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out_thereHope is Not a Course of Action (12572 words) by thatdamneddame.
Frequently, how much I love a story is determined by the strength of the POV voice. I loved this Clint/Phil story right from the first paragraph describing Natasha:
Clint loved Natasha like he loved a lot of stupid ideas. She was hard and fast and dangerous and looked at Clint like he was a weapon not a carnie. She had hair the color of blood and only smiled when she didn’t mean it and lived like a house on fire and Clint felt alive just being in her orbit. Natasha taught him how to knife fight, how to find a man’s weaknesses, how to swear in Russian, French, Italian. She taught him that who you were and how the world saw you were two different things. That it was better that way.
And then we get the first line describing Phil Coulson:
SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson wore suits and patent leather loafers and he had a receding hairline and the smile of a man who thought that fantasy football was a fulfilling hobby.
How can you not love that turn of phrase? Because, yes, Phil Coulson absolutely comes across as a mild-mannered type who probably wastes hours on something as pointless as fantasy football (says the member of fandom, heh.). It's only as Clint gets to know him that we see there's more there.
One of the things I love about this story is the sharp edges of it. The way that Clint's view of life is razor-cold, the way that Phil might be protecting Clint but there's no kid gloves; the snark is funny but it's not really kind.
(I think I blame Ani Difranco for my fondness for this. There's something about the lyrics to "As Is" that I've always found weirdly romantic. The idea of being less than perfect, of acknowledging it and being loved regardless is very powerful.)
I like that Clint's self-aware and sarcastic enough to acknowledge past betrayals and his own actions, whether or not they're what he should be doing. I keep thinking over one particular idea, and wondering how much I personally agree with it:
Betrayal doesn’t make you any less hopeful that someday, someone would want to stay. It just makes you believe it less when it happens, sabotage opportunities when they come because you’re still that scared little boy inside.
Frequently, how much I love a story is determined by the strength of the POV voice. I loved this Clint/Phil story right from the first paragraph describing Natasha:
Clint loved Natasha like he loved a lot of stupid ideas. She was hard and fast and dangerous and looked at Clint like he was a weapon not a carnie. She had hair the color of blood and only smiled when she didn’t mean it and lived like a house on fire and Clint felt alive just being in her orbit. Natasha taught him how to knife fight, how to find a man’s weaknesses, how to swear in Russian, French, Italian. She taught him that who you were and how the world saw you were two different things. That it was better that way.
And then we get the first line describing Phil Coulson:
SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson wore suits and patent leather loafers and he had a receding hairline and the smile of a man who thought that fantasy football was a fulfilling hobby.
How can you not love that turn of phrase? Because, yes, Phil Coulson absolutely comes across as a mild-mannered type who probably wastes hours on something as pointless as fantasy football (says the member of fandom, heh.). It's only as Clint gets to know him that we see there's more there.
One of the things I love about this story is the sharp edges of it. The way that Clint's view of life is razor-cold, the way that Phil might be protecting Clint but there's no kid gloves; the snark is funny but it's not really kind.
(I think I blame Ani Difranco for my fondness for this. There's something about the lyrics to "As Is" that I've always found weirdly romantic. The idea of being less than perfect, of acknowledging it and being loved regardless is very powerful.)
I like that Clint's self-aware and sarcastic enough to acknowledge past betrayals and his own actions, whether or not they're what he should be doing. I keep thinking over one particular idea, and wondering how much I personally agree with it:
Betrayal doesn’t make you any less hopeful that someday, someone would want to stay. It just makes you believe it less when it happens, sabotage opportunities when they come because you’re still that scared little boy inside.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-17 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-17 11:12 pm (UTC)and I am a bull.
You are really good food,
and I am full.
Hee! I never made that connection before now. Ani Difranco is one of those singers that I don't own every album -- it's all songs here and there -- and yet I come back to it over and over during the years.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-17 11:23 pm (UTC)I obsessively bought her albums and and over-identified with her for years, but our lives diverged somewhere around the marriage album (and definitely before the messy divorce album). I haven't even heard her latest stuff.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-18 12:39 am (UTC)I don't think I have heard her latest stuff. Oh, actually, 2005 would be the lastest songs I have. I didn't identify with her personal life -- I didn't actually know anything about her that wasn't in her lyrics -- but I love the level of story-telling in her lyrics. And how well they can capture a particular mood.
(And "Both Hands" is one of those songs I'll randomly sing at times. It wasn't the first song of hers I heard or the one I love the most, but it's the one that lives in my head most often.)
Now I'm thinking about identifying with songs. About how I like singing along to songs and play-acting that emotion/pretending to be that narrator, but I don't often feel that they describe *me*. Songs that describe me personally... hmmm. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Garbage's "The Trick is to keep breathing" because the opening lines of that always felt very personally true. ("She's not the kind of girl who likes to tell the world about the way she feels about herself. She takes a little time in making up her mind; she doesn't want to fight against the tide.")
no subject
Date: 2013-09-18 11:08 pm (UTC)I didn't either, really, but she was clearly bi and not settled-and-married, and I didn't have any other role models for that, so I kind of latched on. I mean, from her songs, I got the impression her love life was many orders of magnitude more turbulent than mine, but still. Bi and not on the relationship escalator was enough for a while. :-)
And "Both Hands" is one of those songs I'll randomly sing at times. It wasn't the first song of hers I heard or the one I love the most, but it's the one that lives in my head most often.
Awww, I have several of her songs like that.
About how I like singing along to songs and play-acting that emotion/pretending to be that narrator
Yes, I mostly have that too -- and I use it when I'm writing. If I can find just the right song to evoke the mood for the character, it can help tremendously (not while I'm actually writing, for which I need quiet, but just when I'm gearing up, figuring out their headspace).
no subject
Date: 2013-09-17 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-18 12:29 am (UTC)