#would be cool if she was analysed as deeply as literally any of the male characters 😔

[no-psi-nan]

Teruhashi analysis iceberg meme 🧊

[qqueenofhades]

Keeping my fingers crossed for that Black Widow meta

Aha, okay. As usual, I am ludicrously easy to enable, so let's take a crack at this. The ask obviously contains SPOILERS for the Black Widow film (and is also tagged "black widow spoilers" if you're planning to filter), and discussion/reference to other films/properties in the MCU, though I don't feel like any of those are still a secret.

Anyway, as I said in my earlier post, I can't believe I am actually still trying to critically analyse a Marvel production in the year of our Lord 2021, but then, I feel like we all have a complicated relationship with it. Likewise, the feeling of "oh wow NOW you're giving Natasha a solo movie after you killed her off in a cheap and fairly sexist way in Endgame?" If this film had come out ten or even five years ago, it would have been major, but holding it off until now seems to have left most of us justifiably unimpressed. Plus, as I am absolutely not the first person to point out, it renders Natasha's sacrifice in Endgame "because I don't have a family" even more narratively incoherent. I realize that this film was written after that one by totally different people, there's no point in expecting the MCU to make consistent canonical sense throughout its eighty billion different films/series, we were all stuck with a mess after the Whedonified Age of Ultron Nat, and so forth, but still. Natasha explicitly SAYS that she has two families (her wacky Russian found family of spies and the Avengers) and her decision to leap off the cliff in Endgame to save Clint and his retconned perfect white heterosexual nuclear family.... Hmmmm. To which I say to you, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I do bite my thumb at Male Writers, sir.

Likewise, while I am wildly attracted to Florence Pugh as Yelena and deeply desire to be wrapped between her thighs, the movie felt more like her story than Nat's. Yelena drove most of the plot and the action, while Nat was just kind of along for the ride. As a solo piece, we really didn't learn that much about Natasha aside from the opening scene (which felt like it was straight out of The Americans and probably worked the best of the whole film for the reason) with her childhood in America. But even the infamous "what happened in Budapest" backstory with her and Clint was quickly info-dumped rather than shown, and they could have taken more narrative risks or included more flashbacks or otherwise given us more NATASHA, y'know??? Instead of cramming the film into the small space between Civil War and Infinity War and making it even weirder that Nat seemingly has no memory or reference to these events when she returns to the team at that time. Why not show her looking for Yelena or her actual defection to the Avengers or anything else we might want from a film that purportedly exists entirely to provide backstory for a now-dead character? It felt like even in the film universe, the main quest was being repeated -- she tried to kill Baddie McSoviet once before and it didn't work out, so she has to do it again, something something. Okay.

As for that, good ol' Marvel and its American Superiority TM. The only actual Eastern European actress in this film about Eastern Europeans was Antonia/Taskmaster, played by the Ukrainian Olga Kurylenko (and I was very interested in her?? If she's supposed to be a narrative foil and a ghost of Nat's past and mark of her former sins, etc., why not develop her as an actual character?) Everyone else were Brits and Americans hamming it up with even more chew-the-scenery fake Russian accents than Elizabeth Olsen's "Sokovian" accent as Scarlet Witch. If it's established that they all have perfect American accents at the start of the movie, why is Nat the only American-accented character in the modern day if she had presumably the exact same childhood as Yelena? I know it's another way to set her apart, but that and Baddie McSoviet (the Russians are finding a way to steal free will from people's brains! Zomgz!!! Is this 2021 or 1981?) were straight out of the Cold War in terms of its not-so-veiled American Supremacy Message. Likewise, making modern!Natasha a former KGB agent never really made sense, since she says in Winter Soldier that she was born in 1984, and we see her in this film as an 11-year-old in 1995. But the USSR collapsed in 1991, when she was seven, and the Red Room appears to be an entirely unrelated flying....lab....thingy run by a generic evil Russian (Ray Winstone, likewise Hamming Up Accent). So like. What is she, guys?? Make up your minds!!!

