Fanworks Premiere
Title: Handlebars
Song: "Handlebars" by Flobots
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
content notes: Major character death , Graphic violence , Slavery , Child harm , Suicide
Length:3:32
responsible for the lack of consistency in title block from vid to vid: seekingferret
Summary: And it feels so good to be alive and on top.
Thanks to:
beatriceeagle,
janecdotes,
kabal42 for betaing!
Handlebars (14 words) by seekingferret
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Black Widow (Movie 2021)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Natasha Romanov (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Fanvids
Summary:
And it feels so good to be alive and on top.
Child Natasha Romanoff rode a bicycle in the opening of the movie Black Widow and I said instantly to myself "I guess I need to make a "Handlebars" vid." It was in some ways a really obvious and natural vid, and in some ways a very tricky thing to feel my way into.
The thing is that "Handlebars" is about the great capacity for people to do good, and about how sometimes we use that great capacity for the wrong things. It's a perfect vidsong for characters like the Doctor or Tony Stark, who initially seem like forceful powers for good, but the more you look the more you see the damage they cause in their pursuit of good. But Natasha has a sort of inverted arc where she starts out, because of abuse, using her power for evil and slowly moves more and more toward being a force for good. But at the same time the more she becomes an Avenger, the more she becomes entangled in the failures of that enterprise, too.
One of the ways I chose to look at Natasha in this vid is as someone whose power comes from her relationships with other powerful people. She builds alliances, manipulates people, forges powerful connections. And the implicit promise that brought her out of the darkness, or maybe not so implicit from Clint, was that if she used her powers of relationship building for good, she would get actual relationships out of the effort. Meaningful friendships. She'd get to be Aunt Nat to Clint's children, maybe she'd get a chance at love with Bruce. But what actually happened was that the more she used her powers, the more she built relationships with people she would then be forced by circumstances to betray. The climax of the vid is a sequence where she repeatedly attacks fellow Avengers- Bruce, Clint, T'Challa. This gets us to her sacrifice. The only way she can use her power without being forced to betray someone she loves is to betray herself instead. And of course the main revelation of the Black Widow movie is that she had a whole network of connections before she joined SHIELD, which were totally fucked up relationships but were still in some sense real and meaningful relationships that she'd been compelled to betray, especially her sororal relationship with Yelena.
But also this vid hangs its hat on the lyric matches. Rocket --> "Me and my friend saw a platypus" is a favorite one of mine, also Natasha watching a Bond flick in her trailer --> "I'm all curled up with a book to read". Other favorites include Natasha revealing her personal SHIELD secrets to "I can hand out a million vaccinations/ Or let 'em all die of exasperation". I also like my choice to use "And I can see your face on the telephone" to show moments of physical touch with the people who are important to her. Natasha is a wetworks person in all senses of the word. This entry was originally posted at https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/384764.html. Please comment there using OpenID. There are
comments.
Song: "Handlebars" by Flobots
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
content notes: Major character death , Graphic violence , Slavery , Child harm , Suicide
Length:3:32
responsible for the lack of consistency in title block from vid to vid: seekingferret
Summary: And it feels so good to be alive and on top.
Thanks to:
beatriceeagle,
janecdotes,
kabal42 for betaing!
Handlebars (14 words) by seekingferret
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Black Widow (Movie 2021)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Natasha Romanov (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Fanvids
Summary:
And it feels so good to be alive and on top.
Click to viewChild Natasha Romanoff rode a bicycle in the opening of the movie Black Widow and I said instantly to myself "I guess I need to make a "Handlebars" vid." It was in some ways a really obvious and natural vid, and in some ways a very tricky thing to feel my way into.
The thing is that "Handlebars" is about the great capacity for people to do good, and about how sometimes we use that great capacity for the wrong things. It's a perfect vidsong for characters like the Doctor or Tony Stark, who initially seem like forceful powers for good, but the more you look the more you see the damage they cause in their pursuit of good. But Natasha has a sort of inverted arc where she starts out, because of abuse, using her power for evil and slowly moves more and more toward being a force for good. But at the same time the more she becomes an Avenger, the more she becomes entangled in the failures of that enterprise, too.
One of the ways I chose to look at Natasha in this vid is as someone whose power comes from her relationships with other powerful people. She builds alliances, manipulates people, forges powerful connections. And the implicit promise that brought her out of the darkness, or maybe not so implicit from Clint, was that if she used her powers of relationship building for good, she would get actual relationships out of the effort. Meaningful friendships. She'd get to be Aunt Nat to Clint's children, maybe she'd get a chance at love with Bruce. But what actually happened was that the more she used her powers, the more she built relationships with people she would then be forced by circumstances to betray. The climax of the vid is a sequence where she repeatedly attacks fellow Avengers- Bruce, Clint, T'Challa. This gets us to her sacrifice. The only way she can use her power without being forced to betray someone she loves is to betray herself instead. And of course the main revelation of the Black Widow movie is that she had a whole network of connections before she joined SHIELD, which were totally fucked up relationships but were still in some sense real and meaningful relationships that she'd been compelled to betray, especially her sororal relationship with Yelena.
But also this vid hangs its hat on the lyric matches. Rocket --> "Me and my friend saw a platypus" is a favorite one of mine, also Natasha watching a Bond flick in her trailer --> "I'm all curled up with a book to read". Other favorites include Natasha revealing her personal SHIELD secrets to "I can hand out a million vaccinations/ Or let 'em all die of exasperation". I also like my choice to use "And I can see your face on the telephone" to show moments of physical touch with the people who are important to her. Natasha is a wetworks person in all senses of the word. This entry was originally posted at https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/384764.html. Please comment there using OpenID. There are
comments.