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bigskydreaming · 2 years

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In my experience there are two main ways to hate characters: the ‘I wish they didn’t exist’ way and the ‘I don’t like them but having them in the series is a good choice/something I wouldn’t change’ way

Which way do you hate Tony and Stiles?

Hmmm. Can I write in a third option of "I wish they could exist in a vacuum where its possible to consider them, their actions/choices and their place in a narrative without being influenced by other fans' perception of them and reception to those things?"

LOL I mean like, obviously that's impossible, I just mean that's more indicative of my precise gripes with those particular characters.

Edited after getting to the end of writing this post: Okay umm, this response rises to the level of Even I Can't Believe I Went On This Long On This Topic When Pretty Sure Nobody Actually Asked Me To Make It That Much of A Thing, This Was Not The Assignment.

But well. I did and it happened, so....*whistles*

Look I'm not gonna write as much as I did on this topic and then just NOT do anything with that, that'd be even stupider than me going on this long in the first place. Whatever. Here's a post.

(In theory, I put this much time and thought into it because given my long history of being "mmm yeah, fuck both those characters" at this point, I wanted it to be super clear I was being sincere and genuine in my analysis of Mine Own Hatefulness and not just paying lip service to try and come off like I haven't gone Ugh Those Douchenozzles as much as I'm absolutely aware I have.*

In reality I'm full of shit. I Did The Thing again. Its a day ending in y. Whatever.)

Back to the actual response:

To be blunt, I don't like either of them. They're both chock full of a laundry list of character traits and narrative choices that make up my personal Ugh, What If They Didn't checklist of personal character preferences. There was never much chance of either of them - as they're written in their respective canons, or in most fanworks I've seen - ever being someone I liked or rooted for.

BUT....that has a lot to do with the fact that all the things they do or say that I personally consider to be Bad Fucking Takes? Are always either validated or reinforced by their narratives, or by fans defending them and those choices.

And the thing is....this doesn't HAVE to be true. Its not like, hardwired into their character that they HAVE to embody these particular traits or make these particular choices. If fandom had a better track record of actually TRYING to be as transformative as it claims to be, and taking characters whose canon imbues them with Bad Takes and being like mmm no, what if AU where they didn't have the Bad Take and had a Good Take instead? That'd be an entirely different matter. Problem is, in my perception of things, what actually tends to happen is the broader parts of their fandoms just looked at various Bad Takes they had or embodied and said "No actually, these are Good Takes, no flaws detected" and defended them from any interpretation that suggested otherwise.

And uh, this is particularly grating when you could go to most of their most hardcore stans' blogs and easily find instances where they themselves called out or reblogged posts that called out other characters for doing the EXACT. SAME. THINGS. Only when other characters do those things, or certain other characters do....suddenly a lot more fans are ready and willing to be like No, this IS A Bad Take.

Its like.....mmmm, don't love that. And the more and more this happens, the more it just feeds back into the characters themselves, and my ongoing awareness/view of these characters.

That said, there's definitely an argument to be made that fandoms also have a history of changing TOO much about certain characters, to the extent that the characters as fanwritten bear little to no similarity to the actual canon depiction of those characters. And this isn't like, better or worse, IMO, its more of just a lateral move. Swapping one problem out for another without actually improving upon a character, or even acknowledging there's room for improvement at all. Let alone ever actually transforming the larger narrative in any meaningful ways.

And the thing is, these two problems are at opposite ends of the writing spectrum and its not that I think the 'solution' is some kind of middle ground between those two opposite extremes. Rather, I think how to address this kinda thing is best taken on a case by case basis where the 'solution' is different depending on the specific character or source material in question.

Like....one core character trait both Tony and Stiles share is their specific brand of humor. Its sharp-edged and tends to be at other characters' expense. Ngl, I don't like that brand of humor. Its pretty much a nonstarter with me. Its an uphill battle to ever get me to like a character who leads with that specific brand of humor, and the thing is, I don't think you actually CAN swap it out for an entirely different brand/tone of humor without fundamentally changing both Tony and Stiles in certain key ways?

They're acerbic characters by nature. Their humor cuts not just because that's the way the dice happens to fall whenever they make a joke; it cuts because that's the POINT, for them. They WANT their humor to cut, to be sharp-edged, because its part of how they interact with the world in general. They're bristly cacti characters, whose particular choice of emotional armor comes with spikes and thorns, because by the time we meet either of them at the 'start' of their source materials' narratives, they've already shaped themselves in accordance with a world view that says 'you can never guarantee there's nothing that can get through your armor to hurt you, so its better to dress yourself in armor that's preemptive and is likelier to wound anyone who gets close to you before they ever get the chance to slip past your guard and find a weak spot in your actual armor.'

Tony and Stiles don't just use humor as their personal coping mechanisms for how their lives have gone or living in a fucked up world....they use that specific brand of humor, and while you CAN swap it out for a different, more blunted/harmless brand of humor that lets you land just as many comedic beats with them but with none of the fallout/aftermath from those comedic beats sometimes leaving marks or inflicting wounds on even their own friends and loved ones?

Its not that their character 'loses' something if you do that, but it does make them a little less THEM. Its the kind of change that I personally wouldn't make for them, even with my dislike for that brand of humor and their characters because of it....because its a big enough shift that it makes me question how important their role in my narrative is, or the source material's in general. Where I'd start to wonder "at what point do they get TOO far afield from how I view them in their source material, to such an extent that whatever role I have planned for them in my narrative, I could swap them out for an entirely different character who fulfills the same narrative role while lacking the aspects that make me dislike those two characters in the first place."

Basically, if I can keep the shape of my overall story the same while using completely different characters in place of those two....it literally just makes more sense to me to just do that rather than settle for writing characters I don't like in ways that only transform them into characters I DO like by making them indistinct from characters I actually like....all while being aware that anyone reading these transformed versions of them won't be getting some of the things THEY like about those characters and readers who ALREADY share my perception and dislike of those particular characters would probably have preferred I just swap them out for other characters in the first place.

Like.....does anybody actually get what they want, at that point?

Because here's A Thing:

Just because I PERSONALLY don't like either character, and have perfectly valid (IMO) reasons for my dislike of them.....I don't actually contest that they're perfectly valid characters in their own right, and some of the very things I dislike about them can be the key factors in why other people do.

Directly competing needs IS a thing, especially in creative environs like fandom. What we each look for in characters or need from them and their depictions is not inherently the same, and sometimes is completely opposite, from one fan to the next. I don't think there is such a thing as an innately bad character, one that just shouldn't exist and is better off entirely stricken from a narrative and replaced with someone else....because at the end of the day, what are characters except fictional depictions of people, with just as wide a range of traits, behaviors and experiences as the actual people reading about them?

And no matter how critical I am of the specific roles various characters play in stories, specific narrative choices 'they' make at their writer's direction...I try not to be in the habit of writing off entire swaths of people they reflect with their behaviors or traits, just because I'm personally not a fan.

Like, Tony and Stiles’ humor - not my cup of tea as it is - carries over into how I view actual people and their own humor. I'm similarly disinclined to go out seeking people with that kind of humor to surround myself with....but y'know what? I make 'exceptions' for that all the time. There are plenty of people I know AND love who match a lot of the things I dislike about Tony and Stiles....because those dislikes in a CHARACTER are bullet points on a list their initial writer CHOSE for them, in comparison to how those parallel traits and even humor, in actual PEOPLE? Are organic responses to their own lives and experiences, and like....that changes a lot for me.

