a fist fight) with 57 smashed-up vehicles littering the flyover and the streets below, including a school bus, a Greyhound, a semi-truck with a Humpty Dumpty logo and at least six police cars?  Or the ones with a shootout that leaves seventeen black-clad bodies in a suburban shopping mall, or on the steps of a tourist-rich national monument?  You have?  Thought so.

Now, have you ever left the theatre wondering what people's paperwork would look like, after something like that?  For the agents, who just killed in the line of duty (seventeen times!!  with a letter opener!) or even merely discharged their firearms in public repeatedly?  Or for Nora from Accounting, who has to write off the flying car and reimburse Barton for the vintage Springsteen t-shirt with the bullet holes (“Why can’t that headcase just wear the SHIELD standard issue black Under Armour, like everybody else”)?  Or for Maria Hill ("Banner did WHAT?  At Tiffany's??")

At some point, reality will (or should) come crashing down on heroes with a vengeance – and bless Marvel for bringing us the occasional congressional hearing to make that point.  The paperwork will be as epic as the battles.  And organizations like SHIELD probably don’t self-administrate, either.   This is where today’s topic comes in!

Let’s have your snippets of head canon, your prompts and your ficlets, your recs and your self-recs:  Assassins and Administration!

Some samples/mini promots to get your creative juices flowing, and to unlock the memory banks for those recs:

• Who rents (and services) the safe houses in which Clint and Natasha stitch up their wounds and advance their relationship, in places like Astana, Quito and Milton Keynes?

• Did Fury sign a death certificate for Coulson?  What did he put on it?

• Does SHIELD have a pension plan?

• What did the write-up look like for the lie detector test that Natasha beat?  Or the one Maria Hill took at Stark Industries?

• Can you imagine Hawkeye trying to fill in the expense claim after that mission in New Mexico?  (“You’re claiming meal allowances for how many days, Barton?  You weren’t exactly working for SHIELD the last three, plus your report said you weren’t even fed!”)

 I think you get the idea.

So here's a rec:

“Permit A38” by old_chatterhand (General, no warnings apply):  Phil Coulson died.  And then he got better. The story of the agent who had to deal with the paperwork.  Not a Clint/Natasha story, really, but the gold standard for the bureaucrat’s POV.

And a self rec (sorry, but I want you to feel that that's okay, because you know best what you may have done that fits the bill):

“AfterMath” (T, no warnings apply):  Based on the Promptathon prompts ““Clint and Natasha doing the inevitable paperwork after an assignment is over” and “… bribing each other with the most outrageous things to get the other to do all of the paperwork.”
Ready, set – go!

And don’t forget these essentials:

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.)
 

halfamoon is a community that dedicates a fortnight to celebrating female characters. I didn’t get all my ducks in a row this year and I'm not as ready as I'd like to be.


I intended to make a post to celebrate all things Natasha Romanoff (movie canon) and I have about a half-dozen gen or Natasha-centric fic recs but I would love more of your favourites. I would also love any meta people have written that I can link to (or quote, with your permission).

( WHY NATASHA IS IMPORTANT )

So send me links to your Natasha-love! Meta, speculation, fic recs is all welcome and I will do my best to properly attribute everything to it's source.

Oh, and check out halfamoon if you have the time!

[Mods, let me know if you want me to edit the tags for this post, I wasn't sure what to use]

Yes, weird subject line I know. I was reading this book the other day (It's book 2 of the Jane True novels - if this sounds interesting, I really recommend you start with Tempest Rising, book 1) and I came across a great analysis of why some revered modern fictional relationships actually suck, and why they should really be condemned instead. And it struck me that the following analysis was pretty much the antithesis of BlackHawk, and that was one of the fundamental reasons I love it so much.

