harborshore | it's a party

I just realized I haven't actually told the internet at large just how much I loved The Avengers. Which, I've spent the last two weeks talking about nothing else in email and writing fic about no other characters--yes.

So these notes are short, but in no particular order:

Bruce Banner! I had never ever previously had feelings about the Hulk or his Dr Jekyll alter ego, but my god, Mark Ruffalo did so well in this role. He's self-deprecating, he has gravitas like--there's a scene, you know the one, where it would have been so easy for him to play the yes-I-was-seriously-depressed card for laughs, but he doesn't and it's heartbreaking, and at other times he's funny as hell and he gets Tony (Tony/Pepper/Bruce, you guys, I ship it). Favorite.

Actually, they're all my favorites. Tony and Pepper and their warmth, I love it so much, and Tony not being afraid of Bruce, and Tony making fun of Loki and Thor and their Asgardian drama (I can admit it, our myths are pretty histrionic in places), and and and so great. SO great. The way he learned to work with Steve!

STEEEEVE. Steve. Man. I have feelings about Steve Rogers and his sincerity and his fucking shield and his everything. The way he watches Natasha fly after giving her a boost with this absolute joy on his face. The way his first thought is for the civilians. Fuck.

Phil Coulson is fine. I don't care who the director is, I don't care if I'm being an idiot about it, Phil Coulson is FINE. Because I love him. Okay?

Now that we've established that: "You lack conviction." Best line. Also, the phone call to Natasha in the beginning made me ship him/her/Clint like burning and it doesn't look like I'll be stopping any time soon. OT-fucking-3. "Honey, our boyfriend is in serious trouble. Please come be your competent self so we can get him home."

Speaking of Natasha, how great is she? How is she the best every time she's on screen? Good goddamn, she's my favorite. "Let me put you on hold." And then taking everyone out, barefoot, weaponless, tied to a fucking chair. Pulling up Clint on screen every time she's near a computer. Using Loki's assumptions against him and reading him like a BOOK, god, I love her. The way she tells both Clint and Selvig right away that it wasn't their fault, what they did when they were brainwashed, it wasn't their fault. The compassion in that. ♥ SHE IS MY FAVORITE.

Thor! Still love Thor. "You people are so petty. And so short." Ridiculous, larger-than-life, the kind of happy that they all need, even as he has a much more serious side. LOVE HIM. Did not love his brother, except as a very good villain--I love Loki-the-character from the myths, but he's also the guy who causes the end of the world and I can believe that, here, which just--makes him less compelling, for me. Armageddon, genocide, wanting to destroy for the sake of destroying--"You kill because it's fun" as Fury puts it.

CLIIIINT. Competent as FUCK, I loved that he just never missed, that he calculated for the fact that Loki would catch the arrow and made it an exploding one, his relationship with Natasha, his post-brainwashing scene of vulnerability and then desire to go do something violent, his everything. Clint/Natasha/Coulson forever (so says my fic, which is 5K and growing fast).

The way this movie problematized and distrusted authority. The way it pointed out that someone can be in the right most of the time and still be a manipulative fucker--Fury, lying about the weapons. The way the Council was incredibly troubling, even though they're in charge of SHIELD, which is on the side of the angels. Supposedly. SO INTERESTING.

Basically I love everything, I want the Black Widow prequel YESTERDAY, gimme Bucky Barnes to add to this and I will be your forever.

ETA: And I forgot (clearly a reason I need to see it again soon): "There are always men like you." That moment makes me cry, every time. Such poignancy, in the middle of a really bombastic superhero movie. Well done, Joss.

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EEEEEEEEEE. OH MAN. My feelings about Clint and the fact that he never misses and about Natasha and her backstory, oh my god. THIS.

That little tiny bit of backstory we got in the movie just tugs at my soul. HE WAS SUPPOSED TO KILL BUT HE DIDN'T. AND NOW SHE OWES HIM A DEBT. AND NOW THEY FIGHT TOGETHER. They could not have hinted at a backstory designed more perfectly to appeal to me.

RIGHT? "Love is for children, I owe him a debt." And yet she pulls up images of him on every computer she comes across and worriedly says "We won't find them fast enough." And their scene together! AAAAH. Just, every little thing about the way they relate to each other.

