The expanse appreciation weeks

Chrisjen Avasarala appreciation week will be held in week 33 (from 14 to 20 August), we look forward to seeing what everyone makes!

Don’t forget to tag Chrisjen Avasarala appreciation week within the first five tags, so we will be able to find your post!

Day 1: Moment you started liking Chrisjen Avasarala or favourite outfit

Day 2: Favourite episode or a song that you associate with Chrisjen Avasarala

Day 3: Favourite relationship

Day 4: Favourite quote or favourite headcanon

Day 5: Favourite scene from the tv show or the books

Day 6: Favourite personality traits or favourite fanmade content so fic/fanvideo/gifset etc.

Amos Burton Appreciation Week: Day 6 | Favorite Fanworks

I’m working on the other days but since this is quick and dirty and I’ve been dying to get it done, I’mma start with this. I’mma start with my girl @whenimaunicorn.

Rachel was my first friend in this fandom. It’s been just over a year since we met! Isn’t that just wild? And when I joined, Rachel was one of the more active fic writers in the small Expanse market. She was kind and funny and welcoming, and she was what made the fandom what it was for me. We had very different interests, but we came together and helped each other grow our understandings and thoughts of each other’s faves: hers Amos, mine Holden. 

She encouraged me, and still does, to write what I want and what I love, and not to let my fear of how people respond to it stop me. She’s been an amazing friend to me, and many in the fandom, and while she has mostly moved on to another fandom, we all still talk fondly of her and her work and the things she does, because she means so much to us. Her joy and enthusiasm is infectious. Her love of Amos/Wes is out of control. And we love her, and her numerous Expanse fics, a lot.

My fave fanwork is OBVIOUSLY “Join Us”, because it led to our OT3 AU project, something I still try to work on and grow anyway I can. Because making characters love each other is so much better than setting them against each other over nothing. The dynamic between show Holden. Naomi, and Amos is played out beautifully in her fic, and the characterizations stay on point with not only her own visions, but what we had seen of the characters at that point.

This one was remarkably easy!

Loyalty

Day 7: Free choice

Putting under a cut. Spoilers for Abaddon’s Gate

Day 6: Favourite personality traits

Day 5: Favourite scene from the books

“Dammit,” Holden said after he’d killed the connection. “You ever get the sense that the universe is out to get you?”

Day 4: Favourite quote 

“Amos glanced down at Holden’s hand, still gripping his arm, but made no move to pull free.” From Caliban’s War. 

Day 3: Favourite relationship

Day 1: Moment you started liking Amos

I’m super late because I’ve been traveling, but here comes the spam. I’m just gonna push out the whole week because I’m not done moving around yet.

This was actually the hardest for me so far! I like Amos in every scene because he is such an unusual character that automatically creates unusual dynamic in the scene. I finally chose this one:

2x13 “Caliban’s War”: Amos thanks Holden in case he dies

Full gifset: http://the-roci.tumblr.com/post/159813036391

I am just going to paste my thoughts from another post I made months ago about my favorite scene: the conversation between Amos and Naomi about the squeeze trade.

I got to the part in Caliban’s War (pg 325-327) where Amos talks about his past a little bit and-

There’s knowing about his past and then there’s reading it in his words.  There’s knowing what horrors lie in humanity’s darkest corners and then there’s seeing someone that clawed their way out of there talk about it.  No matter how many people I meet who’ve been touched by that darkness, their stories are always a punch to the gut and this was no different.  If you want to know why I care about a fictional character so much: I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again - he’s fictional.  His story is not.

What really got to me though is that he didn’t share that part of himself for his own sake.  Amos could’ve kept it buried forever, no problem.

But Naomi wanted to understand why he beat the shit out of a kid for shaking Prax down for more food to get video footage of his daughter.  Because anyone who knows Amos knows he doesn’t instigate violence.  He won’t start a fight, he’ll finish it.  So why does some kid asking for more food got him torqued?  It has Naomi shaken.

“And you,” she continued. “I depend on you.  I know you’ve always got my back, no matter what.  Except maybe not now, because the Amos I know doesn’t beat a skinny kid half to death, no matter how much chicken he asks for. I feel like everyone’s losing themselves.  I need to understand, because I’m really, really, frightened.”

It’s been 25 years and he  f i n a l l y  cracks. And it’s not even a crack. It’s not a breakdown brought on by an event triggering these memories.  He’s opening himself up for Naomi.  For her to understand him better.  To soothe her fears.  I just.  My  f e e l i n g s.  FUCK.

I cannot tell you what it means to me to have this relationship with Amos and Naomi.  One of the most intimate relationships I’ve ever seen and sex and romance have zilch to do with it.  Not that I’m not a huge shipper because I totally am but with these two …  I just wanted to see two people love and support and protect one another without romance or blood relation being a part of it.  Because, oh yeah, friends exist.  And they love, support, and protect you too. And these types of relationships are possible between men and women.

Anyway, in this convo with Naomi, it’s not like he’s directly talking about himself. He’s talking about Baltimore and the squeeze trade and what happens to the children that are a result of that … “trade.”

But Naomi sees straight through his bullshit because of course she does.  He beat the shit out of that kid because he knows what happens to lost children. He knows because he was one.  She directly asks him and he skirts right over it.

“Some wind up finding a way to ship offworld, and they never go back?” Naomi asked, her voice quiet.

“Maybe,” Amos said, his voice flat and conversational as ever.

She tries to be sympathetic and he’s just like NOPE. NOT TODAY. DO NOT WANT.

