sholio | This looks like fun!

(I always change memes to "one or more." I bore easily.)

Natasha Romanoff

Aha, gotcha. :D

First impression: I actually don't remember AT ALL. Partly because I've been reading Marvel comics since basically forever, so I've been vaguely aware of Black Widow for awhile. But I also don't remember having strong feelings on her in Iron Man 2, which must have been my first exposure to the MCU version since I was basically watching the movies in order as they came out. I think it was sort of a "liked her as a supporting character, no strong feelings on her otherwise" kind of feeling.

Impression now: I really love her! Over the last few movies and especially after I got into MCU fandom she's become one of my favorites. She hits my "weaponized person trying to be human again" buttons really hard.

Favorite moment: Narghl, SO MANY. Possibly her startlement in Cap2 when Steve says he trusts her, because she's so vulnerable there, and we almost never see her like that.

Idea for a story: I've already written most of them! Hmmm, as far as things I haven't written, I have a general idea for a story in which T'Challa needs her expertise at solving a palace break-in from another Red Room graduate, mainly because I love the mental image of the two of them running across the Wakandan city rooftops at night.

Unpopular opinion: Nat and Clint is a NOTP for me, though I love them as platonic crime-fighting buddies.

Favorite relationship: Natasha and Steve, probably. Such a wonderful friendship, and I love that we've gotten to see it develop across several movies.

Favorite headcanon: That unlike comics!Nat, MCU Nat is the same age as she looks, and has no special enhancements. It's never been clear in canon whether she's meant to be a badass normal or not, but I greatly prefer her as one.

Mick Rory.

hahahaaaa. XD There is a recurring theme which I expect will come up in a lot of my answers, namely, that I tend to be terrible at recognizing which characters are going to become my favorites. (In a way I think it's more of a feature than a bug, because I love being surprised, so character love that utterly blindsides me is the best kind of character love.)

First impression: I can't stand him. He is unbearably boring. Every other character has at least ONE interesting thing about him but there's NOTHING about him I like (he's a dumb thug! who is creepily fixated on fire!), and I hope he'll die because he's taking screen time away from my favorites.

Impression now: MICK. BABY. SOMEONE PLEASE HUG HIM. Oooh crowd scene, what's Mick up to? :D?

Favorite moment: So hard to choose, but it's probably a toss-up between taking Ray along on the prison break in 1x05 (this, combined with the adorable thank-you scene at the end, was basically where I did a complete 180 on Mick), and "if you tell the team I actually care, I'll shave your head" in 1x15.

Idea for a story: Drunken three-way comfort sex with Ray and Sara after Leonard's death.

Unpopular opinion: I think he and Rip like and respect each other by the end of season one, and Rip asking him "how do we outsmart [the bad guys]" as a counterpoint to the "IQ of meat" comment earlier in the season is actually one of my very favorite Rip bits. (Why this is an unpopular opinion I will never know....)

Favorite relationship: MUST I CHOOSE. It's a three-way toss-up between Mick and Ray, Mick and Snart, and Mick and Rip. (Mick and Sara could definitely make it a four-way tie if they get more interaction in season two, which I'm hoping for.)

Favorite headcanon: That he secretly likes being a hero, but just doesn't think that he is one. Which quite possibly is actual canon, but it's hard to tell how much of it is really there and how much I'm reading into it.

Che!

First impression: I really liked her right off!

Impression now: Still really like her! Very glad she lived UNLIKE ALMOST EVERYONE ELSE

Favorite moment: ... I'm drawing a blank SO HARD here. And she had SO MANY good moments! But what stands out for me now is not really specific scenes, it's more her general overall Che-ness. Though, if I were picking specific bits, almost certainly something from the 5th book.

Idea for a story: Che has a very nice day and NO ONE DIES.

Unpopular opinion: Is there such a thing as popular/unpopular opinions in a fandom this tiny? All I can come up with is that Che/Thalric is still sort of a NOTP for me, sadly. :P

Favorite relationship: Che + Tynisa, because I'm always a sucker for sisters

Favorite headcanon: The peace endures and she basically has a good life.

How about Methos?

