#AoS meta

[tremorsmackenzie]

a major problem that im having is that there is no quake spinoff. like, daisys story is insane in agents of shield, they did so much with her and everyone elses character. but she deserves to get a really character focused show of her own like agent carter and jessica jones were for those characters.

give me the daisy johnson story dammit.

[tiredgatt0]

Rewatching Aos again and I'm in the middle of season 1:

the first season is a Lot better than I remember, I do not understand why people hate on it.

The scene where Phil figures out who the Clairvoyant is. You can see it in his eyess

There are so many little moments that jump out a lot more if you keep in mind what's about to happen

How Ward was suprised when Phil told him that May was a mole

Or how ofcourse it was Garrett that told Ward that Hand was the Clairvoyant

Also you can see the moment Ward knew that he has to get rid of Hand (it was when she explicitly mentioned that she and Phil are the highest ranking agents left)

Also was the scene were Simmons and Trip were alone in the lab, just found out that one of them might be a double agent and there was a knife - was that foreshadowing to one of the most epic scenes ever?

Don't even get me started on Simmons dramatically saying "I'm getting better at it" in regards to lying

[succulentlesbians]

Daisy’s Powers (analysis + extensions)

Things that Daisy can canonically do with her powers (non-exhaustive):

- shake objects around her (earth, glass, guns) causing them to become unstable and break (primarily unconsciously done due to high emotions and without her arms) (also can do it on purpose (“I moved a mountain,” destroying the shrike) but still without arms)

- shoot waves of vibrations (primarily through her arms although we do see it coming from her whole body in s7) (she can also build these up to make them more powerful)

- tune into specific frequencies and match her vibrations to those frequencies (making glasses sing, holding open the portal) (by brain power)

- absorb earthquakes/energy (the bomb, koras energy) (mostly with help of her gauntlets) (through arms)

- manipulate water (making it swirl) (by concentration)

- sense the structure of items (jemma having bones vs being a robot) (somehow through a wave of vibration?)

- enhanced hearing (heard the monolith when others didn’t) (unconscious)

Her powers are described as being able to tap into vibrations (“the ability to sense the various frequency vibrations in her environment and manipulate them”).

I would say that her abilities are split into three categories: unconscious, by thought, and by channeling.

TLDR; I theorize on science and Daisy’s ability to create longitudinal waves, influence frequencies, and increase atomic/molecular energy in expressing her powers.

Her unconscious abilities are the ones where she just knows shit, like what frequency stuff is at. I don’t believe these can really be changed or added too.

By thought are ones where she doesn’t visibly have her powers coming out of her arms. There are multiple occasions where she naturally explodes things. Sometimes she still raises her arms, but I think that’s more of a crutch than a requirement.

Finally her channeling is what actually goes through her arms. This causes her pain if it’s done too much because while her body is reportedly built for her powers, it can still only take so much.

There’s some mixing between the categories that’s confusing. Sometimes she can vibrate things by thought. Sometimes she has to use her arms.

IMO, what she needs her arms for is projecting vibrations, ie not just making it vibrate more but actually pushing air around to create the effect. Everything else she should be able to concentrate and tap into (If we are permitting her to be OP as hell outside of a story’s context).

Things that Daisy could maybe do with her powers (some mine, some general fanon takes):

- mentally do everything except concussive blasts/waves of force.

- channel through other limbs

- learn what different vibrations mean and actually associate them with materials/actions (ie oh that’s a gun vs an icer) (includes identifying heat, heartbeats, movements)

- heat/cool things (increasing kinetic energy, heat is just atoms moving faster)

- explode things more often. why does she do this so little?? (explode -> shake them apart, give so much kinetic energy that the molecular bonds are broken)

- create/amplify/stop sound waves (her vibrational pushes should be longitudinal waves. Sound waves are also longitudinal. Canonically she’s attuned to sounds already. This makes total sense. Her vibrations already come with that billowing sound effect that must be her natural frequency. If she could change that, she can make different sounds. Boom.)

- cause radiation? if she could make an atom to become unstable and split apart…

- in terms of light… I’m split on this. Light is not a longitudinal wave, it’s transverse (wave motion is perpendicular rather than parallel to the particle motion) and so I wouldn’t say that Daisy would be able to impact light necessarily. However, light does have frequencies that correspond to colors/wavelengths (for the parts outside the visible). So if we were truly taking an OP daisy, she might be able to influence the color of things etc by changing the frequency of light?

If we accept this, it opens up huge possibilities. Being able to see heat in the dark bc she changes the infrared to red. Stopping radio transmissions. Never getting skin cancer because she won’t let UV light hit her. Etc. light is a huge spectrum. I’m sure I’m not even thinking of a fraction of the possibilities.

However I feel like this specifically would be really hard too because light (like radio waves) is passing around us constantly. So being able to isolate it would be crazy hard.

Anyway. Her powers are crazy and I like physics so it’s a good thought project.

[samanthaswishes]

I watched The Legend of Korra for the first time 6 months ago, and it quickly became one of my favorite shows along with Agents of SHIELD, and I've been meaning to make this post since then, but I keep forgetting.

