#agents of shield meta

[apocalyptichearts]

May's potential betrayal from Daisy's perspective isn't talked about nearly enough.

When you think of the character that would take the hardest hit, obviously Coulson is the first to come to mind. They have the history, the established and complicated relationship, and we see the anger and the fallout of that single moment where he doesn't know whether he can trust her or not.

What’s not really dwelled on, however, is Daisy's reaction.

She and May might not have the same kind of history or well-defined relationship, but there is something there. Something you'd imagine to be pretty important to a girl who's never had a stable "home", let alone a positive female/mother-like role model. If May had ended up being the Hydra mole, this image she'd constructed of her, this almost unwavering belief in her would've crumbled.

During the confrontation scene, you can even see the fear on Daisy's face. She's not mad like Coulson is or even scared in the same way Fitz is, she looks genuinely heartbroken and betrayed because not only did she look up to May, but in order to get closer to her she had to open herself up in a different way than she did with the rest of the team (essentially compensating for how two people might open up to each other seeing as May wasn't doing any of it) and for someone who grew up the way Daisy did, opening herself up that way left her incredible vulnerable, and for that to be wasted like it might've when she was younger and naive is terrifying to her.

#wrote this rant as an an accompanying piece for an edit i made MONTHS ago #but didn’t even think to post it over here #i think about these two so damn often #they are so important to me #season 1 man #my heart #daisy johnson #melinda may #agents of shield #rant #aos #mama may #maydaisy #agents of shield meta

[likea-black-widow-baby]

I just remembered that one part of season 7 where May hugs Daisy

Gif by @daisyssousa

And it makes me so happy. It would have been easy to have May’s empathic ability without consequences— she can direct it where she wants and use it as a superpower. Instead they handled it like they handled inhumans in season 3; she can’t turn off her ability and sometimes it has side effects she doesn’t want. She can read everyone, like her own family, all those scientists in 7x05, and everyone in the bar in the 70’s. That’s something AoS does very well— giving us consequences for superpowers. They are not without practical side effects, and they are sometimes devastating. Daisy’s abilities break her bones if she’s not careful. May gets overwhelmed with everyone else’s feelings (which, how interesting when that’s something she’s struggled with even before the powers. Manifesting characters’ existing struggles in their abilities is very cool). It’s the kind of thing you mostly see in fan speculation, but not as much in canon.

All this to say I’m glad we got to see May’s empathic ability in relation to the team. We don’t just see it when it’s necessary for the plot, it’s consistent throughout.

And all THAT to say, how wonderful that May gets to read Daisy. A lot of their relationship is told in subtext throughout the seasons. Giving May an empathic ability gives May and Daisy the opportunity to tear through those layers of fear and just let them love each other (as MOTHER-DAUGHTER, Bee). It was really nice to see May get to literally experience how much Daisy loves her. Can you imagine if season 1 May could see that?

#I just love them so much #marvel meta #Mundie says things #mamma may and her Angel eyes #agents of shield #Melinda May #Daisy johnson

[tremorsmackenzie]

so, ive actually managed to start a rewatch on the one year anniversary of my first time watching aos. with my mom. her favorite character is ward.

which means that ive just been spending the afternoon smiling wistfully and sighing how i miss the good old days when ward was still around...

can anyone tell where this is going and do you want updates

#agents of shield #grant ward #rewatch #aos meta #personal

[samanthaswishes]

I'm in a 'being bitter in defense of Daisy' mood right now, so I don't know if it's my pro-Daisy, anti-F!tz mind being biased and clouding my judgment, but a thought came to me that I haven't really seen discussed:

Why didn't Daisy get any recognition in the rescue of Jemma from Maveth?

LITERALLY throughout the entire series after 3x02, all we hear about is how F!tz bravely dove through the portal to save Jemma, which, yes, was pretty brave, I'll give him that. But it was also a pretty stupid decision on his part.

