Because while the world building with @jabberwockypie was fun and awesome, I have entirely too many projects to work on to add this to them. (And now I am going to go nap because tired and ow.)
JabberwockyPie
Also everyone in Marvel seems to have crappy parents, too. *considers* Except for T’Challa, whose parents are apparently awesome, but I haven’t seen BP yet.
Morgyn Leri
*nods*
I suppose the parents of some of the side characters are probably good too, but most of the main characters, yeah.
Certainly almost all the parents we have actual information on.
JabberwockyPie
*nod* The ones we see on-screen or – yes, that
Morgyn Leri
Well, ok. Steve’s mom was a good person, and Bucky’s mom.
JabberwockyPie
I have admittedly not seen the more recent MCU stuff, at least in terms of Age of Ultron or Civil War, just because I don’t really have any motivation to do so
Yes
Morgyn Leri
But they’re also dead, and have been for a while.
JabberwockyPie
*nod nod*
Morgyn Leri
And as for AoU and CW – yeah. Nope.
JabberwockyPie
Frigga was a good mom, I think? Or at least we didn’t have any reason to think she wasn’t, beyond possibly putting up with Odin’s shit a bit too much
Someone – I think scifigrl47? It seems like it would have been her – has a few good rants about how all of the MCU people (and Marvel in general, really) follow this one specific pattern for Terrible Dads (while we are ignoring or fridging the moms)
Morgyn Leri
She’s the kind of mother who tried to be a good parent, but her co-parent undermined that by being an absolute bag of dicks.
JabberwockyPie
Yes,t hat
Like, if Frigga and Heimdell had been co-parenting, I think things would have come out WAY BETTER and WAY MORE EMOTIONALLY STABLE
Morgyn Leri
🙂
There’s an AU to play with. What if more of the Avengers had a better childhood? And in particular, what if Frigga did not put up with Odin’s shit at all, and put her foot down where her boys were concerned?
Steve’s childhood I’ll leave alone, ‘cause it seems decent for the time period (not great, but not horrible because parents).
JabberwockyPie
*nod*
Morgyn Leri
Frigga not putting up with Odin’s crap parenting. Clint Barton’s mom getting out with her boys. Bruce Banner’s mom getting herself and Bruce out of their home situation.
Clint and Bruce could still become superheroes, though their motivations and the how might be different.
JabberwockyPie
Natasha’s backstory is kind of a clusterfuck.
Morgyn Leri
Yeah.
JabberwockyPie
*nod nod*
Tony… maybe if Howard hadn’t been allowed to be such a DICK, and then Obadiah Stane perpetuating shit
Morgyn Leri
Jarvis and Peggy calling out Howard on his shit more.
JabberwockyPie
I mean he’d probably be a LITTLE nuts anyway, because Doing Science and Doing Engineering
Morgyn Leri
*nods* Yup.
But there are things about how Howard treated Tony that other people being a little more “Howard, no, stop” would have helped.
And someone noticing that Obidiah was a bad influence, that would be useful.
JabberwockyPie
Maybe if someone noticed that Obadiah was fucking creepy and it was someone Howard would actually listen to
Morgyn Leri
*nods* Yeah.
JabberwockyPie
*considers* Or Peggy could kill him. IJS
Morgyn Leri
😀
JabberwockyPie
Peggy not liking the way dude acts around Tony
Nope you die now
Too bad
Morgyn Leri
Peggy and Jarvis conspire to get rid of Obidiah and make sure it looks like an accident.
Or that he just up and left on his own, and the body is never found.
JabberwockyPie
He tripped and fell. Onto a knife. Twenty-five times.
That too! D
😀
Morgyn Leri
Airplace accident in a small plane.
*airplane
Or a car crash.
Or a boating accident.
Or he took a trip to Europe and never came home, and who knows what happened to him?
JabberwockyPie
*nod nod* It was Mysterious Circumstances. Conveniently
Morgyn Leri
Or evidence comes to light he’s a spy for an enemy country.
JabberwockyPie
But without him around, Howard isn’t being nudged in certain directions
Morgyn Leri
Because then they don’t have to kill him to get rid of him.
JabberwockyPie
Yes, that would be bad. So unfortunate. Can’t trust anyone.
True
Morgyn Leri
Just. Obidiah gotten rid of, and Howard doesn’t have his malign influence, and improvement of the Stark father-son relationship. o/
And actually, having Obidiah be found to be a spy works better.
JabberwockyPie
*nod nod*
Then Howard has to investigate anything Obidiah told him to do ever
Morgyn Leri
Yup.
JabberwockyPie
And question those decisions
Morgyn Leri
And also, it means that later, Obidiah can still be behind Tony’s kidnapping and his transformation into Iron Man.
JabberwockyPie
Also easier on Tony if his parents weren’t suddenly killed off when he was a kid. Like, I think it’s a little easier to tell a parent (or a parent’s memory) to go fuck themself if they didn’t die suddenly and tragically when you were a teenager?
Morgyn Leri
*nods* That too.
… and my brain just went “so, they make sure the evidence that points to Anton Vanko spying for the Soviet Union points instead to Obidiah Stane, and voila, Obidiah gets to go away, and one Ivan Vanko maybe gets to not grow up in fucking Siberia to hate the Stark family for sending his father back to the USSR to end up rotting in a gulag.”
And then I think about Ivan and Tony growing up together and tossing ideas back and forth together about everything, and just making the world tremble, because two geniuses in one place that could do anything up to and including taking over the world if they were interested in doing so.
JabberwockyPie
FOR SCIENCE
Because they get bored a lot
And egg each other on
Morgyn Leri
Yup!
Gah. And have them get a chance to meet a saner and more stable Loki.
Also, add a Bruce who’s less likely to try to fold himself into as small a space as possible.
Two engineers, a scientist, and a mage who is also the god of mischief.
The universe is going to start worrying about what comes out of that lab.
JabberwockyPie
Saner, more stable Loki, who – while very much a fan of mischief and the specific subset of mischief that is “screwing with his brother” – is not nuts
😀
Morgyn Leri
😀
The universe will never be the same.
It will probably be better.
JabberwockyPie
Watching Thor 3 I was just waiting for them to do like an “I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!” bit because siblings
Morgyn Leri
*snerks*
JabberwockyPie
Also trying to get Loki to do magic so that they can Do Science To It, until he gets bored and takes a break to poke Thor or something
Morgyn Leri
*nods*
And also maybe, with somewhat less terrible childhoods, the Avengers would be better able to communicate, and there aren’t misunderstandings that lead to things like AoU and CW.
I mean, still there’s probably miscommunications, because those happen even when people are trying, but they aren’t going to get to world-ending levels of horrible.
JabberwockyPie
Maybe they can like, talk about it
Or someone will suggest talking about it
Because they’ve all had less crappy childhoods
Morgyn Leri
*nods* Yup.
JabberwockyPie
And at some point someone might suggest Talking About It
(Even though Talking About Feelings Is Terrible.)
(But Necessary!)
Morgyn Leri
🙂
JabberwockyPie
Whereas when you have the team full of people with terrible childhoods, everyone is kind of like “… I dunno. How do interpersonal relationships work?” and then you get AoU and CW
Morgyn Leri
*nods* Yup.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 