And I don't even want to suggest I just like, tolerate friends who share traits with characters I don't like, because eww no, I'm not like, going around judging my own friends with character beat sheets, gross. Its more that it literally never even enters my mind to view specific people I know in those terms, because like...that's such a FINITE and limited lens through which to view actual people you KNOW, if you get what I mean? Like people who are in your own life to any sizable degree, you know SO much about them, even if its not necessarily things like 'every unlockable level in their personal backstory' as opposed to things like daily rituals of theirs, how they respond to compliments, what not to bring up around them even if they haven't actually entrusted you with the reason why they dislike those things or react negatively to them.

Like, there's just SO MUCH to any individual person we know on a personal level - I don't think we often even realize or consider just how damn MUCH we know about our friends/loved ones, things we've observed without even noting down as actual observations, things that are so ingrained in our awareness of a person we take it completely for granted and would never even think to put it down on a list of things we associate with that person because its literally never even occurred to us to imagine what that person might be like WITHOUT those things.

Its all relative. I liken it to how time seems to pass more slowly the older we get....not because the passage of it is actually changing from one year to the next, but because our perception of it changes as we accumulate more life, more experiences, more perceptions and observations packed into our awareness and making up the lens through which we view things like the passage of time, how quickly or slowly a year seems to pass. And as we get older, as we accumulate more and more STUFF we then pack into our worldviews....this habitually and automatically changes not just our current perceptions of the world around us, it like....retroactively 'updates' and reshapes the lens through which we look at even our own past experiences and memories. Making it so even we ourselves never perceive an event we lived through through the exact same lens we perceived that even WHEN we were first living through it.

When we're ten years old, the year seems to fly by a lot quicker than it does when we're thirty, because to a ten year old, one year - and everything contained within the frame we perceive that year as being - all of that happens within the span of one tenth of our entire life. And our own lives - and all the personal experiences we've had - are quite literally the entirety of our personal library of experiences. We simply CAN'T base our perceptions of the world and our own lives, through a lens that's shaped by anything BUT our own personal stores of life experiences and knowledge/information we've obtained and added to the storehouse that is our Awareness of Reality one way or another.

If the data doesn't exist anywhere in our perceptions, it fundamentally CAN'T factor into our perceptions. You can’t actionably shape your responses to life or your experiences in accordance with data that literally doesn’t exist yet, as far as you’re aware.

Now, when we're thirty, that same span of time - and again, everything our mind frames as existing within the boundaries of one year - flies by in comparison. Because now, that exact same span of time only accounts for one thirtieth of our entire life. One year, and everything to happen to us in it, is literally just a smaller slice of the pie that is us, than it was back when we were ten. And even if we look back on our own memories of our life experiences when we were ten....there's no way to EVER view them EXACTLY as we perceived them, or the span of one year, the way we did back then. Because we can't unknow all the things we've added to our personal storehouses of life, once we've known them in the first place. That's a ship that's sailed. There's no picking up and putting back down the precise lens we previously used to perceive things, one that doesn't factor any the larger span of knowledge and experiences we've gained since then.

The world gets bigger the more we progress through our lives. It just does. That's just how it works. We can't live in the past even if we want to, because the second we move past a moment in time, it no longer exists as anything BUT an addition to the entire breadth of our lives. Which inherently transforms it from a single moment in time to a tiny pixel in an ever-growing picture of our entire existence and awareness of everything contained in that.

Its the same way with people, I think. There's no way for any character, no matter how fleshed out, to EVER encompass the same amount of space another person fills up in our real lives. Even when we feel one might, I'd argue its more a case of us just not having enough personal awareness of everything making up that other person, while at the same time we tend to fill in the blanks characters have every second they spent offscreen/offpage, with all kinds of things we assume to be true or extrapolate as likely based on our awareness of....real people, and the breadth of experiences and traits and behaviors everyone contains, even if our minds associating a particular person with a particular character stems from like, one shared trait.

The fact remains that on some level, we do still all know that no matter how much space a character trait like 'brand of humor' takes up in terms of a character's overall characterization....not only does that character not actually exist outside of their narratives, or peoples' perceptions of said narratives.....everything that makes a character distinct as that character, was like....CHOSEN for them by their writers, rather than evolving as an organic response to life experiences.

And thus, no matter how much we relate to characters, or associate them with people we know or have met in real life....there's not really any way we can ever actually perceive other real people through an identical lens to the one we use to perceive fictional characters. Because the lens we observe even total strangers through? Is still shaped by an underlying awareness that any single moment in time, behavior, response to a particular event....is us perceiving only one tiny sliver out of the entirety of the Big Picture that is the accumulation of ALL the tiny slivers, moments in time, behaviors, responses, etc....that make up that person's full existence or identity.

A real person's personal brand of humor just fundamentally isn't the same as a character being identifiable for a similar brand of humor. Proportionately, there's no real comparison. In terms of scope, we're in like, two entirely different tax brackets. And perhaps most importantly of all.....a person's personal brand of humor is homegrown. A character's is custom made-to-order.

Now. Why did I go offroading down this long-as-fuck detour?

Well, because its just what I do, for starters.

But no, there was a point, I swear.

And that point is just.....Stiles and Tony's humor annoys the fuck out of me. Its also a distinct character trait that informs the entirety of their respective canon narratives. There's no way for it not to. Its present in the vast majority of their cumulative scenes, and it impacts both their narratives and the other characters in those narratives, in ways both big and small.

I don't think you CAN airlift something like that out of their overall stories, and expect that you HAVEN'T changed the entire landscape of those stories, let alone the narrative path their characters cut through that landscape. If I really wanted to, I think I could craft a story where either of them goes through said story with an entirely different kind of humor, but tbh, I'd be the first one to call foul if the end resulting story didn't reflect a much different landscape than what I would have ended up with if I'd written the same narrative events, but shaped in accordance with their trademark canon humor instead.

And like I said way back in the beginning: my own question at that point is just...why? I love AU fics, for instance, but primarily because I love seeing what results from taking a character with a distinct voice, characterization, and identity, and dropping them in an entirely different narrative landscape and seeing how that same character fares in totally new settings and conditions. And that makes sense to me, I know why I'm reading or writing that AU with that particular character - keeping the character the same and changing the broader premise is the POINT. I'm not picking or looking for a different character to navigate that story landscape because the whole idea is I already like THIS character and am invested in seeing how THIS character navigates said landscape.

The inverse of that makes a lot less sense to me, personally. I just have trouble reconciling why keep the setting, the premise, the bigger picture the same....and then not just swapping out a primary character for someone who fundamentally reads - and narratively reacts - in ENTIRELY different ways....but also insisting on acting like that's not what's happening there. Like, I'm down for one or the other, even....swap a main character out for an entirely different character, with them acknowledged as exactly that? Fine by me. I'm a slut for crossover fics for a reason. That by itself is on par with AUs featuring same character, different setting.

But acting like a character that's been remade extensively enough as to remove the very hallmarks that are the reason I dislike the character in the first place, putting them through the same narrative paces and showing all the changes that result, all while claiming this character is the same as they ever were...that's when you lose me and I'm like uh....what're you talking about. Because if there's no way to match the canon character to the narrative path (and impacts) written in that fic, if there's no way to get the canon characterization from the same Point A to the same Point B....I just don't see them as the same character at that point, and I'm like....you coulda just called them Bob from Planet Zeebo at that point, and it woulda been all the same to me.

And here's the clincher, for me:

I don't like Tony or Stiles' core characterizations for a lot of reasons, sure. But I don't particularly feel that I HAVE to, is the thing. Like, it doesn't mean I don't see them as valid? That I just flat out don't understand why those characterizations - or traits - would appeal to other people, even if they don't to me.