I wish Agents of SHIELD treated Daisy's trauma the way The Legend of Korra treated Korra's trauma.

Daisy and Korra are very similar characters, but it is kinda funny (not funny for them, very sad for them but funny that it happened this way) that coincidentally both of them experience extreme physical and mental trauma at the end of their third seasons and had to deal with the aftermath during their fourth seasons.

In the case of Daisy, she was belittled and torn down by the people that were supposed to be her family because she took some time away and was told to get over it. I've made several posts about how much I hated that treatment of her trauma. Daisy was only away for six months, yet the SHIELD team, mostly Fitz, tore into her for "turning her back" on them. Which she didn't, but again, I've made posts about this, so I won't get into it. Then when she came back and was struggling with her powers, she was then again belittled, by you know who, for not being at the level she used to be. Her powers, though very much needed, were taken advantage of.

However, in the case of Korra, who was away to recover for three years, had very a supportive treatment from her family and friends. When she wanted to rush her healing, she was told that she was allowed to take as much time as she needed to heal. And even when she was stuck in her own depression and anger, everyone was understanding. They would actually talk to Korra, hoping that she would push herself to heal, but not forcing it upon her. And when Korra's power wasn't exactly up to scale, no one blamed her for it and was very understanding of that too (except President Raiko, but no one likes him, so he doesn't count).

Both Daisy and Korra received a "tough love" aspect in their shows, Daisy from May and Korra from Toph. Those talks weren't belittling (Okay, Toph was a little belittling, but that's just Toph, and she means it in the best way). They were actually what pushed both Daisy and Korra that they weren't alone in their healing, and being around others could actually help them.

All in all, say what you want about The Legend of Korra in regards to how it compares to its predecessor Avatar: The Last Airbender, one of the best pieces of media I've watched, it does an amazing job at portraying trauma and healing (ATLA did too, but I was just felt so connected to TLOK's storyline). I know I probably left out a lot of other details about her healing, but I also don't want to give too much spoilers in case someone who hasn't watched the show reads this and maybe wants to check it out one day.

Again, I just wish Agents of SHIELD, my favorite show ever, treated Daisy, my favorite character of all time, and her traumas with the same respect and care that TLOK did for Korra.

[backgroundagent3]

for the character ask, daisy johnson!

Thank you so much for the ask! 💜 I love any excuse to talk about Daisy Johnson.

First impression: I'm trying to squeeze my brain here, but all I remember was trying not to like her at first because I knew se was a double agent for the Rising Tide. It goes without saying I failed miserably about three episodes in.

Impression now: She is my favourite character of all time.

Favorite moment: I really can't choose, but one that comes to mind was the final fight of season 5. I think it's a very underrated fight scene, because it's the end of the world, her dad is dying, she has been recently betrayed and tortured by her friend, and she still goes into battle BY HERSELF against Talbot, and if that wasn't bad enough, when she's about to die a horrible death she realises that the only way she can save the world is if she takes the serum and basically condemns the person she loves most to his death. It's so heartbreaking and poetic, but very cool to watch, and I just love so much it, idk.

Idea for a story: This is angsty but I would love to read something where the events of 5.14 are properly dealt with. May watches the security cameras and goes ballistic on Fitz, and Daisy gets time to grieve and heal. They get Coulson back and he's horrified, and Jemma is so conflicted but she's there for her best friend.

Unpopular opinion: Since apparently I can't stop thinking about season 5, here's some more. I think she actually did a good job of leading the team in season 5b. Especially if you consider that she's been recently tortured, her family doesn't seem to care, she has no experience, and hasn't gotten a good nights sleep in about 5 years. She might be tough, but hello? IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD?? You have to be at least a little bossy if you wanna make it through that. Also if you're gonna be a baby and call her a hard ass maybe you should have thought twice before joining SHIELD.

Favorite relationship: If it's romantic, then Sousa. I love them so so much, they're literally perfect and despite my obvious outrage at season 5, I will forever love the AoS writers for somehow pulling that off. As for platonic relationships, I'd say May. She's the perfect mother figure for her, and I love the parallels between them. I think Daisy has the best relationships in general, but this one is my favourite. Honourable mentions go to Coulson for being the most unhinged dad ever, and to Jemma for being the sweetest friend in the earlier seasons.

Favorite headcanon: before she goes off to space at the end of season 7, she rebuilds Afterlife with the help of Sousa and Kora. I've said this before, but I think they are actually the perfect team to do this. Kora has lived in Afterlife her whole life, she's seen Jiaying help people go through Terrigenesis, and she's been though it herself in a much healthier and safer environment than Daisy. Sousa is reasonable and calm, which are good qualities to have when you're helping someone who's terrified and potentially dangerous. He has experience leading people, which I think would make him a good mentor for the Inhumans. So Kora has the experience, Sousa has the qualities, and in my opinion, Daisy has a nice combination of the two. She has a different and much more horrifying experience of Terrigenesis that people who accidentally go though it can relate to, and she has spent years exploring and controlling her powers, so she knows what the deal is. And she's also a good leader, so where Sousa can help the Inhumans pre-Terrigenesis, she can train them after if that's what they want. Because that's another thing, SHIELD may be funding Afterlife, but they've learnt their lesson and they're not sticking their noses where they shouldn't. They accept new recruits and help train them, but if that's not what the Inhumans want, then SHIELD helps them get settled back into their normal lives. Anyways this got long but it's one of my favourite headcanons, so there you go.

