The first time I saw The Avengers (2012):
I was recovering from my first real big fight with depression. Right at the start of the second semester of my sophomore year of college I had a huge emotional collapse. One of the reasons I survived was because of watching Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, and CATFA with my roommates. But the main reason I survived was because they were some of the best girls in the world and I’m so glad that God sent them to me
The first showing I went to I went with a current roommate and one of her friends--he was my friend too by that time.
That was also my first time ever riding public transit. We went to the mall on the other side of town.
The second showing, I did go with two of the roommates from that last apartment. (Fun fact: another one of those girls went on Study Abroad to Spain and she got to see Los Vengadores in theaters like two days before it came out in the US. Can you say celosas!)
I had seen the previews but I had no idea that this movie would change my life, again. And that it would change the world.
I also already knew that the MCU had deeper themes, but I had no idea that I would get SO MUCH out of The Avengers
Characters that Impacted Me: Loki I wasn’t in fangirl love with him yet. That would wait until Thor 2. Maybe even later. But Loki’s speeches about human weakness sounded so much like the evil voices in my head that had plagued me the previous semester when I had questioned everything I cared about. Loki was Satan. And I quote his entire speech in Stuttgart: Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel. My mind was trying to rule me.
Clint Barton First thing, Loki uses the mind stone to take over Barton. He makes Barton do things he normally would never do. Kill people. Hurt people. Attack the people he cares about. For months I had struggled with inner thoughts that lashed out violently against every person I was attached to. And I was terrified of those thoughts becoming real. My OCD/Depression manifested my worst fears and wanted to make me into a person I was not. People say that Hawkeye got jipped in this movie but I disagree: he was my worst fears and my mental illness playing out on the big screen. And then he came out of it. And he saved the world.
(Maybe that’s the real reason I cosplay Natasha, because I hate it when people talk trash about Barton)
Natasha Romanoff Her first fight scene in the movie is so awesome. Good grief. I had seen Iron Man 2 but it wasn’t until The Avengers that Nat made an impression on me. It was the ‘Red in her Ledger” speech--that little show of vulnerability to manipulate Loki. Everything I had been through felt like “red in my ledger.”
I was really struck by her compassion: the empathy she expresses to Barton in recovery; her trying to keep Bruce from going Hulk and then warning the mechanics to get the heck away; her and Clint rescuing civilians in New York; and then telling Eric Selvig that what he had done wasn’t his fault.
Also, when I came out of the first showing I talked to my roommate about her like, what if she’s related to Anastasia because the last name, ya know? After a while I felt like that was kind of stupid. So I put that theory aside...until recently. Maybe not that recently.
Regardless of whether or not Nat is actual royalty, she has always been a Queen to me ever since
Phil Coulson Coulson was the first MCU character I ever obsessed over, but even then it was nowhere on the level I’ve been at with Bucky for the last...we’re going on five years now, I think. But he was just so cute and so nice and so funny and his death pained me a little. As soon as the #CoulsonLives movement came around I was converted. When I decided for personal reasons to not watch Agents of SHIELD it was hard. But then I got a great idea for my own #CoulsonLives story so the rest is history. It’s just he was such a friend to all the Avengers and he felt like my friend, too.
Bruce Banner It’s probably beating a dead horse to say this, but having a mental illness is like, well, living with the Hulk. It was this dark side of me that came out and it scared me. And it came out and it attacked me and it made me attack people. Sometimes it was like the Mind Stone controlling me, as I said earlier. But sometimes it was just blind rage. “That’s my secret, Cap: I’m always angry.” BOY I FELT THAT.
And I think it may have been as early as the next day but the next time I went to group therapy I told everyone about The Avengers (I was doing some kind of therapy 2-3 days a week. It was intense but I needed it and it helped). I told them about Clint and I told them about Bruce. I may have told them more. But I told them that the biggest superhero movie ever had made an emotional impact on me because I saw the characters acting out my mental illness experience onscreen and symbolically defeated it
"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." ~G.K. Chesterson/Neil Gaiman (Source)
And that’s how representation works folks: not just people who look like you but people who’ve been through what you’ve been through
I took “Love is for children” pretty literally the first time I saw it. I only shipped Clintasha later because everybody else on the internet was doing it. Even when I first started writing fanfic I had them dating. But, to be honest, I really like Clint having a family and having that tight platonic brother/sister relationship with Nat. Actually a lot cooler. And it fit better with my fanfic because my Jedi OC becomes Clint’s adopted cousin and it made more sense for Laura and the little Bartons to be part of that relationship russos what have you done to them
For a while after Avengers first came out, I shipped Cap with the Waitress. Maybe that’s who I should have shipped him with all along. But if you really think about it, him hooking up with a random waitress is a long shot. It makes even less sense than Sharon, if Sharon doesn’t make sense at all.
