[ SECRET POST #3183 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3183 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 047 secrets from Secret Submission Post #455.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I actually like Bruce/Natasha but I do wish that more focus had been put on Natasha's issues. I don't think she needs to be a Strong!Independent!Woman! constantly but at the same time, I did feel like putting her with Bruce made her story in AoU all about his issues rather than hers.

[(Anonymous)]

How so? They both have issues. Some of hers were explored in the first Avengers. They were also hinted at in The Winter Soldier. She had more character development than most of the other characters in AOU.

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of AoU seemed to revolve around Bruce's angst about the Hulk and how he saw himself as a monster. And Natasha's issues were basically framed in that lens -- her revealing that she's sterile, for example, was in response to his concerns and was framed as part of his story.

AoU could have made Natasha the centerpiece and been about how she's coming to terms with losing her covers and how she's afraid of someone knowing the "real her" after years of living under multiple different identities. But it's not.

Instead, the romance is framed according to Bruce's angsts and issues.

Natasha has a lot of character development. I don't disagree there. But it kind of annoyed me that as soon as she was put into a romance, she was basically there to act in a supporting part of Bruce's story rather than her own.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, no. AOU would always be about Tony Stark.

[(Anonymous)]

I meant in terms of Natasha's character. AoU revolves around Tony mostly since he instigates the issue but Natasha's main character conflicts (not the fighting) mostly center around Bruce and his issues.

Why not her issues instead? It's not like she doesn't have any.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, no. What you're describing there would have been bruce putting his issues on the back burner to try and comfort and win over a woman. Which would be boring, done to death, and kinda creepy and rapey.

What we had was a female character who had been developed into a full character choosing to focus on trying to engage in a relationship with an emotionally fragile man, putting her issues behind her to be supportive to a romantic partner who needs it.*

The age old test: If this had been Widow and She Hulk, would you find it bad? I don't see any of your objections as valid in this hypothetical scenario.

*(Aside, that is to say not a comment I really wish to get into an argument over, but something that occurs to me: I wonder if the wide spread backlash to this says something about how people perceive emotional fragility in men. burdensome and not ok and wrong for men to want a womans support with it. Not accusing you of this mindset, but I wonder if this is somewhat behind the almost universal loathing of the handling of the relationship. I mean fandom is full of people who argue the toss over every little thing, but this "Natasha was pushed aside and made into bruces therapist and that is terrible" complaint seem like it's not especially contested. Not in the feminist circles I roll in, and we argue over fucking everything.)

[(Anonymous)]

I think there's something to be said for the idea that it's frustrating, and probably harmful, for it to always be the woman who's shown as doing the emotional work.

[(Anonymous)]

In general, sure, I can agree with that, but does that still hold even when this specific woman is the character who has been devoid of emotional work thus far? Her entire character has been the type to avoid emotion, avoid connections out of choice, and showing her in her new situation trying to be emotionally open, emotionally supportive with someone who has had too strong a connection to his emotions, and has had to avoid emotional connections out of necessity not choice? Does that still count as part of the same problem? See I don't think this falls under the stereotype of "Emotional woman tries to connect with boorish man". I see it more as "emotionally closed off person has to be there for emotionally damaged person" which is one of the reasons I really liked the Bruce / Nat relationship. It felt like for Nat it was the only relationship where she could be a part of a story about emotional connection without falling into the "man tries to seduce difficult woman" / "ten things I hate about you" style cliche

[(Anonymous)]

TBH I think this is one of those hologram-type situations where it's actually both situations at once, and how you interpret it is mostly a question of which aspect you choose to focus on. I don't think either interpretation is really wrong. Just, at the end of the day, I like your reading but can also understand why people read it the other way.

[diet_poison]

I really did not think that. If anything it brought her own issues into the spotlight by giving her an excuse to talk about them. (To be clear I don't think women, in general, need a man to talk about things, but I think Nat needs someone to make it make sense from a narrative perspective because she's a very private person.)

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah but…I just don't like how they take what's likely an incredibly personal and interesting aspect of Natasha and just use it to make a point about reassuring Bruce.

It's not really built upon, you know, the way it would be if Natasha's issues had been the focus of her character arc in that film/the romance?

It just seems like so often when a female character gets involved with a dude…the story makes it about her *tending* to him -- it becomes about him and his issues. And I would have liked to see it be about Natasha and her issues and demons rather than bringing them up basically to comfort Bruce.

[diet_poison]

I don't know, I actually thought that interaction was really cathartic to her. To me it didn't read as "just for Bruce". But I guess we have our different interpretations.

[(Anonymous)]

I think your interpretaton comes from a place of reading each character like a fully realised person, and AYRT's interpretation comes from a place of reading women characters like checklists of things that are fine and things that are wrong terrible for the purposes of testing if they're good enough characters or if the writers are bad people who feminists should throw stones at - and the pass grade on this test is 100%

[(Anonymous)]

Wow…you sound incredibly defensive and bitter that I just happen to wish that Natasha's AoU plot line had been more Natasha-focused instead of revolving around Bruce's issues.

Heck, I don't even mind that Bruce's issues were addressed but why can't Natasha's problems be at the forefront. Why can't we have Bruce being shown to help her deal with losing her covers, for instance?

Just a thought...

[diet_poison]

I don't think that's a fair assessment in this particular case.

[(Anonymous)]

IA with you anon, and you put your finger on something that bothered me about AoU... Natasha's character arc wasn't independent, it was used to prop up Bruce's character arc.

Sigh. :/

[(Anonymous)]

Well what about Thor who had no character arch at all? What about Pietro who's character arch was used to prop up Wanda's character arch (and jesus, at least Widow was developed as a character before being smushed in with someone elses story)?

Honestly, Bruce, Natasha, Wanda, Pietro, Jarvis and fucking HAWKEYE of all people, were the only characters that had a human, personal, story arch in the entire film.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't mind Bruce/Natasha. It has potential and is fairly unique. The oneliners and dialogue in this movie were just soooo bad though. For every character, not just them. The plot was fine, but the dialogue just embarrassed me. I'm 300% sure that if it hadn't been written to make the actors sound like teenagers, it would have been much more well received than it was.