#... with a mysterious vibe and an invasive past ... who they quickly start having odd moments with seperately ...

[lazarus-harp]

hi this is your partner again (at first i was just on the wrong blog but now i want to make this a bit). i'm here to offer more insights regarding your earlier post <3 i do agree with you that manny and safiya are a CRIMINALLY underrated pairing; i know manny is gay irl but in that interview he so CLEARLY stated that the record producer himself is bi, and besides, manny and safiya are both, well, really practical and competent players! they have their differences, obviously, but i've always been really fascinated by how people attribute manny's qualities to safiya — one really great example is that people see safiya as someone who forms objective, unbiased, and well-thought-out decisions, when her decision for voting colleen in, for example, was just because "everyone else was doing it", whereas manny had an actual reason for feeling as though she needed to die in that situation. i generally think saf is widely misinterpreted in fandom, though i'll admit i'm not really IN the etn fandom the same way you are, but i think people generally have a hard time striking the balance between safiya being both incredibly arrogant and incredibly insecure. which, to a degree, but not in the same way, manny has too! i think it was such wasted potential for them not to be closer. because i definitely think safiya could have benefited from having someone like manny at her side. he's fiercely loyal and has these strong bonds that safiya feels like she lacks, but they're both so pragmatic and kind of, honestly, bad with feelings. i just feel like the two of them would communicate very easily and understand each other on a deep level. anyway, all this is to say i would love to see that safiya idea rebranded to reflect one of my big ships :) (selfish)

as for destorm my BELOVED, i desperately want something stream of consciousness related for him; it just feels like it would fit him due to his extremely lonely nature. even when he forms an alliance with gabbie, it never really FEELS like they're part of the same team. destorm very much feels like a lone wolf, so i think stream of consciousness fits him very well. would love to see some intricacies surrounding his feelings about lauren's, jesse's, and tim's deaths... like, at what point did he start realizing that he wouldn't be able to go home, that all of this cutthroat, lone-wolf, survivor's instinct wasn't going to do anything for him?

and jatny!! it is so wild for you to say that ot3s are hard for you to pull off because i actually write them on instinct, but i think there are a lot of different ways to pull it off, especially during the actual night they're in everlock. one potential plot that itches at me is the idea of the three of them being the s3 survivors, and how that might impact their dynamic. or, it could be something like manny and joey seeking comfort in each other and mat worming his way into the dynamic. or even joey and mat being the ones to indulge and manny just kind of walks in on them and is like, can i join? i think with joey and manny both being such emotionally closed off people, mat's influence is so humanizing on them and they'd quickly fall into a codependent mess. but that's just a theory...

god, safiya's characterization in fics is something i've spent such a long time struggling with. obviously ( and this should be a given for all of my vague disagreement w/ the characters, since interpretation varies and that's a good thing! ) safiya is easy to stereotype ; she's the weird girl who is a certified genius despite her lack of socializing. it becomes easy then to assume she's unbiased and 'always correct' in her decisions because of how smart she is, which is something people stick on to our detective as well ... which is a shame, because as you said, ep6 is such an eye opening episode for our remaining characters and how they form their opinions. this isn't something they can excuse with uselessness or usefulness, or even petty drama, because there will be no fight, and this person will die in an awful, tragic way. stressed out of their minds, and rightfully scared, we see their thought processes clearly ; and safiya, very quickly, shows something fascinating. in the face of colleen's incoming demise, safiya chooses her -- something that's fair, something that she knows three other people did, and yet her reasoning is simple and rather cowardly? she did it because everyone else did, because she'd rather it be colleen than her. there's no logic there besides self preservation and, almost, peer pressure! rosanna, nikita, and joey all gave much more sound reasons. clearly not willing to vote colleen unless they thought they had to, or that this was just. and then there's manny, who people love to portray as dumb and petty in most fics, who gives probably the best reason i've ever heard for a vote : she hated joey, wanted him dead, but suddenly changed her tune. can she do that to me? how can i trust someone like that? in a show that's based on having strong alliances, this is completely reasonable for manny to think. but the drastic difference between a concrete, logical reason vs following everyone else because it's easier is a stark one. manny doesn't get enough credit for his level headedness in that moment, just like safiya's lackluster agreement isn't acknowledged much either. a shame, really, since i love seeing characters be flawed! i probably would've come around to characters like safiya and rosanna a lot quicker, if i had seen more fans discuss or write them as flawed and complex as they are. though that's a personal problem. sorry for that tangent i just adore the iron maiden voting and death, anyway!

safiya toeing the line between arrogance and crippling insecurity, while manny toes the line between false arrogance and insecurity, really breeds for a point of connection. they're pragmatic, smart, and both have something that could benefit the other! manny's undying loyalty would appeal to someone like safiya who always struggles to keep alliances ( mainly due to how little effort she puts in ) and safiya's lack of dramatics would be good for manny in turn, who i think would appreciate someone who's not so easily dragged into childish battles. of course, there's not a world where manny's relationship with safiya would survive past ep7 -- being endangered is annoying, but the fact she put nikita in isn't something easily forgiven, if his anger towards rosanna in ep3 is any indication. but who doesn't love a good doomed dynamic? tmw you understand someone deeply but are forced to kill/betray them or they kill/betray you and how can you forgive that but how can you not? that's what etn is all about to me. my safiya fic is actually a ship fic in and of itself, and it just so happens to pair her with someone manny loves dearly, so i could certainly shove her close to him throughout. it'd be fun for them to reach an understanding and then realize how much further that understanding goes, but that it probably won't matter in the long run. manny and safiya know it's unlikely they'll be the two to make it, and they both don't want that anyway, despite how much they're fond of each other. so it'd be swept under the rug, this undercurrent sadness and ache of what could've been and what could never be. a friendship ( or relationship ) that could've gone far, if only.

a stream of consciousness fanfic for destorm rings true to me. that's a solid idea! and i see you quoting one of the best fics of all time at me, like i haven't already cried about it enough to you on call. he's an excellent character and i think it'd suit him well, given his 'lone-wolf' vibes as you pointedly worded ... so much of his development is internal, secretive and private, because he's destorm power and if there's one thing he does it's feel quietly. guilt, sorrow, shame ; all of this is cradled close and he takes most of this to his second grave, his sacrifice as private of an affair as everything about him has been. he's hard to understand in a show like etn where everything needs to be shown or confessed! so any writing does him good, i think. nobody ever would've suspected how heavily he carried lauren's death if he hadn't worded it, and there's something about characters who suffer through everything silently that kills me. i'll have to figure things out, maybe do a stream of consciousness from s4 ep1-ep4 ... or wherever they subconsciously were before the collector got them.

ironically enough i had a jatny survivor thing on my ao3, with thousands of words written, before i took it down out of embarrassment. my old writing is outdated and, to me, not very good ; hence why whenever people compliment crimewave i almost can't believe it. not that i'm impressed by my new writing at all! but it's at least marginally better, or so i'll say. revisiting a survivors concept could be fun or boring, though i'd have to mess around with it again to see which is true! that'd probably be one of the more likely scenarios where i could see the three of them coming together, as messily as possible of course ... the typical 70s everlock au may also prove fun. hm. guess we'll have to see what i can cook up. i'm sure more ideas, better ones, will come to me when i finally commit to a rewatch <3 but hey, that's just a theory!