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things they have no idea about
- me & you
- our secret moments in a crowded room
- all of this silence and patience
- a golden tattoo
- your name carved into my bedpost
- shaking hands
- where tf the 10 min version of all too well is
so this took me forever to figure out how to articulate but my biggest problem with Nat’s characterization (or lack thereof) was the way she was flirting with Bruce.
Like Steve said, he’s seen Natasha flirt up close and personal. She uses her sexuality as a weapon or a distraction, whatever fits the mission. That’s what she was trained to do by the Red Room. She was trained to be all flirty and coy to get what she wants. That was her training.
Which is exactly why it felt so wrong in the movie. Natasha wouldn’t flirt with Bruce if she liked him because any kind of flirting would feel like subjugation and deception after using it as a weapon in her arsenal for so many years. That’s how she was trained to kill. The way she was flirting with Bruce felt like she was buttering up a target or a mark. It was awkward and forced and just so wrong because if she really cared about him, she wouldn’t beat around the bush, she would say so straight out because that is the exact opposite of how she was trained to interact with people.
Natasha Romanoff was trained to use sex and her looks as weapons and you really expect us to believe that she’d be comfortable using those same techniques to interact with someone she genuinely cares about? No fucking way.
See I have this theory about BruceTasha. And I may get accused of being a crazed Clintasha girl, but here goes.
Natasha was behaving like Bruce was a mark because he was.
Let’s look at the evidence. For some bizarre reason, Natasha has been selected as the one to calm the Hulk. As I’ve said in a previous post, this makes no sense - Tony would have been a more natural choice. But what if she, or even Fury, decided she had to be the one because she is so good at manipulating people? She can manipulate the Hulk into calming down, by presenting this calming façade and getting him to let Bruce come back into control. And she manipulates Bruce too, so that he trusts her, will listen to her, and stay with the Avengers for when they need him. She flirts with him to make him feel wanted, so that when she needs to, she can bring out the Hulk or put him back again. And we see this in action at the end of the film, when Bruce comes to get her out of the cell Ultron has her in (the reasons why she didn’t just escape are enough to fill another entire post), when she tells him ‘I adore you’, the most awkward line in a ‘relationship’ built on awkward lines, and then promptly pushes him into the chasm to get the Hulk. Because, as she says, “I need the other guy.”
She knew that moment would come, sooner or later, and she needed Bruce to trust her enough to get close to her, and Hulk not to kill her when she did. And how does Natasha get people to do what she wants? She flirts with them. She seduces them.
And that scene at the very end, when she’s staring at the black wall after he’s left. I refuse to believe she’s pining after him like a lovesick puppy. I think she’s feeling guilty because she so thoroughly manipulated someone on her own team, using the tactics she was first taught in the Red Room. And she hates that she used the training she so deplores on a team mate, even if she had to, even if it did save the world. And she hates that she’s lost a potential platonic friend because of it. Because I think platonic friends - who don’t see her as this sexy body, but as a person they love for who she is inside - would be incredibly important to Natasha. She can have any man she wants with the batting of her eyelids, but what she wants is friendship, like any normal person has. And you can see this in effect in The Winter Soldier, in the scene on board the ship with the hostages when her unannounced side mission puts her and Steve in danger, and his is visibly angry with her. And you can see her kicking herself, beating herself up, because here’s this man who trusts her, works with her, and doesn’t see her body as something to covet, and she’s disappointed him. She’s worried she might have lost that valuable friendship.
So yes, I’m going to chose to believe that the reason why the scenes between Bruce and Natasha feel forced is because they are. She is forcing herself to do this to someone she’d rather have as a platonic friend because she needs to be able to control both halves of Bruce’s nature, so that when the time comes to it, she can both take the Hulk out and put him back in his box. She needs to be able to summon the Hulk when he’s needed, and lull him back into submission before he can hurt anyone.
And she does that the only way she knows how; manipulation through flirting and seduction.
So yes, the reason she’s behaving with Bruce as she would a mark is because that is exactly what she was doing.
