#which is giving certain characters fucked up aspects and then refusing to give it impact or properly address/resolve it

[snowsoftime]

So does anyone else not fully understand how Kusuke is supposed to be viewed

Even though his character profile describes him as a sadist/masochist, it’s really not that relevant to the story or his character. The few times Kusuke does show that part of himself, Kusuo’s reaction is so… tame.

Example 1 - The first time Kusuke gets described as a masochist. Kusuo just says “That’s why I don’t like him” and then it moves on to the next scene.

Example 2 - That “I’m so close to trapping him in a hopeless situation” panel that didn’t get included in the anime. Kusuo says “This is gross” and then it moves on to the next scene.

It’s a stark contrast to how Kusuo treats Teruhashi’s brother, where he repeatedly calls him a pervert and emphasizes how gross he is. With Kusuke, Kusuo makes a singular comment about how that’s not okay and then immediately moves on.

Also during the final showdown arc, Kusuke literally stops his villain monologue to redress his brother because he felt bad about Kusuo being in such an embarrassing state, despite the whole ordering Kusuomega to run around school naked and him motioning for Toritsuka to strip being about exactly that: embarrassment.

Why even make that part of his character if you’re just not gonna give it any impact and then make it so inconsistent??? Why include it at all then???

#saiki k #saiki kusuo #saiki kusuke #hence why I don’t view him as Teruhashi’s brother 2.0 #honestly the author has this problem with a few other characters as well #which is giving certain characters fucked up aspects and then refusing to give it impact or properly address/resolve it #meaning it’s just… there #and anyone who actually rewatches and pays attention just gets punished

[esther-dot]

In line with the anti-jonsa arguments, the only one I believe had some impact on me (this isn’t even in universe, it’s just in general) was that incest is inherently oppressive towards women. The one person who is not supposed to think of you like that, look at you like that - does. There is no safety for you to fall back on because even your family is not acting like family. I don’t know how this will translate with Jon and Sansa, because Sansa will expect protection as a sister and then them falling in love with each while knowing the other is their half-sibling is tilted towards Jon having more power in that dynamic as a man. Then comes in the question of Sansa’s claim to Winterfell and Jon being the heir to Robb’s will. It’s muddled up and the solution (join together in marriage) doesn’t look as appealing to considering incest here will still hurt Sansa, because of society being inherently systemically oppressive, and not save her or her claim. (This is one of the reasons why I didn’t like show KiTN Jon because whatever the fuck happened to “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa”. I mean there’s a lot wrong with the show after that but it particularly pissed me off lol because in canon jon would NEVER do that and is the true air raid siren canary in the coal mine for Jon’s character butching (jonerys 🙄)) Anyway, lost track there, but yeah. And on top of all of that, how is GRRM going to paint a better picture of something he’s been criticising for almost 30 years now? Still a Jonsa though, because I am a clown 🤡

(about this ask)

It’s really hard to tell which resolution Martin is working towards! On the one hand, it could be about creating a scenario in which politics / love align and resolving the Northern succession crisis gives Sansa and Jon everything they ever wanted. I love tidy storytelling, so that is very appealing to me. However, I do agree with you that that resolution isn’t without certain concerning aspects.

The other possibility is, it’s a test for Jon, just as he has continual been tempted throughout the series, only, this is the greatest one yet. His brother, friend, the heir, the KitN himself chose Jon. As a Jon fan, I love what that will mean to him. The show didn’t have the benefit of Robb’s Will, so it felt more ooc for Jon than it could be written in the books. After all, Sansa is still married to Tyrion. Also, with different factions in the books possibly supporting different Starks, it’s possible Sansa sees the greater good (she doesn’t consider her claim much after all/isn’t attached to it) and works to get everyone to support Jon as he is older, male, has Robb’s endorsement, and might play a key role in winning back Winterfell so he could be a peace candidate / the one everyone can coalesce around. I mean, that’s a little hard for me to imagine with the prejudice against bastards and what his rep will be post rez, but Martin could write it in a way that doesn’t feel like Jon taking advantage of the situation and rather, Jon doing something he feels guilty about out of necessity, with the blessing of Robb and more importantly Sansa. However, if it is a test, Jon would have to instead defend Sansa’s claim. If Jon refuses everything and then parentage reveal comes out, they could marry at a later date when the relationship can be of Sansa’s choosing, removing the disturbing implications of the political benefits for Jon/the power imbalance.

I’ve moved towards the secret wedding idea (here are posts about that 1, 2). Sansa would probably have to suggest the idea herself and persuade him giving her a lot of agency in her own fate, and it’s potentially a callback to Jace/Sara and Rhaegar/Lyanna. That could happen secretly purely because she’s already married and she wants to be married before he goes to war, or because they don’t have support for it (maybe the North does think it’s icky or is very anti Targ with the disaster of Dany’s invasion happening), or it might happen before Jon is exiled simply because Sansa wants it. I’ve said before, perhaps the best way to answer Sansa’s fears are for Jon to marry her when he can’t have Winterfell, so she knows it is her, not her claim, that he wants. In that scenario, there is nothing for Jon to gain, it is love, only love that motivates him. It’s the most romantic of the options, even if it isn’t the happiest.

Whatever the endpoint, I think there are enough variables that Martin could make any of a number of different paths work and keep them in-character for Jon as well as avoiding backtracking his criticisms simply because we will know Jon’s motivations.

#dot chat #jonsa #secret wedding #asoiaf parallels

[eztria]

trollhunters: rott and overall toa thoughts

decided to write down what i think of the movie and the series as a whole after watching rott

toby domzalski

first of all, i am so unspeakably sad that toby remained a comedy relief character until it was time for him to die. i really hoped he would get his time to shine but not like this. the death scene was definitely amazingly done and im glad that at the very least rott had a scene that showed the audience just how important tody’s friendship was to jim.

on that note tho, im sad that no one seemed to realize that toby was gone??? it was only after jim realized what happened that he was the first to desperately search for him. i get that toby has the strongest ties to jim but??? claire??? AAARRRGGHH??? they were also close with toby but even after seeing him take the car they didnt immediately shift their focus to him after finding jim???

i really wished we got more serious moments with him through all the toa series. i feel like after trollhunters (although he was also a comic relief there, but id say there was more to him back then), he became the designated comic relief and it makes him such a 2-dimensional character.

jim lake jr

jim is one of my favorite protagonists ever in any show, so seeing him struggle through all the series was always an emotional rollercoaster. i appreciate what rott was going for, the “he doesnt need the armor/amulet, hes always been a hero” sentiment but... the movie gives him the amulet back in the same scene in which he says it. i was severely disappointed when it happened, im not gonna lie. the scene would have been way more impactful if jim defeated bellroc by himself when they were stripped out of magic, instead of suddenly getting a power-up and besting her in combat. if jim didnt get the amulet right then the message of “i always was a hero, with the amulet or without” would have actually hit way harder. we see jim struggle about being just human and lacking the power to hold his own ground in a fight through the whole movie and him suddenly besting bellroc with the amulet is just. underwhelming. i think he should have gotten the amulet after the fight, so we still could have the whole time travel shenanigans thing happen, but def not when he got it. 

and on the topic of the time travel, what the fuck did they do to jim. like????? hello????? this. in Not. the same jim lake jr who went into the darklands all by himself so his friends wouldnt get killed/hurt. this is Not the same jim who refused to burden his mother with what he had to deal with as a trollhunter. the fact that he makes a concious choice to have toby pick up the trollhunter amulet????? is so out of character for him???? especially since he experienced all the struggles, the hurt, the trauma himself. i Refuse to believe he would ever have his best friend relive the hell he has been through all those years. especially since only He has the knowledge of the past??? how does he think this is going to play out??

not to mention that, by having the amulet choose toby, it means that the whole fate/destiny aspect of jim being chosen is out of the window. i didnt like how much the series leaned into it already, because im not a fan of stories which support the concept of “destiny/fate” but that ending really just confirm that jim was never the chosen one, he was just lucky to get the amulet first, because it could have been literally anyone. and im not trying to say that toby would not be a great trollhunter himself, i just mean that if toby can also be chosen instead of jim, the whole speech about destiny is kind of a lie.

claire nuñez

this isn’t really a criticism about her character, but more of how she has been treated by the narrative. im glad that claire gets to do more in this movie and that she keeps an active role (despite being spent in critical points to prevent her from solving problems). i really wish claire was more than Just jims love interest once they got together tho. i wish she was first and foremost his friend instead of his girlfriend, although that might be just my personal pet peeve of narratives putting romantic relationships above platonic ones. i felt it was really a shame that her wish for jim was to “find her and try until she falls in love with him again”. like i get that it was a sweet scene and sentiment overall but all i could think of was shouldnt she be freaking out that her friends and family are possibly dead because of the destruction of the whole town??? she could have been helping people evacuate and then join the fight.

the steve palchuk problem

ive seen a lot of people talk about this, but yeah the mpreg plot was really unnecessary. its really weird and it made me very uncomfortable considering both aja and steve are like. supposedly 18? in rott. this whole plot point not only feels like it takes up time that could have been better spent, but it also kinda portrays aja as a really bad partner to steve. like. you’re telling me she never really told him how this works??? like, ignoring how stupid and arbitrary the 7th kiss thing is, considering that she knows how kissing works for humans, she Should have told him about the possible consequences of it. i get that she was on akiridion-5 but is there really no way for her to communicate with him, considering that krel stayed on earth??? i dont remember if there was any communication mentioned, but if it was, that makes aja even worse in this context, honestly. they did my girl so dirty.

(on a quick note tho, i do like how aja was reluctant to follow jim. she’s a queen now and her priority will always be the safety of people surrounding her so her sentiment of “you can do the risky thing But my ships are still showing up either way” was really nice and i actually liked that she kinda went against jim and questioned him.)

with the mpreg steve plotline also comes the fact that eli is barely in this movie. we literally only get to see him to see that he has a growth spurt and then to have him deliver the babies. i really wish we could have gotten more about eli himself, maybe see how his relationship with aja developed into a friendship??? or the good old eli-steve friendship after a long time of being apart.

anticlimactic deaths/losses

nomura’s death scene was so fast and we didn’t even really linger on its impact, which honestly was. really disappointing. strickler was also done really dirty by being killed off nearly immediately after the reveal of his engagement with barbara. at the very least we got a scene of the lakes mourning him.

nari’s death served a purpose. they sacrificed herself to kill skrael. i did like how much it impacted douxie, but after the deaths, the characters are not really mentioned again until the very end when jim decides to time travel.

archie being left behind felt kind of forced and i wish he stayed in the story if only so douxie didnt have to lose two people close to him on the same day. we also never mention him again which... okay.

this is the finale... where is everyone, what is happening

is barbara just stranded in the castle now??? where is nana?? the changeling babies??? notenrique and claire’s family??? the trolls from the troll market??? this whole movie just felt rushed, honestly. we never were told how barbara and strickler got to the castle and we never even got to witness them see jim in the human form for the first time too. i honestly think this movie should have just been a series. it has enough action to stretch it out and we could have had more scenes that were about finishing arcs for characters and lingering on the consequences of certain deaths. its not a bad movie in itself, but it does not feel like a proper finale to the toa series, especially with the last 5 minutes of rott. im kind of disappointed, but at the same time we p much got an open ending so everyone can go wild with their interpretations/speculations.

