sholio | Fandom things

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Fandom things

Thing one: Alternate Universe Exchange is open! I wrote three stories for it (my assignment and two pinch hits), which are probably not that hard to figure out, all things considered.

And my gifts are AMAZING.

We're going inside (the belly of the beast) (Stranger Things, Steve, gen, 1300 wds)
Time travel and mixed-up timelines and Steve trying desperately to do the right thing. STEVE. ;__;

The Home of the Wolf (Punisher, Frank/David/Sarah, 6300 wds)
Some fantastic person wrote my werewolf!David prompt(!!!) and it is GLORIOUS. Perfect, seamless fusion of werewolf AU and canon, perfect character voices, perfect everything.

Thing two: Agents of SHIELD, which I'm getting caught up on. (People on Tumblr have already gotten an earful of my wailing about this, lol.) I KNOW it's a bad idea to get attached to side characters on this show. It NEVER ends well. And yet. Aaaaugh.

So basically I've been super attached to Glenn Talbot, in a guilty "problematic fave" kind of way, since very nearly his first appearance on the show. I always blamed it on Adrian Pasdar, who I have been really fond of ever since Heroes. Even though the show did its damnedest to take an astonishingly handsome man and make him as unsexy as possible, damn it, they can't do anything about his eyes and I get to see Adrian Pasdar chewing scenery occasionally and that's always fun.

But this season, though. This season I think he made the jump from embarrassing problematic fave to ACTUAL fave. Everything about his and Coulson's storyline was just pure fangirl catnip. EVERYTHING. The scene in the hallway, god, with the gun and the brainwashing and "turn the gun on me" - AUGH. If everything that happened with them this season had been followed by something other than supervillainny and death, I think it would've been my favorite thing in the show ever, even beating out the VR arc from last season.

BUT NO. We can't have nice things. I'm not gonna say that's necessarily the worst ending a fave character of mine has gotten (it's mitigated somewhat by everyone trying so hard to save him even after he went Full Supervillain) but GAH. The salt in the wound on top of everything else is that we were ALSO cheated of Talbot's worry/grief/whatever about Coulson while he's handwavily dying because Talbot doesn't care about anyone right now because SUPERVILLAIN. Mother of frick. >__>

Oh well. Someone reblogged a gifset I made yesterday of Coulson and Talbot with the lovely tags "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened" and that's certainly true. Up until the tragic ending, it really was everything I had wanted for those two, a glorious payoff for five seasons of enmity turning slowly to friendship: rescuing each other, stranded in snow-covered mountains together (oh my god, the winter forest was so hilariously unconvincing, though; did they blow all their f/x budget on the Zephyr that episode and have nothing left over for building a realistic-looking winter set?), saved from brainwashing by the power of friendship, etc. I wanted a very different ending for him, but I'll always have those wonderful back-half-of-season-five episodes, dammit.

It also made me realize (I'm going to put this outside the cut; it's not really spoilery) that something I'm really, really into is characters being gentle with their hurt/sick/distressed frenemies. Like, okay, gentle touching is something I'm into in general, but specifically, that thing where a character who is normally abrasive and at odds with the characters around them, or even an outright enemy, is hurt and vulnerable, and the other one is touching them gently and speaking to them softly ... I am really all over that. :D Another example besides the AoS one is Peggy with Jack after the memory device was used on him, the way he's clearly not up to their usual level of snarky antagonism and she's being very careful with him while trying to get information out of him. I'm just. Really into that kind of thing.

Anyone got any other examples of that?

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I mean I think of it as less of a specific 'gentle with hurt!frenemies' and more like a final resolution to confrontation/misunderstanding between two people ending in gentleness. I'm really into that. The reason I say the above is because something like Jack & Daniel from SG-1 (I know, too many Jacks and Daniels) have this in spades in the first season particularly, where the whole scientist vs military comes into play a lot. Stuff like that ep ("Need"?) where Daniel gets addicted, freaks out, and Jack ends up holding him. It's not that they are frenemies that gets me. It's that their relationship gets upgraded to a new level, and that level is more gentle.

I mean ..........that's why I love Stony fix its. XDDDD

I think with me, it's specifically with two people who aren't normally that way with each other - gentleness isn't how they relate to each other, their usual mode of interaction involves a lot of abrasiveness and prickliness and defensiveness. Then having one of them turn around and show that gentleness when the other one needs it ... just does things to me. :D

And yeah, I can see that dynamic with Stony too. :D

I think it's wishful thinking but I do wish that we'd get some of that in canon with Steve and Tony in the last movie (before they all die and I'm very sad. forever. XD) because yeah, they have setup the dynamic where showing gentleness towards each other is gonna work for me because of this precise thing (it's not typical).

I think it also has to do with my brain processing the interaction as 'special' in someway. Either it reveals that the character is secretly a marshmallow (he's much gentler now that he sees the person needs it than he typically is in his interactions) or it elevates the relationship to something special (he's not like this with anyone else, but with this person...).

