It just occurred to me that in addition to similar backstories, Yondu and Nebula also have another point of commonality regarding their relationships with their chosen families. They both want to be close to the people they see as family, and both are constantly denied. Both lash out in the face of that denial, albeit with different intensities and at different times. Nebula flat out wants Gamora dead (or thinks she does) until forced to admit she’s always seen Gamora as a sister. Whereas it’s pretty obvious Yondu’s willing to forget thirty years of exile if Stakar just says the word, and doesn’t lose his temper until Stakar publicly humiliates him.
Not to mention the infinite well of forgiveness Yondu seems to draw from re: Peter, even if it manifests in some deeply dysfunctional ways (nothing says ‘I love my kid’ like a 40k alive only bounty, right?). Kind of like Nebula going out of her way to keep the Ravagers from killing Rocket, twice, because she knows he’s important to Gamora (thanks to @grison-in-space for pointing that out), EVEN THOUGH her intention at this point is to go off and kill Gamora, and even if that wasn’t her plan, what are the odds Rocket would have realized what she was doing to tell Gamora about it later?
But overall they’re both extremely family-oriented, given the circumstances in which they were raised.
yes I am so here for this. No, look, imagine Yondu and Nebula just…. sitting there and Yondu listening and waiting for Nebula to talk. Nebula’s angry, sure, but she actually doesn’t say much unless she’s actively attacking or has been asked–she’s really different from Rocket that way. But Yondu does, in fact, know how to sit and listen; you can see him doing it to Rocket and you can see him doing it with Groot, all through that movie.
Imagine Yondu and Nebula, sitting and tinkering on cybernetics in a workship in comfortable silence until Nebula opens her mouth and talks, and Yondu just sits and listens, nods occasionally. Maybe asks a question now and again or a comment, but mostly just…. listens to her. Gives her his attention, without her having to kill anyone for it or fight for it. I think that would be huge for Nebula, who is so used to having to fight and fight hard for her very right to exist, let alone get any kind of positive attention from anyone at all.
(I actually headcanon that Nebula initially intended to warn Gamora about what had happened and then got to thinking about how Gamora treated her and how Gamora always had to be the best and goddammit never once do you think about me
or love meyou just gotta be off being better than everyone else, even now you’ve discovered morality–and, ah, worked herself into a rage as she piloted, since she took a good bit longer than Rocket and co. did. The Nebula in my head is not always great at managing her own emotional triggers once they get away from her.)#nebula#nebula is probably my biggest fave tbh#nebula and yondu#think
I’m the only person in fandom who wants to see Yondu effectively
adopting Rocket *and Nebula* as additional surrogate children#but by god I want it so so so muchYou are definitely not the only one; I am so on board with that. And I love the idea of someone just listening to Nebula, because you’re right, she has to fight for every little thing and not having to do that, for once, is something she deeply deserves.
#honestly i can go either way re: rocket and nebula’s relationships with yondu; e.g. familial or shipping#i’m greedy and want all the things
Same, actually? Like, because fandom is fandom and tends to relate all relationships via shipping, I happily read shipfic of stuff that I don’t necessarily actually prefer to read in a romantic/sexual context as a way of rolling around in an author’s reading of a relationship, and e.g. @ladypolaris‘s recent Kraglin/Yondu/Rocket fic was kind of fucking amazing in a way that was totally unexpected for me and @write-like-an-american has I think successfully sold Kraglin/Yondu/Nebula in the past (although I don’t think I’ve seen anyone write dyadic Yondu/Nebula or Rocket/Yondu). And while I teeeeeeeeend to prefer rolling around in interactions between Kraglin and Nebula as friends, because male/female friendships are my Jam, I’m also totally happy to roll around in Kragula.