After all, like I said eighty four years ago at the start of this....fictional characters just reflect the spectrum of real people and their various traits, behaviors and experiences. The exact same things that push me away from certain characters are the precise things that draw other fans TO them, for their own reasons, whatever they may be. Maybe they see themselves or people they know well reflected in things like that specific brand of humor, and thus they fill in the blanks of that character's unmapped Big Picture with extrapolations born of their own associations with that trait, things it calls to mind for them the same way it calls specific things to mind for me...and with the end result of those filled in blanks making that character look VERY different to them than the same character looks after I've filled in the same blanks in my own ways.

Makes total sense to me. Of course characters we each flesh out further from where canon left off are going to look different to each of us, if we're each coloring in the negative space left around canon characterizations and story beats with crayons from entirely different crayon sets. I expect characters expanded past the boundaries of their original narratives or characterizations to look different from my own projections.

I don't have the slightest problem or hesitancy regarding a character I dislike keeping their canon characterization as fan writers add MORE to the entirety of that character, on top of what already exists, and thereby alter the cumulative Big Picture that is that character without swapping out the initial skeleton for an entirely different framework and saying nuh-uh, they were always like that.

And to finally get to the answer to your question....I not only think every character - no matter how much I dislike them - has the POTENTIAL to be turned into a character I like....I usually have plenty of ideas myself, for how to expand on them until my overall perception of the end result is This is Now A Character I Like, without erasing or changing any major elements present in them per canon.

Just like I might not go LOOKING to surround myself with people who as a first impression, when I have very little awareness of their overall whole, is just them leading with a similar brand of humor...I have tons of 'exceptions' to this in my life, that I don't even truly regard as exceptions because my overall perception of them contains so much MORE than just that specific slice that is that brand of humor's very existence as something I associate with them....that like, even if I consciously register 'oh this person has this style of humor even if I normally don't like it' as a thing that's true of them, its drowned out or balanced or contextualized by so many things I associate MORE strongly with them....that this particular aspect of them doesn't even make the Top Fifty list of things that come to mind when I think of them.

Like, keep in mind, we're not talking about things like oh, say, being a genocidal fascist or a rapist here. There are absolutely things present in a character or their initial stories - just as with real people - that make them total dealbreakers for me no matter HOW much additional context or traits or justifications you add on top of them. Give the Red Skull the most tragic backstory in the whole damn world for all I care, I'm still gonna be like cool, cool, quick question - is he still a Nazi though? Yeah? Okay, Batman and a million other characters managed to cope with tragic backstories without ever becoming a Nazi, so I'm gonna stick with 'He should go die,' thanks. Who else you got?

Y'know what I mean? Dealbreakers exist, both in real life and in fiction, and while they're personally subjective I flat out don't trust people who DON'T have any dealbreakers whatsoever, and can find a way to excuse or justify literally anything about a character. Like not even transforming the character or their history and saying okay what if this character had literally never done this or been that, but rather being ride or die like mmm no, I still want my little uwu genocidal fascist to get his happy ending, as a treat.

There's finding even total shitstains compelling to read or watch, yeah, fine, but then there's being like he can unapologetically be his canon shitstain self and ruin untold lives and still deserve nice things, dammit!

Yeah. No. That's not....no. Just all the no.

But no matter how much I personally dislike Tony or Stiles, that's very much not what we're talking about, when it comes to them. I may have built this post around the example of their particular brand of humor, but that was just a convenient for instance and not actually indicative of my biggest problem with either character. That said, there's nothing my perception of them considers 'core characterization/traits/etc' that rises to the level of "there's literally no Big Picture you could ever create with these characters where I'd root for them, so long as this fundamental kernel of characterization or past deeds exists ANYWHERE in that overall tapestry. Same deal with real people. Some aspects of a person's existence or impact take up more room and are harder to see past than others, and something like 'Did Some Genocide' is one HELL of a big bullet point that I have no interest in looking past or seeing around."

With Tony and Stiles and other similar characters? How much I dislike them, even with certain canon character elements factored in....is ultimately just relative to how much space those elements take up in terms of their overall presence, and what else is included in their Big Picture in terms of traits, context, etc.

So I can't truly say its a case of "I wish these characters didn't exist" because except for characters associated with certain personal dealbreakers, there's not really ANY character that I'm just flat out "oh I wish they didn't exist" as in I can't imagine any scenario or fic where I didn't just hate their presence and want them gone. And even in terms of characters with dealbreakers, its again not actually a matter of wanting them not to exist, but really more about how the Bad Takes those characters have, embody or act upon are perceived and rendered within their narratives, or in how fandom reacts to them.

I don't think characters I dislike need to either not exist or be fundamentally rebuilt from the ground up, in order to change or 'update' my perception of them....I just need their overall Big Picture to have any negative space left by canon filled in with enough....just...MORE....that comparatively, the things I dislike about them are a much smaller, less definitive slice of their cumulative entirety.

I can't relate or sympathize with people who look at a character with a negative trait that takes up so much of their narrative choices and behavior it dominates the landscape of their canon stories, and choose as their 'fix' to this, like, an outright refusal to acknowledge that trait or its impact even exists in canon....and by extension, the way fans who dislike that character view and interpret said canon.

Same holds true with fans of that character who defend them/their love of said character by trying to Windex their fandom's awareness of their negative character traits and scrub it free of any actual discussion of said traits, let alone accountability for various narrative choices made because of them.

Not only is that eww and yikes because the second your approach to fandom is to try and edit other peoples' own awareness of the literal actual initial canon itself, I'm like, hey, don't try to sell me a bridge to Hawaii, I know what I read/saw and you're trying to spin me a rewrite of things I've already built my own perceptions of while claiming those perceptions are fake news because they stem from canon stories you want me to agree never even actually happened.

But additionally, the thing that really just slays me here is.....this approach is an attempt at 'fixing' the wrong thing. Its not only presumptive, intrusive, and patronizing....its missing the point entirely. Just like with real people, I don't NEED any and all awareness of a trait I dislike to be fake-erased from existence or at least acknowledgment. I don't bar any and everyone to ever display a mean-spirited style of humor from ever getting close enough to me I even GET the opportunity to learn there's more to them than just barbed jokes. That's not remotely realistic, especially when you consider that if I ruled out potential friends based on just a first impression of their humor, how the fuck would I ever even know if this was actually indicative of their overall pattern of humor or just a one-time joke that actually happens to be out of character for them and not the norm?

An imperfect or negative trait does not have to 'define' a character or person, and its only actually definitive for them if its so large or prioritized that it literally eclipses everything else you might know about them.

If the problem with a character is how much a particular trait dominates the overall landscape of their character or stories? The solution isn't to yank the thread that is that particular trait right out of that character's tapestry and then spend the rest of your time in fandom trying to shout "Nuh-uh" over everyone who keeps bringing up that the thread was ever there in the first place.

Negative character traits are PART of a character's landscape, and when the problem or aversion to a character is not that a single non-dealbreaker element even EXISTS as part of that landscape, but that it takes up so much space or gets in the way of other traits to the point that you can't see much landscape aside from that one trait.....

Then that one particular element isn't even the problem at all. The problem is the view.

You don't have to change the character, you just have to change the landscape, or even just the angle from which you’re looking at it. Which you do not by erasing things that actually can't be erased from other peoples' own perceptions....you do it by changing the scenery. Shifting perspectives of that landscape, not perceptions of it. Come at it from a new angle, one where one particular element doesn't take up so much focus in frame.

Add more to look at.

Plant some fucking flowers. Grow some trees. Sprinkle in some more good to go with the bad. Put in a bench with a nice commemorative plaque explaining the history of that particular view-from-the-window and why it is the way it is, without making apologies and just being like, "hey, here's some Facts About What You're Seeing Here. Do whatever you want with them, but like, now you have them. Facts! The more you know."