#i like this#not just because it’s a way to explain that awful relationship#but because i could see where it came from too#last movie Nat was scared of the hulk because he wasn’t the sort of person she could manipulate and control#that is she couldn’t deal with him the way she deals with everyone else#but this indicates she can#it just. ..takes more effort#And if this was something she started doing while shield was still up and Nick still thought of her as someone who is comfortable with everything?#that makes more sense#And it was working so she kept with it even without orders#and her guilt over it would be worse because she wouldn’t have just been treating Bruce like a mark#she’d have been lying in some way to everyone on the team because she wouldn’t want them to know she was manipulating Bruce#(And it wouldn’t work if anyone on the team knew)#so yeah guilt over lying#it might also explain why Clint#her best friend#‘didn’t see it’#because maybe she was keeping it from him because she didn’t want him to know#or maybe because he knows that that behaviour from Nat isn’t… well maybe he knows what her emotional manipulation vs her real feelings is like better than anyone else#And anyone else?#well Nat is used to fooling people isn’t she?#And maybe she started this before Steve and her were bros#and like she knows Steve wouldn’t approve of this kind of manipulation of friends#but it’s working so well#And on the scale of lies she’s told before this one is so miniscule#and it’s doing so much good#And so she keeps with it#even if she’s not happy about it all the time#headcanon accepted#meta (via greekamazon)
- morning me: i really need to go to bed earlier :(
- nighttime me: lmao @morning me fuKC YOUR nEEDS (•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑
I GOT TAGGED :)
Thank you inspireoneperson for tagging me! I don’t normally do these, but you caught me at a good time ;)
Nickname: Natch
Birthday: August 7th
Star sign: Leo
Gender: Male
Height: 5'9"
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Tag (please, no pressure):
- cthulhupeelz - phedre13 - darkcivet - tipsy–gypsyy -
17 Awesome Glow In The Dark Tattoos Visible Under Black Light
17 Awesome Glow In The Dark Tattoos Visible Under Black Light
If you crave getting inked but don’t have the balls to do it, or simply want to give your regular tattoo a twist, a black-light responsive tattoo might be the thing to consider. Otherwise called UV tattoos, they are only visible under black-light when they heal!
Source: 17+ Awesome Glow In The Dark Tattoos Visible Under Black Light | Bored Panda
- me: sets a perfectly reasonable deadline for myself to accomplish a task
- also me: ignores the task, the deadline, myself,
17 Awesome Glow In The Dark Tattoos Visible Under Black Light
17 Awesome Glow In The Dark Tattoos Visible Under Black Light
Source: 17+ Awesome Glow In The Dark Tattoos Visible Under Black Light | Bored Panda
you know what would have been great? if ron got sorted into slytherin.
imagine–
we have this kid on the train, the first friend harry meets, with his
corned beef sandwiches and smudged nose. ron is eleven years old and he
wants gryffindor, because he’s a weasley and that’s what always happens.
but it doesn’t happen.
what a way to redeem slytherin house– or, god, at least complicate it. because ron is
petty. he is mean and sharp and ambitious and jealous– and he is loyal
to the ends of the earth. he is all those things, and he is and always
has been good.
potter becomes before weasley in the alphabet, so harry says not slytherin please and gets told might as well be gryffindor. percy and fred and george are all sitting there in red and gold, ruffling the already-ruffled hair of the boy who lived, smug, and then ron sits down and the hat spits out slytherin!
c'mon it’d be fun. just imagine–
- the weasleys freaking out– but even that first christmas molly sends him a sweater in beautiful green and silver.
- snape taking points from gryffindor when ron breaks rules or mouths off. “i’m in your house.” “hm, couldn’t tell which weasley it was…” /drifts away
- sitting
with harry in potions and in flying– whatever classes they happen to
share. meeting up to study. scarfing down their breakfasts at separate
tables so they can go hang out in the empty classrooms before the day
starts. hermione reads while they play exploding snap.
- the trio signing up for all the same electives third year. this
friendship being something they earn and work for; not just the one that
looked easiest. (not to bash canon ron&harry, the bros to end all
bros, but by putting this very obvious obstacle between them– it makes
it that much clearer to the reader that this is a love worth fighting
for, because they’re fighting for it).
- ron being jealous
that harry and hermione get to share this house, this home, these
hours, while he’s stuck with malfoy and parkinson and goyle– because
that would eat him up some days, some months, this insecure kid who’s
been the last at everything all his life. this kid who always leaves and
always comes back.