Likewise, Baddie McSoviet/Dreykov as a villain obviously plays into the hoary old Hollywood "All Bad People Are Recognizable As Being Terrible Sexists and Also Probably Russians" trope, but aside from that, he doesn't make sense. He has this entire army of basically unstoppable Widows and he has just been.... waiting around and causing random explosions? Or was just waiting for Nat and company to return so he could Put His Evil Plan Into Motion? Are we really supposed to believe that this guy has just been sitting up in his flying saucer and essentially never doing anything this whole time? He had about a million chances to launch this take-over-the-world plan long before Natasha ever got there. Plus, I.... am.... not sure what to think (aside from /deep sigh/ MARVEL) about the fact that all the Widows we see dying/getting killed on screen are women of color. (Then the Black surgeon who was about to remove Yelena's brain in the Red Room and the only other Black guy being Natasha's errand boy, which just... in context... YIKES.) I think the fact that there are random Black background Widows are supposed to mean that they're inclusive and badass or something? Scarlett Johansson also has her own issues with White Feminism and all the other things we've critiqued her for before, so after TFATWS and the Flag Smashers, Marvel clearly has found its subtly racist sweet spot. As usual?

The end of the film also just basically turns into the standard Marvel empty-spectacle/cool-looking fights/people flying through the air thing, and I wanted a lot more focus on the wacky found-family Russian-spy hijinks (I did love them, for reasons) and character dynamics, rather than all of them separately fighting baddies in different places. I did obviously have feelings about Natasha putting the parachute on Yelena to save her life. But why were we then denied Nat/Gamora parallels/relationships/any character development or interaction at all in Infinity War/Endgame? Both of them are trained assassins adopted into a non-biological family that they have a complicated relationship with, but end up forging a strong bond with their sister (Yelena/Nebula) nonetheless. Of course, that would have required Endgame to put more effort into its female characters than what it did, which was one (1) Epic CGI Charge Scene at the very end, and literally nothing else. Not that I am still salty about this or anything.

Anyway. The movie was genuinely fun in places. The wacky Russian found family of spies was definitely the best part, even if it made Endgame even more nonsensical as a result. But I wanted this movie to be a lot better than it was overall, though I probably would have liked it more if it had actually come out in a timely fashion and wasn't only released after they killed her off. It just feels like there were so many possible threads of potential that could have been done with Natasha if they were actually interested in experimenting and exploring the character and not just coming up with new baddies and ways to go boom, and it unfortunately missed the mark with that.

[berlanee]

Hiiiii guys :) I've been reading alot of fanfics about arón lately and I just couldn't get enough of them so i decided to write some of my own 😂 sorry if it sucks

'Auditions'

You probably waited for this moment your whole life and finally had an opportunity to make it come real. You were waiting outside the door that might open any second at this point.

You were auditioning for a netflix show titled 'Èlite' and oh boy you couldn't have been more happy. You have always dreamed of being an actress but your dreams were never as big as this, not auditioning for a very popular streaming platform that everybody all around world will be able to watch.

As you were busy drowning through your thoughts the door you were standing next to suddenly opened and a middle aged lady dressed up in a suit appeared holding a very thick folder that seemed to have various different names that have been all crossed out with a red mark.

"Miss y/n please do come in" she said with a very robotic voice. She must've been very bored and tired of coming out every half hour and calling people out.

Without waiting any longer you just shrug your head and followed her inside the room. As you entered your eyes immediately landed on the table centered right in the middle of the room with three people sitting, two of them being women and the third one being a male.

After greeting them all your eyes drifted to the guy that was standing right opposite them with a piece of paper in his hand, which looked like a script. You couldn't stop yourself from thinking how attractive he was. He had short curly hair, light brown eyes and a lot of tiny moles that just made him look more hot you thought.

"Miss y/n welcome once again, this young man's name is Arón and he will also be a part of the élite cast. He wouldn't directly be your partner on the show but we just wanted some of the castmates to have small script that they could act in front of us so that we can analyse the chemistry within them and to just overall have some materials we can go over and watch before we start the actual production" the women seated in the middle said without catching a breath. Why was this women already talking like you had the role? You haven't signed any papers yet as far as you know. But you just kept silent thinking you might ruin everything if you say anything regarding this. Plus you really couldn't help the weird feeling inside your stomach and the pressure inside your mind forcing you to get closer to the boy near you and have a closer look to his perfect face that can probably be spotted meters away. He really was pretty.

You got close to him and smiled at him. "Hi my name is y/n very nice to meet you arón" you said with a trembling voice, oh man he made you nervous just looking directly into your eyes. At that moment you just wished your makeup didn't look bad since you rushed it in the morning to make it on time here because you slept through your alarm and woke up 20 minutes late.

"Pleasure to meet you y/n" oh wow. Until that moment you never realised how appealing your name sounded or it was just his deep raspy voice that made it sound so attractive. It was definetely his voice.