Just like its not specific dealbreaker traits that make me dislike Tony or Stiles, its equally true that there's literally nothing prohibiting me from GROWING to like Tony or Stiles, if the right argument is made or I'm presented with the right angle to consider or given a fuller, more comprehensive landscape to look at instead of what I'm currently looking at.

The only real root reason I don't like canon Tony or Stiles is their canons DIDN'T GIVE ME A REASON TO.

This doesn't discount that canon could have at the exact same time given other fans more than enough reason to love those characters - its just that when it comes to me, nothing canon actually gave me rose to the level of making me WANT to relate to or emotionally invest in those characters, specifically.

If other fans wanted to change that, all they ever really had to do was....give me that reason. Add, not subtract. Take what was already there with canon, be like, well this exists and if its not doing it for you, well hmm. What if we added this? Threw in this? Included some of this? Any of that change anything for you?

Because thing of it is....it very well might!

But that's not what broader fandom, particularly fans of those characters, ever actually tried to do, in my personal experience. Instead, time and again fans of those characters hopped on posts detailing things I disliked about those characters or how they impacted other characters I did like and instead of using literally ANY of that to be like.....hmmm, here's some thoughts on how to transform what canon gave us to do things with these characters that canon never tried.....

Well, instead, most fans to disagree with me on those things tried just digging their heels in and saying stuff like umm no, canon DID try that or do that, you just missed it. Or 'those things you're talking about literally never happened.' And "here's a listicle of all the things WE hate about YOUR fave, we're just gonna plaster this baby on top of every mention we see of things people don't like about our fave, what do you mean flipping the script doesn't actually defend or refute the things our fave is being criticized for, yeah it does and if you don't get it you're just dumb!"

I mean, I paraphrase for the Lulz, but sadly not by much.

And the truly ironic part in all of this is, I WANT to like characters. I'd rather enjoy things than not. I don't think I'm alone in that. Coming up with an angle that makes Tony or Stiles more enjoyable to their critics without discounting or ignoring the reasons those criticisms exist was always actually SO much less work than the fucking LENGTHS other fans have gone to, for YEARS, to try and definitively rescript the fandom narrative more to their liking by playing endless shell games with canon that have GOT to be just as exhausting to maintain as they are to witness.

Just like I could change core aspects of those two characters to make them more to my liking but would rather not and I could just swap them out for entirely different characters instead, if that's what I wanted....by the same token, as much as I CAN remove them from the narrative in my own fanworks, they both have such large presences in their respective canons and so many instances and ways in which they've impacted other actual fave characters of mine, that I truly, honestly DO believe the MUCH simpler alternative to all of that is just finding a way to reframe those characters or add to them in ways that address my issues with them and make it not some kind of chore to write them.

Slight tangent just to add this FYI on the record, but I don't think ANY character is absolutely essential to a narrative unless they're a singular protagonist and even then the setting/premise could be repurposed and applied to a different character. And sometimes it IS interesting to consider what a narrative might look like if a character with a huge canon footprint is elsewhere or not a factor. But again, that's not really what we're talking about here because outside of the occasional AU to explore something for those reasons, most of the time I'm like 'hey what if Stiles just Wasn't Even A Thing Here,' its not actually because of the character OR a particular narrative, its literally just because Stiles Fans Are Doing the Absolute Most This Week and If He's Just Not Even Here Maybe They Won't Find This One and Comments On It Could Actually Be About Literally Anyone/Anything Besides Stiles.

(Spoilers: that never actually works. They still show up to be like 'but where's stiles/how can teen wolf fic exist if there's no stiles' as though fifty thousand of the sixty thousand TW fics on Ao3 don't even have the titular Teen Wolf in them).

BUT I DIGRESS.

Anyway. Personally speaking...

My one big gripe to rule them all is NONE OF THIS EVER HAD TO BE AS BIG OF A FUCKING DEAL AS FANDOMS TEND TO MAKE IT, lmfao.

I'm a creative individual, lol, and I know what I like. Left to my own devices, or watching the original canon in a vacuum uninfluenced by other fans and their own responses.....its not actually that hard for me to be like, well given how clear I am on where I feel canon dropped the ball and fucked up with these characters, its actually not fucking hard at all to come up with fixes that address these problem areas and add more nuance to their characterization, making it easier to actually see where they have potential to contribute more to narratives than I feel they currently detract from them.

In fact, if you go back to my earliest fanworks in pretty much any fandom I've ever been in, where there's a Popular Fandom Fave that I'm known to personally dislike or criticize heavily....

You can quite literally chart the points where my initial attempts to do exactly that just....drop off a cliff because fans of those characters exhausted me to the point where I just stopped giving a fuck. Still not interested in outright bashing their faves, but I tend to start strong even with characters I dislike....but there comes a point where my own response to interactions with fans of not-my-faves....is to just lose interest and momentum - motivation, basically - in even bothering to try and make something I enjoy out of a character I currently don't. When fans of those characters have never STOPPED yelling about how their faves are perfect as is, no changes necessary, and fans who share my dislike of those characters are just as annoyed as I am about constantly being told WE'RE LITERALLY PERCEIVING THE CANON WRONG because we keep saying 'don't like how this character x is being a dick to this character y, because their trauma's only trauma when mister funny man isn't using it for a punchline instead.'

Kinda becomes a pretty pointless endeavor, y'know?

And the more that fans of those characters hopped on to literally EVERY criticism of them, no matter how slight, constantly flipping the script to try and put others' faves on blast instead, even if that meant bashing them for literally the exact criticisms they insist don't apply to their own faves and that stuff never happened....

The more my associations with those characters became dominated by their fans' behavior and responses to literally anything I'd post, even on top of the stuff I already disliked about those characters' canon.

And nobody wants to add to a landscape that looks fucking radioactive because anons and Big Name Fans have spent years nuking the slightest critical mention of those characters, even if the criticism was initially only even raised as a starting point for fics that originally had every intention of being fix-its for those things, NOT excuses to bash.

(Compare that last part to literally any TW fic tagged with something like Scott is a Bad Friend - I think most would be hard-pressed to argue that any of them are intended as fix-its aimed at addressing their own alleged criticisms of Scott. There's a reason you can find tens of thousands of TW fics that cut Scott entirely out of their narratives, whereas there's a bare handful of fics that try cutting Stiles out, even among fics written by hardcore anti-Stiles fans. When fans' actual biggest complaint isn't something a character actually ever did or flaws they actually have, of course its easier/more likely for those fans to just erase that character from the narrative than try and 'fix' or add to them or make them more palatable - why WOULDN'T cutting them out be the go-to solution if their actual problem is that the character exists or takes up space in the first place?

Like I’m just saying...I KNOW any anti-Scott fan reading this post is likely at this very moment telling themselves “HE’S LITERALLY DESCRIBING WHAT SCOTT FANS DO TO US!” I’m KEENLY aware how much of Teen Wolf fandom has long since sold themselves on that perception of our shared fandom. But like. Look at the sheer VOLUME of Scott-negative fics, headcanons and responses and compare and contrast it with the entirety of Stiles-negative fics, headcanons and responses, and its outright LAUGHABLE that people have convinced themselves that these things are in any way comparable. The ‘fandom faction’ that inarguably takes up the most fandom space and has the loudest voices and greater numbers is just flat out not the victim of smaller parts of fandom. If we EVER had the kind of influence or impact other parts of fandom like to ‘credit’ us with - and ONLY ever in conjunction with how harassed/victimized by us they were - then why is so little of the overall fandom in ANY way actually shaped by our interpretations of canon and the characters? How exactly does it work that we were supposedly impactful enough that the much bigger fandom presences, with fandom platforms ten times bigger than ours, tons more followers hanging on their every interpretation....like, were somehow the ones actually being harassed by our little slice of fandom without their much greater presences and sizable followings ever being levvied against us, nah, allegedly, if ‘harm’ was ever actually done in that fandom, it was only ever at their expense and never at their hands, that’s the narrative, right? Well.....if we were oh so powerful or plentiful, than why the fuck can’t you see any of our ‘impact’ on the broader fandom narratives? Why are things SO skewed to one side if ‘both sides’ were ever actually in any way comparable or possessing equal power or influence? The larger presence in a conflict is inherently positioned to punch down. The smaller presence has to contend with punching up. Basic knowledge of physics would just like to know: hmmm, which of those two punches is gonna have more impact?