#tales of arcadia #trollhunters rise of the titans #trollhunters #trollhunters rott #rise of the titans #rott #toa #i could also go on a rant abt how i would prefer if the narrative in the series over all stayed focused on tobys and jim friendship #or how i think it was out of character to have toby stay in arcadia when claire chose to go with jim when he had to leave #or in general how claires and jims relationship is kind of too perfect #but i am tired and the movie is what it is #im gonna pretend the ending didnt happen or happened differently

[yunsoh]

could u rank aaaall the characters u can think of from fave to least fave?

i won’t do every single one because there’s literally too many characters in this series but i’ll rank the ones that i have opinions about;

1. yuki -- a shocker i know but it cannot be helped. he’s been my favorite since day one. hands down my favorite character arc in the story, i think it’s just so impactful not just for a romance series but for a story so focused on cyclical trauma. he’s a cryptic little weirdo but he’s also just like..... achingly normal and relatable. (i mean........ isn’t that just his whole character development......). big romantic, so kind and genuinely good but also he’s a big bastard and i love that for him. his and tohru’s relationship? his development surrounding it?? the best of the best. just standout to me. mwah. absolutely iconic.

2. kakeru -- for a character i didn’t even remember when i went back to reread the series a few years ago he is like....... quite literally on the brain all the time now lmfao. technical-wise i think he stands as a really interesting juxtaposition to our main trio in the sense that he has the qualities they initially lack, but he struggles with and has to actively work on aspects that are very inherent to all three of them. he just holds a unique perspective that i appreciate, esp since it’s so critical to challenging yuki’s. vibes-wise i think he’s both interestingly complicated and a fucking fool. absolutely lame and refuses to acknowledge it. love him.

3. machi -- the ways in which my opinion about her character have changed over the past year....... okay so if we’re talking like, strictly canon machi i don’t think she would be this high up (still top 10 probably) but considering the mental energy i’ve put into reconsidering her character & story and just like.... the fact that i think about her as much as i do..... i kind of can’t not have her up here lmfao. idk i think she had a lot of potential that got dropped in canon which is a shame, but i think i’ve talked that point to death so. anyways. i do just love her. she just has those vibes you know. no bullshit, secretly rabid, depressed & doing her best. yeah. takaya nerfed her because she realized she would just end up giving her the same gay subtext she gave yuki and u know how she feels about that.

4. haru -- god what is there not to love abt him. i think he makes me laugh the most throughout the series but he’s also sooo fucking intense at times it’s sick. especially since he usually stands as a chill and grounded point while everyone else is going crazy..... again just immaculate vibes. just so much love in his heart. like he genuinely just wants people to be happy and having a good time. i do also wish his character/issues were explored a little more (maybe in lieu of characters who like.... didn’t really need a character arc lmao) but it’s not a dealbreaker. boy rlly almost exposed the sohmas to the whole school though huh.

5. kyo -- he’s actually somewhat tied with tohru but i think he has just an edge above her for me because he’s such a grouch LMAO. idk there’s just something about how he’s very prickly but suuuch a softie and romantic under it all that just gets me. in a weird way though, he ticks a lot of my boxes but isn’t exactly a character that i’m strongly drawn to? i like him, but i don’t really reread his chapters/rewatch his eps. something about him doesn’t click exactly right for me..... maybe bc his story is strictly romance-focused (and honestly tends towards the melodramatic that i’m a bit ‘hm’ about). that said he lucked out with getting a satisfying ending to his arc and he’s made me cry at least once so gg. 

6. tohru -- every time i think about her i’m just like. can we pleeeeease get this girl a therapist. yes they all need therapy but like..... hello can someone help..... anyways she’s just so lovingly made and i think her progression is super super well done. how her issues and grief manifest and really take form in the series over time is just...... oog...... it’s just perfect. i really appreciate that we get to see a character who is stereotypically feminine and mother-like actually struggle under those traits, but doesn’t abandon them once she overcomes her issues. she’s not a go-to character for me like, personality-wise ig (again.... melodrama....) but i do love her. icon.

7. uo -- back in middle school i think she was actually my favorite character after yuki.... and tbh is it such a coincidence that i couldn’t remember the second half of the series when i visited it again in my 20s lmaoooo. first-half series uo is just so fresh. i love that people find her threatening and yet she’s just this chill harsh-mouth who’s also incredibly tender-hearted and vulnerable. just genuinely funny and insightful every time she’s on the page. her friendship with kyo is also pretty standout to me it makes me laugh every time, and ofc her love for tohru... well u know. meanwhile second-half series uo um.... who’s that lol..... she only takes a place above hana here because i have really affectionate memories about just loving & admiring her when i was younger. 

8. hana -- more or less tied with uo. she’s a constant mood and i love her for it. i guess i could say “second-half hana idk her” here too, but that’s just more because she just literally drops off the face of the earth after a certain point. but whatever, i love that she walks around with psychic powers and everyone knows it but it’s never questioned because everyone is just so fuckin weird it doesn’t matter. takes no shit, could kill you without leaving evidence. vibes. i also think her backstory is really beautiful and her relationship with tohru is just gorgeous. just a perfect support character.

9. shigure -- okay he actually also used to be a fave back in the day. i think he’s just fun to think about...... his perspective and his purpose in the story is pretty fascinating and i think it’s one that you gain new insight on with each reread. he just stews in this incredibly morally grey area and that’s where he stays. truly a character that you either love or you loathe. i mean at the heart of things he’s a conniving bastard who has fuckin problems LMAO but he’s also just so.... aggravatingly lackadaisical when he’s not actively being a shit-stirrer.... just “cause problems on purpose & chill” energy. ends justify the means to the bitter core. problematique. his story w akito is fucking batshit and the series wouldn’t be the same without it, the energy of that with the rest of the story?? what the fuck dude. meanwhile i do love his relationships with the main trio & the other sohma kids.

10. ayame -- king.... he’s just 110% all the time and i think that his existence is just the most exquisite dunk on his family’s rigid upholding of conservatism and tradition it’s truly sexy of him. he does what he wants and tbh, it’s worked in his favor for the most part. when he’s on screen you know some stupid shit is about to go down. and of course i really love his and yuki’s relationship and how it impacts them both over the series...... good shit rlly. a fabulous menace.

11. kimi -- she’s literally just up here because she’s goddamn funny and i love her relationships with kakeru and yuki. no deep traumatic lore just a girl owning the fact that she’s cute smart as hell and knows how to get what she wants. a brat to the core. idk she’s just pure fun and i think that’s necessary in a story where even the designated clown characters (kakeru, ayame) have fairly dark moments. also i think about the “his wallet 💖” moment too often.

12. komaki -- okay. so. she is not this high up on the list because of who she is in canon. she’s this high up purely because of how i’ve recreated her in my brain lmfao. i think she’s borderline unnecessary in canon (i like that we see the other side of the accident, but the execution of it is just. not it.), but my extensive daydream universe where i just overload her with headcanons to give her any sort of character beyond “kakeru’s cute girlfriend” lands her up here. i also just think of her too much as an extension of thinking about kakeru too much. sue me.

13. momiji -- honestly i’m having kind of a hard time placing him because i do like him, i think he’s funny and sweet and of course has his own brand of issues going on, but...... i don’t think i have any strong feelings about his story? i think he brings a necessary lightness to the cast, but when it comes down to some individual aspects of his narrative (involving his mom/momo, his unrequited crush on tohru) ...hm.... i think his complicated feelings about the curse are really poignant though and that part of his story especially slaps for me.

14. akito -- hmm... hm.... i like how akito stands as tohru’s narrative foil and i think the parallels between the two are pretty rich...... but i really struggle with just how fucking exhausting she is lmfao. the lengths of her derangement are just 2 much for me personally, and i feel like the ending really failed her as far as her personal growth goes (which? i think is super fucking detrimental considering how takaya tries to portray her as like, “reformed” or something along those lines.... i just don’t buy it. her having a normal functioning relationship with SHIGURE??? lmaoooooo. please). i do appreciate the level of darkness she brings to the story, and how her behaviors form and completely fuck the family over, but...... i don’t necessarily enjoy her........ tiring queen.

15. rin -- ah... tragic, vitriolic goth.... i do like her, and i think i could place her above akito depending on the day, but her story doesn’t really stand out to me. like, it’s obviously incredibly sad, but it’s really unfortunate that we don’t see her develop in a way that actually..... you know.... develops her character.... idk it sucks that she’s written in a way where she’s fruitlessly sacrificing herself mentally and physically for haru and there’s never really a point where it feels like she can just relax and consider herself and her own needs (or even like. like herself). she starts and ends the story feeling completely broken from trauma and i just think there should have been more of an intervening point somewhere in there, which i think could have been achieved with more time between her and tohru. as is she’s just kind of all-around tragic which :’/ bummer. she deserved more growth.

16. mayu -- honestly i still don’t really get why she of all of the characters has a backstory chapter. i think her friendship with kana is pretty heartbreaking but it also doesn’t... do much for me.... after the fact... so i don’t know what to think about it. her crush on hatori is kind of weird and i don’t fully understand it in canon. but you know what. she’s funny and i like her attitude. for the most part, i like when she’s on-screen. i think she has a really funny relationship with her students and is this chill no-bullshit kind of figure. her friendship with the mabudachi boys is nice even though i think it’s delivered a little weird at times (which is more or less because it can be easy to forget that she. knows them lmfao). yeah. i like her but takaya really made some decisions with her huh. also i originally didn’t add her to this list but i’m just sticking her in here last second so yes there’s a note in hatori’s bit that doesn’t make sense now but it’s staying.

17. kyoko -- so i kind of have some blasé feelings about kyoko, except when it comes to her backstory, in which case i am just... upset lmfao..... the adult version we see of kyoko is sweet and at times like, pretty funny in just how blunt/harsh she can come across as, but in general my feelings about the parents in furuba are just like.... oh you’re a nice parent.... oh you’re a fucking horrible parent..... etc. you know? it’s usually pretty one or the other (some parents are a little more complicated than others -- tbh kakeru’s mom comes to mind), and she’s obviously portrayed as a good parent, esp since we see her primarily through memory. anyways, her backstory is just tragic. she went from one abusive situation to the next and was then left to be a single mom at like, 19/20, traumatized and with just about no support system, and while i understand that she was able to become the kyoko we see in the present because of tohru.... idk i think i still feel a kind of unresolved dissonance between backstory kyoko and the kyoko we see later on. and i think that largely has to do with the fact that we (purposefully) don’t see the parent’s perspectives -- so she ends up in this transitory stage. i have no idea how this would be resolved lmao i think it just is what it is.

18. hatori -- i’m also struggling to place him because i think he’s sooo so poignant in the beginning of the story but i don’t really pay much attention to him later on. which is a shame considering his introduction is to me the first real punch to the gut regarding just how deep the issues go with the sohmas. i don’t feel inclined to really think of him very often, but i just think there could have been more done for him. i think trying to tie up his issues with a romance just doesn’t really work and is also irrelevant to his? actual problems? (also sorry i’m just remembering that this is another symptom of takaya pulling another wacky coincidence maam they don’t all have to know each other i repeat they don’t all have to fucking know each other--) anyways i feel like his resolution wrt his issues with his family/the curse is kinda.... glossed over..... unless i’m just completely forgetting something. 

19. hiro -- i used to hate this kid. straight up. now i think he’s just like.... a typical smart-mouth 12 year old...... so he’s alright lmfao. i think his relationship with rin is interesting but it’s pretty forgettable. i don’t really care about his relationship with kisa or the parallel it makes with kyoru, but i do like the scene where he tells her about his curse breaking. he does mature in a nice way over the series. oh and the panel of him holding his sister makes me cry idk dudes. alright maybe i’ll place him above kagura just on that right alone.