First impression: So one thing about watching Highlander about a million years after everyone else did is that I kinda already knew about Methos, at least in a very general sense, mainly the fact that he was some kind of badass and everybody's favorite. Plus, while I was watching the show and liveblogging it, everyone was always going "Wait'll you get to Methos." And then I did get to Methos and it was sort of a boggled "... THAT'S METHOS??" He was not even REMOTELY what I was expecting! I liked him a lot, but in a completely different way from how I was expecting to like him. Here's my reaction post btw. (If you do go through the old HL reaction posts, just FYI, I had an import glitch on my early journal entries so everything is doubled up until, oh, 2012 or so -- instead of combining, the LJ entries imported separately. And all the HL entries got caught in that, so there's two of everything.)

Impression now: So unfortunately I ended up getting slightly burned on Methos due to the fandom having such a terrible case of Methos-centered morality -- i.e. "Methos is always right, and anyone who argues with him is wrong and also a terrible person." I think I liked him a lot more after watching the show, but before spending much time reading fic, than I do now. Unfortunately. Because I DO like him! I think he's fascinating and complex and always surprising, and I'm very glad he made it through to the end and got to be awesome in the finale. I just don't like him as much as I did for awhile.

Favorite moment: Possibly that bit where Duncan paints his nose when they're painting the house. HE'S DEATH. HE'S ANCIENT AND TERRIBLE. And he just got his nose painted. I think so much of what he gets from being around Duncan (and his other much-younger friends like Amanda and Joe) is summed up in that bit: he would be so isolated otherwise, so closed off from the world. They help keep him grounded.

Idea for a story: Methos in space!

Unpopular opinion: He's not an enormous woobie, and he's not always right. He's a dangerous, ancient person who DOES have good qualities, DOES have hero qualities, but has survived this long because he knows how to take care of himself and look out for number one, and he definitely isn't is an infallible voice of reason and morality. HE WAS NOT IN THE RIGHT IN THE CASSANDRA SITUATION, OMFG.

Favorite relationship: Methos + Joe. They're so great. And I think Joe hews closer to Methos's way of looking at the world than Duncan does (more cynical/practical than idealistic) which makes them more comfortable with each other in a way he and Duncan can never quite manage.

Favorite headcanon: That he and Amanda go back a long way, and have met intermittently over the years, much as she and Duncan have.

Edited 2016-10-27 22:43 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I'm sorry your Methos experience was so affected by awful fandom opinions. I was really lucky that when I got into the fandom I pretty much instantly made friends with someone who had Correct Methos Opinions and that helped insulate me from the frustration that I otherwise would have felt towards the rest of fandom. I was more easily able to just ignore that side of fandom because I had someone to talk to about Methos who understood that he's kind of terrible and also really delightful at the same time. Methos-centred morality is...a generally bad idea and I just don't get where fandom got its warped understanding of these characters.

Also I just want to say that your vid about the horsemen episodes continues to be among my fave highlander vids. :)

Angie from Agent Carter.

First impression: Slightly funny story here - I knew from the early spoilers that the show would include a female friend for Peggy. And I assumed Colleen was that friend, so I didn't really have thoughts on Angie, I just thought Angie was a one-off bit part. Then Colleen died and I was like, ????? OH WAIT, IT'S THE WAITRESS. I liked that little bit of misdirection.

Impression now: I really like her, although I probably liked her more after season one than season two, just because she wasn't in season two and it's a bit of a challenge working her into fic since they're on opposite coasts, so she's kinda dropped off my mental radar. But I think she makes a great foil for Peggy with her cheery, open nature, and I want to write her more. I also really love that the big ship in the fandom is f/f, even though Peggy/Angie is not my personal cup of tea (though I've read a few I liked), but I love that the fandom latched onto that ship as hard as it did.

Favorite moment: Angie going on about her cousin getting hit by a bus after robbing a newsstand when she's trying to commiserate with Peggy's bad day. (It's so ... her.) That, and faking out the guys with her fake crying, even though it was really unconvincing fake crying, but that whole scene was so hilarious and adorable.

Idea for a story: Angie comes to L.A.!

Unpopular opinion: The Peggy/Daniel ship in season two wasn't a deliberate swipe at Peggy/Angie fans.