At bottom, I figure that romances are about the relationships and dynamics between two characters, and most slashfics fall under the umbrella of romances on at least some level. I’m–flails, sex isn’t actually the most important thing to me in that respect; the important thing is the interplay between the characters and the personalities and the way they regard each other.
ngl also Yondu and Nebula interacting also casts shades on Yondu and Gamora’s interactions that deepen them even further, and I’m here for that for sure; I remember @laylainalaska wistfully requesting Gamora and Yondu talking a while back and I’m totally curious how the two of them relate to each other, especially if their main points of connection are Peter and Nebula. Gamora is different from both Yondu and Nebula in that she appears to have a strong abstract moral compass while also not necessarily being as careful about how she treats people in the specific that she’s associated with.
In some ways to me she’s much more dangerous than Nebula or Yondu because if she decides for intellectualized reasons you need killing–well, that’s it, it’s over and done with; Gamora is ruled by practicality and her own will and beliefs. (At least, as I read her!) Her relationship with Peter is I think really unusual for her in that she’s trusting him and allowing softer sides of herself to come out, and we see a lot of that in Guardians because of course Peter’s always around–but I think Yondu would twig very quickly just how ruthless Gamora can actually be, and I think that adding a positive relationship between Nebula and Yondu might make him even warier of Gamora, not necessarily more attached to her.
Which could also be a really interesting story, because I honestly and truly believe that both Gamora and Peter are good for each other and balance each other out, and I also believe that Gamora is at heart a good person (or, at least, trying to be, which is almost the same thing). She just has some blind spots about the way she’s treating and compartmentalizing people, and she tends to get caught up in her abstract, relatively rigid plans–and Peter is all about being affectionate to everyone (within reason) and reacting on the fly and dancing and enjoying yourself, which is something neither daughter of Thanos has a ton of experience with.
My driving force in fic used to be the sexual aspect, although that is…not so much the case anymore. I still like it and seek it out, but if the character relationships aren’t there, or don’t ring true, I’m out. This fandom is great in that there’s a lot of excellent gen fic and ship fic, and a lot of writers I love (*waves at everybody*) seem to do both equally well.
I think your Gamora analysis is spot on. I have a hard time figuring Gamora out sometimes–she is brutally pragmatic, but also oddly idealistic, given her background. I would love to see a conversation between her and Yondu, frankly with or without mention of Nebula, because I kind of suspect Gamora would not be as willing as Peter to forgive Yondu for the way he treated Peter as a kid? At any rate, no matter what, I suspect things would be tense between them. I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out how I think they would behave together and am coming up with nothing, except the impression they would not really get along at first. I just don’t see Gamora trusting Yondu, at least not right away. Anyway.
Verildaine writes Rocket/Yondu (mostly introspective character pieces set within canon, so no happy endings). I do highly recommend their fic The Hour of Separation, which is a what-if Rocket/Yondu with a really interesting sci-fi premise. And @ladypolaris is the one who actually sold me on Nebula/Kraglin, which I didn’t expect at all.
I do feel like Guardians has the best fandom for gen fic. Possibly because the canon is so rooted in platonic relationships that shipping is fun but not necessary.
I would love to explore Yondu learning to live with the Guardians more since he TOTALLY LIVED YAY. Lots of people write him and Peter figuring their relationship out, but I think it’s harder to imagine how he’d relate to people like Drax or Gamora.
Interesting that you never see Drax and Yondu interact, but Drax was the only one of them who realized that Yondu was actually Peter’s dad. I can’t decide if he and Yondu would get along or not.
Yeah, the canon has so many parental and quasi-parental relationships woven into it and so much emphasis on family and chosen family that you have all these incredibly complicated relationships (and non-standard families!) to toy with without really involving romance or sex at all unless you want to. It’s pretty nice.
I am actually right now toying with the idea that half the reason Kraglin is having issues with that arrow is that on a conscious or subconscious level, either Kraglin himself or Yondu-haunting-the-fin has a huge problem with Drax when he’s being, ah, particularly assholish and tone-deaf in his assessment of other crewmates.
(Mantis. It’s Mantis. Quit being a dick to Mantis, Drax, and act like a father figure more. None of this telling her it’s fine to pet Rocket crap.)