Thank you so much for the ask! Sorry for rambling, but I have a lot to say about Daisy. 🌼💛

Character Asks.

[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.

[an-inky-fingered-lass]

i still have SO many feelings about the may & robin storyline, and just robin in general, honestly. like, i will seriously try and write a coherent thing about this at some point, but just. awestruck feels of the Soft Variety. it’s just- things brought full circle in the most gorgeous way. it’s a such a kind story, and it’s one of the most special to me in anything ever, i think. may has lost all hope so many times in so many ways. but she’s spent building so much time building herself back from so many personal ends, and when everything ends she becomes the person who keeps hope. she from not wanting hope she becomes the person that carries that hope for everyone.

robin is so young and has lived through so little and at once so much. more than anyone can fathom. she sees death and destruction behind her eyes all the time but that also makes the only person who sees the possibility of hope, the possibility of something that seems inevitable going differently. a chance for a better world, a better future. and it’s may who takes her in, takes care of her - in so many ways robin represents everything may never thought she could have, could be ever again: a mother. someone who could nurture, protect, love, hope. a source of comfort. unafraid.

You weren’t afraid of what I could do.

may knows what it is to have a hell inside your head. to find a way out, to find the hope, the light. it’s not the same thing, but it IS. robin knew, all her days, that she was safe. may believed in her. may was herself- everything she was, everything her life had made her, and that meant someone who made a little girl feel safe. that meant someone who never gave up hope. she lost so much and she loved even harder and because of THAT- because she believed in a little girl who saw a better world- because of that the world was saved.

AGH.

their exchange in the flashback is one of my favorite bits of dialogue.

may: you tell me your vision of us saving the world.

robin: but I’ve never seen that vision.

may: you will.

i’ve been feeling like I need a break from writing may lately, and have simultaneously been having kind of a hard time with that (in all fairness, i’ve written two frickin novels’ worth of her over the past almost two years and little else… this relates to both points). so. working on giving myself less of a hard time about, um, most things really, but especially ebbing and flowing inspiration. but i really really want to write something for them someday. this story is so, so special to me.

[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!

[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. 

[tremorsmackenzie]

they should put me in charge of making movies. i would like make a movie with spies on a plane and i would cast chloe bennet and enver gjokaj and dianne doan, and theyre a team and they have to recover some future gizmo, and they would work for a not further explored spy agency headed by henry simmons and it totally wouldnt be a secret agents of shield continuation i swear

also i would hire maurissa tancharoen and jed whedon as writers and producers

[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

[succulentlesbians]

daisy & yelena are so interesting to me bc they went through the same sort of trauma (brainwashing by forces they couldn’t counter) but they came out with different primary issues from it.

daisy’s main problem is with what she did while under hives control, while yelenas difficulty is that she doesn’t know who she is and has never been able to choose.

not to say that they don’t have each others issues too: yelena def feels guilt over killing the widow who freed her and I feel like daisy too has many issues with who she is but it’s not their main thing with the mind control.

this is rooted in two things for me:

one, daisy’s mind control was actively like a positive drug where she craved it (even trying to go back to it) while yelena was more of a passenger in her mind so daisy was happy to do whatever harm to please hive and if it made him happy she felt good about it (brings more guilt after.) I feel like yelena could be much more neutral about the things she did because she likely felt less good about them

two, yelena was raised from a very young age to be an assassin and so it seems as though killing doesn’t bother her so much, plus daisy specifically had guilt bc she hurt her team who she had the space to bond with before to make it more devastating. and with being an assassin from six, yelena never even had the opportunity to grow up semi normally so she’s never experienced so many things that daisy has so it makes sense that she’s totally lost there.

honestly daisys reaction is more like natashas in a way because they both feel they have to atone for what they’ve done and attempt to do good. yelena is more like yeah that happened, it wasn’t my fault, and now let me live my fucking life ok.

[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.

[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.

[astrid-goes-for-a-spin]

do you know something I think about all the time. What exactly does LMD Coulson remember? They say he has all of Coulson's memories but the last time Coulson had a brain scan would have been late s4. Meaning LMD Coulson wouldn't remember anything that happened in season 5, right? Except he clearly does know what happened; how does this work? I assume they fed him facts about it but. What does he think about this? What does he feel about not remembering his deal and his death? Considering all the other ruminating he does in s7 I wish they'd put some of this in, but I suspect the writers just forgot

[tremorsmackenzie]

i just realized that the season 1 title card is literally, 100% the same logo that is on the bridge of the helicarrier in the first avengers movie, behind the control area. the same piping, backlight, everything. i love this attention to detail omg!

Agents of SHIELD logos and title cards throughout the seasons (1/?)