#faorism meta

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we gotta talk about eliot looking back at his early relationships in the car with parker. the intimacy and detail there between both stories, putting them on the same level as if we should recognize them. there's mention of a rescue mission, without pronouns, and we know of at least one guy who saved eliot after he was shot in the army. what im saying is aimee is obviously story one, and paul orozco is story two. there was a way eliot stumbled over himself, like this is the first time he's saying out loud that paul counts, even if it was purely emotional. and then bi panic. im all for bi the whole time eliot, obviously, but this is my acceptance of him finally opening up.

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we also literally see parker and eliot make this choice in the rundown job, in the train. the nod they shared. the splitting of ways. not knowing the outcome but both (not only eliot) deciding to protect hardison even if it costs both their lives.

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tara cole is SO cool and good at her job that former ceo for international beefed up security corporation didn't recognize her on sight

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absolutely wyll romancing astarion. spoilers below!

as i learned when i noticed someone had options i didn't get during the camp celebration night, there is precise pathing in wylls romance to avoid a bug(?) WHICH HAS YOU NOT HAVE HIM IN YOUR PARTY WTF that had me restart at the door of the underdark

i also definitely missed some subtle dialogue cues for wyll, while it's always very obvious what will seduce astarion let astarion seduce you.

it also doesn't say in the link above, but another person said asking wyll about his eye also breaks the romance. might have been an earlier patch, but i decided not to test it

you miss out on astarions lovely snippy comments and i miss his voice so much

maybe i am just so desperate for wyll interactions, but i feels other companions' reactions are prioritized above wylls? i hear SO much more from karlach, but astarions comments were definitely frequent or at least very memorable

im going to write a post about this, but unlike other companions who have persistent dialogue options, astarion does not until later on the game, and as of post-grove without romance path, wyll doesn't either. what astarion does have is the permission to feed on you. it was a delightful chore to always tell him he can. there was something somewhat transactional about it. and like people in other reblogs shared, it implies that wyll is kinda just relieving some tension even tho he knows (with a passed insight check) there's something fake about astarions approach. i really like this dynamic for how messy it is

astarion calling you darling and dear all the time 😭

wearing the bloodless condition with pride was so hot to me.......

astarion starts off strong in act i, cools off in act ii, and then boy when you complete his quest in act iii it's just so lovely.

people have spoken about wyll being underwritten. not sure for the wyll romance, but comparing astarion romance to wyll as a mainstay companion (during a tav/shadowheart run), it's definitely doesn't have the same punch as astarions emotionally imo. like,, the emotional resolution between cazador and dad/aldur ain't the same. (i personally wished ravenguard was less a set piece for all we had to go thru to find him since act i. because bruh the daddy issues there are SO real. i desperately wish that wyll reacted to the contents of his father's vault 😭)

astarion would absolutely hate being pushed into leadership (def npc in his own life energy, so he can observe others and react rather than being the one to be decisive) while wyll is the origin who steps up to the challenge

imo there is no way to play origin astarion as companion accurate while trying to impress wyll. you are forced into the noble/heroic actions or else wyll absolutely will disapprove.

meanwhile, there was only one thing i absolutely had to do where wyll that felt ooc, which was allow astarion to kill the gur hunter. (in my playthrough, i long rested immediately after the fight and astarion started the romance then. which. was so fucking depressing and wonderfully tragic in retrospect.)

in my abandoned playthrough, i was also flirting with gale and karlach with astarion. it was honestly bizarre to see how sincere, tender, and kind astarion is as origin. wyll, on the other hand, is absolutely that sincere, tender, and kind

THAT SAID i like the rp of occasionally dropping the weight of The Blade Of Frontiers and allowing himself to (as @lesbianralzarek brilliantly described) be a cunt sometimes. this ultimately is one of the biggest draws for me. i adore literal prince wyll and i cannot wait to carry on thru the romance to see him at his peak dreamy. however, im still struck with the line from companion wyll for why he hid his connection to mizora. something like, his is a tale of two men. he wanted you to know the blade, and not the shadow from the past. and like. UHDNDNDKS i really loved rp'ing from his guy who might not usually do something like this and not usually with a guy like astarion, and he doesn't see himself as a full person deserving of letting loose and living outside the grand persona. growing just a tad bit morally gray (or just a touch impolite tbh) on the small things felt like a natural way to allow the shadow to be lit

the other major reason is more ymmv: i am deeply interested in the exploration of trauma, and knowing what i know about astarions backstory, i am missing that as part of the relationship from what ive seen so far with astarion origin. like, the man says "dont touch me" hundreds of times thru a playthrough when you switch to him; having that be reflected in the rp (in terms of him not wanting to have sex after act ii for awhile) moved me. again, idk enough about wylls romance (other than the dance scene on my tav which RIP at me having to break the poor man's heart over rejecting him) so maybe my opinion will shift!

and the most important reason: romancing astarion means playing with wyll, and he is so good and sweet and i just wanna look at that man for hours on end and you should too haha

Wyllstarion people, is it best to romance Wyll with Astarion or romance Astarion with Wyll? Who has the most extra content?

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yessssss girl bite your man AFTER knowing its him

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[lev:red 3.04 spoilers] wild af eliot has never watched (or retained) lotr with hardison, UNTIL you realize how deeply scifi core hardison must be. no high fantasy for that man (except for WoW?? but not spirits ruse). maybe that's why eliot has clearly been the kind of bf dragged to a con, but it didn't seem like he was brought to a renaissance fair. maybe hardison and bre exhibit some dimorphic geek behaviors in the foster system (/j), wherein hardison went for video games and bre went for the ttrps.