20. kagura -- do i feel justified putting her this far down on the list? i dunno. her relationship with kyo isn’t my favorite (i just find it obnoxious) but i think she’s pretty funny and cute otherwise..... thing is kyo takes up like 95% of her story so there isn’t much otherwise 2 speak of. really wish her relationship with rin could have been explored more tbh i think that could have had potential. honestly my feelings about her change with the phases of the moon so while i don’t care much about her right now two weeks from now i’ll probably feel more inclined to bump her up to the momiji-rin range. which i feel like says enough about her character for me lmfao.

21. kisa -- she’s alright? i think she’s cute but she doesn’t really do much for me after her intro chapters (which. i only like so much bc they’re a big part of yuki’s narrative tbh). yeah. honestly not much to say about her :( 

22. ritsu -- sighs.... man...... ritsu could have just been so much more but canon doesn’t give us much and i really don’t think about them otherwise. like truly they just completely disappear for the whole meat of the story LMAO...... what the fuck..... 

23.  nao -- he’s not so far down at the bottom because i hate him, he only has this placement because you could literally take him out of the story and i wouldn’t fucking notice lmao. i never think about him and i don’t rlly want to. next.

24. kureno -- uuuugh uuuughhhhhhh. the wasted potential of this fucking guy. would it have been so hard to drop the creepy romance plotline and just put more effort into his story regarding his place in the family....... his symbolism...... fuck even just giving him a personality. ugh. honestly i think we could have benefitted from a pov chapter from him to get a better sense of all of this instead of just extrapolating but. alas. looking at him gives me the residual taste of cardboard and regret. i had actually originally placed him above both nao and ritsu because at least he gives me something to think about, but it didn’t feel right. i actively dislike seeing this dude because i just know that his storyline is fucked from start to finish -- not in a narrative way like akito or rin, but in a way that just gives me the impression that his character was never 100% there. all this drama over a man who only wears button-ups and khakis. despicable.

25. katsuya -- yeah i know boring typical answer and surprise to no one but there is just nothing redeemable about this dude to me. i won’t lie, i think i would consider his character differently if the narrative had any intention whatsoever to condemn him, but obviously that doesn’t happen so here we are. anyways tohru baby you were right to dislike him just like...... lean a little more into it yknow........ yeah. i considered maybe not putting him on here because of my general attitude about the furuba parents but the fact that the story tries to paint him in a positive light just makes kyoko’s backstory borderline unbearable to read. bad.

#'i won't do all of them' lists 25 fucking characters. actually why are there so many gd characters in this story. #yes i know technically a few of these i don't really have opinions on but i needed to complete the zodiac & stuco lists 😔✌ #fruits basket #fruits basket spoilers #answered #Anonymous

[makeste]

I just took that Bakugou introspection as Horikoshi's way of telling the audience that yes Bakugou can keep up with OP Deku because there has been so much muttering across the fanbase that Bakugou won't be able to. I don't see the melodrama of Bakugou only seeing his strength as a means to keep up with Deku or that his pride is problematic. I think him having an idea for his hero names means he knows what his strength is for. He's always been strong as a person (when Deku was not) (pt1)

Losing his quirk doesn't need to be the gateway to force him to develop the kindness and consideration he's already been showing, nor would it be karmatic balance between him and Deku- especially when any scenario that takes his quirk benches him from the story or cheapens the stakes by him getting it back relatively fast. Deku's 15 years of quirklessness can't be balanced. Additionally, Bakugou only lost in the story when he was too close minded to learn, once open minded he started to (pt2)

grow. It doesn't send out a good message, if after all that growth he still gets punished. His declaration of spirit to not lose, be it to Shigaraki or Deku is not a bad thing, he is the underdog with an indominable will and he is declaring his spirit as the symbol of victory. Bakugou may lose his quirk, I don't know, but your reasons I disagree with because we interpret those panels differently. They give the audience a point of reference to guage Bakugou's ability.

you make some excellent points, anon! and you see, it’s strange, because up until this chapter and his monologue, I was in full agreement with most of what you’re saying -- that he’s already figured out all of that hero biz, that he’s already in the process of sorting his shit out on his own, and that Horikoshi is simply waiting for the right moment to finally show it.

but after reading his internal dialogue in this chapter, I’m just not so sure anymore.

in the past I’ve done a lot of guesswork on Kacchan’s thought processes based on his subtle little actions and microexpressions, and on what we’ve already been told about his character thus far. I call it “guesswork”, though, because it very much is that, because we so rarely get an actual glimpse into his head to see what he is really thinking. so when Horikoshi actually does give us one of those rare glimpses, I’m inclined to pay very close attention, and prepared to make any necessary adjustments to my current understanding of his character if need be. he is very, very complicated, and despite my spending an absurd percentage of my free time analyzing him up and down and front to back, that absolutely doesn’t mean that any of those analyses are actually right, lols. I’m constantly updating my internal databank of Kacchan knowledge both from interactions with the rest of the fandom, and -- when Horikoshi actually deigns to give us some new information -- from the canon itself.

anyway! so when I read this chapter and saw Kacchan yet again comparing his progress to Deku’s in his head, and thinking -- even now, even in the moments right before an intense battle!! -- only about his rivalry and about keeping up, that immediately set me to updating my mental bakuwiki in regards to his current character growth status. so he definitely has his hero name picked out already, we know that much. and so presumably has thus already figured out what kind of hero he wants to be. right? right.

and yet he still apparently has not revealed the new name to anyone. even after three months. like yeah, we get it, you made a promise to tell Jeanist first, etc. fair enough, but still! it’s an interesting bit of hesitation to take note of. and then there’s also the matter of Horikoshi’s interview from back in December (which I’ll link in a comment once this is posted), where he talked a lot about Bakugou and made a point of saying that his character growth wasn’t done yet, and that he still needs to apologize to Deku. which is as good a confirmation as any that such an apology is indeed forthcoming.

so why, then, does it seem like we’re still no closer to that moment, even after Kacchan seemingly had a mysterious epiphany at the end of the internship arc, and even after we subsequently went through a three month time jump? Kacchan isn’t one to be slow about it when he decides to make progress. his growth in all other aspects has come by leaps and bounds. and yet when it comes to his relationship with Deku -- his friendship with Deku, except that he still can’t bring himself to acknowledge that’s what it is, and insists on thinking of it as only a rivalry -- it seems like he reached a certain point, and then just... stalled. like he’s not willing to go any further past this. and there are many reasons for why that may be the case. but at the root of all of them is pride.

and I’m not saying he needs to give up that pride, because that’s a huge and very important part of who he is. you said his declaration of spirit not to lose isn’t a bad thing, and I agree. but that doesn’t always make it a good thing either, and I don’t want to get so swept up in my love of the character that I start refusing to acknowledge the downsides of that trademark pride as well. pride, like anything else, is nuanced. it can be both good and bad. it’s good when it motivates you and pushes you to do your best and to achieve your goals. but it’s bad when it makes you inflexible, and when it prevents you from taking actions which would benefit you and others, just because doing so would mean humbling yourself in a way that is scary and which feels like it runs counter to your ultimate goals. because you want to be someone who always wins. and so any time you do experience a loss, you go through an entire mini-crisis, because it feels like your very purpose in life is being threatened.

I don’t know if “problematic” is the word I would use for this aspect of him. I feel like that word is fairly overused, especially in fandom, and now has certain connotations of “this is objectively bad behavior which should be called out and shunned.” and I don’t think that’s the case at all when it comes to Kacchan’s pride. he’s already learned how to put it aside in order to work with others and save others. and that’s great! he already is a great hero by this point, imo. if Horikoshi decided to just end his character arc here and not take it any further, I would actually be just fine with that.

but I think that there is still the potential for more. I think that we are still not done here yet. because this manga consistently surprises and amazes me with the way it goes the extra mile when it comes to character development. Kacchan and Deku didn’t have to reconcile their differences and learn to respect one another after only 120 chapters (I say “only” in a very sincere and not sarcastic sense here, because that really is an insanely short timeframe compared to most other manga). but they did. Endeavor didn’t have to see the error of his ways and decide that he wanted to become a better person, and he definitely didn’t have to be shown apologizing and admitting his wrongdoings and even going so far as to back out of his family’s lives for their sakes and even build them a house so they could move on apart from him. but he did! and that’s insane, you guys. name me another series that goes that hard in trying to redeem a guy whom virtually every single member of this fandom would have once described as ultimately devoid of any redeeming qualities. I can’t think of any.

but BnHA is just like that. it goes hard. it doesn’t back off. nothing about its character arcs is remotely half-assed. and so if a character is showing signs that they are still angling for more growth? that there are still things they need to learn? then I’m inclined to think we are going to roll up our sleeves and get that growth, one way or another.

this story consistently amazes me because whenever I look at a certain aspect of a character’s development and say to myself, “oh hey, that’s pretty awesome, even if it’s still not ideal,” Horikoshi goes and nudges it down another notch towards being ideal. like, the dude just doesn’t settle. and so that’s one of the reasons why I’m convinced this is a very real and even likely possibility. because this kind of development, to me, would be very, very, very close to my ideal. is it strictly necessary? absolutely not. would it fucking blow my mind as a development, however? I kinda think it would, ngl.

-- that is, with the one addendum that since I do love my son very dearly, I wouldn’t want it to actually be permanent. so in order to be truly ideal, such an arc would also have to include a way for him to climb back up again after experiencing that fall. which some might find contrived or “cheap”, as you put it. but that’s a risk I’m very selfishly and biasedly game for all the same, lol. I am more than willing to occasionally suspend my sense of disbelief in the name of character development, and honestly, I don’t actually think it would cheapen the stakes in any way, because just because Kacchan’s main character status gives him cool perks like a one-time get-out-of-losing-your-quirk-for-free card doesn’t mean the same would apply towards anybody else. and for that matter, it wouldn’t detract from whatever soul searching Kacchan does during that period while he fully believes that he will be quirkless for the rest of his life, either. it doesn’t have to be permanent in order to have a permanent impact.

lastly, in regards to it balancing things out between him and Deku, I don’t mean that Kacchan becoming quirkless would (a) be some sort of necessary and deserved punishment for him, or (b) be even remotely equivalent in any kind of way to what Deku experienced while growing up. that is very obviously not the case, and I can’t stand that kind of thinking, that redemption is only about punishment. maybe “karmic” isn’t the word I should have used then; I meant it as a way of signifying something spiritual in the push-pull balance between the two of them, not in the “what goes around comes around you were a jerk and now you’ll finally understand what it feels like” sense of the word. that’s a big yikes, lol. so yeah, just to clarify that part of it!

what I mean by balance is that it would serve as a catalyst to Kacchan finally being able to understand Deku’s side of it. finally being able to see things from the point of view of his rival-friend who’s had the exact opposite arc as him in terms of what he had to do and go through and learn and unlearn to get this far. it would serve as a means of finally bridging that one last gap of understanding between them. it would bring things back into balance because it would bring them back into balance, by giving them the push to finally mend that one last broken part of their former friendship. the part that’s still untouched by both of them, because they’re both afraid of disrupting the current semi-stable truce that they have now in their relationship. even if it’s not perfect. not, if you’ll pardon my use of the word yet again, ideal.

tl;dr I see Bakugou’s introspection as being a lead-in to something potentially game-changing both because I want it to be, and because, as strange as it may seem, the manga has conditioned me to think this way now. to have expectations. to anticipate more depth, more growth. so it may be the case that in this instance I’ve taken those expectations too far and I need to temper them back down and swing them in a less angsty, more traditionally shounen direction. and like I said, if that does wind up being the case, I won’t be upset.

but maybe, just maybe though, this manga will in fact go there once again. if for no other reason than that it can. “Horikoshi really went and did that” is a sentence I’ve gotten very used to typing since I started reading this manga. and so, well, let’s just wait and see.

