ext_26680 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
cybermathwitch.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crack_van2013-10-02 08:50 pm
cybermathwitch.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2013-10-02 08:50 pm
Entry tags:
Howl by icarus_chained (PG-13)
Hiya! I'm CyberMathWitch, and I'll be flying the Helicarrier for Avengers this month. I'm primarily a Black Widow/Hawkeye 'shipper, but I also have a huge amount of Team feels, both of which I hope to showcase here.
Fandom: THE AVENGERS (MOVIEVERSE)
Pairing: None/Gen
Length: 1460
Author's Warnings: Violence, stream-of-consciousness, strange
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
icarus_chained
Author Website: LJ or AO3
Why this must be read:
I'm going to dive straight in with one of my favorite authors,icarus_chained. It was extremely difficult to pick one fic to highlight (and if you like this one, you definitely want to check out the rest of her fic, trust me) -- but I finally settled on "Howl" because it not only features my favorite character, but because it showcases all the reasons why I like her writing so much. She excels at drawing comparisons between characters that aren't immediately evident (but seem incredibly true and obvious once revealed), and her work is often fluid and almost poetic.
"Howl" is a point-of-view peice of Natasha Romanov immediately following the Battle of New York, as she is still caught up in that experience. Natasha as a character is all about debts, and red, power, and freedom, all of which are felt here. She resonates with each and every other Avenger in a unique and powerful way, and I'm a complete goner for stories that expound on that. "Howl" feels like all those possibilities in microcosm - it's short, but powerful. It has a mythic quality to it that I love and it's easy to let the language sweep you up and away into the kind of dizzying adrenaline rush that comes from the heat of battle. Particularly a battle with people who come together to make a whole much greater than the sum of its parts.
Them. Always, them. SHIELD first, Clint first, but then them. Something in the base of them, something in the nature of them. They were flight. They were fire and power and vantage and flight. They were freedom, and strength, and they were hers. In her, around her, part of her. All the things they were.
Silent wings of faith in the loosing of an arrow. The thrust of strength to buoy her up, in the man the ice could not kill. The laughing trust of her male echo, clad in armour only differing in look, not in nature. The bright, elemental power of a god who saw her not beneath him.
And the monster. Yes, that too. Hers too, part of her too. The price and pain, because nothing was free, no vantage untouched, because something pierced your palm with every outstretched hand. The monster too, the thing she had remembered, the crawling echo of failure and pain.
But with it, in it, the knowing of eyes that knew it too. That had failed too, that needed too, that felt the bite beneath their skin with every touch of a hand against theirs. The eyes that watched her, soft and sad, and knew. The bite of a bloodied palm against hers, and the touch of a black, echoing knowledge that oddly buoyed them up between them.
They were hers, they had been hers, for one howling, echoing moment, and it had been power and flight and a freedom like nothing she'd ever known. Out beyond limits, beyond means, out beyond all they had ever trained for. In freefall, not falling, and for every burn of breath in her lungs, every jolt of pain and stretch of exhaustion from a body battered to failing, she had been ... free. A dance of death with notomorrow, and for every step she made ready to fall, they had been there. To catch, to throw, to keep aloft. To sear obstacles from her path, and fall within her reach to defend. They had held between the six of them a power to founder armies, and she had not been superfluous, she had not been entrapped, she had been lifted.
Howl AO3 or LJ
Fandom: THE AVENGERS (MOVIEVERSE)
Pairing: None/Gen
Length: 1460
Author's Warnings: Violence, stream-of-consciousness, strange
Author on LJ:
icarus_chainedAuthor Website: LJ or AO3
Why this must be read:
I'm going to dive straight in with one of my favorite authors,
icarus_chained. It was extremely difficult to pick one fic to highlight (and if you like this one, you definitely want to check out the rest of her fic, trust me) -- but I finally settled on "Howl" because it not only features my favorite character, but because it showcases all the reasons why I like her writing so much. She excels at drawing comparisons between characters that aren't immediately evident (but seem incredibly true and obvious once revealed), and her work is often fluid and almost poetic."Howl" is a point-of-view peice of Natasha Romanov immediately following the Battle of New York, as she is still caught up in that experience. Natasha as a character is all about debts, and red, power, and freedom, all of which are felt here. She resonates with each and every other Avenger in a unique and powerful way, and I'm a complete goner for stories that expound on that. "Howl" feels like all those possibilities in microcosm - it's short, but powerful. It has a mythic quality to it that I love and it's easy to let the language sweep you up and away into the kind of dizzying adrenaline rush that comes from the heat of battle. Particularly a battle with people who come together to make a whole much greater than the sum of its parts.
Them. Always, them. SHIELD first, Clint first, but then them. Something in the base of them, something in the nature of them. They were flight. They were fire and power and vantage and flight. They were freedom, and strength, and they were hers. In her, around her, part of her. All the things they were.
Silent wings of faith in the loosing of an arrow. The thrust of strength to buoy her up, in the man the ice could not kill. The laughing trust of her male echo, clad in armour only differing in look, not in nature. The bright, elemental power of a god who saw her not beneath him.
And the monster. Yes, that too. Hers too, part of her too. The price and pain, because nothing was free, no vantage untouched, because something pierced your palm with every outstretched hand. The monster too, the thing she had remembered, the crawling echo of failure and pain.
But with it, in it, the knowing of eyes that knew it too. That had failed too, that needed too, that felt the bite beneath their skin with every touch of a hand against theirs. The eyes that watched her, soft and sad, and knew. The bite of a bloodied palm against hers, and the touch of a black, echoing knowledge that oddly buoyed them up between them.
They were hers, they had been hers, for one howling, echoing moment, and it had been power and flight and a freedom like nothing she'd ever known. Out beyond limits, beyond means, out beyond all they had ever trained for. In freefall, not falling, and for every burn of breath in her lungs, every jolt of pain and stretch of exhaustion from a body battered to failing, she had been ... free. A dance of death with notomorrow, and for every step she made ready to fall, they had been there. To catch, to throw, to keep aloft. To sear obstacles from her path, and fall within her reach to defend. They had held between the six of them a power to founder armies, and she had not been superfluous, she had not been entrapped, she had been lifted.
Howl AO3 or LJ