Daisy was the one to hold the portal open with her powers, way longer than she should have been able to, mind you. F!tz wouldn't have been able to do it without her. Daisy put her own health and life on the line in order to bring Jemma back too. F!tz dove into the portal, knowing the risk of Daisy. She had passed out due to the vibrations previously and more than likely did again after the scene cut.

F!tz got all the recognition for Jemma's rescue, and all Daisy got was a "good job" from Mack (which this isn't to downplay that either cause it's one of my favorite Daisy and Mack moments).

F!tz made a, though successful, stupid decision that risked the life of someone he was supposed to see as a friend. The least he could have done was acknowledge that, at least to her, instead of basking in 'his own' victory. I'm not saying Daisy deserved more recognition than him, but some for her major contribution would have been nice.

This is also not to say that Jemma shouldn't have been saved because she more than deserved to get off that planet. This isn't anything against her because of the whole situation, she is the primary victim of what had happened. I'm just saying that if you dive into a portal that is being held open by somebody who is literally risking their own health and life to do so, the least you could do is thank them for it.

Again, my bias towards Daisy and feeling bitter in defense of her might be clouding my judgment, but it was just something that suddenly came to mind, and I had strong feelings about it.

#aos 3x02 #aos #agents of shield #aos meta #daisy johnson #daisy johnson deserves better #anti fitz #anti leo fitz #anti leopold fitz #jemma simmons #jemma simmons deserves better #because fitz's attitude towards the situation after the fact was very self-centered instead of centering jemma in her own trauma

[unreal-unearthing]

I had this in the tags of an edit I was reblogging but thought it deserved it's own post. I think there's a real tragedy to the end of Agents of Shield for Daisy in particular.

Daisy as a character is one who from the very beginning is positioned as a lost girl looking for family, for a home. We discover very quickly that she spent her entire childhood bouncing around the foster care system, and since then has been living in her van. She joins Shield because she's searching for her parents. And in early seasons she's positioned as finding family in her team, of realizing that they are her real family even as she meets her bio parents.

So even though there's a sense of hope and completion in the finale for the characters, I think it's worth saying that Daisy's found family has scattered to the wind, that she is once again starting over with a completely new family. The final shot shows her looking happy and content with Daniel and Kora, but these are characters she only met in the last few episodes of the last season.

All the other characters, essentially, go home at the end to their 'real' families and their 'normal' lives and she's the one who kinda gets left behind to find a new family and purpose because everyone else is done. Something about Shield and the team being her home and her family and all she has but it being just a job to everyone else.

I don't know, just thinking about her time in the system and the endless cycle of gaining and then losing family/home and the constant starting over.

#daisy johnson #agents of shield #aos #aos meta #look I love the dousy stuff and think its all very cute #but there is something really sad to me about the idea of daisy in the first few weeks of being in space alone with the sister she just met #and a guy she likes but also barely knows

[backgroundagent3]

I somehow stumbled upon Trip's wiki page and the first thing I read was this:

And this has been sitting in my drafts for so long that I forgot what the point I wanted to make was, but reading it again I feel like it describes Trip's character so well.

Even though Coulson tries his best, there are times where SHIELD strays from being this ideal organization, especially at times when it isn't just good vs bad, but there are third parties involved (the Inhumans in S2), or when they have to deal with morally complex situations.

But with Trip, he always had a clear idea of right and wrong, and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember him ever doubting himself in any situation. He could always act fast and make quick decisions because he had a strong moral compass and he always knew what he was supposed to do.

Idk, I'm not great at character analysis and I can't express myself very well, but please add onto this if you want!

TL;DR Trip was perfect and I miss him.

#please add onto this i'd love to read what you think #agents of shield #aos #antoine triplett #phillip coulson #melinda may #the cavalry #aos meta #background agent 3

[angry-slytherin]

We all know that Daisy and Daniel work because while Daniel’s chivalrous attitude is exactly what Daisy needs. 