From 'Tracking the Tempest', Nicole Peeler. (page 314)
[...] signifies editing to get to the pertinent parts faster

(also, just a warning: the heroine is more than a little drunk at this point)

At Iris' question, I stopped and really tried to break down what it was about Ryu's demands that had bothered me so much. Obviously there was the drama-queen aspect of landing that ultimatum on me, especially after everything we'd just been through. Everything I had been through. You didn't demand someone make major life changes when they'd been beaten to a pulp the night before. And why did I have to move? That would be one stonkingly big compromise on my part.
But is compromise such a bad thing? the maraschino cherry in my drink inquired philosophically. It's the first thing you're taught in kindergarten, after all. How to share each other's toys. I groaned softly, rubbing my palm into my eyes. Then I ate the damn cherry.
"The thing is, Iris, I've never liked the idea of compromise. In films and in stories, people who love each other - really love each other - make horrendous sacrifices. They give kidneys, they move across the world, they die. Or become the undead, because you know I like that sort of book. Basically, the heroine's lover calls, and she answers. Which is stupid. You know why?"
Iris shook her head.
"Because he's always fucking calling."
[...] "So I've never liked that idea, Iris. You know why?" Iris again shook her head. "Because I think that sometimes, when you really love somebody, you don't ask them for the kind of compromise that is actually a sacrifice. The kind where one person gives up everything they have, everything they are, just so they can be with the other person. And you certainly don't expect that shit. You don't expect someone to prove their love. To love you that little bit more than you love them."
[...] "What Ryu wants from me," I warned, waggling my finger emphatically in the air, "I can't give him. Not now, and maybe not ever. [...] But I couldn't give him my whole life. And that's what he wanted from me. He wanted everything, and I wanted him to love me for what I had already offered."

The point of all this? Clint and Natasha aren't like that. They may ask, may even expect the other to give everything, but it's as partners in the field, to get the mission accomplished, and they would ask the same of anyone else on their level (it's a matter of business, you might say).

On a personal level, they don't ask for anything from the other that they aren't ready and able to offer themselves. They will readily make these kinds of sacrifices - these kinds of compromises - for each other. But it's at least partly because they will never ask it of each other. They love each other solely for what has already been given.

And that's why I adore BlackHawk.

Clint and Natasha may be compromised as individuals, but never as partners. Whether platonic or romantic, theirs is a love without compromise.

Thoughts? Arguments? Vodka shots?

The word is spreading about the good ship Clint/Natasha! 

Check out this fantastic blog entry at Heroes and Heartbreakers.com (a great site about romance in novels, tv, movies, pop culture etc.) about our favorite pair of Master Assassins.

Perfect moment by moment descriptions and discussion of why everyone should be shipping our ship.  It's an awesome fun read...check it out!

Mods...I had no clue how to tag this so I put it under the fic rec tag since there wasn't a generic rec tag.  Let me know if you want me to change it.

OMG this just made my frickin' day.



BEST. TUMBLR THING. EVA.

(x-posted to my lj)

Meta from someone with little comics background. Essentially a look at Black Widow in The Avengers and Iron Man 2 with some comics snippets.

With thanks to workerbee73 with her wonderful meta and discussions, surreallis who asked questions and got me thinking, and everyone who joined in the discussion on the Alphabet wars thread on be_compromised. Meta referred to is from here and here by workerbee73, here by gyzym, and here by marinarusalka. Fics that deal with Natasha being remade and have influenced these thinky thoughts include RED by waldorph and Chrysalis by sugar_fey.

Link to meta: Some Thoughts On Black Widow, Remaking, And Reclaiming.

So... playlists.  I have them.  This is the first C/N one I’ve been ready to call done, and it’s also the companion piece/soundtrack to the Rest for the Weary series, which I’m in the process of wrapping up. But even if you’re not into the story I think it works pretty well for them outside of fic.  And may I just say that these two are insanely fun to make playlists for?

1. Jungle – Emma Louise
2. Comfort You – Eskimo Joe
3. Asleep – Stars
4. Sleep – The Dandy Warhols
5. Perfect Now – Sarah Blasko
6. Black Moon – Wilco
7. Carrion – Fiona Apple
8. Runaway – The National
9. Love Interruption – Jack White
10. Take These Chains – Hank Williams, Sr.
11. Too Close – Alex Clare (acoustic version)
12. Soft Shock – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
13. You’ve Got the Love – Florence + the Machine

Links, notes, commentary and dorky thinky thoughts under the cut. 

( Read more... )