Kissing commentfic!

[gwyn]

such_heights is having an MCU kissing commentfest at her page, where lots of lovely people have left prompts for kissage and lots of people are filling them. I wrote three commentfics so far, one for Steve/Bucky and two for Steve/Sam, and I hope I might be able to do a couple more. One of them's kind of hidden since it was the second fill for the prompt. I guess they're not great, but I have been having a lot of trouble writing lately, with two stories I can't seem to make much headway on. I don't know if it's just that Things We Lost in the War did me in, or the surprise!job I got in right afterward, or general depression/worthlessness, or even just the pressure of all the stuff I have to do, but I can't seem to write. So this couldn't have come at a better time.

Steve/Bucky and baseball is here, and Steve/Sam + pool table is here, while Steve/Sam + bedtime story is here. There are some delicious prompts there that I'm thinking about. If you can't fill them with a fanwork of some type, leave a prompt or make a comment on someone's fill!

The only other writing I've been able to do was to talk about why I don't think it's that unreasonable to be sad about the ever-inflating clown car of a cast list for Cap 3 over at my tumblr. I haven't said anything here about Ultron for various reasons. Mostly my fannishness is/was squarely focused on Captain America.

Comments

[kore]

(I am your real Imaginary Reader who read the whole thing! //waves)

I’ve watched the movies contained in phase one countless times (well, except for The Hulk. No one watches The Hulk. It’s like some rundown holiday town that no one goes to anymore, or if you do, you need to have your traveler’s vaccinations and wear sturdy boots and bring a hat). I am an MCU fangirl–I’m saying this out of love! Or at least, the battered remnants of my love lying broken on the ground like a helicarrier.

HAH that was awesome (I'd love to read a film-critic-type piece by you on TWS, or meta if it's on your DW or Tumblr....is it in the tags maybe? //looks) My husband is not a fannish person at all, and he really loved C1 and C2 for just the reasons you describe -- the characters, the emotional beats, their stories, not all the fanboy shit because he'd heard even less about the comics than I have. Those movies were special, and at this point it's looking like they were outliers in Marvel's Grand Scheme of Rebuilding the Pyramids via Action Movies. sigh.

I've also read at least one film writer (can't remember where it was online, argh) say that they think Civil War is going to be much more a sequel to Age of Ultron and lead-in to Infinity War, and just ARGH NO. The actual biggest thing -- beyond the sexism, beyond Joss getting My Steve and My Nat all wrong, beyond Clint's fake family and all the stuff I didn't like sort of at a personal level -- the actual biggest problem I had with AoU was it seemed just designed to promote the next series of movies. (This was the one point of Sady Doyle's I really agreed with -- I think hers is the article you referred to -- I thought she really missed the boat on a lot of other points, though, but anyway.) That's not a movie, it's an ad. And movies and TV shows have been steadily turning into ads for decades now and advertising has been possibly the major force in this country since, what, the 20s? but that doesn't mean we can't criticize it.


tl;dr I really liked your piece and I miss meta. SIGH. (It's amazing to me the sea-change -- a lot of people linked to that Doyle article and said it was good, but there was so little actual commentary about it. Maybe I just look in the wrong places.)

[musesfool]

I mostly agree with you, though I do think IM3 was *also* character driven and really well done, with a lot less fail than it could have had, but of course, IM3 is sharply divisive - a lot of people really don't like it, for a variety of reasons. But we're apparently ignoring it as well as CATWS in terms of moving forward (personally, I'd rather just pretend AOU didn't happen, aside from the change in the team lineup at the end).

Cap 3 started out sounding like it could be good - from interviews, the Russos seem to understand that the important emotional through line is the Steve/Bucky relationship and that it's still a loose thread that needs to be followed up on. And then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked RDJ renegotiated his contract, and suddenly it's a whole different ballgame. Meh.

I think it's possible they could still make a fun, interesting movie, but they're not going to be able to serve that epic cast of characters well, and it does make me sad. I'm right there with you.

Also, I still don't get the fanboy hard-on for watching heroes fight each other over and over again.

[kore]

It honestly sounds to me like now Civil War is going to suffer from the same problems AoU did -- too many characters, too much plot setup, too many action scenes. It's like now they're less movies, and more movie-length advertisements for other upcoming movies.

[giandujakiss]

FWIW, I've never had any hope for Cap 3, because I don't believe anyone in Hollywood - including the Russo brothers - shares a fannish sensibility. I think this pretty much sums up how I'll be watching Cap 3, and then I'll come home and read the fic.

[minim_calibre]

Yeah, pretty much.

Thus, I need to FINALLY HAVE A WEEKEND WITH NO FAMILY CRAP (not this one, apparently, boo hiss) so we can... I dunno, not mourn, because I'm not doing that, but yeah.

There was a lot of stuff that wasn't handled with any sensitivity. Just... clunky. My ire right now is largely towards anyone telling me I R READING IT RONG! if I point that out. They can just... well, fuck right the fuck off, at this point. Ugh. Which is why I'm talking about your post here, instead of on Tumblr, because rage blackouts.

That Hulk paragraph. So funny.

I'm going in expecting the worst, hoping for the slightly less bad.

[ranalore]

I am totally your Imaginary Reader, and I really wish I still had half a brain and had not expended all my Marvel-related Give a Damn on my utter rage at the travesty that is all the X-movies prior to First Class so I could work up a better head of steam and some eloquence for what is happening with the MCU now. My natural inclination is to both spin the hell out of the canon so that I can still find a way to get the fic I want to get out of it, and sharply criticize it if it fails as story. This is what is infuriating to me as the MCU--and oh look, there's some of that rage I was looking for--is that it's not even as entertaining as it could be because Marvel is actualfax an empire of assholes looking to build the pyramids out of cold, hard cash and the fanboys are happy to let them as long as they promise enough cage matches with giant robots, and then the idiots wonder why that match still just wasn't satisfying, but mock when someone suggests that maybe the lack of emotional throughline has something to do with it. And this has been your angry lit crit rant for the day. Bah. Time to go prompt some kissing and get some emotional payoff that way.