#bnha 275 #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #bakudeku #bnha meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks #long post #because tumblr is being a giant @&$^)! and I'm not sure that the 'read more' function is working in the way it's supposed to be working #so if not I apologize! #my bad #quirkless!bakugou #bakugou meta

[bigskydreaming]

You’re a disgusting, abuse-survivor-shaming cunt. I hope you choke, I truly do.

So I get way more of these kinds of messages than I could possibly ever count. Have been for years. I don’t generally reply to them the way I mock some other hate messages I can at least have fun with, because like, what’s there to say about this kinda thing, y’know?

I don’t know how to get people to understand that there is NOTHING hypothetical about my anger about the things in fandom I get angry about. My rants about dark fic are PERSONAL, they have NOTHING to do with some arbitrary moral superiority stance. I don’t make assumptions as to others’ survivor status or motivations for writing various things because I don’t HAVE to, my anger and frustration are with the OUTPUT, not the inciting reasons. 

My hostility towards fandom comes directly from the hostility fandom shows me every time people try to convince me that I have no reason to have the reactions I do to the way they interact with the extremely combustible topics that define my own trauma and that of others. And the fact that fandom at large has decided that the ONLY acceptable reactions from survivors upon seeing others engaging with these sensitive topics in any way they choose, is either to be silent, or to take part in it. 

I don’t have to know which writers of which fics are or aren’t actually survivors attempting coping mechanisms of their own to be fucking furious at the way fandom has literally commodified these traumas, made them exploitable by making the catchphrase “some people write dark fic to cope” all-inclusive, utilized by anyone. With no shame or self-scrutiny as to the fact that YOU at least know if you are or aren’t a survivor, and if you aren’t one, you have ZERO business offering this particular line up as a defense to any survivor taking issue with the ways you embrace particular topics in particular ways.

The only things I have any interest in shaming people for is their choices, the fucking CHOICE to turn on any survivor who dares say “I have issues with this take” and this goes for abuse as much as it does rape. I’ve lost count of the number of authors over the years who HAVE spoken of being rape survivors specifically but then turn around and treat childhood physical abuse as their personal playground, with none of the care they put into crafting rape storylines on display when they casually have male abuse survivors punching each other in every other argument and just citing ‘boys will be boys.’ I can have sympathy for their status and experiences as rape survivors while still being upset at how they simultaneously perpetuate so many of the untruths that make it so hard for abuse survivors to affirm that they have actually been abused rather than call it something that its not, something that they’ve seen writers call it because the writers simply don’t want to inspect the fact that they’ve casually and without awareness written their characters abusing another.

It’s not a zero sum game.

I get angry not because I feel powerless in my own life (I don’t, actually, thanks, I’ve taken actionable steps every single day to fix what’s wrong in my own life and lol that’s power baby), and not because I’m fixated on my own trauma and unwilling to move past it (lol yeah I have no money to spend on anything BUT therapy because I’m committing to the highly specialized and expensive therapy I only arrived at after years of trial and error with other forms because I just don’t want to move past any of this, okay sure).

Nah, I get angry because of the galaxy brain intellects who smarmingly just decide on this view of me for themselves, condescension dripping from every ‘well-meaning’ expression of contempt sympathy, with zero examination of the fact that like.....idk guys, its a little hard to move past my trauma when everyone ELSE seems more fixated on it than I do! LOL, so we’re just gonna skip merrily on by the fact that the only reason its an ISSUE for me in fandom is because its EVERYWHERE in fandom, huh? ‘Mind the tags’ people parrot mindlessly, as though its not like tags HAVE to be created with self-awareness for what people are supposed to mind, or like I haven’t had people literally try to trigger me with tags aimed specifically at getting under my skin as ‘payback’ for something I wrote (out of moral superiority, naturally, not a visceral display of emotion, never that). As though the tags have anything to do with the fact that even outside of Ao3, there are incest-themed shipping weeks every single month of the year, that every major discord server and fic exchange and other fandom wide event demands participants be ‘ship-friendly’ which might as well be code for ‘not friendly to anyone who doesn’t prioritize ships over survivors,’ like fandom hasn’t created a culture in which people are more inclined to be defensive over how people make writers FEEL about stuff they’ve written than they are to be defensive over how certain writing makes various survivors feel.

I’ll never get over how a fandom that universally expressed disdain for Devin Grayson’s disrespectful handling of the sensitive topic of rape has obliviously embraced every form of euphemism under the sun for their own content, and just flat out REFUSES to concede that there is ANY room for criticism in ANY handling of even the most sensitive of topics. Because there’s no sensitivity allowed when it comes to any topic in fandom....unless its the writer’s sensitivity, that must be respected at all costs.

Does that not really strike you as....odd? Aren’t there lines out there about how no society or culture or environment that truly embraces free speech can simultaneously embrace freedom from criticism? And yet time and time again, its anyone who dares criticize - in ANY fashion - the HOW of what someone wrote, not even the WHY, they’re the ones termed authoritarian, censor, the one attempting to SHUT DOWN conversation rather than expand upon it. Tell me, what conversation was THIS anon and similar ilk attempting to invite? Every criticism I write of fandom invites people to engage with it. I fucking BEG people to engage with it. You’re the ones who choose not to. At least not in good faith. Because its only when I refuse to let you move the goalposts from anything other than this being about me reacting to what you wrote, no aim at doing anything other than being a reaction to an action, not an attempt to tell you what to do, just an attempt to get you to tell me WHY, if it really is as defensible as you loftily claim it is - then why is it you just can’t tell me, straight to my face, that it doesn’t matter what negative reaction your writing evokes, you don’t actually have to care? Cuz you don’t, of course. But if you’re that content with your own motivations, your own impact, why so uncomfortable just saying that?

The funny thing is, I truly don’t make any assumptions as to the why of anyone writing dark fic. I have a lot to say about the fact that we all know damn well that at least some of the people offering up the ‘some survivors use dark fic to cope’ aren’t speaking of themselves when they do so, but I have ZERO interest in imagining who that is and why. I’ve spoken of the fact that its willful naivete to assume that even if your own motivations for writing certain content are innocent in your own mind, you can’t assume the same of EVERYONE. That its nothing but willfulness to pretend that actual predators don’t peruse the same content. That the very same factors that make Dick Grayson so appealing to survivors, for example, as a strong heroic character who neverthless has been victimized and violated more than once - the flip side of this coin is this of course makes him EQUALLY appealing to people on the other end of things....a strong heroic character who nevertheless can be victimized and violated more than once.

And yet I honestly, truly have no interest in figuring out who might be whom, when it comes to writers, and I don’t assume everyone who writes or reads certain content in certain ways is in the latter camp. IT DOES ME NO GOOD, to go through life assuming that many people are all potential rapists or inclined to side with my own rapists’ or abusers’ side of things. I CHOOSE to give people the benefit of the doubt there, I assume perhaps they ARE survivors trying in good faith to cope with their own trauma and defensive about hearing that butts up against with other survivors trying to move on in other ways, or that they’re simply people who grew up in fandom being told there is nothing they can write that can be termed wrong, and have trouble with such a deeply held conviction being contested. Or perhaps only got into shipping incest because the ‘fandom elders’ of various fandoms like SPN deliberately and with full intent once upon a time pitched incest as being the same kind of taboo relationship that the same kind of people who forced gay men into secretive relationships were against....that incest ships and closeted gay ships were basically the same, and so as the latter became less of a thing as media showed more open gay relationships, incest ships became more of a thing among fans who were really compelled by the secretive/’society’s against them’ aspect of forbidden love.

I don’t assume any of that on a ONE TO ONE basis with any single writer or reader because I don’t KNOW their personal story and I’m not TRYING to. It makes no difference when I’m not talking about or arguing against the WHY of someone doing a thing, but the HOW. The end result, and the interactions it creates in the environment in which their output is published, shared, celebrated.

All at the expense of any survivor who doesn’t enjoy seeing things they’ve struggled with getting taken seriously about, maybe all their lives....not taken seriously, and offered up as just a themed week on the latest fantasy porn prompt generator. The problem with incest shippers isn’t even just ‘you ship incest, why do you do that,’ its that you can’t seem to manage to do it without assuming anyone who objects is only doing so out of a place of moral superiority. You try and make it a hypothetical argument “well what about when you do this” as opposed to something rooted in the here and now of the personal. We’re not talking about what ifs, we’re talking about what is. Deal with that before you try raising something else, instead of always raising something else so you never have to deal with that. 

The problem is people condescendingly assuming we have ZERO basis for any objection, or any negative reaction at all. Its our own fault, you see, for being too stupid to get that fiction doesn’t affect reality (even though we’ve debunked that time and time again). Its our own fault, you see, for not getting that its not really incest BECAUSE (a claim that is never actually as universal as it tries to pretend to be, and thus is never more than a distraction for the specific argument that prompted it). Its our own fault, you see, for not getting that this isn’t really a big deal, there are bigger problems, and its awfully sad if we’re so fragile and delicate we can’t handle someone enjoying something that has nothing to do with us (even though its never your call whether or not it has anything to do with us, just as its never our call what your specific motivations for writing specific content might be).

The problem is the same thing I’ve been dealing with all my life, and all the more exhausting for it being front and center in fandoms that claim to be escapism and catharsis for survivors....as long as those survivors perform in the manner fandom is comfortable with....aka the manner fandom has exploited and commodified in order to make certain manners of enjoying certain topics possible and defensible for ALL fans, regardless of their own connection to such topics, or motivations surrounding them.

Denial, avoidance, and abdication of responsibility. There’s no problem if YOU don’t see a problem, after all. There can’t be a problem if you just refuse to acknowledge a problem. A problem has nothing to do with you if you simply have nothing to do with it.

And all the while, you continue engaging in the same behaviors that provoke the same reactions that you refuse to ever actually engage with or address, relying on gaslighting to try and sell people and everyone around them that THEY’RE the real problem....its us that have no respect for freedom of speech, creativity or the creative process, other peoples’ traumas, the difference between fantasy and reality, etc etc ad nauseam.

We see people waving away instances of physical abuse with textbook abuse apologism, and we’re told we don’t know what we’re talking about. We see people offering up wording and phrasing in the comment sections of fics that are literally textbook grooming techniques we recognize from our own experiences and we’re told we’re imagining things. We see characters raping others without it being described as rape and we’re told we didn’t mind the tags, even though oddly enough, none of the tags actually said ‘rape’ but rather other euphemisms and if they aren’t in place to tell readers not to expect actual rape in the actual fic, then, what purpose is it they actually serve, again?

But sure.

Talk to me some more about survivor-shaming. 

[rwby-redux]

Deconstruction

Worldbuilding: Genetics

If any of my Deconstruction posts were going to turn heads, I had a hunch it would be this one. You’ll probably find this topic incongruous with the others simply because—unlike Aura, Semblances, Dust, and Grimm—genetics isn’t one of RWBY’s unique gimmicks. If I’m being entirely honest, part of why this post exists is because I still had some miscellaneous talking points to address, but lacked a proper heading to file them under. Call it what it is: a dumping ground for wayward thoughts.

But there’s a bit more to it than just that. The reason why I want to talk about this is because, much like the other mechanical aspects, genetics does have a bearing on RWBY’s worldbuilding, and the stories that were subsequently built around it. It has an undeniable impact on the sociopolitical human-Faunus schism that set the stage for Remnant’s immediate past, and the present-day terrorist acts committed by the White Fang. Genetics is also an extension of RWBY’s adherence to color theory, reflected in the hair and eye color choices of the ensemble cast.

