ive been LOVING yonder and also 👀👀👀 your stevenat Hints, would you ever consider writing outright fic for 'em/talking abt your thoughts on the ship (at least?) ? anyway thanks for all your Everything, youre a staple of my dash and i love seeing everything you make ❤
(this has been in my inbox for a while because it came in just before I went to bed and I left it for a bit because I knew I was going to get wordy, so apologies for the much delayed response.)
I don't tend to write really shippy fic because I tend to write very plot-heavy and the ships are mostly an element of that rather than the central focus. So likely in the future anything I write that deals with Natasha and Steve is likely to have them together in some way or building to it or something (depending on when it's set, because I actually have quite a firm headcanon on When Things Happened, at least in the main timeline), but it's probably never going to be, like, a romance fic. (Especially because I'm still pretty Asgardian-focused.)
As for thoughts on Steve/Nat...a while ago I said something about how I usually have two kinds of ships -- the "we'll ruin ourselves for each other, love of our lives" kind of ship and the "we're best friends who have each other's backs and occasionally have sex" kind of ship. (There's some crossover between the two in my shipping, of course.) Steve has a couple of people who fit into the category of the first one -- Bucky for sure, Peggy going by Endgame (oof). And I don't say "ruin ourselves for each other" in a bad way, it's just a very different ship dynamic than the other one. Less...fraught, I guess? More like "we'll ruin each other and potentially the universe," because the consequences go beyond these specific people. Steve and Nat are in the latter category (for me) -- and I don't say this in a dismissive way at all or to imply that they're less important to each other than the world-ending pairings! (It may just be that I'm honestly worn out by the former right now, even though it's a dynamic I like a lot.)
this next bit got long and is mostly about Natasha so I'll put it behind a cut
I put this into that last chapter of Yonder, during the scene with Natasha and Yelena, but it's kind of key to the way I see Natasha and Steve so I'll quote it here:
She hesitated, then admitted, “I was tired of doing the spy thing, the shadow thing, even for SHIELD. I wasn’t actually supposed to be part of the Avengers Initiative originally.”
“No?” Yelena said curiously. “That’s not what all the news articles say.”
“Well, they leave out a lot. Fury brought me in because of Clint and – well, Loki, originally, back then. I think he was also curious about how Steve would react to a pretty face.”
Yelena snorted. “He seems like the kind of man who likes women who can beat him up, superpowers or not.”
Natasha decided not to dignify that with a response. “Anyway, when he and Tony figured out that Loki was headed for New York, Steve came to me because I was the only SHIELD agent he knew besides Fury and Hill.” And Coulson, but that was too much to explain just now. “So Clint and I went to New York with him.”
“I know, I’ve seen the footage,” Yelena said. “Fighting aliens.”
“Yeah, the first time.” Natasha tapped her fingers thoughtfully against the mattress before she went on. “It’s…different, when you’re just fighting, you know? When I was with the Red Room – or the KGB, SHIELD, any of the alphabet agencies – I was doing it in the dark, alone, for a lot of different reasons.”
“Yeah,” Yelena said quietly.
“When you’re doing it because you’re putting yourself between civilians and an enemy – between your world and an enemy – it’s different. And I liked that. I still like it. It felt…honest, in a way I didn’t know it could feel. After that I didn’t want to go back to doing the other thing again.”
(I know What If? suggests that Nat was considered for the Avengers Initiative originally but I have thought since 2012 that it was sheer chance she ended up an Avenger and I'm not going to stop now.)
Way back in The Avengers, Steve has no idea who the Black Widow is, he's only ever met Natasha Romanoff. Nat's opening scene, "the famous Black Widow"? Steve doesn't know about any of that. (And honestly, I don't think he'd care even if he did.) He takes Natasha as she presents herself to him, which I suspect Natasha isn't really used to, even amongst SHIELD -- there's a lot of interesting little testing back and forth between them in their first scene together on the helicarrier as they're both trying to figure each other out. (And I suspect if Steve had reacted more positively to Coulson's fanboying, it would have been Coulson going to Stuttgart with him instead of Natasha, or at least in addition to, but everyone found out that Steve doesn't particularly like the fanboying and stuck with Natasha alone instead.) At the point that he asks her to go to New York, he hasn't even seen her fight yet; he looked at her, read her in a very short period of time, and went "okay, this person wants to do The Right Thing and won't bother with the niceties if need be." Without an instant of hesitation. And throughout the Battle of New York they're gravitating towards each other without really having to talk about it very much, working with each other -- Steve essentially puts them on an equal footing when he's giving everyone their marching orders, the "you and me, we're on the ground." (And of course the "I could use a boost" scene.)