In Peggy & Jack it's definitely the former (Peggy is very understanding, it's not directed specifically at Jack, she's just a good person).

In SG1!Jack & Daniel's case it's the relationship (nobody else would get that hug from Jack but Daniel is special to him).

SO both work. And yeah, I love it to bits.

Yeah, I agree about the "special" aspect. I think for me there are specific factors of, I guess, breaking down barriers between these two people, being sympathetic to someone you wouldn't normally be sympathetic to - like you said, either because the comfort-giving character isn't someone who normally does that, or because the person receiving it doesn't normally accept it.

I think in the examples I can think of that really hit my buttons, part of the appeal is that the person who is being taken care of doesn't normally receive gentleness, being softly touched, people speaking softly to them, that kind of thing. It's something they're really unaccustomed to. So it's extra satisfying because of that. :D

Yeah I think the 'accepting gentleness' is really where the hot button for me is. Because obviously we fan a lot of characters who are decent people and would care for someone in pain. But having a character who's unaccustomed to being cared for, and specifically not expecting that treatment from this particular source. Mmmmm.

And yeah, it is in a lot of what I look for in fic when I read. :)

Adrian Pasdar is still gorgeous even with the horrible horrible Talbot mustache. And yeah, I wanted better for him and for that ship.

Agree on this:
characters being gentle with their hurt/sick/distressed frenemies. Like, okay, gentle touching is something I'm into in general, but specifically, that thing where a character who is normally abrasive and at odds with the characters around them, or even an outright enemy, is hurt and vulnerable, and the other one is touching them gently and speaking to them softly

I'm now convinced that it is impossible to make Adrian Pasdar NOT look good. If he can still make Talbot sexy with that mustache and haircut, it can't be done. XD

Scruffy Talbot in season 5, though ... ♥___♥

Oh, gosh, that trope is one of my absolute FAVES. And the reverse, where you have the character who's normally abrasive and unpleasant becoming very gentle and quiet when another character is sick or injured. But going to examples of the first, I really need to rewatch The Punisher, so I'm not 100% positive, but I think I remember a few scenes like that with Frank and David? And a show I just got into, Penny Dreadful, is actually chock full of those types of scenes, plus an unexpected ton of found family feels.

Punisher has a couple of those but my favorite is when David gets drunk and Frank makes him soup. Their relationship is actually pretty good at that point but you can see it's just so much farther than David ever expected him to go, not to mention that he had no idea that Frank even knew how to cook. I guess David had been doing all the food prep.

Yes! I love that scene! Come to think of it, it's not the only Frank & David bonding moment that revolves around food--I also love the scene where David only packs a sandwich for himself and Frank is just. So offended. It's a small moment but I think it shows that they've actually come a long way from where they started out.

Me too! It's such a great callback to that. The sandwich scene is so hilarious to me because Frank is SO put out that David didn't fix him a sandwich when he's done literally nothing that would make David think he'd appreciate or even accept one. And then he sits there resentfully eating his disgusting MRE or whatever it is.

It's such an awesome breather in an otherwise pretty dark episode (not that the entire series isn't pretty dark), and I can't tell which is funnier--that Frank's ticked off because he's now stuck with inferior food, or if he's also angry because it's the principle of the thing...if you're going on a murder-road trip together, you have to pack food for EVERYONE. That's just good etiquette.

Oh man, I loved that scene so much. <3333 And the soup one too - they're just such great bookends to each other.

Punisher is so good for that stuff. And just good for character stuff in general. <3

I SO hear you, though the approach I take is fingers-in-ears-"LA-LA-LA"; about 80% of the current AoS status quo never happened to me. I'm at the point of weighing up if I'll keep watching at all, but FitzSimmons has my heart on a hook, damnit, even if I know they'll get him back, and I love Daisy. And Coulson. And May. And damnit nothing against the characters but the fricking story arcs are awful and EVERY EPISODE IS THE PIT OF DESPAIR. It's like they were warming up for Infinity War or something.

No examples I can think of just now but I've been rereading some of your AoS fic (Fever, just now) and the gentleness with Jack (or others) when they need it is the heart and soul that keeps drawing me back. That and your curious urge to end all their adventures with a drenching :P

Haha. It's a flaming trash fire of a show; it just keeps sucking me back in. XD

And I'm really happy that you're enjoying the fic! :D I'm not in any danger of stopping writing it anytime soon, I think.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeexeccellent

OH yes, I know exactly what you mean by that last bit. I'm trying to think of examples and am drawing a blank, but it's one of the main things that draws me to enemies/rivals working together...

(See, like, a good chunk of my favorite Smallville futurefic stuff...)

Yeah, I think I tend to find it in fic more than I typically see it in canon, because of course fic is all ABOUT prickly allies working together and getting closer by having terrible things happen to them. :D Though now I'm probably going to spend some brainspace thinking of examples. Heh, having just reread the Death Gate books, I'm pretty sure they're FULL of this, although it's slightly less noticeable in text than in a visual medium ...

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