How exactly does it work that some people allege Scott-fans had such obvious impact at the exact same time they crowed about how we were always just bitter and jealous because we have no real impact?? LIKE? HELLO? LOGICAL DISCREPANCY, PARTY OF ONE!)

But I mean.

Ooops, I digressed again. /Britney Spears

Anyway. Yeah.

The long and short of it (okay the long and long of it, kudos to anyone who actually made it to the end here) is I truly don't think either of the options your ask presented were ever INITIALLY true of how I felt about either Tony or Stiles.

At the start, I didn't actually even hate either of them at all.

I hated specific THINGS about them, but never thought they had to be defined by those specific things.

I posted stuff like "I hate how Stiles' humor always just so happens to be at his alleged best friend's expense, but Scott's never allowed to reciprocate without being demonized as a terrible person whereas nothing Stiles ever says to Scott is truly mean because a) he has Trauma and b) Scott's his best friend which means Stiles is literally allowed to make fun of him to make himself feel better, that's just Best Friend Rules unless its Scott doing it to him which isn't allowed because Scott's the Hero who's supposed to know better even if he's also just sixteen and Hero Rules trump Best Friend Rules."

And after countless instances of the Broader Teen Wolf Fandom responding to those posts with variations of "yeah but see Scott's the Hero who's supposed to know better even if he's also just sixteen and Hero Rules trump Best Friend Rules and also Scott's literally never suffered a day in his life, his life is perfect, he's a fucking werewolf, who cares if this is because of a Literally Traumatic Incident, it doesn't count and Scott's an awful fucking person who should thank his lucky stars Stiles even lets him be his friend at all, his barbed jokes at Scott's expense and impact on Scott's overall self-esteem is a fucking GIFT that Scott can never repay so he should just shut up and be grateful like what would Scott even have if he didn't have Stiles? Air? He doesn't even deserve that, fucking choke bitch"....

Well, like I said, I still don't think either of those versions of Hater actually hit the mark with me.

Its more like "canon didn't make this character work for me and I'm like eh but I didn't actually hate them and was like There's Room For Improvement on their report card but then Fandom Happened and now I'm like I hear that character's name and think Sure Do Wish I Could Set Things On Fire With My Mind Right Now and this feels like a literally proportionate response at this point."

Not to make like, an AU of my own fandom experiences, lmfao, but sometimes I'm like hmm, what if instead, Broader Fandom had looked at posts like mine and said "yeah, I love Stiles but tying up your BFF and throwing lacrosse balls at his junk til you stop being mad at him isn't exactly Friendship Goals. Hey, here's a fix-it fic with the premise 'what if Literally Anything Else had happened in that episode instead,' do you like this Stiles more than canon Stiles in that episode?"

I'm like, 99% sure my response to THAT particular response would've been why yes, yes in fact I do.

I truly never needed these two characters - or any, really - to be blissfully free of Bad Takes even whilst being written by Hollywood writing rooms staffed with the usual assortment of mostly cis straight white guys who not so shockingly, sometimes write Bad Takes. Even for their own preferred characters.

I just needed fandom to not assemble on a fucking war footing every time I or others said This Character Choice or Behavior In This Instance is a Bad Fucking Take, What If We Just Don't Call This A Good Take Instead.

And okay, I also could've done without one of the two fandoms in question here tacking on the added What If Its Actually a Good Take and Also We're Fucking Racist About This Other Character And Then We Spend The Next Several Days Yelling About How Obviously Not Racist We Are Until Everyone Forgets About This Inciting Take Entirely.

Like.

The bar was LITERALLY that low, all along.

And yet.

AND YET.

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currently-in-fanfiction-hell · 4 years

Text

Days at the Hunter Base, CHAPTER 6: Cooking with the Navigators: Cookies (Originally from my Quotev account)

Pallette walked sluggishly towards Maverick Hunter HQ's kitchen, a place usually reserved for making and storing food for lunch breaks, not that Reploids needed food anyway, but if they were built with the ability to eat, then why not?

Palette, it's 5 in the morning, what are you even doing here? She thought to herself.

Shut up, I'm hungry, there must be something in here...

PALETTE, 5 IN THE MORNING, DO YOU EXPECT THERE TO BE ANY FOOD IN HERE?

Great, a back-and-forth conversation with herself, an arguement, even better, what a great way to start the day.

She opened up the fridge and found nothing but raw meat and vegetables inside, needless to say, she was very disappointed.

See? You should've just grabbed a Pocky from your snack stash. The voice inside of her head grumbled.

Nnnggghh.... But I'm getting tired of Pocky sticks, and Axl keeps stealing from the stash anyway, She whined.

Suddenly, she heard the door open.

Alia and Layer walked into the room, shocked to find Palette.

"Pallette? What are you doing in here?" Alia asked.

"I-IT'S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!" Palette shrieked, Great, I'm in trouble now, she thought.

"Relax, I'm not angry at you, are you hungry?" She smiled.

"Y-yeah... That's pretty much it..." She stuttered, relieved that they weren't going to scold her.

"Layer and I were going to make cookies for breakfast, since you're here, do you want to watch us bake a batch?"

"Uh, sureeee...?" Making breakfast at 5? What oddballs. She thought.

While Alia got the ingredients out of a nearby cupboard, Layer proceeded to take out all of the other necessities, bowls, spoons, the rolling pin...

"Ever since when did you two learn how to bake?" Palette asked.

"It, um, started out as a small hobby," Layer explained, "Plus it's kind of fun, that and it's better than store-bought snacks, a-and it's healthier, of course."

Palette nodded her head, "Yeah, I guess you're right." Even if supermarket snacks/foods were easy to prepare, foods made from scratch were usually better.

"Do you know how to bake, Palette?" Layer asked.

Palette shook her head, "Unfortunately, no."

Suddenly, an idea popped up in Alia's head, "I know!" She exclaimed, "Why don't you help out? We can teach you!"

"Uh, sure!" Palette had never seen Alia this enthusiastic before, was baking that fun?

Eventually, they set everything on the table, Flour, sugar, brown sugar, butter, vanilla extract and the necessary equipment, Palette was already getting hungry just looking at the ingredients.

"Okay, so first off, you're supposed to preheat the oven to 375°F." Alia instructed, reading from a new recipe she had found online.

"Uh, okay!" Palette turned around saw the baking oven in front of her, was it weird to admit that she was intimidated by it? After all, there were so many things she was unfamilliar with, all the buttons and dials... She didn't know what to press or turn.

"Here, let me help." Layer came over to show her the ropes, she placed her fingers on the top dial on the side of the oven, labelled "Temperature", upon closer inspection, Palette noticed that the dial had numbers marked around it, "You just turn the dial to the number you want to set the temperature to, like this." Layer then proceeded to turn the dial to 375°F, "See? It's simple."

"Hmmm, yeah, you're right!" Palette grinned.

_______________________________________________

Shortly afterwards, it was time to move onto the main event, making the batter!

"Sooooo, what do we do first?" Palette was eager to get started, making the batter seemed like such a fun but simple task.

"Well, look at who's excited!" Alia smiled, "Anyways, what we need to do first is pour two and a quarter cups of all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda..."