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TARA YOURE SO HOT

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awhhhh thanks (fic in question here). and what would kinda curly haired envy would i be who launched a 100k+ fic series on a fic about eliots hair without putting in a few quick observations before bed:

the reason his hair looks especially good at the baseball stadium is because of sweat. in the og series, there are a few other moments that clearly the stunts had him drenched. i think of the dead giveaway that was the tap-out job: there was no way with all that was involved with the mma fight choreography, that the straightening was gonna keep. i expect his hair burst into near ringlets because between takes, his hair air-dried a little before the next attempt. my hair does the same thing under similar conditions.

i feel his biggest issue—even above the damage from late aughts blow outs, which all looked crunchy—is that he is stripping the oils out of his hair. likely from over-shampooing and under-conditioning. he can also be doing things "right" by seeking out products at the pharmacy marked for curly; while those can yield some improvement (ie pantene which i used at first), those are still made with harsh chemicals. for comparison, i use shampoo a couple times a year (usually during the summer), but i co-wash daily. but on the end, he needs more build-up to balancing out his very thirsty hair.

the only time ive seen his hair look remotely greasy is in the park for the big bang job. but that felt to me more a sadboi thing than a perpetual issue just based on what makes it on camera.

i also think its ckane not getting how to treat his hair because theres one picture of him at an awards show in the ugliest outfit ever with horrible color tinted hair which looks like fucking straw.

i speculate his hair looks better on average in lev:red for a couple reasons. better techniques and technology from hair & makeup developed over a decade between shows is one. i think as he ages his hair might be thinning some, wherein his hairline stays put but he loses some of his volume; if so, the lower hair density might be doing him favors. still! we know his underlying texture is the same because of the hurricane job, although he's wearing a beanie 😔

ok I need to know: has Eliot Spencer tried the curly girl method and how did it go? because I am convinced that his hair is naturally curly and I need them to stop straightening it/brushing it out. every time it gets wet, it gets wavy and I just… ::fans self:: imagine if his hair looked like this ALL THE TIME

FURTHERMORE, what am I supposed to do with the knowledge that sometimes this man puts tiny little beads in tiny little sections of his hair just because. he likes to feel pretty.

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eliot: i don't speak geek

parker: awh sure you so

feels so much like a seduction plan to let him alone with the geeks to accustom him to the idea of just how much he knows how to engage a big ole nerd

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parker absolutely had a moment where she was like.... okay one inch down, and i can paralyze her, one and a tenth up, i kill her. meh, astrid called interpol let's not be restrained about things i guess

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small critique: they should have said "father of two" instead of "mother" for the last potential match for harry. a subtle thing that would have been nice bi rep!

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screeching

to archie, parker was his legacy. a perfectly honed tool he let out into the world. perfectly selfish to forever collect things that she wont use for frivolous upkeep of a life outside the very thing (thievery) itself. she lives in a warehouse and accumulates money just to have and steals things when it's tricky for the fun of the heist. and with each successful gain (and there must only be successful gains), archies legacy grows just that bit more. she was trained perfect, she was the perfect thief, no attachments other than in secret appreciation for the mentor who crafted her. she was perfect when she was disconnected. she was perfect when she didnt care. archie can care, archie has a family and grandchildren that he worries about, and he has a reputation he must maintain on both sides of the equilibrium. he can care and have this vulnerability but not his prize, not his best most pressured most radiant jewel. she was perfect when she was archies, nevermind that he likely only calls her in for these rare one off interactions now that shes grown. she was perfect as a perpetual machine working ever forward from the inertia of his instruction. she was perfect and they ruined her because she doesnt want people to die. shes ruined because she is invested, which archie did not teach her. she is ruined because she was made into an image not of his own. his perfect tool, ruined.

CAN YOU IMAGINE LOOKING AT S3 PARKER AND THINKING RUINED. I CANNOT.

meanwhile, nate is only somewhat relieved eliot is not on the roof with archie anymore because that would have led to... a justified dangling off the roof, and that would just put parker at greater risk.

...which is why nate contains himself.

"she was perfect and you ruined her" actually i've changed my mind i think eliot & nate should've gotten 2 quietly push archie leach clean off a building

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i literally yelled TARA when she came on screen and didn't stop yelling for a full minute and then had to rewind to hear what the fuck was said

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the grand complication job's truest feminist ally with the college debt giving major boys night out liam and connor vibes and im fucking for it

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bre's crush on tara is relatable content

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#gosh how much of his fame was based on having eliot to do his bidding huh via @wolves-in-the-world

the next question one might ask is: how much of moreau's continued success was based on eliot having done his bidding? in some circles, the people of the underworld might see one short blond angry right hand man and mistake him for the previous. and if they do recognize chapman as chapman and not eliot, and no one's seen eliot (but perhaps there are whispers he's doing "milk runs" of the most pedantic of tasks that cannot be real), they fear for what eliot spencer is really up to and they absolutely refuse to ask because they really don't wanna know.

canon moreau really is like 95% Implications and Potential and 5% this kind of underwhelming villain who flip-flops (lol) from getting a beloved character to betray one of his core Things in one episode to just losing in this really unspectacular way in the next, huh

(like the implications and potential are where fandom & fic can sink their roots most easily, especially in the absence of explicit answers, so I get it, it's just… huh)