- ron, who constantly compares himself to his brothers– not as smart, not as popular, not as good. one more nail in that coffin, here, yeah? he’s not a prefect, not a quidditch star, not a troublemaker– and even when he becomes those things, someone else has always gotten there first.
- well, i guess he got to this house first at least
- ron still snaps at snape in potions, after hermione’s been ignored three times, “you know, sir, i think hermione might know the answer.” he still pulls the bars off harry’s window with a stolen, flying car. he still shows harry around the burrow shyly, not knowing what a wonder a warm home is. he still stands up in the shrieking shack as best as he can with a broken leg and tells a mass murderer that if he wants harry he’ll have to go through him first.
- ron weasley is a lot of things, but one of them is absolutely a true friend.
- in their second year:
- when everyone calls harry the heir, they eye ron at his side and sniff.
- when hermione lays petrified in the medical ward, ron sits at her side and reads her homework assignments aloud and thinks my house this was my house.
- when ron hugs ginny’s damp, shaking frame after the chamber, ron says sorry and sorry and are you okay and i’m so sorry and ginny calls him an idiot.
- the trio spends more time in the library with hermione, since ron can’t come to gryffindor tower to study, and homework remains a thing that has to happen. fred and george constantly try to sneak him into the tower anyway.
- “c'mon, ronnykins, you belong here, you deserve it, no one’s gonna fuss, it’s your BIRTHRIGHT,” and ron fusses and rolls his eyes at them
- and then in fourth year in one of those periods where he’s not talking to harry and harry’s not talking to him– he just snaps
at the twins
- because it’s not, alright?
- not his birthright, not his
house, and maybe no one would fuss if he snuck in, maybe no one would care, and that makes it worse not better, because then he’s just that weasley who should’ve been gryffindor
- and isn’t
- (and harry overhears this caterwauling, feels his heart fall to his toes, and goes and awkwardly asks ron if he wants to go a few laps on his firebolt).
- (because, god, harry-the-chosen-one, harry-in-the-cupboard-under-the-stairs, harry-who’ll-save-us-all– he knows what it’s like to have should have beens on your shoulders, and he knows what it’s like to not be wanted).
- ron cheers for gryffindor during quidditch matches in those first few years, and sits with hagrid and hermione and neville. harry’s seeker, and fred and george are beaters, and ginny becomes chaser eventually, and honestly screw the slytherin team. they have each and every one of them said disparaging things about ron’s mother.
- harry
and hermione badger ron into trying out for keeper fourth year; he and
harry have been practicing on the quidditch pitch because its a
non-library-shaped place to hang out where both of them are allowed. ron
makes the slytherin roster, and malfoy grudgingly provides ron a team
broom after the captain chews him out for a bit.
- “he may be a weasley, but he’s our keeper, don’t you want to win, draco”
- but the sort of things they spit in the locker room, the words the players hiss or snigger, the slurs that come easy to their tongues– ron would like to say that he considered just walking out of the cesspit, but instead he snipes and sasses and shouts and sometimes tries to spell slugs at the worst of them.
- it doesn’t do much, that one irritated voice of protest– except that it does. and he’s got a new (hand-me-down) wand, after the gilderoy fiasco, so the slugs even come out the right end.
- fred gives him a black eye with a bludger one time (though ron does manage to block the quaffle) and molly sends a howler to gryffindor table with the morning post. (“RON DID YOU TATTLE”) (“IT WAS CLEARLY PERCY, FRED, SIT DOWN”)
- (the weasleys often have family
conversations across the great hall, with hufflepuffs and ravenclaws
covering their ears long-sufferingly between them)
- in
the lake, it’s still ron hanging there in the water, still and bloated.
it’s still harry’s heart that stutters in his chest, for all it’s just a
game, just a game, just a game, right?
- ron
listens hard and tries to talk himself out of fist fights, all that
next year in the slytherin common room as they read aloud rita skeeter
articles.
- when hermione calls dumbledore’s army to
its first session in that pub, there are green scarves in that crowd–
ron and one of the beaters who ron’s gotten to help glare to rest of the
slytherin quidditch team into submission.