"Mmm hmm." Palette nodded, carefully putting in the already-measured ingredients in the bowl, while Layer was watching her quietly to make sure that she wasn't doing anything wrong.

"1 teaspoon of salt-"

"Salt?! What do you need SALT for?" Palette cut her off, "Why would you need salt in cookies?"

"Well, it's not like a little bit of salt ruins an entire cookie, Palette, it won't turn salty so easily." Layer assured her, "Besides, you like salted caramel, right? So I don't really see any problem," She paused for a while, standing in the awkward silence, i-it's not like I'm saying that what you're saying is wrong, I understand where you're getting at, I-i'm just saying that salt helps, t-that's all."

"Hmmm, well, that IS a good point..." Palette said, "Alrighty, then, salt it is!" She carefully put in a teaspoon of salt in the bowl.

Shortly afterwards, Palette had put in almost every ingredient in the bowl, "Ummm, so, what do we do with the rest of the ingredients?" She asked, "Well, we're not quite done yet, Palette, Do you see thiis here?" She then pointed at another bowl, this time accompanied with a mixer, "Well, just put in the rest of the ingredients and press this button on the mixer."

"Hmm, got it!" Palette said, Alia had to make sure she didn't just dump everything in.

"Annnnd now I just need to push this button!" Palette then moved her fingers closer to the side of the mixer.

click.

Nothing happened.

"Huh? Why isn't anything happening?" Palette was puzzled, repeatedly clicking the button.

"Layer, are you sure the mixer was properly plugged in?" Alia asked, concerned.

"I-I'll see." She then checked the socket the mixer cable was connected to, surprisingly, there didn't seem to be anything wrong.

"No, sorry...There doesn't seem to be any visible problems..." Layer looked embarrassed, her face covered in a bright red.

"Don't worry, Layer, it's not your fault," Alia comforted her, "besides, that mixer is a little old, HQ never really bothered replacing it,"

"Technical difficulties aside, what are we gonna do now?" Palette asked, it was difficult to mask her disappointment.

Alia had a smile spread across her face, she didn't seem to be very bothered, "Don't worry, I've got a Plan B!"

She lifted up her right arm, a few moments later, her right hand turned into a whisk.

Palette looked amazed, "Whoah, I never knew you could do that, Alia! I mean, I knew that you could turn your hand into a Buster like X can, but this..."

"I may not be a new-generation Reploid, but according to Dr. Cain, later models of the old generation were built with several wares installed in their arms, in his words, it "was so that Reploids could better experience human culture", I'm pretty sure that both of you are also able to do the same if you wanted to."

Sure enough, new-generation Reploids were also built with this ability, Layer had managed to turn her hand into a drill, but quickly put it down, "It's a...pretty interesting feature, to say the least." She said, "By the way," Palette added, "Can't we just use a whisk from the cupboards or something?"

"We could, but an arm-whisk is much quicker to take out!' Alia smiled.

Using her arm-whisk, she managed to finish mixing the batter in no time, after that, they poured the flour mixture into the bowl, adding in two cups of chocolate chips.

"Do you want to add in nuts, Palette?" Layer asked, "Meh, no thanks, I'd rather not." Palette said.

They mixed it all together (using a spoon this time), and it was actually looking quite good,

"Hey, d'you think I could try a bit of cookie dough?" Palette asked.

"I wouldn't recommend it, but I guess it's fine..." Alia mumbled, she quickly realized, however, that Palette had already started licking cookie dough off of her fingers, Alia let out a small sigh.

They used a mini ice cream scoop to lay out the cookie dough onto the baking sheets, making sure that each induvidual scoop was spaced far enough from each other so that they could bake into their proper size and avoid them into merging together.

After that, they plopped it into the oven, now all they had to do was wait.

"How long will we have to wait for, again?" Palette asked.

"10 minutes, I think..." Alia took a look at the recipe again, "It shouldn't take too long-" Suddenly, a young, rookie Hunter came into the room, "E-excuse me, are Alia and Layer here?"

"Yes, what is it?" Layer asked, hoping that nothing urgent was happening.

"I-it's nothing much, but there's a small problem regarding the 13th Unit's expedition, and the Commander needs a couple of Navigators to sort things out, I know it's early in the morning, but-"

"We'll be right there." Alia told him, she turned to look at Palette, "You can look out for the cookies while we're gone, right?"

"Yeah, don't worry, Just leave it to me!' She grinned and waved them off as the door shut.

Palette looked at the time, eight minutes left, eh, I'll probably have enough time to try and beat that level...She thought to herself as she pulled out a portable console.

_______________________________________________

"STAGE CLEAR!" Yelled the announcer.

"YES!" Palette cheered as she looked at the badly-beaten-up dragon lying down on the ground defeated as her avatar did a victory pose on the screen of her little portable.

"Wow, that took a while...I've probably levelled up enough to go to the next stage, let's see...Smoky Skies?" just then, something hit her head like a metal pipe, "Wait...smoke?"

She looked up from the screen, she must've been too absorbed into beating the boss, because she then realized that the smell of smoke was coming from the oven, "Oh, no..."

Just then, the door opened, Alia and Layer walked in, "Hey, Palette, sorry for being late, there was a small complicat-" Alia paused as she saw what was going on, they both rushed to the oven and immediately took the cookies out, what should've been cookies with a nice, golden brown color were now a very, very dark brown.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't pay enough attention, it's my fault, and-"

"It's alright, Palette, we can always try again next time." Layer told her, "There's always a first time for everything, after all."

"Thanks, Layer." Palette smiled, she looked at the cookies, "They may be burnt, but they could still taste good, have hope." Alia told her.

Just as Palette was about to grab a cookie, Alia grabbed her hand, "We'll still have to wait for them to cool, be patient."

"Alright, fine..." Palette mumbled, despite the fact that she was starving, well, not really, Reploids couldn't really get hungry the same way humans do, but she just needed to fuel herself up with some food, nevertheless, she waited.

_______________________________________________

A while later, they sat down at a table in the HQ's cafeteria, eating the burnt cookies (which were still pretty good, surprisingly) and sharing small stories and laughing together, Palette had noticed a slight personality change in them recently, they had become more relaxed and cheery with the lack of any threats, which was a good thing, they all needed a nice break every now and then.

"So, what did you think of your first baking session, Palette?" Layer asked, "I hope that, um, incident didn't ruin it all."

"Oh, not at all!" Palette told them, "it was actually...kinda nice, we should try this again sometime!" She grinned.

"Glad that you enjoyed it!" Alia said, "Speaking of trying it again, there's going to be a new Navigator working with us in a few weeks, why don't we try and bake these again as a welcome gift?" She suggested.

"That sounds like a good idea," Layer nodded her head, "Her name was...RiCO, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, RiCO, she seems to be very enthusiastic about working with us, seems like a nice person, what do you say?"

"I'm in!" Palette cheered, "...As long as I don't mess up again, heheh!"

_______________________________________________

(Author's Notes): Whew! Finally finished this after ages and ages of procrastination-I mean, schoolwork! I'll admit, part of me didn't want to write this chapter after a while, I wanted to write a baking fic, but it turns out that I was incapable of writing out baking stories, I also feel a bit skeptical about my characterization of the Navigators, Alia in particular, I prefer her more serious and hardworking personality in X5-X7, but I guess her softer X8 personality was better for a fic like this.

Anyways, I'll still be working on this, don't worry, next up is an Axl chapter!

Ack, almost forgot! Here's the recipe I used (and butchered) for this chapter!