I think for Natasha the Battle of New York was a real turning point for her -- she's tired of doing the spy thing, the Black Widow in the dark thing. She's good at it, she can still do it, but she doesn't really want to anymore and I think she didn't really want to even before that, just didn't necessarily see another alternative until SURPRISE, ALIENS. Though while HOLY SHIT, ALIENS JUST INVADED EARTH is a world-altering shatterpoint for a lot of people, I don't think that the aliens aspect was for Natasha -- I think it was the "oh, I can do this in the bright light of day and it feels really different and really good" part of the Battle of New York that got to her. (Same with Steve, I don't think he even cares about the aliens, everything's equally nuts to him at this point.) I think she's struggling with that for most of the rest of the MCU -- I think that's a key point of why she's making certain decisions in TWS, CW, and even Black Widow, trying to figure out which part of that was the thing that really clicked for her. And because of the fact that it's Steve who immediately read her, came to a judgment, and trusted her to back him up that complicates matters -- you can see a bit of this in TWS, her expression after Batroc tosses that grenade at them and Steve's visibly pissed off at her. It's on the surface more in TWS, partially because she says it out loud -- the "who do you want me to be?"
Through TWS, CW, and BW -- uh, and Age of Ultron, I forgot it existed, whoops -- I think Natasha's pushing and poking about who she wants to be and who she is and what the parts of it that are her are. She's doing a lot of testing back and forth, what's what, what's right, is this real, do I keep this, do I get rid of it, isn't this the right thing to do? Can I trust my judgment? How about now? What about this thing? Now? Now? This? That? Yes? No? And she's still in that space at the beginning of BW, where she's thinking, okay, I'm taking myself off the board, what now, who am I when I'm alone in the dark -- and it turns out the person Natasha Romanoff is when she's alone in the dark is still an Avenger and still the person who'll do the right thing, which I don't think was something she was ever really one hundred percent of before. By IW she's certain, and I don't think -- in the MCU, as presented here -- she would have gotten to that point without Steve reading her in Avengers and saying, "hey. I recognize you. you're just like me. let's go punch aliens together." because they are! they're very, very much alike, different backgrounds notwithstanding
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5) If you had to choose a favourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?
Oh goshhhhh this is a hard one
Like, I’m always trying to improve, so I sort of hypothetically like the one I’m working on at any given moment more than any previous ones, because hypothetically it’s better because I’ve gotten better? Also it sort of depends on my mood.
Hold up, I’m in a chatty mood, let me tell you why they’re ALL my favorite!
(all the multi chaptered Fallout stories that is, because you’re in the fallout fandom so I’m gonna assume that’s what you’re interested in :D)
Ruby because it’s the one that got me writing for this fandom, the story that seized me and wouldn’t let go until I wrote it, after I’d spent ages not writing at all because I was depressed and playing a video game instead. It reminded me what I love writing about most: desperate and fucked up people, trying to save other desperate people whose variety of desperation is more obvious but less complicated, and accidentally getting saved by them in the process. (Also the “what you thought you had to be ashamed of turns out to be a thing I love about you” thing)
Redefined because it introduces my Darling Michael, because it’s the one that turned both HLGOTWID and Nora’s family into a series instead of a one-off, and because it’s the first one that involves Nora actually encountering someone she grievously wronged and trying to deal with that.
Runaway because it’s pure dumb kissyface fluff and because it focuses on Nora’s romance with Hancock which I love and because both Emily’s “I have developed a Kissing Feelings” scene and X9-21’s “look what do you even want with me” scene are Nora “I’m gonna flail and stumble around like an idiot but ultimately still manage to be a great mom just by virtue of loving my kid more than life itself” Bowman at her Parenting Finest.
Reunited because I wrote it in a super existential mood and it got really existential and kinda coalesced my current “let’s be good to each other as hard as we can, for dear life, and make stupid jokes to help each other cope with our post-traumatic stress disorder” philosophy.
Remnants because it’s the one that got Ambitious: about Nora really confronting her past mistakes and their consequences and beginning to try to make real amends, about bringing in more canon characters not just for flavor and fun but to really work at completing what I saw as incomplete canon character arcs, and about bringing in the whole Commonwealth and all the factions and Nora dealing with them all in a post-canon setting.
