Discussion Question Wednesday! #2: Angst

[salmastryon.livejournal.com]

It is time for another...
Discussion Question Wednesday!
This week we'll be talking about angst. Angst has always been a staple of the fandom and right now canon is bombarding us as well. Ultimates is dealing with the aftermath of Cataclysm, in MCU the emotional fall out of Captain America: Winter Soldier is still fresh, and 616 canon is ramping up for Original Sin that is expected to be an outright angst fest for Steve and Tony.

What type of angst do you like and why?
Both of our heroes come with inherit flaws and talents that just make them ripe for angst, whether it is canon or in the our imagination. Let's talk about our favorite angsty moments in fics, art and canon. I want to hear about that idea that hits you right in the feels every time you think about it. I know some of you have songs and playlists devoted to Steve and Tony angst, share them with us. I've got my box of tissues ready cause I know you are going to make me cry.

Discussion Question Wednesday is going to run every other week. Anonymous comments are welcome.

Panel is Tony giving Steve CPR from Avengers(2003) #70

Comments

[salmastryon.livejournal.com]

This question was tougher for me to answer than I thought it would be. There are just so many different flavors and type of angst. In the end though, there is a theme that runs through the types of angst that really pushes my buttons and that is the relationships between people. Specifically, I like when they get tested and threatened and while the character might think all is lost for awhile in the end friendship, love or stubbornness wins the day. A happy ending after angst is important to me. I need my happy endings.

My favorite angst trope has to be mind control. I've always liked the concept of the heroes having to face one of their number who has gone over to the other side against their will. The mind controlled person might remember his time fighting by the heroes side, but I really like it when the mind controlled person has been subverted. Perhaps the villain or some evil has taken over their body and the heroes have to wrestle between whether to kill their friend or not; or whatever is controlling the person has twisted their personality around so they hate the heroes. This is especially nice if the love/hate is focused between Tony and Steve based on whichever one is being controlled.

The PoV from either side of this can be great. You can get all the heroes angst and distressed from having to fight against their love or trying to support their love fighting against a friend or even family. From the other perspective you can get that sorta train wreck angst as you know how hard things are hitting the other person(s) or even worse you can be privy to the controlled persons inner struggles against being controlled.

[magicasen.livejournal.com]

To start this comment off, I don't ever think 616!Steve and Tony can be together, not just for canon reasons, but because their relationship hinges heavily on their morality conflict. (Plus, they're superheroes. Those couples never last very long.) Now, this conflict is part of what intrigues me about the ship, because my fool-proof trope is people struggling between their humanity and their ideals, and the nature of this canon is that ideals will win out over personal happiness. Which is angsty enough in itself, but my extra-favorite over-the-moon trope is when the result is so painful the character regrets what they did and feels betrayed by their ideals, but of course have no one to blame but themselves for their choice. (Ha ha - “It wasn't worth it.”) So 616!canon pretty much spoon feeds me my favorite type of character/relationship/angst dynamics! (...Yes, I love it when Steve and Tony fight *ducks*)

I can only cross my fingers that Steve comes to some sort of similar realization if Tony ends up dying in Original Sin. No, don't look at me like that, I have a basis for this! In Hickman's Fantastic Four/FF run, there was a running theme of “your ideals are not worth it if you have to forsake the people you love for them” (To summarize: alternate!Reeds chose to abandon their families in order to “save the multiverse” by preventing as many deaths as possible, but 616!Reed couldn't do the same because his family and his love for them defined the person he was. This was framed in the narrative as the "right" choice.) So, I believe Hickman is definitely the type of writer who would support the idea that ideals are great, but you can't lose sight of why they are so important (to protect people) or else you're left with an empty, hollow idealism. I also can't see Hickman blatantly taking anyone's "side" in this conflict, so to speak, so I think he may address Steve's stubborn mindset by having him "confront" his ideals in this sense.

Haha, if there was a hypothetical AU where the Avengers just didn't have to deal with world/universe-ending threats that bring up ethical clashes so regularly, I totally believe Steve and Tony could be happily together! Unfortunately, that doesn't sell comics, so we have incursions instead.

However! I do honestly believe they can fall in love with each other (if they already aren't *coughs*). Yes, even in canon, which makes their relationship in there extra painful. Which brings up my next comment...

[amalthia]

I like the angst in the Civil War fics where Steve and Tony try to reconcile but it doesn't quite work out.

[whizzy.livejournal.com]

Angst huh? I think fandom uses the term more to describe the reader's reaction (anxiety, dread) than the content of a story. I don't tend to count miserably unhappy stories or deathfic as angst simply because they are unhappy. If an outcome is unhappy and it makes sense from an emotional and narritive standpoint, I am so on board. :D

What I dislike are stories that are angsty just for the sake of wallowing in misery. That can range from overblown H/C to woobie martyr complex stuff to any miserable situation the characters create for themselves either through OOC behavior or a persistent rejection of honest communication (see the entirety of Civil War). (I really dislike snowballing angst that is based on miscommunication/misunderstanding and secret keeping, which could be solved by sitting the characters down for a simple conversation.)

I love deconstruction, finding a character's weak points and picking them apart at the seams. It usually has to involve external influences, since most characters, left by themselves, would not spontaneously implode. I like seeing characters forced to compromise in ways they normally wouldn't, or make difficult-to-impossible decisions. Consequences need to matter. I'm okay with patching some things up at the end, but leaving things broken has its own appeal.

[dictionary00.livejournal.com]

Since this post is talking about angst, a comics question!

I haven't been following Hickman's Avengers at all - has the Steve and Tony thing at the beginning of New Avengers blown up in their faces yet? If not, will that be happening in Original Sin? What are the chances the fallout will be handled/has been handled in an emotionally honest and organic way? Hit me with whatever spoilers exist.

More on topic, I tend to prefer angst that follow naturally from the choices characters make, often because they are so singleminded the costs don't occur to them until it is too late. I like Charles/Erik in canon, for example. Fic that is just characters being beat up repeatedly and moaning about being fate's chew toy is more hit or miss. It depends on whether they are beat up enough to justify the whining!

[laireshi]

At one point I will recover enough to write something else, but for now, canon Hickman angst? Mmmm, yes.

[dragonofmemory]

*uses angstiest icon*

I am really weird when it comes to angst. Like, there's no one, specific trope, but it's more how it's done? Like (and apologizes for the non-Steve/Tony example) all throughout RTD's run of Doctor Who, he never really succeeded in making me feel a heck of a lot. Sure I liked lots of it, and I enjoyed watching, but when most emotional scenes comes around, it didn't do much for me. Even when my favorite companion had to leave, I was more angry at what they did to her than actually feeling anything towards the plot. Then there's the big regen scene for Ten that had all of my friends in tears... and did nothing for me. I cried like, ten minutes after I finished watching because I would miss Ten, but that wasn't a delayed reaction. I've had delayed reactions before, and I've cried every subsequent viewing. But I've watched those episodes many times, and I only feel just a little sad that Ten is leaving. The thing is though, when I watch that scene with just the music playing and no other sounds, I do tear up. I tear up often when I listen to the soundtrack. But never when I watch the completely scene, which tells me it was something else that kills it for me.

It's not that I don't cry at all, because for certain things I will cry at the drop of a hat. It's not that it has to be well written, because let's face it, I cry when I watch Armageddon. Every. Damn. Time. And that's like, my guilty pleasure. I dunno. It just has to hit me right and really jump out and touch me, or I just kind of sit and watch really angsty things with a 'meh' as an end result. Absolutely no idea what the connection is though.