- 𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 & 𝗘𝗗𝗜𝗧𝗦 | 𝘔𝘞𝘊

𝗠𝗪𝗖 ⠀⠀━━━━━━━━⠀⠀ 𝗕𝗟𝗢𝗚

⠀⠀⠀    𝗉𝗋𝖾𝗏𝗂𝗈𝗎𝗌 𝖻𝗅𝗈𝗀 ⠀ ⠀⠀ 𝗆𝗒 𝗉𝗋𝗈𝖿𝗂𝗅𝖾⠀⠀⠀⠀ 𝗇𝖾𝗑𝗍 𝖻𝗅𝗈𝗀

＜⠀⠀⠀⠀⌂      ⠀ ＞

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 ╱ 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡

Another month, another post. Ladies,

gentlemen, and everyone in between,

welcome! I am back with a new blog

for #marvelwomenclub. The theme f-

or April was characters we can relate

to on a certain level, whether it’s a sm-

all part of their backstory, personality,

or even appearance. Due to the nature

of the theme, this blog will be the most

personal one I have ever written. I prep-

ared a set of edits, along with an analysis

of characters and the way I relate to them.

Before we dive into the content I want to

warn that we’ll be discussing themes such

as mental health, toxic environment, trust

issues, etc. — if any of the earlier listed to-

pics make you uncomfortable, I’d recomm-

end carefully reading the material or exiting

the blog. I hope you enjoy reading!

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗦𝗧 𝗜𝗦𝗦𝗨𝗘𝗦 ╱ 𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗔𝗦𝗛𝗔 𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗢𝗙𝗙

When I first read Black Widow comics, Natasha came across as one of the least relatable characters. At first sight, you see in her that cold-blooded assassin who’s dangerous to many, you see her working in the shadows and walking on the grey area of this superhero world, you see the double agent, merciless and confident woman, the strong unbreakable asset who has no fears of her own but instead brings it upon the whole world — she seemed like a complete opposite of most people, including me.

Of course, at one point or another, the earlier described outline is true for her character. Natasha is indeed a strong woman. However, there’s more to her than a shell of a heartless, skilled assassin. She is a major, complex character with quite a big bouquet of trauma and unsolved issues. I’d probably call her past one of the heaviest in the Marvel Universe. Raised to be a killer, manipulated, used for others benefits, losing loved ones, losing her lovers because of work, having a whole life taken away multiple time, and more... Natasha has experienced an immense amount of hypocrisy and lies throughout her life; not to even mention the number of times her heart had been broken by the betrayal of loved ones.

Naturally, she developed heavy trust issues after everything she had experienced. That’s part of her I can relate to. While the reasoning behind her trust issues started from the Red Room, mine came from the school, the toxic people that I considered best friends, and of course my parents. I can see and understand the way Natasha feels about people, and in fact, any kind of relationship. I can’t blame her for fear of opening up to someone nor struggle to commit. I understand why she chooses to only trust herself and be alone. I feel the same way as she does.

Although I can’t relate to her lifestyle and origins, the reasons why I developed my trust issues are quite the same: hypocrisy, lies, and betrayals. I haven’t faced those in the superhero world but I’ve constantly faced them at school and home. “Friends” who smile in your face and act kind but then go and talk shit about you behind your back, use you for their goals, lie to you and see you as the last choice, stick labels and make jokes that hurt you — those were the people I was surrounded by. The worst of it all was how I thought it was a normal, healthy model of relationships. I believed in them and hoped for good until the very last straw. I was naive, naive, and dumb as hell. I thought they really loved me and cared for me as much as I loved them. I spent ten and half years living with these “friends”. They were my only social circle. So of course, after the truth suddenly hit me, after they took a major part in caging me into insecurities and depression; I finally cut off all strings. I ended up with trust issues similar to Natasha’s and long-term effect that is still present in my life, even after more than a year.

Despite fact that I see the reasoning behind my and Natasha’s trust issues and why we both continue to be this way; I want to note that this is the bad trait that we all should fight. I understand how hard it is to believe that there are good people out there (even saying that seems like an absurd lie now), but there 𝙖𝙧𝙚 good people. They may be very few but they love you, they trust you and they want to help you. With our constant doubts and fears, we push them away and reject the help that we need. We destroy our hopes and will to live. If you feel the same way, I know how hard it is but I believe in you, I know that you can overcome those issues and I know that you will find good people. We will all meet our good people. It sounds like a fairytale pulled out from the perfect world but maybe it’s not, maybe it is real at some point.

