WHEREIN DEATH IS TANGIBLE [ONE-SHOT]
spanish version here | "hug", aaron/erin - requested by lady_lunera on ao3
character(s): erin strauss, aaron hotchner
tags: character death, alternate universe, personification of death, grief, request
when hotch catches erin as she falls, her crimson red staining his hands and shirt, he knows he's lost more than a love to the cruel entity known as death; he's lost a best friend; a partner; his everything.
he wraps his arms around her, as if his aching soul and trembling hands could be enough to tether her to this world.
death shows up, solemn faced as ever, and grief-stricken, and hotch pleads with everything he has.
he begs him not to take her, begs him to give him one more day with her, if only to say the things he could've never said.
i love you, you mean everything to me, i'm sorry.
he whispers them over and over, wishing she could hear wishing she could know.
"she does." death rasps, and hotch gasps, looking up at the blurry figure with his arms out, "she knows."
he lets out a sob and watches as she is pulled away from him, as death's eyes fill with an empty, meaningless apology, as they dissappear in a whisper of the wind and a shake of the trees.
he cries for what feels like a lifetime and more, and then more and more and more, not ready to say goodbye.
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CM Fanfiction on AO3
I'm a bit of a stats nerd, and I've been wanting to put this together for ages. The following are some statistics regarding Criminal Minds fanfiction of AO3. Do with this what you will, but if ever someone tries to tell me this fandom isn't misogynistic -- I will just point to this post.
I spent an abhorrent amount of time putting this together, hope it's interesting to other people. Please don't send me hate mail for my opinions.
Base Statistics
Total Fics Tagged Criminal Minds: 34,561
These stats were compiled by me on 20/06/23 via AO3's filtering system.
Note: These were taken at face value, meaning these numbers may not be exact. In order to get exact statistics, I'd have to stringently filter out things like mislabelled fics, spam, fics with multiple categories (to find pure slash, femslash fics), etc.
Tumblr will destroy the resolution of the graphs, just click to see full res :)
Fanfic statistics gathered from AO3, episode totals gathered from IMDB.
CM Fanfiction by Category
Most Popular Category: F/M (26.2%)
Fics Counted in This Statistic: 34,561
These totals weren't all that surprising, in a fandom that is largely obsessed with two men and no one else, I sort of expected this.
The only reason F/M has the largest amount of fics (vs M/M) is because 37% of all F/M fics are "Spencer/Reader". (More about pairings below)
If 'x reader' fics were excluded from the data, then the distribution would skew to: 34% M/M vs 24% F/M
Sorry, I just saw the 'other' category is the same colour as F/M on the graph. Other accounts for 2.3% of all fic categories
CM Fanfiction by Rating
Most Popular Rating: Teen and Up (30.3%)
Fics Counted in This Statistic: 34,561
I think it's interesting that the most popular ratings are Teen and General -- even though a huge portion of readers only read Mature/Explicit. There are absolutely incredible works that are rated Teen and General, and it's just a shame people don't read them as much as smut. That's probably the same in most fandoms though.
Top Relationships for Each Rating:
General Audience: Spencer/Reader
Teen and Up: Morgan/Reid
Mature: Hotch/Reid
Explicit: Hotch/Reid
Not Rated: Spencer/Reader
It's no secret that this fandom worships Hotch and Reid above all other characters, but I think there's something to be said that a M/M ship dominates the Mature and Explicit ratings. Slash fic (M/M) has always been more popular than femslash (F/F) in pretty much any fandom, and the history of fetishization of mlm relationships in fanfiction (the fetishisation usually being written by cishet women, not talking about queer people writing queer fic) is always worth discussing.
CM Fanfiction - Top 10 Characters
Most Popular Character: Spencer Reid (19.9%)
Fics Counted in This Statistic:*indeterminate due to crossover (multiple characters per each fic)
No surprises here with the top three being the men who make up some of the most popular ships.
Notice how Jack Hotchner, a CHILD who was in 22 eps out of 300+ -- is featured in MORE fics than main characters (who were in multiple season) like: Luke, Matt, Tara.
CM Fanfiction - Top 10 (BAU) Characters
Most Popular Character: Spencer Reid (20.5%)
Fics Counted in This Statistic: *indeterminate due to crossover (multiple characters per each fic)
This one is filtered by BAU members only. Sorry, 'reader', this is about main characters only.