Daisy is strong, independent, and single-minded. She will stop at nothing to do what she thinks is right. Daniel shares this quality with her, but Daisy is more of an action hero, whereas Daniel is a more of a martyr(Daisy sacrificing herself in 7x13 vs Daniel dying in the original SHIELD timeline). Someone like Daisy needs someone who they can depend on when the fight is over, when their turn to be the hero is over. Daniel is wired to do exactly this: he’s chivalrous, loyal, and steadfast. Daniel can be Daisy’s “someone” that she comes home to and who can not only tend to her, but empathize with her cause. He won’t see her “running at brick walls” as futile or wayward, he gets why she fights and he feels the same passion she does for doing what’s right.

But Daisy and Daniel also work because Daisy is someone Daniel can depend on.

Daniel is also an independent, somewhat lonely character. In Agent Carter the narrative is that Daniel is not lonely by choice, but because he is ostracized due to his disability. This much is true, but Daniel is also emotionally distant from even Peggy at times. He sees his feelings for Peggy as a dead end, so he pours himself into his work, hoping to squash his true desire.

(His desire to help others is commendable, but sometimes it feels suffocating to Peggy’s character, because she needs more of a partner in crime(action) and less of a partner in ideals(what drives one to fight and why they fight for what they do). While I think peggysous may have been a good ship, I don’t know if I ultimately saw Daniel and Peggy ending up together. There is absolutely a timeline where Daniel is Peggy’s husband, but we’re gonna leave a pin in that one and return to why Daisy is so good for Daniel).

Daisy can give Daniel emotional stability. By season 7, Daisy has a very clear idea of what she wants. Family, a meaningful relationship(her “own Fitz”) and stability in general are on Daisy’s radar. Daniel in season 2 of Agent Carter is completely the opposite of this: proposing to one woman while being in love with another, anyone? By the time we see Daniel again in AOS season 7, it’s been 6 years for him, plenty of time to mature and find out what he really wants. But it’s clear in season 7 that he hasn’t found this. He’s single, entrenched in his work, and even at work, he’s the lonely head of his branch. His desire to be with someone he loves and cares about has not disappeared, but has been put on the back burner.

Then in comes Daisy, who’s attracted to him, forward and shares his desire for stability and romance. I think even despite the scene where Mack says that Daisy might not know herself that she’s interested in Daniel, Daisy gives Daniel clear hints, and she shows sympathy for his and care for his situation that the other team members gloss over. She genuinely feels for him, and tells him as much, that he’s missed out on saying goodbye to his loved ones, that he’s been ripped from his life and brought somewhere completely unfamiliar.

While Daniel and Daisy were, in actuality, a shoe-horned final season last ditch attempt at romance for the lead of AOS, they don’t feel that way. Besides Enver and Chloe’s clear chemistry, the characters work together, in an improbable, underdeveloped way that makes it feel real. Real life romance takes trial and error over and over, figuring out what you want and what you don’t. By this point in their respective arcs, Daisy and Daniel feel like characters who know what they want, and they find it in each other. This allows the audience to feel like their relationship is fated to last, and their ending scene in 7x13 to feel like a satisfying conclusion for both characters.

This is all to say I love them and I’m so grateful for their small but active fan base.

#dousy #agents of shield #daisy johnson #daniel sousa #*my meta #god damn this got long #100 #yayy

[fantasy-the-final-frontier]

I’m on my (third?) watch of Agents of Shield, currently on 2x08, The Things We Bury. And it just occurred to me how good the parallel stories are in this episode in particular, all centering around the title.

(This breakdown got a lot more in-depth than I was expecting, so I’m putting the rest under a cut)

Storyline 1: the backstory of Daniel Whitehall. Shortly after finding a person (Jiaying) who can survive contact with the Obelisk, Whitehall and his men are captured by the Allied forces (as seen in 2x01). After being interrogated by Peggy Carter, Whitehall is consigned to a Shield prison for life. But that is not his end - HYDRA members release him from prison decades later, where he can continue his research on the Obelisk, experiment on Jiaying, and work his way to the position he holds in HYDRA in the modern day.

