astridv

Here's a great little fic that explores Natasha's and Pepper's friendship post-Iron Man III. (Spoilers, obviously)
Probably Not On Purpose by Frea_O

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(main Avengers fic recs post)

Two Lies and A Bit of Truth by igrockspock
Maria/Steve, Coulson; rated teen; 3097 words
Summary: Maria Hill has a lot of back stories. One of them is even true.

Couldn't Get That Boy To Kill Me by redbrunja
Natasha/Clint; rated E; 3158 words
Summary: Sometimes she thinks she should have forced Barton to put her down. After all, death clears all debts.

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I went through the last five months of posts and my Avengers recs master list is now up to date again. 200 recs, give or take.

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The latest Hawkguy got here today :). For the first time I like the artist that fills in for David Aja; I hope they'll stick with this one from now on. I mean, if they can't get Aja, that is.
Really liked the story, too.

I'm in the mood to draw some Avengers fanart... Nat & Clint, something with a spy/action flavor maybe. Prompt me?
(Ideally I'm looking for an idea I could translate into 1-2 pages of comic. But my mind has been drawing a blank all day...)

Insta!rec:
Soiree by ruby_caspar
Summary: Georgette Heyer Regency AU. The Dowager Duchess known as the Black Widow is the talk of the ton - rich and mysterious, the only way to meet this elusive lady is through the equally mysterious Mr Barton…
Characters: Natasha, Clint, team, Pepper, and a delightfully clueless OC; canon pairings; Regency AU/spies/con; rated PG; 8700 words

I've never read a Regency novel, but I'm filled with the sudden desire to pick up a Georgette Heyer book. :)
Love the plot, the style, the characterizations and the whole atmosphere. Especially seeing Natasha play the mark, through the eyes of the mark... pretty awesome.

Everybody who's familiar with a certain facet of fantasy art should get a kick out of this motivational poster: Pointless Armor (The breastplate is a particularly nice detail. :D)

Avengers movieverse fic rec:
Arrow by Zarannya
Gen (iirc); Hawkeye & team & a dog; friendship; rated T; 17,725 words
Summary: Clint has been having a rough time recovering from the Loki Incident. Tony Stark means well... he really does. He just doesn't always know how to show it in conventional ways.
(This is a companion fic to Hawkeye's Merry Men, which I haven't read myself yet because it's still WIP. You don't need to have read the other story to get into this one.)

[eta: taken care of]
Anybody watched yesterday's ep? I'm usually a spoilerphobe but ( Read more... )

Oh hey, ScarJo might be playing another character with superpowers, in a Luc Besson movie. That sounds promising. (It's not a Black Widow movie but hey, superpowers. That's cool. And Luc Besson is not known for cheap and shallow movies.) link @ themarysue
Speaking of themarysue, I remember when they introduced the website concept I was extreeemely skeptical because of the name... I thought it signalled an entirely different purpose, like it was to ridicule female characters instead of celebrating them. I'd have figured that the word "Mary Sue" is so fraught with negative connotations that it couldn't be reclaimed. Well, maybe it's really worth trying. I like the website, in any case.

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Yesterday jae was visiting my beautiful (if still a litte chilly) city, and we geeked about The Americans* and had some delicious asparagus. (Asparagus is kind of A Thing here... it's like a two-months feast of deliciousness.)
Also, I found out that jae could totally have a career as an undercover spy in Germany because her German is so flawless that I kept forgetting she's not from here. Really fascinating. I'm reasonably fluent in English but I never got to the point where I lost my German accent.

*If you haven't watched The Americans but are in the market for something different: The Americans is something different. It's set in the 80s, about two undercover Soviet spies in the US who're posing as a married couple with kids. If you liked The Wire, for example, you should really check this one out... it has a similar flavor. It's realistic, nuanced and gripping, and what I really love is that when it comes to East vs West ideologies and politics, the show doesn't take sides. It shows individual people's actions and motivations, similar to The Wire. That's rather bold (I think, for a US show) and it's refreshing.

I love having visitors. Especially from abroad. Earlier this month pentapus and a friend had stopped by (and were hardy enough to brace the freezing wind and go on a bike tour which is also A Thing here, and I got to show them our sights, among which is the world's largest ammonite. (Seriously, the thing is huge.)

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Today the weather was actually great and with my illos finished I went to our hidden meadow to shoot a few arrows AND went climbing at the owl tower AND I think I finally found the perfect route along the back wall, so I'm almost ready to try to traverse the entire building in one go. *rubs hands* It's gonna be a ~15 minute climb (which is funny because it feels so much shorter when you're on the wall; time passes very differently when you're climbing.)

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One potential job for May fell through, and another one got postponed for a year. I'm okay with the former, not so happy with the latter. But I still have a lot of half-finished projects of my own, some of them fanart. I had been about to post some new fanart when that last job landed on my desk. Gonna get back to that.

Uuh. The scene I'm coloring today stars 19 people. Either half-naked and muscular, or clothed in drapery. Fun motives, actually, both anatomy and drapery, but the shading is going to take ages. I'm never gonna finish tonight.

Fortunately it's the last pic of my project so I can take my sweet time to get it just right. After that I'll have plenty of time to goof off, climb a lot (hopefully) and work on my own projects again.

Well, enough procrastinating. Those drapes ain't gonna color themselves...

(Icon particularly fitting today as we just rewatched Smile Time. I ♥ that show)

Between Here and There by andacus
Summary: Or The One Where Clint May Have Possibly Already Known Natasha. You Know, Technically.
Clint's whole life is really just one circus act after another.
Clint/Natasha and Coulson; backstory/snapshots/mission fic; rated M; 8845 words

He wasn’t petulant... he wasn’t, but he was more than reasonably annoyed at being left behind. And maybe he was a little worried. Nat was a really good agent, maybe the best, but he was her partner, they were a double act, you didn’t get one without the other. Except apparently you did.

She stood up, ruffled his hair. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to babysit-slash-probably-seduce Tony Stark, which might be the most annoying job ever.”

Alone, Clint stared at the paused game without seeing it. “I could seduce Stark,” he told the empty room.