Ugh, I cannot get over that "love is for children," because--yes, okay, she really believes that, but at the same time it's so obvious that they love each other. Like, not even romantically, as it's presented, although I am totally okay with that too, but the way she sits there while he's coming back to himself, and the way he says her name in that soft little whisper, there's SO MUCH LOVE. YOU ARE NOT FOOLING ANYBODY, PEOPLE. But I also love the idea that they both have too much betrayal and distrust and grief in their pasts to admit it even to themselves. At least, at first. Even better is if they figure it out eventually. (With or without help. *g*)

It is my favorite line of Natasha characterization, I think, because yes, she so totally believes it and it is so clear from the way they interact when Clint is waking up (and "You know that I do" kills me as well, because that means she at some point managed to tell him about the brainwashing or is comfortable enough with him knowing that she can bring it up) that there is ALL the love right there. Even if they have no words for it or ways of understanding it. Yet. (I would read any version of them figuring it out, but my favorite is the one where they have help.)

and "You know that I do" kills me as well, because that means she at some point managed to tell him about the brainwashing or is comfortable enough with him knowing that she can bring it up

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah, yes! Exactly! Kills me dead. Not only does he obviously know what she went through, but they're at a point where she can bring it up to help him, with what little comfort it is to tell him it's not his fault. GAH THAT SCENE. It's just one short little scene but there's so much in it.

(It's also funny! "Cognitive recalibration--I hit you really hard on the head." HEARTS.)

Right? In what, two minutes, we get so much about them and their history and the way they know each other and interact. "Don't do that to yourself" the way she says that right away because she DOES know what he's thinking, both because she went through it and she knows him that well. MY HEART.

Here is more backstory story, because I have A Lot Of Feelings:

The sun is rising in Malibu. Tony Stark's spiraling self-destruction is splashed all over the gossip columns online and off, Colonel Rhodes has flown off with one of the suits and landed straight into the hands of the military, Fury is eating Tums like they're candy and has made three seasoned agents cry in the last twenty-four hours, and UFOs are falling out of the sky in New Mexico.

"Seriously?" Natasha says. "A UFO?"

Phil is wearing sunglasses and his expression is convincingly impassive, but she sees the faint lines around his eyes that means he's almost smiling. "It's unidentified, it's an object, and it either flew or fell, depending on who you ask. It's an accurate name."

She can't argue with that, but that's hardly the point. "I can't believe you're pulling out to go find a UFO." She lifts her coffee cup to take a sip, then pauses, narrows her eyes and fixes him with her best interrogator's gaze. "You don't care about the UFO at all, do you? You're leaving because you're afraid that whatever Stark is building in his basement is going to turn all of southern California into a smoking crater."

"Don't be ridiculous, Agent Romanoff," Phil says, and this time he's smiling for real, not even trying to hide it. "I'm sure Mr. Stark only has humanity's best interests at heart."

Natasha snorts into her coffee cup, but Phil's smile fades, and she tilts her head. "What?"

He's quiet a moment before answering. "You know, I didn't before, but I might actually be starting to believe that."

Natasha opens her mouth, reconsiders, closes it again. She thinks about Stark asking her what she would do if she knew she would never have another birthday, and how, for just a second, for that same second she saw what he was saying and how scared he was, she had considered giving him an honest answer.

"No," she says. "I'm going with the smoking crater. All of southern California."

Phil says, "We can bet on it, if you want."

"You want to bet on the quality Tony Stark's moral character?" Natasha asks. "That is the very definition of a sucker bet."

"I don't think so," Phil says. And when Natasha just looks at him, one eyebrow raised skeptically, he said, "I'm an excellent judge of character. You're here, aren't you?"

Oh my god, that whole scene, but especially, ESPECIALLY:

"I don't think so," Phil says. And when Natasha just looks at him, one eyebrow raised skeptically, he said, "I'm an excellent judge of character. You're here, aren't you?"

MY HEART. MY FEELINGS. THEMMMMM.

HE BELIEVES IN HEROES, OKAY. But the thing is, it's not just obvious heroes who killed Nazis. He also believes that damaged, dangerous people with a lot of blood in their past can become heroes. They planned the Avengers Initiative before they found Steve, after all.

YES HE DOES. Fuck, Phil's sincerity about the whole believing in heroes thing nearly killed me. ;__;

it's a party

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