Favorite relationship: Peggy + Angie. I wish we'd had more of her so we'd gotten to see her interact with more characters. (Angie + Ana would've been a blast.)

Favorite headcanon: Hmmm, I can't really think of one for her.

I am still so disappointed that Angie was a wannabe actress, Season 2 involves Howard owning a movie studio....and nuthin'.

These were great!

I know!! Such a missed opportunity. I can see why there just wasn't room to squeeze her in, with so many other characters and subplots, but I wish they'd tried harder to make room. Even a one-off scene would've been so nice.

Sam Wilson

First impression: Actually kind of hard to say, because I hadn't encountered him prior to Cap2, and my impression of him was basically "hmm, I like this guy" and that never really changed.

Impression now: Really like him a lot! He's actually my favorite character to write out of the entire cast, or at least the one whose head I find it easiest to get inside. Also I'm still delighted that the canonical Sam-Bucky relationship, once we finally got one, was EVERYTHING I WANTED.

Favorite moment: "Move your seat up." "No." (The Sam & Bucky bits in CW were among the few things in that movie I actually liked, but they were so glorious.) Also that bit in Cap2 where he's dodging all the missiles, because it's so wonderfully acrobatic and such a marvelous bit of competence porn.

Idea for a story: I'm really curious what Sam is up to in the post-CW era. Unlike Steve, he's really not a revolutionary at heart -- though I don't think Steve is as much as people sometimes write him, either. But I think Sam really wants to work within the system, and being forced to the outside as a fugitive would be very hard for him, more so than any of the other CW rebels imho. So what is he up to now? Most people seem to have him traveling around superheroing with Steve, and let's face it, that's almost certainly where canon will go, but I'd kinda like to see him go "fuck this" and go off and volunteer with relief workers in a war-torn country or something.

Unpopular opinion: Probably that I don't ship him with Steve. I'm not even sure why, it is the logical ship, and Sam/Bucky makes exponentially LESS sense, but, well, shipping isn't really logical. Also, I really don't see his interactions with Steve in Cap2 as canonically flirty and Tumblr's "how can you come up with a platonic explanation for this" attitude towards it rubs me the wrong way. They're just being friendly?? Should they be LESS friendly?

Favorite relationship: Sam + Bucky. I don't even know WHY -- at the time when I was heavily into the fandom, their entire canonical interaction consisted of a couple instances of trying to kill each other. I don't normally get into fanonical relationships like that. And yet I did.

Favorite headcanon: Trying not to give YET ANOTHER Sam/Bucky-related answer here, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record ... that he stayed close with Riley's family. I've seen a few fics like that and I really like it.

"how can you come up with a platonic explanation for this" attitude towards it rubs me the wrong way.

This grates on me so much. I keep running into in the Star Wars fandom, with Finn/Rey shippers. (I'm a Finn/Rey shipper! I just don't think romance is the only possible explanation for their fondness for each other.)

Heh, I knew nothing about Sam before TWS (hell, I knew nothing about the whole gang before TFA/TWS) and spent a lot of the movie terrified he was going to die (that Bucky would kill him, specifically). It was such a nice relief when he didn't, I had to watch it all over again! and I remember thinking his stunt piloting around the helicarrier was really badass, and not something a supporting black actor typically gets to do.

I love the Sam and Bucky brotp, obviously--I'll read it as a ship, but it's not something I can ever see writing or having a big interest the way I have in a Sam & Bucky friendship. I find writing them so rewarding, especially when it's more than just Sam helping Bucky, but getting them out for action and adventure and doing badass stuff like Sam should be doing. :-D

You know, even though CATWS had nothing but murder in it, I didn't think of it as fanon--I guess because they have such a fanatastic friendship in the comics, and I think that despite the story not bringing that in yet, the feeling of it was there, in a weird way, and they amped that up despite Bucky still trying to kill him in CW. Plus they recognized what gold they had in the Mackie-Stan relationship, and they used that to the film's advantage.

BTW, have you seen this adorable fanart? http://teatotally.tumblr.com/post/152400842672/matt-the-blind-cinnamon-roll-spookywilson-the

(that links to my reblog of it)

Peggy!

Miles Vorkosigan? :D

This looks like fun!

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