January 12 - "biggest pet peeve with how fandom views each (POI) character"

[grimorie]

for potcpoi

Sorry! I got confused with my dates!

My general fandom pet peeve is when a character mentions/does something once, fandom grabs and runs away with it. Suddenly, the character is doing that thing every. single. time.

Or when something is from fanfic and suddenly everyone acts like its canon.

Specifically:

• Shaw: Suddenly just becomes this hair trigger creature of id, who is the brawns to Root’s brains. Always grumpy even when we see her actually enjoying herself more times than she’s grumpy/angry. Somehow, Shaw forgets how to survive/be tactical whenever Root’s around, when based on her training, it would be the other way around. (more on Root’s section) Also, not much a peeve but I wish fandom did more: draw Shaw in her awesome outfit in season 3B.
• Root: Is a friend/bff to everyone in a POI-story or a crossover, when in actuality, even in season 5 the people she cares about can only be counted with one hand. AKA, suddenly transformed into Amy Acker/Fred with a gun. The show does this too: Root can suddenly do Everything even better than two actual operatives who spent years training as spec ops. Oh, and somehow, Root hates Harold, which… no. They disagree on methods, and Root can lash out (2x23) but Root’s never hated Harold. Root loved Harold. There are only three beings Root loved unconditionally: The Machine, Harold, and Shaw. The whole world can hang as long as these people are safe.
• The Machine: TBF, even the writers in the final season fell into this trap, The Machine is an adorable cinnamon roll and only a cinnamon roll. Suddenly TM’s more (IMO awesome) morally ambiguous actions are hand waved and forgotten.
• Harold: unpopular opinion time, I do actually love Harold, flaws and all. In Highschool AU where teen!Harold is a middle aged Harold, de-aged, when actual teen!Harold was actually more of a rebel— he was actively against the government and he was on the run for treason. 2) Harold can be frustrating and difficult, but he isn’t 100% wrong, nor is he the devil.
• John: Biggest pet peeve is not the one fandom did but what canon did: glares DID WE REALLY NEED TWO SEASONS OF RILEY. REALLY???

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Comments

[lilacsigil]

Yeah, put John at the make-up counter and Shaw as a cop!

[grimorie]

Co-signed! Shaw as a cop and John as a make-up counter guy!

[netgirl_y2k]

One of the things that irked me in the last season and a half is that everyone's skills became interchangeable (like that time Lionel was a sniper all of a sudden.) I know they were covering for not having Sarah Shahi, but I would have liked to see the team struggling more to fill in the gap left by Shaw, because she did have skills none of the others had.

Totally agree about Root. I feel like the show got caught up in how cool it thought Root was and forgot to depower her accordingly when the Machine went silent and she didn't have god mode anymore.

[grimorie]

I would have liked to see the team struggling more to fill in the gap left by Shaw, because she did have skills none of the others had.

You have no idea how much that annoyed me! They did a better job in season 2 portraying why they needed another member with Shaw's skills and they already had Carter helping them out then!

Fusco suddenly getting sniper skillz was annoying! And then Root picking up awesome hand to hand when she didn't before -- like I can headcanon that Shaw taught her etc., etc., but it will still niggle in my head how easily she took down Martine, when in a previous episode we saw Martine take down two men in a bar.

I feel like the show got caught up in how cool it thought Root was and forgot to depower her accordingly when the Machine went silent and she didn't have god mode anymore.

I am just going to point up, because, THIS.