Before we can finally conclude Part 1 of the Worldbuilding posts, we need to discuss this topic from both a narrative and a production standpoint. Genetics is firmly rooted in the development and design choices of the writers—choices which, as you’ll quickly see, had long-lasting consequences for the show.

Today we’re going to be dividing this topic into two sections. Since I’m sure it’s already on your mind, let’s get the obvious one out of the way first:

The Genetics of the Faunus

The Faunus are going to have an entire post dedicated just to them, but it’s impossible to talk about genetics without at least a passing mention of one of Remnant’s two main species.

Subspecies.

Races?

Yeah. You can quickly see where this is going.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me provide some context. Just like the conception of the Maidens, the Faunus can trace their developmental history to a rather impulsive design choice:

“Monty really wanted a character with cat ears,” admits Miles Luna. Shawcross expands on how Blake Belladonna’s look resulted in a cornerstone of the show’s lore. “So if Blake has cat ears, does that mean anyone can have cat ears? Could they have other animal traits? It’d be cool to see someone with scales or a fox tail…” [1]

Let me clarify by saying that there’s nothing wrong with basing a decision on aesthetics (in principle, anyway). And RWBY isn’t the only franchise guilty of doing this. It only takes a few seconds of consulting TV Tropes to see that zoomorphism is extremely pervasive. And while I have a tendency to complain a lot on this blog, I’m not such a kvetch that I’ll deny that animal-people with lion tails and ram horns look fucking sweet.

The problem I have with Faunus (from a genetic standpoint) is the way they’re inconsistently described in relation to humans. While Qrow unambiguously refers to them as a separate species, [2] we have Faunus characters that contradict him by describing themselves as a race. [3] This leads to the inevitable issue of whose account do we trust? On one hand, the information provided to us by Qrow is through World of Remnant, a spin-off series whose entire purpose is to clarify information and teach the audience about core worldbuilding concepts. On the other hand, what we’re told about the Faunus being a race comes directly from Ghira Belladonna. In this context, who would you expect to be the better authority on Faunus—a human, or a Faunus?

Even if we set aside the complicated implications of an outgroup member talking over a minority, we’re still left with the issue of well, which is it? Are they a race or a species? And why does it even matter?

Before we can answer any of those questions, let’s quickly define both terms:

A species is a taxonomic rank used for classifying groups of organisms together on the basis of being able to participate in genetic interchange via sexual reproduction, to produce fertile offspring.

A race (in biology) is an informal/unrecognized taxonomic rank below subspecies, defined as unique subgroups with either geographic, physiological, or genetic distinctions from other subgroups within their species. In anthropology, however, a race is typically regarded as a social construct. In this case, it refers to an identity held by members of a population that share physical or social qualities that are seen as categorically distinct.

The answer, if we’re being objective, is probably something along the lines of “RWBY’s writers thought that the two terms were interchangeable, or they didn’t think the distinction mattered enough to do the research and settle on a definition.” Unless someone specifically reached out to a Rooster Teeth employee and asked, we’ll never truly know. Speculation will only get us so far, and where this blog is concerned, we need a definitive answer—or at the very least, we need to talk about why the distinction matters to us.

So, are Faunus their own race? Meaning, are they a self-identifying ethnic group with a common language, ancestry, history, culture, nation, or social treatment within their residing area?

Common language: That’s a definite no. RWBY still hasn’t managed to explain how everyone across the four kingdoms speaks the same language, let alone develop any conlangs.

Ancestry: We actually don’t have a canon answer for this. The show has yet to tell us where the Faunus came from, so we can’t make any assumptions about how related they are to one another.

History: Technically, yes. But the series has a gross tendency to homogenize the experience of Faunus across Remnant, so the history of Faunus in Vale is virtually identical to that of Mistral. This trend results in storytelling discrepancies, like the Faunus in culturally-unprejudiced Vacuo [4] being equally threatened by and involved with the Faunus Rights Revolution, when there shouldn’t have been an in-world basis for this scenario.

Culture: Don’t make me laugh. RWBY couldn’t even be bothered to give any of its four kingdoms distinct cultures. Apart from a few scenes in Menagerie where you see a bunch of background characters hanging out in the Shallow Sea district of Kuo Kuana, there really isn’t anything culturally unique to the Faunus.

Nation: I guess? I personally wouldn’t consider Menagerie a nation, simply because it’s not one the Faunus originated from, but were rather given in the aftermath of the Great War. As far as we know, Faunus have always been just as widespread across Remnant as humans.

Social treatment: We’re told that social treatment for the Faunus as a whole is shitty, but that the degree of shittiness varies from place to place. Forgive me if I don’t buy that. Not after we’ve seen students in Vale physically harass a Faunus, [5] shops in Mistral refuse service to Faunus, [6] and companies in Atlas extract labor from Faunus. [7] If social treatment is contingent on shared experiences, then why are we told that these experiences change depending on the kingdom? And if the kingdoms vary in levels of racial acceptance, then why are we repeatedly shown the exact opposite?

Based on the aforementioned criteria, I’m inclined to say that Faunus don’t fit the definition of race.

So, are the Faunus a separate species from humans?

“History gets a little fuzzy past a certain point, but we do know that their kind and ours are completely compatible, from a—a biological standpoint.” | Source: World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 6: “Faunus.”

That’s a resounding no.

As much as the taxonomist in me wants to talk about things like the multiple competing species concepts, or the fact that plants frequently violate the definition of species by producing fertile hybrids through polyploidy (chromosomal doubling), I have to restrain myself. For simplicity’s sake, we’re accepting that Faunus and humans are members of the same species on the basis that they’re not reproductively isolated.

The reason why genetics matters in regards to the race-species discourse is because we have yet to learn what the Faunus truly are. If we ignore the fact that they exist because Monty Oum wanted to stick cat ears on a girl, then we have to figure out what their existence means to Remnant’s past: Did the Brother Gods intervene in the early evolution of Humanity v2.0, by creating a subset of people with animal traits that would sow discord, for the sole purpose of giving Ozma another obstacle to overcome? Did Salem (who watched Humanity v2.0 evolve) try to influence their evolution, and somehow managed to bestow animalistic traits upon select groups of early hominids? Is Dust like a magically-radioactive fossil fuel that by pure chance mutated early people through exposure, resulting in their animalistic traits? Are the Faunus’ animal traits completely irrelevant to the plot, and are only there for the sake of style?

That’s why the Faunus’ genetic background matters—because as the story progresses, it’s going to inform what questions the audience asks.

There’s a good chance that all of this will end up being nitpicky conjecture, and there won’t be any storytelling payoff. But I think it’s still important to address, if for no other reason than to illustrate why pre-production worldbuilding is essential for telling a coherent story. But I digress.

Genetics, and Its Relationship with Color Theory

It goes without saying that RWBY is defined by color. It’s reflected in nearly every facet of the franchise—team names, wardrobe, Dust color, Aura color, emblems, characters’ names, even the show’s title—and it’s just as important from a worldbuilding standpoint as it is from a narrative one. [8]

Where color theory and genetics cross paths is in the field of character appearance—specifically, hair and eye color. For the moment, let’s set aside eye color as a visual device for foiling and paralleling characters (like Yang Xiao Long’s purple eyes compared to Blake Belladonna’s yellow eyes). Instead, we’re going to talk about these phenotypes from a hereditary perspective.

We’re going to streamline this discussion a bit by focusing on hair for the moment, and picking three colors that would be considered unnatural by our world’s standards. Let’s go with blue, green, and pink. Here’s a handful of characters who have these traits:

Blue hair: Neptune Vasilias, Ciel Soleil, Henry Marigold, May Marigold, Nebula Violette, Sky Lark, Trifa

Green hair: Emerald Sustrai, Marrow Amin, Bartholomew Oobleck, Reese Chloris, Russel Thrush, Sage Ayana

Pink hair: An Ren, May Zedong, Nadir Shiko

Now we’re going to take those lists and swap out the characters’ names for their inferred country of origin:

Blue hair: Mistral, Atlas, Atlas, Atlas, Vacuo, Vale, Menagerie

Green hair: Vale, Atlas, Vale, Mistral, Vale, Mistral

Pink hair: Mistral, Vacuo, Mistral

We can conclude that these hair colors are natural on the basis that we never see characters dying their hair, and that similarly unusual eye colors (red, pink, purple, yellow) would also be natural in Remnant. Unless we’re assuming that everyone is wearing custom contact lenses, then it’s safe to say they’re legit. With the example of hair color, you’ll notice that they’re distributed across a wide number of nationalities, with little hint of consistency among them.

At the end of the day, it’s easy to write this off as “the writers wanted to have cool character designs and not have to think too hard about the worldbuilding implications behind them.” But there is a worldbuilding implication behind them, and it’s one that I’ll be focusing on in later Deconstruction and Amendment posts, so I want to make sure we talk about it now:

RWBY has repeatedly shown us that people are fairly geographically isolated from each other, and travel between kingdoms has always been difficult due to the Grimm. It wasn’t until eighty years ago, when the Great War ended, that a combo of international political cooperation and technological advancements made travel safer and more commonplace. Keep in mind that when populations of humans are geographically isolated from each other over prolonged periods of time, it results in those populations evolving specific anatomical traits.

Let me give you a few real world examples. Epicanthic folds are predominantly found in East Asian, Polynesian, and North Asian ethnic groups. Red hair, while not exclusive to any one nationality, is statistically highest in people of Northwestern European ancestry. Darker complexion is most common in equatorial populations, where high melanin production (especially eumelanin) protects against UVR exposure.

RWBY has every reason under the sun to ascribe certain phenotypes to the ethnicities of each kingdom, and for some reason it just doesn’t. Like, why not make green hair a trait common to people with Sanus ancestry? How about red eyes originating from Anima?

Avatar: The Last Airbender pulled this off by making dark skin, brown hair, and blue/gray eyes features of the Water Tribes. The Fire Nation, to reflect its broader geographic distribution, has a much wider range of phenotypes, with both light and dark skin tones and black or brown hair. However, it still retained golden, amber, and bronze eyes as a distinguishing characteristic of people descended from this ancestry. Frankly, I love that the show took the time to establish those traits among its ethnic groups. Not only was it a great way to visually communicate to the audience the ethnicity of the characters, but those traits took on entirely new meanings in the sequel Avatar: The Legend of Korra. When we meet the brothers Mako and Bolin for the first time and see their respective eye colors—amber and green—we’re immediately able to deduce that they’re the products of successful multiculturalism, something that would’ve seemed impossible seventy years ago when the world was gripped by war. It’s a powerful statement that was conveyed through careful attention to detail and excellent worldbuilding. Given that RWBY also takes place several decades after a global war, the writers had the opportunity to pull off a similar feat. And I don’t think it ever occurred to them once.

At the end of the day, it’s not the worst thing RWBY could’ve done. I think I’m just disappointed by the missed opportunities. The show already has so little going for it when it comes to shaping the identities of its four main kingdoms, so with color being such a vital motif for the show, this feels like it should have been a natural progression of those ideas.

On a more positive note, we’ve finally reached the end of Worldbuilding (Part I) - Mechanical Aspects! Next time, we’ll get to introduce the second section of worldbuilding topics: history.

-

[1] Wallace, Daniel. The World of RWBY: The Official Companion. VIZ Media LLC, 2019, page 42.

[2] World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 6: “Faunus.”