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ 𝗙𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 ╱ 𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗔𝗦𝗛𝗔 𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗢𝗙𝗙

There is this one feature that Earth 616 and MCU Natasha share — a willingness to fight for the change. These changes can be different kinds. It can range from the whole world to herself or the effects of her past. Her present life in both universes is dedicated to both ends of this spectrum. However, the latter is the one I want to talk about. Natasha had done many terrible things in her past; she had hurt a lot of people, she had killed innocents, torn apart familiars, and worked for the wrong people. After moving to the more or less good side, she wanted nothing but to make up for all the bad things she brought into the world. Natasha was doing everything she could to become a better person. She wanted to fill that hole of guilt in her heart by helping people; god, she was even donating most of her income from each mission to various charities and made sure she didn’t profit from her missions.

After everything she had done and experienced, she wanted to be a better person. At the moment, there is nothing I could relate to more than that part of her character. It’s been over a year since I went no with my ex-friends, since I changed school and flipped everything in my life upside down — including myself and my views. It’s been a hard time in my life. Such sudden changes heavily affected my mental health and my whole belief system, but I’ve been trying to become a better, smarter person and put my energy into the right things.

I want to make up for each time I’ve believed wrong people, each time I forced myself to change for them, and each time I gave up my morals for them. I deeply regret that I’ve done these mistakes; by that, I enabled not only my mental breakdown but also their toxic behavior towards others as well. At the time, I should have stood up and called such people out, but I didn’t. I should have protected myself and others but I didn’t. Now, I standing up against them as much as I can, no matter who they are. I am trying to fight against toxic behavior, I’m trying to educate people around me and protect them, as well as myself. Similar to Natasha, I want to make sure no one else gets treated the same way I did, no one else loses themselves as I did, and that I won’t do the same mistakes either.

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 𝗗𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗟𝗢𝗣𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 ╱ 𝗬𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗡𝗔 𝗕𝗘𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗔

Yelena Belova had gone through the big change since her first appearance in Marvel Comics. We first met her in Black Widow: Itsy Bitsy Spider. She started off as a villain and rival of Natasha Romanoff. She was chosen as the new Black Widow at the age of 15, after Natasha was no longer loyal to Russia. She trained for around ten years in the Red Room. Throughout years, Yelena was hooked by the idea of being better than Natasha, whose scores were impossible to sur. She had come close to it several times but it was never enough for her. God, even her Red Room trainers were telling her to stop comparing herself to her but she didn’t listen. Yelena was obsessed with desire to prove herself better than Natasha and establish sole claim to the title of Black Widow. It reached the point where she became almost psychotic about it. She was ready to do anything to achieve her goal. I’d even dare to say that it had become her life purpose at a time.

Fast forward to the present — after series of important, twists events and the sudden realizations that had dawned of on her; Yelena became independent, strong character that was no longer bound to Red Room. She isn’t seeking to reclaim the title or Black Widow. She doesn’t want to take anyone’s place or become like someone. She stopped comparing herself to Natasha and became her own person, with her own morals, name and type of work that was different from everything she used to have in past. Damn, she even became one of the closest friends of Natasha who helped her numerous amounts of times.

The whole relatable aspect of her character for me is exactly that change she had gone through. She basically became the new character and turned into the better version of herself. She had never looked back or went to the old habits. As I mentioned in previous segment of our blog, I’ve done the same thing last year. I went through a big change that took lots of courage, energy and cost me even more problems with the mental health. Nevertheless, I did it and I became completely different person like Yelena did. Despite what it cost me, I’m happy about it and I feel better in comparison, I am better in comparison, similar to her.

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀       𝗢𝗨𝗧𝗥𝗢 ╱ 𝗢𝗨𝗧𝗥𝗢

Thanks for your attention! I hope

I didn’t overshare in the blog or

maybe even didn’t explain enough.

It was hard for me to write it and

share so much of my personal

life and feelings. I hope I didn’t

make anyone uncomfortable.

On funny note though, I must

note that while working on the

blog, I kept accidentally including

Earth 616 Clint Barton on list of

women I relate to, so maybe it’s

time to make blog about him 🥴.

Thank you for reading my blog!

I hope you have a good day.

Stay safe and that I

love you to the moon and back :revolving_hearts:

#curatorreview

#featurereview

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⠀ 𝖸𝖤𝖠𝖱 𝖴𝖯𝖣𝖠𝖳𝖤𝖣 ⠀━━━━⠀ 🅒𝗈𝗉𝗒𝗋𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝖺𝗌𝗁𝗏𝖾𝗇

⠀ 𝟬𝟭𝟮𝟯𝟰𝟱𝟲𝟳𝟴𝟵 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬

⠀ 𝟢𝟣𝟤𝟥𝟦𝟧𝟨𝟩𝟪𝟫