I am the Kat that Walks By Itself

On re-watching Iron Man, and pondering Thor-1, it seems to me that SHIELD's knee-jerk reaction is to cover things up even when they don't need covering up. Consider the two cover stories they made in Iron Man: that Tony Stark's bodyguard is Iron Man, and that Stane died in a light plane crash.

( You don't need to be warned for spoilers for MCU surely? )

I get the impression that in the Marvelverse, the Super Soldier Serum that created Captain America is like a Holy Grail that researchers keep looking for and failing to find. Hydra with the Red Skull and their Winter Soldier, Bruce Banner with the Hulk, Killian with Extremis... on it goes.

I'm beginning to suspect that one of the reasons that nobody is finding the serum is because (a) they are far too impatient, and (b) they're behaving like alchemists, not scientists. Impatient, because they keep on leaping to human trials without enough data, often end up experimenting on themselves, and it all ends in tears. Alchemists, because, related to the impatience, they change too many variables at once to be able to get any decent data, and they're left floundering around without having learned much.

I mean, seriously. If one was going to do proper research into the Super Soldier Serum, you'd start off with mouse trials. A heck of a lot of mouse trials. Because lab mice are bred to be genetically similar (so as to reduce variables), and you get your results faster because there's lots more mice to test on. And if for some reason mouse trials are out because mice are too dissimilar to humans in this specific case, use chimpanzees! (Or pigs or cows or some other suitable animals). One would carefully change one variable at a time, form theories, make predictions, test the predictions, disprove the theories, get as much data as one can, on a statistically significant number of results. That's the Scientific Method, folks. Form a theory and try to disprove it. Not "make a recipe and try to tweak it".

(Tony Stark is allowed to tweak things because he's an Engineer. Yes, he does Science, but he's mainly an Engineer. The most brilliantist engineer that ever engined.) (Yes, I have a lot of Tony Stark love.)

In the event I ever actually manage to write any MCU fanfic (not very likely, since I haven't written any fanfic in years) this is my disclaimer for readers.

Unlike my other fandoms, with the Marvel (Cinematic) Universe, I will not be a stickler for canon. I will cherry-pick anything I like from MCU canon, from Marvel-616, from Norse Mythology, and (gasp) even from fanon!

There are a few reasons for this:

1. I'm never going to (manage to) watch all the MCU, so I'm not even going to try. Consequently, I've also chosen to not avoid spoilers for the movies that I'm not intending to see. Even if I have been informed by spoilers, though, this still means that my knowledge of canon is imperfect, and I am likely to confuse canon with fanon, with Marvel-616, with Norse Mythology etc.

2. Civil War: I reject your reality and replace it with my own. The whole concept of the Civil War is so painful to me that I am never ever going to watch that movie. But as I said above, yes, I've read spoilers for it, so I know what happens. I also stumbled across an interesting fact on a Marvelverse wiki, which said that someone (Reed Richards I think) was investigating/viewing the Multiverse and found that there was only one universe where the Civil War didn't happen, and that's where Tony Stark was female (Natasha Stark) and ended up marrying Steve Rogers instead of fighting him. (Interesting subtext there!) So, according to Marvel canon (which embraces the concept of multiverse) the Civil War is basically inevitable. And I reject that. I reject that vehemently. At least in the MCU version of it, it was clear that what happened was a trainwreck of misunderstanding and miscommunication. Yes, yes, it is plausible (maybe even inevitable) that Tony Stark and Steve Rogers would disagree on the Accords, but it took a heck of a lot of things going wrong for that disagreement to turn into violence. So I reject it.

3. There are fanon characterisations that I really like a lot, so it is very likely that my characterisations will be influenced by them, even if they aren't consistent with canon.

As the subject says, I just finished watching Avengers: Age of Ultron for the first time. Yes, yes, I am years behind on this fandom. Whatever, I don't care, though I must care enough to mention it, so I suppose I care a bit. Anyway, it means I've approached this fandom a bit differently than I usually do. Normally, I avoid spoilers like they were a species-jumping infectious disease. But this time, I have not avoided spoilers, and for some of the movies, I've looked for them because I have no intention of watching ALL the MCU movies. I've also read a LOT of fanfic, which means I've also got a bunch of fanon jostling around in my head (and half the fanon comes from extracanonical sources such as Norse Myth and Marvel-616) so my grasp of what is canon and what is not... is not very firm. And I've watched vids. Which have had scenes from movies I hadn't yet seen.

So watching Age of Ultron has been rather odd, because I've been going "oh, so that's where that scene came from" and "oh, that's where that oft-repeated quote actually happened". In a way, a bit like when I saw Hamlet for the first time -- I had no idea how many lines from that play were part of everyday English idiom. Context! Context!

I had been reluctant, very reluctant, to see Age of Ultron, because of certain things I'd been spoiled about (a) the death of a favourite character, and (b) everyone apparently slagging on Tony... and I admit, there was one point where I seriously considered stopping watching because I couldn't bear what was going on. But I persevered and I'm glad I did, because, yeah, there was some serious epic stuff going on. And epic character stuff, because, like, what is more epic than being confronted with one's fears? (And go Hawkeye for his moves in that bit, yay)

But one thing that is really weird is that I'm now looking back at some of the fanfic I've read that was set later than this movie, and wow, some of the fans seem to have taken certain things way out of proportion. For example, the ones who have a grudge against Captain America, take his line "and if you die, walk it off" as an example of how much of a jerk he is. But in context, no, it wasn't that at all, it was just a... pep talk. Which just goes to show the truth of the epigram -- darn it, I wish I could remember how it goes -- something along the lines of "if you like someone, you don't mind what he does, but if you hate someone, you find even the way he drinks soup to be irritating".
In other words, for those who feel Captain America to be a jerk, they see his jerk-ness everywhere, even where it isn't.

Another thing that's interesting about fannish interpretation of the movies is where fans put the line between "teasing" and "dislike". Such as the exchange in the first scene where Tony swears and Steve says "Language!" and Tony doesn't let it go. My take on that is that it is teasing. Others might take that as either Steve or Tony being a jerk (or both of them being jerks). Interpretation.......

Given the end of this and the end of Iron Man 3, is there a pattern here, that Tony keeps on retiring from superheroing and then he keeps coming back?
(Hooray to Robert Downey Jr. for making Iron Man popular, that's all I'll say with my Doylist hat on)

Mmm, love this exchange:

"They are doomed."
"Yes. But just because something isn't permanent doesn't make it less beautiful."

Last night I had a fabulous discussion with my friend Jonathan about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I promised him I'd I'd post some recommendations for Tony Stark & Loki fanfic. So here they are. Naturally, they are all Alternative Universe, since none of this would fit into existing canon.

I need an MCU icon, darn it!

( Tony & Loki )

( Avengers & Loki )

So, any of you have any recommendations for Tony & Loki fanfic? PLEASE do not hesitate to gimmie gimmie recs. Note that I do not read slash, so please don't rec that. I've been combing through AO3 for fic, but one can still overlook gems even with the really good search that AO3 has.

I am all with the Loki feels. Yes, yes, I am discovering this fandom far too late and I don't care. Means people have already written the fanfic. And made the vids. What's not to like?

Loki: Survivor
Loki: Impossible
Loki Laufeyson - I Don't Care