[3] Volume 5, Episode 3: “Unforeseen Complications.” Ghira Belladonna: “[Adam’s] actions not only tarnished the reputation of an organization originally created to bring peace and equality to all, but to our entire race.”

[4] World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 4: “Vacuo.”

[5] Volume 1, Episode 11: “Jaunedice - Part 1.”

[6] Volume 5, Episode 6: “Known by Its Song.”

[7] Volume 7, Episode 1: “The Greatest Kingdom.”

[8] Wallace, Daniel. The World of RWBY: The Official Companion. VIZ Media LLC, 2019, page 44.

#deconstruction #worldbuilding #writing #genetics #oh thank god it's done #time to go slither off to bed

[sterling-silvers]

Killmonger - The Subtly of a Scene? (Black Panther - 2018)

Above is concept art of the prolific museum scene that was featured in Black Panther (2018). While the illustration is fairly on par with what actually happened in the movie, a fundamental difference - and focal point of this piece - is the choice attire N’Jadaka (aka Killmonger) chose to wear in it. While the art depicts him in a suit the actual movie had him adorned in what I like to call “Trillmonger”. 

While I can’t help but respect the vast oceans of drip that are flowing from this regalia, I truly felt as if the message the scene was parlaying would have been more impactful if he had been profiled while wearing the suit.

When I voiced this opinion to a fellow constituent - who continues to impress and influence me with his insightful wisdom and perspective on life, particularly when it comes to Afro-centric media - he, strongly disagreed with my remark.

He, summarily, stated that Killmonger’s persona of unapologetically Black would and should extend to refusal to conform to a norm put forth by systemically racist and thus inherently Eurocentric ideas of what looks "professional". To which many agreed; I however did not. I took umbrage with the notion in several aspects and while the interpretation was valid, it was not sound in my eyes based on the below analysis of the diction and semantics that’s been highlighted in the first sentence of this paragraph.

“Unapologetically Black” – I didn’t think wearing a suit at all took away from him being unapologetically Black, even with his radically pragmatic sentiments. For me, as Black man, unapologetically Black is not simply an aesthetic – it’s who you are; what’s cardinal to your core. It cannot be taken away and or hidden. Killmonger wearing a suit as opposed to what he actually wore would not have taken away him being unapologetically Black – if anything, it would have added to it BECAUSE of how the security and curator would still have profiled him; even with the suit, he’s still Black in their eyes - and Black is a threat. This particularly rings true when you take into account his CIA training and knowledge of how to best cultivate and usurp the resident power in question. This, aggregated together, adds to the scene and what it was meant to represent. He wanted all eyes on him and whether he was in a suit or dripped out, it was going to happen regardless BECAUSE at the end of the day, he’s Black – unapologetically speaking.  Granted, my cohort tried to differentiate the two scenes by pointing out that the clothes that were worn in South Korea were for the purposes of blending into the casino environment; particularly when it came to the wig that Okoye wore, much to her chagrin. He continued with, the fact that both Nakia and T'Challa “were people who often have to conform to their surroundings to blend in, to help others, or to be taken seriously as the world still thinks Wakanda is some podunk farm country” (slight disagreement here as, up until the end of Black Panther, the idea was to keep up the facade of being a podunk country as if the world, at large, were to know what Wakanda had, they would never stop trying to steal it). He concluded this strain of logic by contrasting Killmonger and Okoye;  “Okoye who is wearing a wig that falls in line with Eurocentric beauty standards and is the opposite of the very Wakandan armor and bald head she's used to wearing day to day. She is not a diplomat, she is a warrior for her people. Killmonger is not a diplomat, he's a revolutionary for his people.” 

Once again, I found this to be valid but not sound. T’Challa, Nakia, and Okoye, wore those clothes in South Korea to blend into their environment to get into a specific place for their MISSION. Even Okoye, who is proud Wakadan warrior was willing to wear the garb of colonizers in order to carry out said mission. However, for some reason, it didn’t occur to him that the same could have rung true for N'jadaka. Even if the suit was conformist, is it that hard to believe that the very person willing to team up with Klaue, who committed a TERRORISTIC ACT, killing his fellow Wakandans -  for a time in order to obtain his access to Wakanda; moreover, his arguable birth right to the throne -  would be unwilling to put on a suit if it meant getting closer to his mission AND birth right? “Conform” – Wearing a suit is not conforming to a Eurocentric understanding of professional. For me, that utterance simply follies at nigh every conceivable angle. I asked him, if the suit – in this particular scene – is to be a representation of Eurocentric ideology of professionalism does the logic follow that N’Jadaka’s clothes are the aesthetic of Black American exceptionalism (I used Black American but, Killmonger, himself, is actually African American; yes, there is a difference between the two - nonetheless his garb seems to emulate Black American style)? 

Moreover, if we extend the idea to the rest of the movie, specifically when T’Challa is wearing a Black suit – along with Okoye’s and Nakia’s red and green dresses, respectively (creating the colors of Pan-Africanism, unapologetically) is that still a representation of them conforming? 

Besides, even if one were to accept the notion that wearing the suit was conforming to the Eurocentric value, by that same logic, when T’Challa addresses the UN and is unapologetically wearing a scarf of clearly African influence, he is thusly, either showing a dominance of his African roots (as the scarf is literally draped over the Eurocentric representative) and or an integration of cultures.

To this inquiry, he summarily responded that because T’Challa is a diplomat first, him wearing the combo of the suit and scarf was symbolic of seeking integration - as it is in line with his persona. This response seemed incomplete as it failed to address the fact that the scarf over-encompasses the “Eurocentric” symbol and therefore could be seen as African excellence dominating the Euro view... 

He continued with the argument that: “For all the profiling Killmonger would've experienced in a suit he'd still likely would've experienced less. ‘Professional’ clothing makes [W]hite people, especially in high places, feel safe. It's why house servants were put in tuxedos. If the goal was to have all eyes on him then he should've stuck out like a sore thumb. Which he did.” 

Once more, this is semantics with an addition to the playing of the scene; depending on how you define unapologetically Black - via skin being the center point or skin and clothes fitting the interpretation - significantly affects how you view the degree to which he was profiled. However, the true nail in the coffin, comes later on when we see one of the members of the Council - River Tribe Elder and Nakia’s Father - wearing a suit not only during Killmonger’s fight with T’Challa but also prior when he is with the other council members. 

I suppose HE was just conforming to the “Eurocentric” understanding of professionalism, right...?  In terms of my Black American exceptionalism through line he responded with: “His clothing shouldn't mean or imply ‘African American exceptionalism’; that's as conformist as a suit. It's supposed to imply ‘I don't give a fuck’ it's supposed to be rebellious. He's not there to make anybody comfortable.”  This response was a bit comical to me. I replied with; “You can’t have it both ways – if the suit, in your mind, was to be a representation of a certain cultural aspect then his actual clothes could and should also be taken to represent a different aspect of a cultural perspective.” It’s as simple as that; if you open the door, don’t be surprised when people peer inside. 

This hilarity rang true even further with his final line of; “Finally, yes, you're right a suit doesn't inherently make you more or less unapologetically Black. However we’re talking about a movie, where what you see is as important as the dialogue that your characters say. It's a cinematic decision to have every piece of his character not only be unapologetically [B]lack and the opposite of T'Challa on every level. It's not nearly as effective piece of art if he's wearing a suit. Supported by the countless people who posted about how he rolled up in a museum looking like a drench god.”

These last sentences are foolhardy; for one, we’ll never know how people feel about the suit when compared to the drip clothes because the suit scene was and probably will never be shown - if it exists. So, there’s nothing to compare and contrast it with. For two, a consensus of people in agreement does not automatically beget validation; it could just mean that they are wrong in mass unison. 

Despite the disagreement, there’s definitely more than a few lessons and perspective one can attain from this back and forth; moreover, it shows just how poignant an impression Black Panther left on its audience - all, with the just the subtly of a scene. 

#black panther #killmonger #n'jadaka #trillmonger #tchalla #nakia #okoye #drench god #unapologeticblack #drip #wakanda #river tribe elder #river tribe #klaue

[chasingshhadows]

RNM S01: A Progressive Review

I want to talk about diversity, representation, social issues, and the way Roswell New Mexico succeeds and fails in that particular department. It’s 2019 and we no longer live in a world where it’s acceptable to ignore the societal implications of the media we consume. That said, it’s also 2019, and Roswell is doing some things that place it far ahead of its peers in media in ways that make it an absolute pleasure to watch. Like honestly, I’m fucking thrilled with this show ok.

I’ve read and skimmed a lot of discussion about the ways in which RNM has failed to be this perfect paragon of progressive representation, and I’ve read/skimmed far less discussion – by both fans and TPTB – about the ways in which the show is trying to be better than its forebears.

However, there seems to be a wide divide between people recognizing the former and people recognizing the latter, and I very much believe it’s irresponsible to try to focus on either one without at least acknowledging the other. So I’m going to talk about those failures and successes, and I’m gonna zig-zag that line so that if you want to read about how I feel about one of those things, you’re gonna have to at least skim the other.

[read more]

I tried to be as concise as possible, but even so, this is rather long, mostly because I didn’t want to make several posts about this. I want to say what I have to say on the topic and then get back to the story because that’s really why I’m here.

Also to note: I understand – and I hope we all understand – that we are in the first season of this show. This means that they should have plenty of time to follow through on or fix many of the issues I will point out, but that also leaves room for them to torpedo many of the positives I’ll discuss. Just – please know that I know we’re only one season in, and anything could happen.

On lived race

This show does a fabulous job exploring how race intersects with these characters’ lives and how it plays an active role in shaping not only who they are, but how their story lines play out. With Liz & Arturo, their race – and immigration status – are openly discussed on screen and inform their decisions and how they present themselves to others, as well as how they are received by their town. This is, in fact, a major aspect of the first season arc/plot as a whole, not just as it pertains to Arturo & Liz (and Rosa), but as it pertains to all the characters, so it’s worth emphasizing.

With Maria, we see her discuss her race as a factor in her isolation from her hometown, as well as seeing how she owns it in the face of racist customers. With Kyle, we see his compassion as a fellow child of immigrants in treating Arturo off the books, and with his mother, we see her perspective on that situation based on her own experiences as a Hispanic immigrant. And with Mimi, we see, tho tangentially, how the intersection of her race and gender and the stereotyping around those have had a negative impact on her healthcare. Even what little we saw of Arizona was washed in her experiences as a Native woman, and her (rightful) disdain for white people.

On the other side of that coin, we have white characters, namely the three alien siblings, whose White Privilege plays an active role in their actions and how they conduct themselves. I know some people have frustrations that these three main characters were all cast as white, but I’ll be honest, after having seen 1.06 (Smells Like Teen Spirit), I would not have bought that any of these characters were a POC. Can you imagine a Black or Hispanic teen being thoughtless enough to frame a WOC – who also happens to be the daughter of a known undocumented immigrant – for the drug-induced vehicular manslaughter of two white girls and not expect the entire town to then turn on that family? Even as a teen, no POC would be race-blind enough to not have had that forethought. It would not be believable, without an immense amount of heavy lifting in the backstory, for a POC to have framed Rosa instead of either of the white women, to have made the decision to put her in the driver’s seat over the other two.

And in this way, the show also does an amazing job in showcasing how good, liberal white people can still be thoughtless where it concerns race. Especially at 17. The White Privilege of the alien siblings, and their lack of awareness of it, serves as a major negative driver of the show’s plot and is the root cause of much of the conflict throughout the first season. That’s real, that’s believable, and that’s important to show.