“Amos,” she said, her voice thick. “I never–”

“So I’d like to find this little girl before someone uses her up, and she disappears.”

Anyone else feel like they just took a kick to the gut?  Holy fuck man.  He’s still talking about himself.  He was used up.  Whoever he could’ve been is gone. Disappeared.  Buried under layers and layers and layers of trauma. Who he is now is defined by that brutal childhood.  Can you even call it that?  When was he ever a child?  A lot of the way he acts is due to that trauma - the way very little rattles him, his voice always flat/conversational, dissociation, his inability to divulge right from wrong on his own, etc.  When you’re in the middle of experiencing a traumatic event, your brain shuts down a lot of unnecessary functions (unnecessary in terms of surviving the event).  And when you experience trauma long term, those things get shut down permanently.  Your brain gets tired of flipping the on and off switch because what’s the point? Your brain is permanently re-wired into survival mode.  That’s Amos.  And my feels shatter for the ten billionth time today goddammit why am I always drawn to the broken ones?  But he’s not completely emotionless or without caring for others - we’ve seen him smile and laugh and get irritated.  He clearly cares about Naomi, and Alex and Jim now.  But when the ugly rears its head?  He’s pretty much “Yeah, and?”  The ugly was his stomping grounds.  It doesn’t hurt or surprise him anymore.  I think he’s right there with Miller in being surprised that Eros hadn’t happened sooner.

I think there are really only two ways to hurt Amos at this point - if you’re someone he trusts and you don’t return that trust (remember when he realized Naomi was afraid of him?).  Or the thought of a child being put through what he went through is probably painful to him.

The one time he gets emotional in this convo is when he’s talking about getting Mei back to her father.

“…and she disappears.  I’d like to do that for her,” Amos said.  His voice caught for a moment, and he cleared it with a loud cough.  “For her dad.”

I think Amos admires Prax.  I think he looks at him and sees what it’s like to have a parent that cares.  I don’t know if his mother cared, she died when he was young.  And I’m not gonna touch Lydia here because wow this is already a mile long lmao.  What I do know is no one cared enough to save him, to protect him.  They fed him to the same monster that twisted them and spit them out.

But here comes Prax.  He’s desperate to find Mei.  He’s dying of starvation and the only thing he cares about is finding her, including giving up food to another for clues about her whereabouts.  I mean, how do you not admire that?  So I think Amos wants to save Mei for Prax.  Because he’s a father that deserves to see his daughter again.  I am also willing to bet that Prax’s devotion to his child makes him happy for Mei. And hella determined to protect her from the same fate he suffered.

So I missed yesterday, you get two posts today!!

Favorite quote

This is a quote that represents something about Amos that he doesn’t realize himself and people around him rarely understand this too. Amos doesn’t kill because he enjoys it OR because he gets out of control with anger OR because he hates someone, he kills to protect people he cares about. He rarely feels strong negative emotions towards the people he kills. It makes him a good man and NOT a homicidal maniac, which is why it’s my tag for him!

Favorite headcanon

I’m gonna cheat a little bit because this quote isn’t from Amos, it’s about him. [Honestly I just couldn’t choose from all of his smartass remarks in the books XD]

“Amos thinks he’s a bad guy because he’s done some things he’s ashamed of … He doesn’t always trust himself, but the fact that he cares tells me he isn’t a bad guy … He looks at his soul, sees the stains, and wants to be clean.” –James Holden, Leviathan Wakes

Amos Burton Appreciation Week Day 4 - Favourite quote

In show, his friendship with Naomi definitely takes the top spot.  I mean, the entire reason I fell for this show was the relationship between Amos and Naomi.  I’ve written fic, drew an entire comic, keysmashed a ton of feelings meta.  I love them.  I love their relationship. The End.

Not really because I am a brevity fail when I talk about them lmao.

The thing that just absolutely murders me about these two is the physical intimacy they share.  Other than taking Naomi’s hand on the Donnager in an attempt to comfort her [y’all know I’m never gonna shut up about that], Amos doesn’t really initiate/do any touching, it’s Naomi that we see reaching out (which we see her do with pretty much everyone - Jim, Alex, and Miller) and I’m just a giant sucker for that kind of fluff especially when it’s between friends.  I really fucking appreciate seeing that kind of physicality between people instead of acting like it should be reserved between romantic couples.  Fuck that.  I want media that reflects, well, my life and my life has a whole lot of snuggling with my best friends because the idea that only one person should fulfill all your physical comfort needs is bullshit.

I love when they’re reunited on the Donnager, she touches his face and chest. After they fix his leg and he’s starting to drift off, she pats his cheek “All better.” “Whatever you say Boss.”  When they’re in the middle of space battle and he needs to go fix something or they’re dead in the vacuum, she grabs his hand because she’s worried.

Naomi is [book] canonically the person Amos trusts most.  She trusted him with her life when everyone else thought him a psycho.  Amos doesn’t think much of himself but having her trust him for no reason at all beyond her gut telling her she could, meant everything.

And then we get to Caliban’s War [book spoilers].  He trusts her enough to share his history with the Baltimore squeeze trade with her.  I love the book version of that conversation so much more than the show’s.  It still stands as my favorite scene in the series so far because it gave me this really emotionally powerful scene between my two faves where he opens himself up to her, for her.  My jam y’all.

But I can’t talk about favorite relationships and Caliban’s War without also talking about Prax.  I ship them like Fedex yo but I’m gonna stick with what we’ve been given in canon so far and still sticking to the books because we haven’t been given as much in the show yet.