- ron beats draco to
being prefect (i think i remember it was
dumbledore and not mcgonagall who seemed to award prefect status– snape
doesn ’t get a say).
- percy is SO PROUD, as usual, but so are fred and
george. “did you see the little malfoy git? green with shame, my god.”
- when harry has the dream about sirius, ron isn’t there to wake. but when draco’s pulled out of bed to be a professional bully– er, i mean inquisitorial squad member– ron follows at a careful distance and curses draco from behind.
- they ride thestrals over london. harry finds the prophecy and ron thinks about the sorts of things that get decided at your birth.
- sirius black was a son of slytherin who had a lion living in his chest that he couldn’t hide away.
- ron was meant to be gryffindor, and through a haze of injury and fear he watches sirius die just out of harry’s reach.
- just imagine: ron with his temper and his sharp
words and his fierce loyalty. ron who looks into the mirror of erised
and sees house cups and prefect badges and ambitions earned– he could
belong in slytherin. there is nothing wrong with wanting things, and he
wants them so bad.
- there are so many reasons to fight a war, and
so many ways. harry and his sacrifices, his loving resignation.
hermione’s good right hook and bottomless bag of supplies. luna,
brilliant and a bit batty. lee jordan’s radio and mcgonagall’s burning
patience and brittle, certain bones.
- just imagine: when the last battle comes, there is a slytherin on the field who is not snape.
- when draco and his parents walk away, in that last battle, ron–
- who slept in the same dormitory as the boy for six years
- who heard draco’s nightmares and saw him paling and desperate all sixth year
- who is as pureblooded as lucius’s spoiled whelp
- who remembers grimacing at the thought of squibs
- who has known magic all his life
- who spotted draco penning letters
home to his mother every sunday and hiding them when the other boys could
see–
- ron sees them going.
- he sounds no alarms. he says no farewells.
- he turns back to his friends, and his fight, and lets them be.
- just imagine: when harry kneels on the train platform and his second son asks him “but what if i get sorted slytherin, dad?” harry can say, “the bravest man i ever knew was in slytherin house. whatever you are, wherever you go, we’re going to be so proud of you.“
- and
they can both gaze over to where ron is squawking beside his daughter’s
trolley of luggage because crookshanks (who will live to be forty eight
million years old) has latched onto his shins with a violent fondness.
zombee asked:
for prompts: how about an "inside the resistance" fic. we've gotten glimpses of dean and lee and some others in your other fics, but i'd love to see your take on what was happening during deathly hallows that we really only heard about through harry's pov.
ink-splotch answered:
Astoria Greengrass, Slytherin, perfected her ability to crumple up her face, cry quietly, and make even Death Eaters uncomfortable. She was a person, after all, in the way so many children weren’t to them– she was small and pureblooded and lovely. Astoria was safe in the halls until the very end, and she passed on information, supplies, warnings, children, and plans to the DA through every day of the occupation.
Cho Chang, Ravenclaw, manned the front desk at Flourish and Blotts. She kept the Anti-Muggleborn pamphlets out beside the register and hid the Squibs and Muggleborns she was smuggling to safety behind the false wall in the store room. She had excelled at Charms in school. She had excelled at most things.
Lee Jordan, Gryffindor– his radio station was mobile. They broadcasted from the Three Broomsticks’ supply room, his aunt’s dusty summer home out in the country, an Illusioned corner of a Muggle coffee shop (they just saw some kids playing D&D– a Muggleborn informant of Lee’s had designed the spell), a once-inhabited cave outside Hogsmeade, and one memorable public men’s washroom only three blocks from the Ministry headquarters itself. They had a lot of fun contributing to the stall graffiti in that one.
Professor McGonagall listened to Lee’s radio show in her faculty quarters, heavy under dampening wards. The first night she flicked on the show, she clutched her cooling teacup for the entirety of it, feeling older than even herself.
Lee spat out rapid fire news with a cool drawl, asking questions and bringing on informants. She didn’t once feel the driving urge to scold him across the Quidditch announcer’s booth for commenting on players’ dating statuses or cursing out the opposing team.
Lee’s voice over the crackling radio was bright and clever, focused and on point, needed. Minerva clutched at her tea cup and tried to feel proud instead of heartbroken.