Anyway, as a result, the arrow keeps going after Drax and it takes a While to figure out wtf is going on and why Drax keeps constantly getting arrows to uncomfortable places whenever they’re not in actual combat.
I can actually see Yondu and Drax getting along after a while, but I kind of think Drax would deeply irritate Yondu to start–especially when and if Drax does his “I am giving you helpful Older Male/Fatherly Advice” routine with Peter re: Gamora. (I can totally see Yondu getting insecure about that.) And I kind of suspect that Drax’s sense of humor runs towards making other people juuuust a bit uncomfortable, which I can see a) being really easy to aim at Yondu and b) really irritating him. When Drax is being an asshole, it’s not an attempt to push people away or an insecurity thing, and I think that would annoy Yondu a lot more than Rocket’s little barbs.
Of course, I have a terrible time with Drax’s head, which is why I’m wrestling right now with a scene that’s all about Drax and Mantis out doing some friendly bonding. Sigh. I keep meaning to put out a “dear lord please talk Drax with me so I can get in his head” chunk, but haven’t got to it yet. Maybe as I feed the cats….
There is a TON of interesting discussion here, but I just have to jump in and say that I agree with @ladypolaris about how amazing this fandom is for gen fic. It’s true that some relationships are explored more than others (i.e. if you want Peter and Yondu fic, or teamfic, you’re set; if you’re in it for Gamora and Nebula, or one of the rarer combos like Rocket and Mantis, considerably less so). But it’s been awhile since I’ve been in a fandom that had this much support for gen fic and gifsets and gushy meta and just generally love for gen relationships.
I’m currently bemoaning the lack of same in Dark Matter fandom, though all I’ve really explored so far is the fic. But I’ve been in several other fandoms lately that have a strong team/family focus (e.g. Flash) and good teamy gen is pretty hard to find. I really feel like GotG fandom is spoiling me, both for having lots of gen fic and meta about the familial relationships, and just for being a quiet, pleasant, low-drama fandom in general.
ANYWAY. What @grison-in-space said about Yondu being the one to realize that Gamora is a far more dangerous person than Peter does is something I explored a bit in this fic (sorry for the self-rec, but it’s true to how I see them and therefore a concise demonstration of the theme). I completely agree that he’d be far more aware of that side of her than Peter is … and she’d most likely show that side to him in a way that she doesn’t to Peter or her other teammates – people she’s trying to build long-term relationships with. I was going to say that Peter – sweet, good-natured, terminally optimistic Peter – goes through his life without quite grasping how dangerous Gamora really is or how many legitimately terrible things she’s done, but I think it’s more that he just doesn’t care. And the fact that he sees her as a truly lovely person, inside and out, is part of what allows her to be that person … around him, anyway.
A Yondu and Nebula relationship is something I wish desperately that we’d ever gotten to see. That one glimpse of them in the mining vessel is so lovely, and I think it’s an accurate view of how they would’ve been together if he had lived: easily settling into a comfortable rapport that doesn’t really need any words. I’ve talked elsewhere about how I think one of the things that made Peter and Yondu’s relationship so difficult is that Peter is a talking-about-feelings person and Yondu isn’t, so Peter never quite grasped that he had feelings … but Nebula relates to her own emotions about like Yondu does (EMOTIONS, WHAT EMOTIONS) and I think they’d both probably find each other very easy to be around – easier to be around, actually, than the people in their lives that they’re closer to (Peter for Yondu, Gamora for Nebula). Those relationships are always going to be fraught and conflicted, because they are both very messed-up people whose dysfunctionality goes up in direct proportion to how much they care about someone else. But with each other, I think it would’ve been relatively easy for them to just be.
I love this whole conversation, but re: Yondu and Gamora, one thing occurred to me during my billionth viewing of the movie:
Among Yondu’s last words to Peter: “I’m sorry I didn’t do none of it right.”
Among Gamora’s last words to Nebula: “I never considered what Thanos was doing to you. I’m trying to make it right.”
Which strikes me as more than a coincidence?