Whitehall: We could learn so much together.

Peggy: Instead we’ll forget. Forget you, forget your work. When I leave no one else will come. No one to hear your stories, study your deadly artifacts. You’ll be buried.

Whitehall: I seriously doubt that. Nothing stays buried forever.

Storyline 2: Grant Ward kidnaps his older brother Christian to have an emotional confrontation about their abusive past. They go to the site of the well (from episode 1x08), where Grant forces Christian to unearth it. The entire time, the brothers accuse each other of gaslighting and manipulation, blaming the other for the events of that day. Once the well is revealed, Grant threatens Christian until his brother confesses to forcing Grant during the incident at the well. The storyline ends with a news story reporting the deaths of Christian and his parents.

Christian: The well. You still blame me for the well. We both know that it was you who nearly killed Thomas down there.

Grant: Do you sleep better telling yourself that?

Christian: You know, I don’t know what crazy lies that you have built up all these years, but the well doesn’t even exist anymore. It’s gone. Mom and Dad buried it.

Grant: (pause) Oh, no. They just covered it up.

Storyline 3: the search for the alien city. Taking inspiration from Fury, Coulson decides to one-up HYDRA by putting in place a series of dominoes that will gain him access to a satellite. This allows the team to locate the alien city,

Coulson: We may actually have a shot at finding the city.

Skye: Are you sure it’s something you wanna dig up?

Coulson: If we don’t, HYDRA will. We need to get there first.

I just love the juxtaposition between the three storylines! From figurative digging into Bakshi and archived Shield files in storyline 1, to literal digging in storyline 2, to the city in storyline 3 being underground, all are about the things that get buried (hence the title) but not destroyed. Usually “bury” implies a final ending, as in burying a body, but this episode shows that buried is not the same as forgotten.

Daniel Whitehall is able to gain a new life and new identity. The well is unearthed and the Ward brothers’ past is laid bare. The alien city, which was lost for thousands of years, is discovered. And to dig more into storyline 1, Whitehall’s background in 2x08 teases parts of Skye’s background - more past which was buried (redacted by Shield) that is now being revealed. Jiaying’s barely-living body is dumped in a ditch in lieu of a burial, and in 2B we learn she was nursed back to health. The buried live once more.

Season 2A is all about the past coming back in full force to influence the present, and this episode is chock-full of that theme. More specifically, parts of the past that were supposed to be hidden or forgotten, parts which are demanding themselves to be known again.

This right here is the Good Shit™️, aka my favorite part of this show, and I’m so fucking pumped!

#agents of shield #aos meta #agents of shield season 2 #the things we bury #god I love season 2 so much #there are several different ongoing storylines that are developed and paced wonderfully #and episodes like this highlight the themes between them #there’s so much surprising depth to this show!!!

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

in the interest of debate:

so i saw your post about the accords, and i do want to state that in agents of shield it's expanded upon a little. anyone with superpowers is supposed to be forced to "register", aka write down their name and info, which then backfires when an anti-inhuman group gets info. i agree that the accords as stated in civil war make sense and with the UN signing especially, but i do want to note that in the wider MCU they sometimes have negative effects. because, you know, making anyone in a specific subgroup have to register themselves on a government-run list isn't great?

i don't really have any questions, just wanted to note. :)

@luxaii is referring to this post.

See, that's the thing. I've heard this argument before in terms of the comics, that apparently in the comics the accords were combined with a mutant registration act which obviously is a terrible idea. This seems to be MCU's way of including that bit without having mutants in MCU because they didn't have the rights to them.

The trouble is that they didn't explain this in the movie itself or have any indication that this was the case. We even have scenes where Steve questions whether he should support this or not and it never comes up.

And I can't really take something "well they fixed this in X show made later" or "this was originally in the comics" as an argument within the film itself. Not the least of which because these things are always somehow in the thing I didn't read or the thing I didn't watch.