Ernie Macmillian, Hufflepuff, had looked up to Cedric Diggory since the prefect had said hello to a small first-year. When Ernie boarded the train back to Hogwarts, for that terrible seventh year, his hands were shaking under the weight of his bags. “Remember,” he whispered. “When there is a choice between what is right, and what is easy, remember…”
Neville Longbottom, Gryffindor, grew two inches that year and no one noticed. They all just thought he was standing straighter.
There was a small collection of first years for whom this was their first year at Hogwarts: There was Felice White, Ravenclaw, who had come for the library and spent most of her time there. Madame Pince turned a blind eye and made sure she ate regularly. There was Gregory Tong, Hufflepuff, who was the youngest of four and had been dreaming of Hogwarts for years.
The older students told stories about Harry Potter, about Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Gryffindor, who were out there winning the war.
They told stories– how the trio had saved the Philosopher’s Stone at age eleven. Potter had killed a basilisk, and a hundred dementors, and won the Triwizard Cup. They told stories in the dark, these kids who had sat behind Harry in the Great Hall and thought his hair a mess, who had booed him in Quidditch games and snickered to see him dance awkwardly at the Yule Ball.
“He’ll save us,” they said.
Granger had brewed up Polyjuice Potion in a girls’ bathroom. Potter could cast a corporeal Patronus. Weasley had beaten McGonagall at chess– McGonagall at chess. And they had faced down a murderer, or something, hadn’t they, in their third year? And the Death Eaters and Voldemort himself in fifth– and whatever had happened to Umbridge?
Granger had brewed a Polyjuice Potion in a girls’ bathroom– so Sue Li, Ravenclaw, took her spare cauldron to the stall past Moaning Myrtle’s and got to work. Astoria Greengrass got Sue bits of hair from Death Eaters and favored Slytherins and Sue tiptoed carefully in their various visages for months. She sent Hogwarts news down to the generals–Luna, Neville, Ginny–and the rest out the passages to Lee’s radio and the resistance.
Potter could cast a Patronus, and he had taught as many as had been willing to learn under Umbridge’s shadow. More were willing now–more wanted to make hope tangible, something bright to be used to protect, to defend, to send careful news long distances to friends.
Seamas Finnegan, who had played chess with Ron, poured over the changing maps that the Room provided. Hannah Abbott snuck out to the greenhouses on dark nights to gather what she needed to brew things to confuddle, to injure, to protect. The Room of Requirement provided food and water, but all the same every month or so the kids pulled a raid on the kitchens just to prove that they could.
Colin Creevey found a Slytherin first-year, crying, and gave him a chocolate bar and held his hand until he was done. Anthony Goldstein spent days hiding out in the Restricted section of the library, finding things to make them stronger, safer, wiser.
In those halls, they faced down Death Eaters under the guise of teaching robes. They faced them with raised wands, raised fists, or just raised chins, these children who kept telling stories in the dark about Harry Potter, who was going to save them.
When Harry, Ron, and Hermione came back to Hogwarts, Dumbledore’s Army was waiting. Seamas had his maps. Neville had grown two inches and no one had noticed. Hannah offered up potions, and Sue secrets, and Anthony had been teaching the rest of them powerful old spells for weeks.
But Astoria Greengrass sat out the final battle in the Hogwarts dungeons, with the rest of House Slytherin.
Pansy Parkinson sulked and shivered. Blaise Zabini managed to look like he was lounging, even within these ominous walls. Astoria pressed herself up against the door and watched the light of curses flung far above. She listened. She waited. She tried Alohomora on the lock fifteen times, and then swapped to destructive spells that only singed it.
Astoria Greengrass sat out the final battle, listening to her friends fight for their lives far above her head, waiting for bad news. She listened to her big sister Daphne gently tease Pansy into a more cheerful state of mind, and Astoria tried to decide who she would hate most if the people she had been fighting for all year died up there, without her.
Years later, after victory, after rebuilding, after petitions from her peers, the Ministry gave Astoria an honorary medal for the brave acts of a civilian in wartime.
It was part thank you, and part apology. It did not make up in the slightest for Astoria having to stand at Colin’s funeral, at Lavender’s, at Fred’s, and to know that they had died while she was pacing in the dark, flinging useless curses at a locked door.