This, all of this, is vital in portraying accurate, true-to-life representations of how marginalized racial communities interact with each other and white populations, and also gives those communities characters they can point to that not only look like them, but also share their experiences – experiences which are unique to POC and also give white viewers a clearer picture of what it’s truly like to live in this country as a person of color.

On meaningful racial representation

I feel rather let down that the show didn’t follow through on Alex’s heritage in any of the meaningful ways that they did with the other POC on the show (see previous section). All of those characters had clear and explicit aspects of their narrative which centered their race as an part of their story – again, rightfully, as that is how it’s lived IRL. We got to see them express and experience their race as more than just the color of their skin. We didn’t get that with Alex. (or with Noah, but he’s a whole other story)

It’s particularly disappointing considering that Alex is the only POC on the show who passes (that we know of, ofc). Many people will be upset at my bringing this up, but it’s true and we should be talking about it. His ability to pass – the ability for anyone to look at him and not know immediately that he is of Native descent – does not in any way negate his POC identity. Not even remotely. Not a little bit, not at all. All it means is that as a POC, Alex has the ability to be spared from certain microaggressions experienced by others in his community. Not all, not even most, but some. But it also means that he is subject to microaggressions that others in his community will never experience – such as someone making disparaging comments about Natives as tho there aren’t any in the room, or by people assuming he’s “basically white” bc he looks white and erasing his heritage entirely. Those are experiences unique to his race that other Natives who don’t “pass” would never experience.

Roswell didn’t follow through on that this season. We saw no indication, other than the casting of his brother as a Native actor (which I was very pleased about, mind you), that Alex Manes is not as white as he appears. Portraying and giving accurate representation to POCs who pass is just as important as giving it to POCs who don’t.

On consent

WOW this show does a marvelous job at portraying how people should approach getting active and explicit consent from those around them. Active consent is so deeply ingrained in the foundation of this show that its absence is used as an indicator to the audience that something is very very wrong - and on more than one occasion. In order to pull that off, the show has had to set an abundantly clear standard for the type of consent that these characters should expect from each other when things are not horribly wrong, and that standard is appropriately high.

Max and Liz are the obvious duo with which this is explored. From the first, when Liz wants to kiss Max outside of the cave, he stops her because he’s concerned that her judgement may be impaired or impacted by the effects of his powers. He refuses to take advantage of that state, making a direct call to the behavior women wish we could expect from men when our own judgement may be impaired. This continues later when she asks to be left alone and he just immediately backs down and away, not pushing or persuading. He treats her word as law, as he should. We see even in his past, as a teenage white boy in 2008, that he consistently asked for Liz’s consent to even be in her presence.

We see it between Michael and Alex in very different but still very present ways. A lot of Michael and Alex’s communication is silent and, as such, so are their consent check-ins. Before their first kiss, you see Michael checking in with Alex, watching Alex’s body language as he approaches and making sure Alex is receptive before he goes for the kiss – and Alex is, clearly. Michael asks what Alex wants and Alex says that doesn’t matter while stepping toward Michael. Michael stops and looks at Alex and Alex continues to move closer, looking back and forth from Michael’s eyes to his lips. This type of silent communication and consent checks continues throughout the rest of the season, from the scene at the drive-in to the teenage scenes and on.

We also see clear attempts at getting explicit consent between Liz & Kyle, between Cam & Max, and even when Michael was guarding Maria at the gala (I can go get Liz if you want me to leave) and later when he approaches her following the events of 1.13.

This has honestly been so fucking cool to see like this, on a CW show especially, to see how easy and essential it is to get that consent in all situations. It’s an important representation that we don’t see laid out clearly enough in media today and I’m so fucking proud of Roswell for doing it so effectively.

On disability & erasure

This show started to do something that was really incredible in portraying one of the main characters as an amputee. We see his crutch, we see the way he moves with it, we see how he struggles with it, and we see how he is determined to life his life as an amputee, and not just despite it.

There was certainly plenty of room to improve in even that regard - specifically where it concerns coaching on exactly how a recent amputee might move their body and center their weight and whatnot, even, or maybe especially, if that person were trying to hide their struggle. But it’s clear that the show was trying to represent a type of character we don’t get to see often.

But then Alex loses the crutch. Rather suddenly and very cold turkey. This is not an accurate representation of how someone with a recent loss of limb would experience their recovery, no matter how much that person may want to hide it. Recovery takes time, it takes practice, and it includes bad days. We didn’t see any of that.

It's particularly frustrating considering the show gave themselves the perfect opportunity to do this transition far better and didn't take advantage of it. There was a six-week time jump between episodes 8 & 9. Had we seen Alex try to go without his crutch when he confronted Liz in ep 7, and then have to return to using it after the long day out, and again in episode 8 with his father - wouldn't it have been so amazing to see him collapse in his chair after Jesse leaves and rub his leg because he's been ignoring the pain all day in an attempt to intimidate his father? And then we could see him moving more independently after that six-week jump.

The show dropped the ball there, in my opinion. In a big way. That beautiful representation was given and then promptly taken away. And then the show set itself up perfectly to explore how the invisibility of disability can be experienced, and has not followed through on that at all. Quite literally the last indication at all that we get of Alex's amputation is Michael commenting on his having lost the crutch in episode 9.

One of the harsh truths of disability is that no matter how much one might try to ignore and hide that aspect of who they are, it will always be there and it will make itself known. It might be invisible to others, but Alex will experience it anyway, will be affected by it anyway. He may be able to do anything that anyone else can do, but he’s gonna have to work ten times harder at it. We should have gotten to see that.

This same problem of erasing disability happens with Michael’s hand in the last episode. Michael’s scars, what they prevented him from doing, how they affected his work - all of that was so important to see, and then he gets the unconsensual healing power of magic and suddenly he gets his happy place back. And as happy as I was as a Michael!Stan to see him find that, this sends a bad message, that people with disabilities just need to be “fixed” to be happy. And as I mentioned above and in other posts, it is wildly apparent that Max healing Michael’s hand without his consent is meant to be an indicator that Max is Very Not Okay and is a prelude to him literally going so mad with power that he kills himself to resurrect Rosa. That noted, from a representation standpoint, I wish another mechanism had been used to show that.

On unapologetic politicism

Roswell makes it absolutely clear where it stands on the political spectrum and who this show is for. This show exists in the post-2016 election, post-#MeToo era and it embraces that culture and does not shy away from being political, on everything from race, sexuality and misogyny to immigration status, gun control, and even research science. It uses context and even hero dialogue to make the audience aware of what is right and what is wrong on these topics, and it does so without ambiguity or nuance.

It (appropriately) paints ICE as the enemy of good, hardworking people in literally the first scene of the show. Liz starts ranting about being stopped because she’s Latina and I just did a little dance inside because Yaassss, these are my people. And the show doesn’t let up there - the shadow of ICE hangs over Arturo’s - and by extension, Liz’s - head the entire season in a way that makes the audience uncomfortable and angry on his behalf.

The show consistently, from multiple characters both in law enforcement and not, refers to undocumented immigrants, the homeless, and prostitutes as “the most vulnerable members” of society, and not as a scourge or a menace to that society. These are good, worthy people deserving of protection and justice. The show paints anyone who views differently as firmly In The Wrong, from the disgusting Wyatt Long to the self-righteous Sheriff Valenti.

The dialogue calls out everything from subtle racism in police descriptions to building a wall to #AllLivesMatter to fake news to the terrifying ease of buying a gun to homophobia to the president himself  - it does not hold back and it does not leave room for excuses or sympathy on the part of the more conservative characters.

Most of the dialogue on the show that wasn’t explicitly Alien-centric feels very organic in the ways that it makes offhand quips about immigration and racism and sexism and everything in between - that’s the way I and my friends speak and converse. That stuff just filters into our conversations about really anything because it’s always at the forefront of our minds. We call those things out when we see them and talk about idiots like they’re not sitting right in front of us (“I think that’s Hank speak for ‘he wasn’t white.’”) There aren’t a lot of shows that nail that so perfectly and the only one that’s coming to mind at the moment is Dear White People, which was the first I saw to pull this off so well.

This is media that doesn’t try to paint a picture of “there are good people on both sides.” This media isn’t playing middle ground, or trying to please everyone. It’s making a statement in these choices and it doesn’t shy away from pissing off toxic people - this media isn’t for them. Most popular successful media (*cough* MCU *cough*) achieves that status by very carefully toeing the line between left and right, by using subtext to attract progressive viewers while keeping the explicit storyline clean and moderate. Roswell doesn’t do that - its progressivism is explicit and unmissable, as it should be. And that makes it, truly, an absolute joy to watch.

On Maria’s arc

Maria DeLuca did not start this season as an extension of Michael’s - or anyone’s - storyline, and I’m incredibly frustrated that, narratively, that’s how she ended it. That’s easily my biggest disappointment regarding the season as a whole, exaggerated by the fact that Maria is a black woman and because of that, her storyline carries more weight than many of the others. This post does a good job of discussing why POC rep matters more, and while it focuses on race-bending (which this show has also done with Maria, in a positive way), I think it still makes the point that Any POC Rep will just always hit harder, good or bad.

When that Rep is good, it’s fantastic. When it’s bad, it’s terrible.

And for most of this season, it was hitting very very good well. Maria throughout most of the season was this fierce, beautiful firecracker of personality and suppressed issues. She had a history and a deep well of issues both pre- and post- the loss of one of her closest friends, followed by the physical separation from her other two best friends. She’s got an amazing relationship with a mother who is slowly losing grip and slipping away from her. Those things, how they shaped her, and how they expressed themselves made her relatable, tangible, and easy to love.

That was actually one of my favorite parts about her hooking up with Michael, that these were main characters seeking comfort and distraction in one another, rather than just with throwaway characters. Maria is her own person with her own story that we had already seen explored as an independent arc from any of the other main characters

However, that arc never quite got the same attention as Kyle’s or Alex’s and certainly not as much as Liz or the Pod Squad. A lot of that likely has to do with her ignorance of the alien presence in the town (which appears to be coming to a close, but I won’t speculate on that) and that makes sense, narratively. As she couldn’t be actively involved in pushing the alien mystery plot forward, there was only so much the show could do with her, and I think they did take advantage of what little wiggle room they had there.

That said, given that she’s the only black woman on the main cast, it’s very disappointing that she rounds out the season by being drugged, possessed, and either talking about, pushing away, or engaging with Michael. My own perspective on this show may revolve around Michael, but that doesn’t mean I think our black woman should share that fate narratively.

And I’ll note that characterization-wise, I understood the ways Maria’s thoughts and actions could become consumed and fixated on a love interest. Oh, holy wow, have I Been There. But allowing that - and essentially, only that, narratively for Maria at the end of the season, as the only MC black woman on the show - is a disservice to her character and the community she represents. Which is not to say that I take issue with how Michael and Maria come together at the end, either from a narrative or a character development standpoint; what I take issue with is that that is all we get of her in the later episodes. Maria deserved more, and so did we.

On fighting for WOC

One of my favorite things about this show is how the characters on this show again and again come to bat for the two main WOC, despite that both of them are portrayed as absolutely capable of fighting for themselves. Both Liz Ortecho and Maria DeLuca are shown to be strong, multifaceted, beautiful (neither because of nor in spite of their race - just beautiful, end of story), desirable, and worth fighting for - and unapologetically and undeniably women of color.

Our “main hero” Max makes it absolutely clear that he will Throw Down for Liz Ortecho. He risks his own life and the lives of his siblings to save her, and nearly torpedos those relationships entirely on her behalf. He loves her absolutely, flaws and all. And he acknowledges those flaws - he doesn’t put her on a pedestal or pretend she’s perfect - she doesn’t need to be for him to love and respect her.