#mcu #anti mcu #captain america winter soldier #anti captain americal winter soldier #agents of shield #meta #headcanon #opinion #luxaii

[an-inky-fingered-lass]

Jemma and May, and a story for a home and its memories; for lives lost and the still living, and for a different sort of joy than you ever imagined.

A story inspired by this snippet by @meanderings0ul.

They’d finally shared details of their plans once the team was all together, lights strung up all over the Lighthouse for New Year’s and the old base so much warmer than it had once been.

May had flown them out here two days later with nothing much more than a I know a place. She’d borrowed a jeep from a hangar whose elder occupants greeted her with startled recognition, tugged the keys from her pocket upon arrival and opened the door for them in silence.

The house had been dusty inside, in almost perfect condition otherwise. It had that quietly melancholy air of a house long since empty, the faint scuffs on the wood polish and memories of warmth that meant it had once been lived in, loved. It wasn’t until Jemma saw the absent way May leaned her hip against a cabinet that wouldn’t shut properly unless you shoved it just right, the way she watched them walk around more than she looked at the house, that it finally clicked.

Read the rest on Ao3.

#MADE IT #this one took me s o l o n g #and is a result of sheer stubbornness #it's a few miles from perfect still but there are some lil bits i'm proud of in there #and also meanderingsoul if you see this your AMAZING timeline metas have saved my life multiple times but ESPECIALLY with this one #i hope it's alright that i tagged you! #thank you again for letting me borrow this concept <3 #and sigh it is somehow 3 am and my brain is running at approximately 23% capacity so proper tagging and bed it is #agents of shield fanfiction #aos fanfic #jemma simmons #melinda may #series: get out my machete and battle with time once again #inkspinner fic

[moonlayl]

I’ll say it:

despite all its flaws, “once upon a time” did a really good job showing us Emma’s childhood and how it impacted her decisions even as an adult, and her relationships with others.

The show also did a good job having her reunite with her parents and how all characters involved dealt with their complex and confusing emotions. 

it’s the kind of writing I wish Daisy had been given on agents of shield. 

I wish we’d gotten flashback of her childhood. I wish she’d gotten to spend more time with Jiaying and Cal. I wish the show itself had included them in future seasons. 

Either by not killing Jiaying, and having her be there in afterlife (Daisy having a safe space she could go to, a wise person she can trust or an ally she can rely on, especially with the events of upcoming seasons).

Or by having Daisy go to Cal, despite his erased memories, every now and then.

So much more could’ve been done with Daisy’s story relating to her life as an orphan and her eventually finding her parents, and while I understand the whole point of it was for Daisy to become Daisy Johnson, Quake, and Agent of Shield, I still feel as though there was a lot of wasted potential. 

#aos #aos meta #daisy johnson #ouat #emma swan #jiaying #cal johnson #aos s2 #agents of shield #afterlife #layl.text

[apocalyptichearts]

May’s always looked after Daisy. Even at the very beginning when she was still weary of her and her motives… I think about this scene a lot lmao.

#daisy johnson #melinda may #agents of shield #aos #mama may #and her angel eyes #they’re my mommy issues and i get to chose the fictional comfort mother-daughter dynamic #maydaisy #agents of shield meta

[likea-black-widow-baby]

Thinking about how the Marvel ABC shows are a rare example of

a. the protagonist actually being the fan favorite, and

b. that protagonist and fan favorite being a woman

Daisy and Peggy are the fan favorites of their respective shows by a landslide, which is kind of incredible? Especially for early MCU when they still thought a female-led movie would flop.

#agent carter #agents of shield #peggy carter #daisy johnson #mundie says things #marvel meta

[tremorsmackenzie]

one of the best things about agents of shield is that it does all of the tropes, way over the top trauma, character revivals, alternate reality plots, evil versions of characters, betrayals, mind control, time travel plots, etc., things which are usually done either way too seriously or as a cheap joke/low effort filler content that sometimes doesnt fit the tone or show it happens in at all.

but it does them properly the way theyre supposed to be, integrating them into its world, and it shows why they are actually popular and that they work if you spend any real effort on them and try to do them justice instead of always playing them as a cliché trope.

yeah, its an interesting storyline to see the goodhearted main character be turned evil against their will and then deal with the fallout. whod have thunk.

and at the same time it manages to not lose the kind of campy feel associated with them, in a really charming way. i dont know if im making sense, i just waited for a really long time for someone to actually do these things right cause they have so much potential, and they usually dont get to explore it beyond very superficial levels.

agents of shield is awesome. fin.