Notice how Gideon (45 total episodes, 2015 fics) and Elle (27 total episodes, 1371 fics) made the top 10 list even though characters who were on the show for YEARS missed out.
Main Characters not in the Top 10:
(* denotes section chiefs. Bold denotes characters who appeared in more episodes than Gideon)
*Erin Strauss (24 total episodes, 1361 fics)
Alex Blake (48 episodes, 1190 fics)
Tara Lewis (97 episodes, 1108 fics)
Matt Simmons (49 episodes, 642 fics)
Ashley Seaver (13 episodes, 279 fics)
Kate Callihan (23 episodes, 247 fics)
Jordan Todd (8 episodes, 130 fics)
*Mateo Cruz (6 epsiodes, 88 fics)
Stephan Walker (15 episodes, 66 fics)
All three men who didn't make the Top 10 are men of colour. Which is worth pointing out because the main reason Derek and Luke both made Top 10 is because they are popularly shipped with Reid. Outside of Morgan/Reid and Reid/Alvez -- I doubt they would have been tagged as much as they are.
Also worth nothing that Tara Lewis who appeared in 97 episodes, which makes her the EIGHTH highest billed character (above Luke, Gideon and Elle) -- doesn't even make the Top 10 most written about characters. She also happens to be the ONLY Woman of Colour on this list. Coincidence? Doubtful. She's also the ONLY canonically QUEER character -- and yet....even in the F/F tag she doesn't make top 5 (more about ships below)
CM Fanfiction - Top 10 Relationships
Most Popular Pairing: Reid/Reader (24.5%)
Most Popular Character Ship: Hotch/Reid (18%)
Fics Counted in This Statistic: 20,873 out of 34,561 (*includes fics with multiple pairings tagged)
This was WILD to me. I knew that 'Spencer x Reader' fics (I grouped ones tagged 'reader' and ones tagged 'you' together for this graph) were popular but I wasn't prepared for how skewed this data was. I don't have much to say about it anything involving Reid tbrh
Only three out of ten top relationships DO NOT involve Spencer Reid.
For people who don't know: using a slash ( / ) to denote a pairing means the pairing is romantic, using the ampersand (&) to denote a pairing generally indicates a non-romantic relationship.
Notice the ONLY F/F pairing that made Top 10 was JJ/Emily (with only 10%)
CM Fanfiction - Top 5 M/F Relationships
Most Popular Relationship: Spencer/Reader (52%)
Fics Counted in This Statistic: 9741 (72% of the total F/M fics on AO3)
Look, I don't know what to say about this. It speaks for itself. This show had an incredible ensemble cast who were all integral to the show's success -- yet, the only character anyone cares about in the fandom is the generic white dudes. Misogyny at it's best.
CM Fanfiction - Top 5 M/M Relationships
Most Popular Relationship: Hotch/Reid (45%)
Fics Counted in This Statistic: 7870 (75% of the total M/M fics on AO3)
Again, no comment about the most popular ships
I was, however, surprised that Hotch/Rossi made Top 5
CM Fanfiction - Top 5 F/F Relationships
Most Popular Relationship: JJ/Emily (71%)
Fics Counted in This Statistic: 2927 (65% of the total F/F fics on AO3)
For people who don't know: using a slash ( / ) to denote a pairing means the pairing is romantic, using the ampersand (&) to denote a pairing generally indicates a non-romantic relationship.
It's not surprising that JJ/Emily dominate the femslash category. They have always been the main femslash pair in this fandom. However, they only make up 49% of all F/F pairings!
I was surprised to see that 'x reader' fics took 2 out of 5 slots on this one. And I was especially surprised that Emily/Penelope made top 5. (I mean it's only 148 fics, but there they are)
Again, note how Tara Lewis (a canonically sapphic character) isn't a part of ANY of the top 5 pairings, even though she was in 98 episodes. That's a travesty imo. Tara/Emily trails at about the 7th most popular F/F ship with a mere 115 fics
In Conclusion...
Most of this was to be expected. This fandom has always praised the male characters while pushing the women aside, so the amount of works focusing on Reid and Hotch wasn't that surprising.