#megaman x #mega man #mega man x #megaman #mmx #rockman #rockman x #fanfic #fanfiction

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roseduroi · 5 years

Text

Innocent question, sincere answer, and an honest person || Chris Evans

Pairing: Father!ChrisEvans x Daughter!Reader

Word count: 3,351

Summary: Some questions are answered sincerely, others - not so much. The truth behind a sincere answer can be hurtful to an honest person. It hurts, but it’s the truth.

{A/N}: Not so long ago I watched “Gifted” and it inspired me to write this imagine. I may even do a part two of this (it’s really not how I wanted it to end, but it was getting too long) and to be honest, it takes me a while to write something properly.

English isn’t my native language, I’m so sorry for the mistakes.

“Probably all of us here in this studio have seen the movie ‘Gifted’?" Ellen asked the audience and they all nodded their heads, shouting something like 'yes', but the sound of applause overshadowed the answer. "I know right, it's a great movie!"

"So please welcome the co-star Chris Evans!" Ellen said, applauding as well. "Unfortunately, the mini copy of him couldn't make it today." She added as she stood up and shook Chris' hand.

Evans sat down in the white armchair after he greeted Ellen and the audience, a big smile playing on his lips. "Yeah, my little girl is with her mother in London. Haven't seen her in two weeks." He pouted, but inside his heart ached.

"I'm sure Y/N misses you too, Evans, and so does your wife." Ellen said and smiled, remembering the adorable little girl from the movie. "Recently released movie ‘Gifted’ left a really great impression for all of us, I believe. For me, I especially noticed the strong bond between the uncle and his niece."

"Yeah, the movie really has a deep meaning and a few good lessons we all could learn from." Chris nodded his head and looked at the woman in front of him.

"The title of the movie itself is a play on words that holds a deeper meaning. I mean, yes, the little girl, Mary, is a gifted individual. She's a mathematical prodigy. However, she is also gifted with her uncle's love. And vice versa. Frank, the uncle, and Mary is a gift to each other. The family itself is a gift, even when said family is of two, three, or four, or not even blood-related. Meanwhile, Evelyn, Mary's grandmother, Frank's mother, is what happens when you don't appreciate that gift. When you take things for granted. And how fast you can lose them."

"And-and then you have to fight for it if you don't want that to happen," Ellen added, nodding her head in agreement. "So tell me, what was the hardest scene to film? Personally for you?"

"Personally for me," The young man paused, thinking. "I think it would be the final scene between my character, Frank, and his niece, Mary. Their reunion."

"Yeah, the scene was really intense." Ellen nodded, agreeing. "But your little girl did it like a pro. The crying and emotional disclosure, it was really realistic."

"Chris, where were you hiding such a talent?" The woman asked, laughing along with the audience.

The actor chuckled as well, but his face immediately changed as he started talking. "Y/N is a very sensitive person and one of the reasons why I didn't let her act sooner was because people are very cruel these days." He explained.

"And um... I remember one time when she came home from school crying because other kids were bullying her because she was my daughter. My daughter." Chris continued as Ellen's eyes widened a little bit. She didn't understand how people, especially the young ones, could be so merciless. Y/N was just a kid and she was already bullied. "So I guess I just... I want to protect her."

"’Course you do, she’s your child. You only want the best for them, even if they can’t see it, yet." Ellen muffled and looked down, but quickly lifted her gaze up and covered her unpleased feelings with the next question. "What made you change your mind about Y/N and acting?"

"My wife," Chris answered. "She made me realize I can't protect her from everything. I can't stop the world from hurting my kid, but what I can do for them is to be there as a supportive father."

"Your wife is a very wise woman." She complimented and the man nodded his head, agreeing. "So from what I’ve heard now, the final scene between Frank and Mary has a specific place in your heart. It holds a great meaning to you, doesn’t it?"

"The moment between those characters is very special. It shows how much Frank and Mary actually need each other. Their bond, how strong it is. It's very important, in my opinion." Chris explained. "Frank apologizes because he let her go, he gave up. He let his niece down, broke her trust, everything they had. He made a mistake. And he knows it."

"He did all that because he thought he wasn't good enough." Ellen finished for him.

"Yeah, I guess, that's kinda the point." The actor agreed, his eyebrows knitted together a little. "W-we... I and Y/N, rehearsed that scene many times. Whether there were cameras or not, people around us or if we were alone in our hotel room. We just practiced."

"It was not an easy scene. In general, one of the hardest things actors have to do is to transfer the emotions to the audience." Chris said, looking at Ellen, who was listening carefully. "And it was a hard scene for Y/N, too. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why it means so much to me."

"What do you mean?" The woman asked confused as she moved back a little, trying to get comfy in her seat. "The girl basically nailed it."

"That she did. I'm very proud of her." The corners of his lips lifted a little, but his facial expression became serious soon after he continued talking. "It was a very last minute she realized she actually had to make, you know, physical contact. That she actually had to hit me. And I guess it scared her, upset her." Chris tried to explain as best as he could.

"Y/N isn't a violent person, she wouldn't hurt a fly, especially her loved ones." The actor continued.

"And.. and did you have to say what? That-that, it was okay to hit you? Or-" Ellen asked, making small gestures with her hands.

"Yeah, something like that." He answered, moving his head a little. "She apologized so many times after the scene and every time I had to comfort her that it was okay, that it wasn't real, you know? She didn’t hurt me."

Ellen nodded her head, understanding what he had in mind. It probably wasn't easy for someone as gentle as Y/N to raise a hand against someone who was raising her and taking care of her, even if it was only for a movie. It's hard to hurt someone who you love and who loves you back.

"You're a leading actor in a lot of big movies, Avengers and Captain America. And now this film, which has just come out." The woman said and some main pictures of the movies started showing on the big screen behind their backs. "How do you manage to balance both your family and your job? I mean, you spend how much time on set? Six months? Seven? More?"

"Yeah, something about six," Chris answered, scratching the back of his neck. "It's hard, you know, to be away from your family. I mean, sure, we facetime each other when we get free time. We text and send pictures to one another on social media, as well, but it's not the same as eye to eye."

Chris was talking so honestly that not only you could tell that he was hurting and telling the truth from his eyes, but you could hear the pain in his voice as well.

Home is where the heart is. It's a timeless old quote. And Chris‘ heart was wherever his family was, it was his safe haven. Every time he was away, his heart was cracking into billions of small pieces of longing, which over time always came back and lunged at his heart with even harder stabs. He missed them. A lot. And every time the actor was far away from them, miles and miles apart, he felt as his soul was being taken. Chris felt like he was missing out so much. And in fact, he was.

He remembers the day where he was away from home, once again, filming yet another movie. That evening he received a video snap from his wife. She filmed Y/N's first steps. He missed that too. He wasn't there when his little girl said her first words either. Chris never felt so much regret in his life as he felt in that exact moment.

"I feel like I'm missing out on Y/N's life. She's growing up so fast and I'm never home." Chris said, a drop of pain hidden in his voice. "I feel like I'm failing my job as a father to Y/N and a husband to my wife." He said, remembering his little girl's heartbreaking words, how they slipped from her mouth so frailly, full of longing, craving for her dad to be home like a vulnerable snowflake on the warm palm in the silent night.

"Evans," Ellen said meekly, not believing with her own ears what the young actor just said. "You're not a bad father and you're not failing them. God, it's very opposite to that, Chris. Why do you think that in the first place?"

The blonde-haired man looked at the woman, sitting in front of him with eyes full of sadness, a sad small smile on his face as a small flashback started playing in his mind.

"Do you want to go to sleep?" Chris asked Y/N and closed the door of their hotel room. He turned around to look at his daughter, who put her favorite plush teddy bear, which he got her when he and his wife found out they were pregnant, on the bed. She always carried Bowie, the teddy bear, with herself, no matter where she was going. He was her toy-best-friend and friends don't leave each other behind.