#like its seriously my favourite show #it hits every niche i have #except for queerness #there are just so many storybeats and opportunitys for character development that are completely thrown by the wayside in so many shows #and aos just does them right and is one of the best shows ever as a result #agents of shield #aos meta #tropes are only cheap if you make them

[gingerpeachtea]

been thinking about aos season seven a lot today and. i don’t know if i think that may’s weird empathy powers storyline in s7 is inherently misogynistic or not but i Do know that they never wouldve done that shit with a male character

#aos meta #melinda may #if this causes a devil-complex-scale fandom-wide discourse war then um. no it doesnt. everyone be really niceys or else #agents of shield #c speaks

[forkaround]

This post by @heretherebedork got me wondering about why commentary doesn't work. This isn't just a BL thing but a universal writing thing. I think since 2016 this making commentary thing has increased in all media over all. A lot of that has to do with evolving political landscape of the world in both good and bad directions. But nothing I can say or do about that. What I am interested in is why sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.

It works in Gotham Knights, Agents of Shield, even Cutie Pie to a degree and then there are shows built upon the political landscape like The Eclipse and Not Me. It doesn't work in Supergirl, Doctor Who (13th Doctor's run), and just about most shows that try.

For me the ages of the characters on Gotham Knights, Legacies, The Eclipse, Cutie Pie make it work. With GK and LGS, they are American teens and irl a lot of Gen Z are like that and so it becomes about reflecting real life. For comparison, when TVD came out the cultural consciousness made it possible to succeed in a way it won't today. Same with Twilight. Cutie Pie and The Eclipse has the PC built into them with the gay marriage and anti-authoritarian thing respectively. Same for Not Me.

But if you look at Supergirl, it came from the comics, comic have been PC or ahead of their time a lot of the times, but as a show it's 'lessons' fall flat. Compare the Alien Immigrants storyline in Supergirl with a similar but better anti-inhuman one from Agents of Shield. The difference is when Supergirl did it, it was a one season and done thing. Whereas Agents of Shield built it up slowly over the course of multiple seasons. AoS also gave multiple opposing views on it from members of the team. Supergirl had all it's main cast agree that it's bad to treat alien's badly. Some of it is baked into the character dynamics from the get go. The Supergirl team leaders were Hank, an alien himself and Alex, Supergirl's sister. While AoS's team leader was Coulson someone with experience in spy work and someone who understands people.

On the BL side, like I said the ones that do it well get away with it because of the basic premise. The ones that fail like War of Y, which I would argue didn't fail completely, Step by Step, which has the Supergirl problem, do so because of weak writing. With WoY, given the subtitles and overall quality I didn't expect much. The Commentary has stilted dialogue but so does the rest of the show. Same with House of Stars. It fails but doesn't stand out as egregious.

To Conclude: Some advice as an author,

if you are going to include PC into your story either bake it into the premise or don't make it stand out.

Also it's always good to have opposing views, good and bad. Try to make things as round and without edges as possible.

The characters should be talking to each other, not to the audience. or worse, at the audience.

Don't rely on woke points to propel your story.

It's a story, a narrative first, commentary second.

#supergirl #house of stars the series #war of y the series #step by step the series #legacies #gotham knights #cutie pie the series #doctor who #the eclipse #not me the series #agents of shield #gmmtv bl #writing #comparative analysis #writing analysis #writing meta #political correctness #thai bl #weirdly you don't see this with kdrama #even in the devil judge which was heavy with pc possibilities #you don't see it stand out