You just slowly shrugged your head to anwser him back. He handed you one of the papers that he was holding onto. You checked out what was written on the single page.

You had no idea which character you were auditioning to so you had no idea what to do and how to act out when you didn't know basic facts about the character. So you just thought you should be natural and don't do anything over the top.

On the script there was only a couple of lines so you took a deep breath of relief, at least you weren't gonna read anything long and also act it out.

The judges started the camera that was going to film you and arón acting the script out, they counted till three and it was now all on you guys.

"Where are they? Your family?" He asked with a soft voice.

You checked your line on the paper and immediately lifted your eyes to meet his ones.

"Somewhere up there" you said with a soft voice while lifting your head and locking your eyes on the large window that was on the ceiling. You looked directly at the light blue sky deeply.

"All of them are up there, every single one of them. 1, 2, 3, 4 and five. All of them"

He was looking at your face with a expression of symphony.

"It was all my fault, I shouldn't have done it. I knew something like this was going to happen but I couldn't stop myself" you continued your line.

"I loved a man once, he was the reason of my happiness...But he then became my biggest mistake"

"I made a mistake and lost my family, you would know it. Right? How you could love someone so blindly without realising the damage you are leaving" he took a deep breath and his hand immediately surrounded his throat making him look like he was fighting for air.

"I would know" he said with quite voice. He then quickly took a quick glimpse on his script and then lifted his eyes to meet back yours. And waited for you to continue.

"And now it's just a life where I live by chance, only trying to fill in empty stupid days by living the most stupid life" you said with a sorry smile. A smile that made your expression look more like you were in pain.

You checked the script again and it was saying that your hand climbs up to your chest snowy and touches her necklace. Thank God you were wearing a necklace. So you quickly did what it said and moved your hand to your necklace.

"This is the only thing that I have left from them, it's the only thing that makes me closer to them, like they never left beside me" you continued and waited for him. Since your paper only had your lines and not his.

He took a step closer to you and looked deeply into your eyes, you felt like you were melting, that your heart was pounding at 1000 speed. You didn't know what to do so you just looked back at him and try not to do anything stupid.

His eyes drifted from your eyes to your lips slowly and stared at them for a couple of seconds. You thought he was going to kiss you and you actually hoped and prayed at that moment that he actually would.

Instead he got a little bit more close and slowly moved his head down so that his lips were close to your necklace. And he slowly packed the accessory rose hanging from it. You closed your eyes. You could feel his breathing very close to you and his breath hitting your chest. It was warm. Made your heart skip for the thousandth time since you came into this room.

"You..."

"I kissed you from your pain" he said lifting his head back up and meeting your eyes once again. You were speechless. This feeling right now is probably 10x better than idea of kissing him you had earlier. It just made you feel very special for an unknown reason.

Your faces were very close regarding how tall he was from you so you were kind of on your tip toes and and had your head lifted up.

"Cut" one of the judges yelled out.

"Wow guys! That was perfect. You two have so much diversity already I'm pretty sure you both will demonstrate outstanding performances. So cogratualitions to you both. Arón you were already signed up so y/n welcome" she said with a sweet smile and the the other two judges agreed to her.

Wow. I literally just landed on a huge netflix show and have a very attractive co-star already. He was so gloomy I'm pretty sure if it wasn't with him I wouldn't have been this lucky.

.....

"You were really great by the way" Arón said as we were leaving the building.

"Thankyou. Trust me you were just really good and I just kind of tried and follow you" you said.

He smirked. He has really cute smile you thout to yourself.

"Well that's also my thought about you" he said.

"Hey would you mind giving me your number so we could discuss more" he asked and you just answered without even thinking about it.

"Yes. Sure thing" you said while looking at him excitingly. Oh man. You were really being a desperate Danny.

You both exchanged numbers and he asked maybe you guys should meet up tonight at a restraunt so you could get to know each other and that you could also meet the other guys who have been already casted for the show.

"Okay then 9:00pm it is" he said while putting his phone back into his back pocket. He looked so hot while doing that.

"Yep" you said. While you waved at him awkwardly and turned back and walked quickly to your car. You couldn't help but be shy around him, even though you met him like an hour ago.

You could hear him laugh at you quickly walking. You couldn't help but look back at him and smile.

"I'll see you tonight" he yelled before turning around and unlock his car.

You just screamed a big capital WOW in your mind. You are officially an signed actress, had some cool ass co-star that you had a date with. Not really. But kind of.

Finally your life was coming together and some good stuff was happening.