I think it's interesting how people tend to throw Jemily shippers under the bus (broad statement made via my 18 years in this fandom), because Femslash is by far the smallest portion of the shippers in the entire fandom. People just hate women
Do with this information what you will. This was mostly compiled because I've always been curious, and also I think it serves as an important archival tool for the fandom.
Please don't send me hate mail for my opinions.
Word Count & Additional Tags Information Below Cut
CM Fanfiction by Word Count
About 52% of all CM fics (34,561) are under 5,000 words
This was a really fun one to do, and was mostly included because I was curious. I think it'd be worth getting even more specific by trying to work out the average word count for all fics under 5,000 words.
Hey, if you're a marathon author with long works -- look at YOU!! You're a very small percentage in this fandom, and as someone who prefers long-form fic -- I am personally thanking you for your dedication.
CM Fanfiction - Top 10 Addition Tags
Most Popular Tag: Fluff (21.7%)
Fics Counted in This Statistic: *indeterminate due to crossover (multiple tags per each fic)
I honestly expected angst/whump/hurt/comfort to be first on this. I guess if you add up all the variations of those type of fics, they'd be top tag.
Obviously this one isn't ever going to be perfect, because tons of people either don't tag their fics, or they don't use the prescribed tags above. Still, I thought this was worth adding to the post.
For more stats please see my, [Tara Lewis Fic Stats Post]
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Someone recently asked me why I enjoyed Final Destination 3 so much, and I accidentally wrote a mini-analysis so here you guys go. (I didn’t proofread it so I hope it makes sense)
Well, where do I even start. First off, the characters are extremely well written and easy to connect with, unlike any of the other movies (besides the first one).
The acting is absolutely phenomenal and the pure fear Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Wendy) managed to portray is actually mind boggling. I will admit Lewis (Texas Battle) was poorly written, being a stereotypical black jock never really plays well. But the other characters have their own uniqueness to them that we didn’t really see in some of the other movies. Ashlyn (Crystal Lowe) and Ashley (Chelan Simmons) were stereotypical “mean” girls but they were actually extremely nice and sweet in the movies, just girls who were kinda airheaded. Frankie (Sam Easton) was a weird ass pervert, but you have to admit his character was extremely (and sadly) realistic. Ian (Kris Lemche) and Erin (Alexz Johnson) were teenage dirtbag assholes which really balances out the ditzyness and almost airy feel of the other characters. Ian being super smart was honestly a refresher in the series, because not many people did try and apply other “laws” and “theories” to the equation. Julie (Amanda Crew) was that asshole teen little sister who acts like a brat but truly isn’t, which (if you’re a sibling) is so easy to relate and connect to. Kevin (Ryan Merriman) was a jerk in the beginning, but as the story went on you could kind of see him change and feel for him and his situation (at least I did. I know not many people can, but that’s cause of trauma for me…) And the little screen time we had for Jason (Jesse Moss) and Carrie (Gina Holden) made viewers feel torn about their death. With the 10 minutes they had, they were SUCH sweethearts and it breaks your heart to see them die like that especially knowing Wendy tried to get them off.
The plot itself is amazing, a control freak who now has the knowledge she isn’t even in control of her own life and death, as well as trying to stop everyone around hers demise. It adds a more realistic level to this that wasn’t portrayed in the others. She wants to be in control, but she can’t because that’s not the way death works. The clues being in the photos rather than in visions is genuinely so cool, although it was a bit of a reach at times. I found that it being a group of people who already know each other rather than strangers really drives the message further and makes the audience have a deeper reaction to the movie. The deaths itself were the best in any movie by far, and there’s no arguing on that. The tanning beds, the weights, the nail gun, the flag pole impalement, even the premonition Wendy had at the end that maybe (probably definitely) did happen with the train. Each death in this movie was beautiful, and the editing and everything about this movie is just gorgeous.
I think what worked for it was the fact it’s. Stand-alone, and not a continuation of the first two movies. Also, they had a lot more cool features than the other movies, like that whole “choose their fate” thing in the DVDs (I think). This movie is straight up just fun and a refresher from the others. The only movie I would consider being better than it is the 5th one, but that’s simply cause of the plot twist at the end and the cool thing they added with the “take a life, earn a life”
Anyways I hope this makes sense please tell me it does 😭
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