"Mmm, I'm not tired yet." Y/N mumbled and climbed up on the bed. Her big eyes following her dad's every move from him taking off his boots to him putting his bag and jacket on the chair.

They had just come back from work, it was a hard day for both of them. They were filming the scene where Frank leaves Mary at the foster "parents'" care. Everything went pretty normally, the director had complimented them, saying the scene was well done and that work for today was done, after all, it was already pretty late. But not everything went that well as everyone thought. Sure, the scene was done, it was great as the producers said, but something was off with Y/N. Chris could tell that something was bothering her, even when she smiled at them, but he was her dad, she could fool anyone, just not him.

Chris looked at the little girl, who was staring at him for a while, and frowned as she dropped her gaze to the ground when their eyes met. She was avoiding him which meant he wasn't wrong, something really was bothering her.

The young actor sighed. "Okay. That's enough." He knelt in front of her and placed his left hand on her knee, causing her to flinch away from him. Chris knitted his eyebrows together. Did he do something wrong?

"What's up with you now? You've been avoiding me ever since we shooted that scene." He asked, trying to make eye contact with her, but when she still didn't let him, the worried father placed his warm palm on her rosy cheek, lifting her head a bit, finally meeting her beautiful eyes, just like her mother's, even if that gaze was shy and timid.

"Cupcake, what's wrong?" Chris asked her softly, his eyes filled with worry as he saw her teary gaze. "Do you miss mum? We can call her if you want." He gently tucked her soft hair behind her ear as he talked. But she shook her head no and closed her eyes for a short moment as tears started streaming down her cheeks, making the young actor's heart ache.

"Then what's wrong?" He asked her patiently. Chris knew that if he raised his voice just a little bit or seemed just a little bit angry or annoyed at her, she would just shut him out even more. Everyone does that, but no one notices. When a person feels horrible he either is quiet or he wants to pour out every problem, every ache he felt in his heart for so long and just once have somebody to listen, and if the listener gets annoyed and makes the other feel more pain, he will just scare the other away. Because no one wants to be not understood.

"Or did somebody hurt you?" The man asked, his eyes flashed with anger for a split second. Because, oh, God help that person who dared to hurt his little girl.

"Uh-uh, I'm good." Y/N murmured. "Everyone is nice to me."

"Then why are you crying?" He asked her, using his thumbs to gently brush away the silver droplets from her cheeks. "You know you can tell daddy everything. I’m here for you. Always.”

And it was all she needed to finally break. She jumped straight into his arms, burying her face in his chest, her arms firmly wrapped around his waist, laud sobs escaping her mouth. Chris gasped from her so sudden movement, not expecting anything like that to happen, but he quickly hugged her back. His strong arms wrapped themselves around her frail form as his fingers softly rubbed small circles on her back.

"Shh, sweetheart, it's okay, I've got you." He soothed her. "You're safe. But you've still got to tell me what's wrong, baby girl. I need to know."

Chris frowned a little when she murmured something he couldn't make out. The man pulled away from her and brushed the falling salty droplets away. "I'm sorry, cupcake, but I couldn't hear you. Can you repeat what you said?" He asked her gently and she nodded her head but didn't look at him.

"Please don't leave me." She whispered and there was a moment of silence.

"W-what?" Chris stuttered. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped to the ground. The time itself seemed to slow down and the dead silence hung above them, surrounding both of them as a big angry enemy of theirs.

Chris couldn't take his eyes off of his daughter, he couldn't believe his own ears what he's just heard, what she's just said. Or perhaps he didn't want to. Chris didn't want to believe that Y/N, his beautiful child, would ever think that he (or her mum) would... could ever leave her. He didn't want to think that this kind of thought has ever crossed her mind and how painful it must have been for her to think that he didn't love her enough and someday there would be a day when he'd decide to leave her behind.

He felt his heart crush, then crack into two different yet so similar, full of helplessness halves and finally, it felt like it was cruelly ripped out of his chest and then dropped into the mud without any mercy. The hardest part of being a parent is watching your child hurt and feel helpless. Especially if the cause of that pain is the parent himself.

"Y/N, babe, can you look at me?" Chris asked gently, his eyes full of sadness but glued on her. He took her chin in his hand, gently lifting her face. Y/N watery eyes met his blue ones and his heart clenched in the ache of guilt, knowing he was the reason behind her tears.

"Why would you think that, sweetie?" He asked her, his thumbs caressing her rosy cheeks gently.

Y/N let out a small sob, closing her eyes tightly and forcing more tears to roll down her cheeks. "B-because that s-scene felt so r-real."

"You're... you're never home and," the little girl whimpered. "and I-I miss you so much."

"Oh, Y/N," he whispered and felt as his own eyes started to well up. He pulled her into his embrace and she laid her head against his chest, letting the tears freely flow and sink into his shirt.

"A-and... and I just want to be worthy of you."

Chris' breath hitched in his throat and he gently pushed Y/N away from him, so that he could look into her eyes once again. "Y/N, you are good enough, you are worthy. I love you for all that you are, all that you have been, and all you are yet to be."

"When you were born, there were a lot of sleepless nights, tiring days, early morning rises because you wanted to see sunrises. There was a lot of salivae, a lot of angry tears and morning cries. There was a lot of food on the ground and me when I tried to feed you. Mum's still the best at this." He chuckled a little.

"But I wouldn't have it any other way: I wouldn't change anything, even if somebody gave me the chance. I would do it over and over again. And I'd be just as much as happy as the first time."

"You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, my little monkey." His daughter smiled at the nickname. "I would never abandon you, Y/N, and neither would your mum. I would never leave you or ignore you when you need a shoulder to cry on. Never forget that and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Chris told her, sincerely, and kissed her forehead, pulling her closer to him as Y/N wrapped her arms around her father's neck and softly whispered. "I love you too, dad. Thank you."

"So, I guess at that moment, I did feel like I was failing Y/N and my wife, letting them down," Chris said, looking at Ellen. "But that day we got even closer with Y/N. People fall and then they get up to try again, the only difference is that that that time they know where they stumbled."

Ellen smiled. "Indeed."

Chris continued to talk with such a concentration that he didn't even notice the audience's shocked facial expression and small grins appearing on their faces when a small frame started slinking towards the actor.

Just as he started to notice the odd behavior, he flinched as he felt small delicate hands on his broad shoulders and a loud 'boo' coming from someone behind him. The actor widened his blue eyes and confusingly looked at Ellen who was laughing in her armchair. He turned around and looked at the person who's just scared him only to be surprised even more.

"Hi, daddy!" A cheerful voice greeted him. Chris looked back at Ellen as if not believing his own eyes when he saw his daughter standing just a few steps away from him and was the only one who scared him. He quickly rose up from his seat and swooped his baby girl right into his arms.

Y/N waved at the audience, a big smile playing on her lips. She flashed Ellen a grin and the woman smiled back at the little girl in the father's arms, mouthing something like 'you scared him' to her.

"I thought you were with mummy!" Chris exclaimed, his happy smile not going anywhere as his eyes scanned Y/N's face.

"I am," She answered and looked at the audience, searching for her mother's appearance. "There she is!" Y/N pointed her finger at her mum once she caught a short glimpse of her.

Chris looked over the audience and his face brightened when he saw his wife sitting there, waving at them a little and mouthing a small 'surprise' to him. He kissed his daughter’s temple and tightened his hold on her.

He really was a happy man.

Some answers are hurtful, it stabs you in your heart and leaves you bleeding. But that’s just the truth. What’s more hurtful is to admit it and accept it. And when you finally do it, it may hurt just less.

#chris evans #chris evans imagine #chris evans x reader #father!chrisevans x daughter!reader #gifted movie #frank adler #mary adler #the ellen show #new writers on tumblr

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