Renascence because it got Even More Ambitious by departing from Nora’s POV, and really digging in arc-wise not only with Danse and Deacon but with X6-88, who is like the hardest dude for me to understand and write, but totally worth it.
Refreshment is my favorite right now because I’m in the middle of it!
8) Where do you take your inspiration from?
I write absolutely nothing but emotional wish-fulfillment. My wishes are mostly to be deeply known and loved, to deeply know and love others, to be comforted when I’m in pain and able to rest safely when I’m tired, and to be able to comfort others and have/ be a place for them to rest safely.
Also to fucking shoot people who hurt my people in the goddamn face.
12) Who is your favourite character to write for? Why?
Oh, hell, if I try to tell you why they all are, we’ll be here all night.
Right now I’m really enjoying writing X6-88 because it’s exhilarating to feel like I’ve finally got a good handle on his character and gotten him to a good emotional place where he can just kinda be himself and also Known and Loved. Michael’s a perennial favorite because at this point in the story he just dwells in that place, plus now he gets to be the comforter and protector for others. Danse is getting on up there, too.
27) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?
I always make an outline, and the finished story almost never resembles it in any particular. I don’t know why I still bother, except to fool myself that I know what I’m doing and/or that any given story will be a manageable length.
(I think the main mistake I keep making with my outlines is that I assume that Number of Actual Actions Performed By Characters will correlate roughly to Number of Words Written, whereas in reality the action of 70% of all my chapters consists of “character lies in bed and thinks about stuff.”)
oh god I watched it so long ago (last summer? last fall?) that I don't fully remember what my actual thoughts were at the time, and while I thought it was fascinating I don't really want to rewatch it.
what are some of your favorite versions of 'down to the river'?
I really like the Alison Kraus one from O Brother, Where Art Thou! Which I think is the best-known version. I just kind of bop around on YouTube listening to different covers, but I like the clarity of that one and haven’t found another one I like near as much. I’m fascinated by this version from the Colorado All-State Choir 2019 in...a hotel?
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QUEENS GAMBIT. i found you through wake and started following along while you were posting gambit and i still have a very special tender place in my fannish heart for the two of those. i love all your writing tho tbh, the ryloth worldbuilding for backbone is 👌👌👌
Aw, thank you! While I’m always thrilled by binge readers, it always makes me happy when people read stories as they’re being posted, since I write them as serial novels.
a recommendation for a recent release as many souls as stars by natasha siegel, about the obsessive cat-and-mouse game between a demon and a cursed witch across lifetimes. (not horror, but felt thematically relevant to halloween nonetheless)
Red roses! Black, dark burgundy, or artificial blue roses are also nice
53. Bouquet of flowers or box of chocolates?
Chocolates, please. I also like some other flowers like lavender, violets, pansies, tulips, daisies; but often when I buy other flowers from the supermarket I actually don't like how they smell, especially if it's in my kitchen/living 24/7
99. What's the last show you binged?
Shorter shows - Peep Show (BBC) and Black Books. Longer - Penny Dreadful and Agents of SHIELD
What were your summers like as a kid?
I woke up early and played computer games - really slow real-time strategy games like ages of empires. I would do that on the non-networked old PC, while my sister listened to music on the newer PC with internet. This is why I like The Rasmus, the Beatles, and Rammstein.
I spent a lot of time in my room with meccano, k'nex, and lego. I also made paper aeroplanes (I had a book about making 15-20 different designs), hollow geometric shapes out of paper ("nets"), and read star wars novels and collected the star wars fact file.
I stayed up late at night reading SF and fantasy novels from the library. I read non-fiction stuff about time travel, general relativity, and black holes, that was aimed at adults, and pretended to understand it.
6. What's your favorite outfit?
Dark blue jeans, white t-shirt, forest green hoodie. The green hoodie makes me feel like I'm me, you know?
55. What's the best prank you've been witness to?
Not really a prank, but: for year 12 muck-up day the year above me (i.e. when I was in year 11/second last year of high school/17 years old) the year above had a really good relationship with the teachers, so we had a mock assembly where they took on all the important roles. One student borrowed a shirt and suit and the headmaster's robe and red stole (hood), and proceeded to pretend he was short, fat, fussy and energetic just like our real headmaster (this is relative: our old headmaster was very tall, stooped, and only ever spoke very slowly and softly). Another student spiked up his hair with gel, borrowed the director of music's robe, and proceeded to impersonate him as a vibrant italian-australian choirmaster, doing an impression of his very authentic actual assembly activity of ripping off articles of clothing in order to get us to sing louder and in tune