We see Alex and Michael and Liz all show up for Maria at different points in the story, fighting on her behalf, defending her, and making the statement that Maria is precious and should be protected. More than that, through Michael’s eyes, we stand in awe of Maria DeLuca - she is a standout, she is impressive, she is powerful, and she is her own savior, every time. And through all of that, she is beautiful and desirable and absolutely worthy of being the center of attention.

These storylines and characterizations are unfortunately still incredibly rare for women of color in modern media. Women of color rarely get to be these fully fleshed out characters with their own backstory and own motivations, and even more rarely do we get to see them be viewed by others as special and valued. Roswell isn’t sidelining its WOC or centering their storylines around white men (my comments above re Maria’s last couple episodes notwithstanding). And that’s amazing and should be celebrated.

On aesthetics

No matter how important something is to the plot or how in-character it would be, the sociological aesthetics of media are still relevant. Plot-wise, the roundabout Wyatt leading to Maria leading to Noah was an interesting mechanism, and it makes sense, character-wise for Cam and then Isobel to suspect Maria’s involvement. And it makes sense, character-wise, for Liz to then defend Maria against those suspicions.

But - aesthetics matter. And watching a scene in which two white blonde women accuse a WOC of horrible crimes at another WOC is immensely uncomfortable and very tone-deaf. That wasn’t fun or engaging to watch, I don’t feel drawn into the mystery of it all in that moment, I feel pretty grossed out, actually. Because this show has set a standard for itself of being better than that, and in that scene, it failed its own test.

On bisexual representation

This one I’ve already talked about at length and having finished out the season, my feelings haven’t changed. This show does a damn fine job showing us a bisexual character living out his life, his pain, and his unhealthy but entirely relatable coping mechanisms. They don’t try to portray him as perfect because he’s not and he shouldn’t have to be for us to respect and love him.

On bi-baiting

I’ll admit to being disappointed that Isobel’s feelings for Rosa turned out to be artificial and driven by the man living her in mind. It took the whole situation from amazing bi rep to aggressively heterosexual. Not only was our queer woman not actually queer, but all of those feelings and attraction toward another woman were actually driven by a really toxic man that was actively violating Isobel to pursue that attraction.

Once again, the show started to give us something really fucking amazing - two bisexual main characters - and then appeared to take that away. We’ve been given no indication that Isobel’s attraction to Rosa was anything more than Noah in her head or that she herself is anything other than Very Straight.

This doesn’t diminish the amazing bi representation they’ve given us with Michael, but that amazing representation does not excuse or erase our having been baited into falling for another bisexual character only to find out it was all very likely a sham. While there are certainly not enough bisexual men in media, there is also not enough queer women at all. So dangling that in front of the audience before yanking it away is frustrating.

On respecting survivors

*Content Warning: sexual assault* 

So I’m going to talk as a survivor for a moment and explain how Holy Shit Muther Fucking Important it was to see another survivor being told that other people’s feelings and needs didn’t matter. What She needed mattered. I was sobbing through that scene because no one has ever told me that. No one ever told me that what I needed trumped other people’s comfort or anger or needs.

But Isobel got to hear that. She got to hear that her brothers’ needs Did Not Matter (and that, particularly, hits hard for me). The only thing that mattered was whatever She needed to get through this, to feel better, and to heal. She got to hear that taking care of herself was the most important thing, that she was allowed to be selfish and think of herself. She didn’t have to put others first, or make sure everyone got what they wanted. What they wanted is nothing compared to what she needs. I needed to hear that just as much as Isobel did.

The show did not shy away in facing just how violently violated Isobel was by her husband - body and mind. It doesn’t brush off what he did as just another evil act by an evil man - this was invasion of Isobel in every possible way by someone she loved and trusted.

And it doesn’t try to artificially portray her as too strong to care, or too weak to handle it. She’s strong, but she’s affected. She’s shattered inside, and she’s handling it. A lot of us know what that’s like in ways people that haven’t experienced it never could. And as someone who finds therapy in being understood, in seeing my experiences in media, this scene was everything I needed.

On villainizing POC

This one has sparked a lot of valid discourse. Media has a really ugly history of telling society who is good and who is bad based on casting choices and always always always making the villains the POC, particularly MOC. It’s unconscious bias leading to more unconscious bias, teaching viewers that we shouldn’t trust POC bc they’re always the bad guy.

It’s a problem and every additional casting choice like this contributes to that problem. No show or movie is immune to it simply because they had a good reason, or even because they wanted to give a POC a job. Studios can give POC jobs by writing roles for them from the beginning, rather than slotting them into damaging stereotypes.

While I do acknowledge that it is unfair and in many ways problematic to deny an actor a role simply because of their race, aesthetics matter. There has to be some forethought in the casting choices regarding the message that choice will send. If the desire is to have more POC characters, then write more POC characters.

And that’s another way in which Roswell doesn’t really succeed with Noah. While there’s at least mention of Noah’s race on the show, he falls into the same category as Alex in that we never see his race expressed or lived. They cast a South Asian actor to play a raceblind role, which means they cast a POC actor to play a white role. POC characters have different stories than white characters - Roswell dropped the ball on giving us that with Noah.

Roswell does a lot right where it concerns race on this show, and it is refreshing that our POC villain is far from the only POC on the show. That said, I was taught something in college that I will never forget:  oppression is a moving sidewalk. In order to work against it, you cannot stand still (i.e. casting POC on both sides). You must actively walk the other direction in order to affect change.

Like with the issue of Isobel’s baited bisexuality, giving us amazing representation in one hand doesn’t change that you’re using the other to flick our ear.

On centering queer stories

*hugs myself in delight* This is a big one and is probably the aspect that Roswell gets the most right. Both in impact, screen time, and even in literal scene-splitting, Roswell again and again makes it clear that Michael & Alex’s love story is just as vital and central to this story as Max & Liz’s. They intercut their scenes at numerous points, and characters even within the show compare how similarly their stories have played out. The two relationships experience major milestones on the same day on more than one occasion.

Michael and Alex’s relationship has depth. It has conflict, it has history, it has heartbreak. There is tension and pain and softness and love. It has laughter and safe spaces; it has big gestures and powerful words. These two men who crash together and fly apart but whose whole beings seem to orient toward the other and who, at the end of the day, are willing to let themselves be destroyed for their love.

This queer love story playing out on season 1 of Roswell has more foundation, development, chemistry, and payoff than some of the most romanticised straight couples in media history. It’s been a week since the finale and I’m still just utterly in awe at what we’ve been given here. Roswell is absolutely succeeding in giving us thorough, relatable, meaningful queer representation with Michael and Alex. They are not holding back or sidelining or tokenizing. And they are following through on narrative promises instead of just baiting or relying on subtext. And that’s…. so fucking insanely satisfying to finally get to see.

.

Ultimately, I’m far more happy with how the show treats its underrepresented identities and modern social issues than I am critical. Most of the content on this show is akin to looking in a mirror and seeing my own worldview reflected back. I am a queer progressive woman and a survivor, so many of these issues are personal for me.

But I’m also white, and my disabilities are not physical. As such, I am not and should not be the authority on some of these issues. I am more than open to feedback from those who feel I was either too harsh, or not harsh enough, where it concerns those issues.

But for now, this is essentially Chasing’s Progressive Review of Roswell New Mexico, Season 1. And now I’m gonna go roll around in meta and fanfic and gifsets for the next several months cuz I sure as hell ain’t done talking about this show.

#roswell new mexico #malex #echo #michael guerin #alex manes #max evans #lix ortecho #maria deluca #noah bracken #isobel evans #kyle valenti #candy #rnm #i just have a lot of feelings #rnm meta #chasing's progressive review of rnm season 1

[badgersprite]

Fic: Desiderata (4/?)

Chapter Title: Families

Fandom: Mass Effect

Characters: Miranda, Samara, Oriana, Jacob

Pairing: Miranda/Samara very slow burn, friends to lovers

Story Rating: R

Warnings: A strong trigger and content warning for the subjects of suicide, attempted suicide and depression/mental illness applies to this chapter. 

Chapter Summary: In 2186, Miranda finally has a go at recording a message for Oriana. In 2185, Miranda gets curious about Samara's past, and seizes an opportunity to obtain information.

Author’s Note: In which Miranda is bad at people.

*     *     *

“Are you sure about this?” Miranda asked, standing opposite Samara on the cargo deck. “I don't want to hurt you if anything goes wrong.”

“I mean no offence, but you will not breach my barrier,” Samara confidently assured her, a bright blue flash enveloping her skin as she thrust her arms forward, erecting a powerful biotic shield in front of herself. Miranda arched an eyebrow. That sounded like a challenge. “Now!”

“If you insist.”

Throwing caution to the wind, Miranda gathered her biotic energies, attempting to use reave against Samara. So far, she had only practiced the full technique on inanimate objects, but they were no substitute for an actual living target.

“Remember what you have learned,” Samara instructed, braced to withstand the attack, both in the event that it was successful, and if anything went awry.

Miranda focused on reaching out with her biotic field, until it encapsulated Samara's barrier, feeling its shape and dimensions as if with her own fingers. Now she just had to drain it, exactly like she'd done before, only on a much larger scale, and against an unwilling opponent. Simple.

She started the process, and felt the barrier begin to slip piece by piece, but it was like picking up sand with a sieve. Every time she drew Samara’s energy towards herself, all but a small fraction of it fell through her grasp, like satellites bound to her by the force of gravity, refusing to escape her orbit.

Miranda clenched her teeth. What was she forgetting?

She tried to emulate anything she might have done differently the last time she practiced draining Samara's barrier, but nothing made any impact. Not changing her stance. Not concentrating harder. She was treading water.

At that moment, Miranda recognised she'd lost her grip on Samara's barrier. Her biotic field was scattered all over the cargo bay, making random objects levitate.

“Damn it!” Miranda's frustration boiled over as her technique completely fell apart. As she clenched her fist, a nearby crate compressed in on itself like it had been crushed by a garbage compactor. Miranda rolled her eyes. “Great. Now I'm losing control of myself,” she grumbled, lazily tossing the destroyed metal box across the room with her biotics, just to get it out of her sight.

“Do not be disheartened. You are making swift progress – swifter than I anticipated,” Samara reassured her, impressed with what she'd seen so far. “If you continue to improve at this rate, I am certain that you will achieve mastery.”

Miranda mustered a faint half-smile, reminding herself that not everyone was as much of a perfectionist as she was, and that not everyone was as critical as her father. “I have an excellent teacher. I just wish I could get a handle on it before we run into the Collectors again; reave would be extremely effective against them. I don't think we'll have that much time, though.”

“It seems unlikely, at this stage,” Samara confirmed. She was probably still a few months away from being able to use reave safely and effectively in live combat. “But let us continue this another time. You should not exert yourself further. Shepard would not be pleased if I exhausted you.”

“For the record, I would be fine to try again, but you're right; we do have to conserve our strength,” Miranda acknowledged, wiping the perspiration from her brow.

Learning a new biotic technique was like exercising a previously undiscovered set of muscles. Even though the principle was the same, trying something unfamiliar caused far more strain and depleted her energy far quicker than using something like warp which she'd done thousands of times before.

As they finished up, a familiar silhouette caught Miranda's eye.

“We have spectator,” Miranda remarked, glancing up at Zaeed's window. The second she made eye-contact with him, he immediately ducked out of sight. “Have you noticed that he's always watching when we train down here?”

“No. I have not,” Samara answered, failing to see why it mattered.

A mischievous thought crossed Miranda's mind, suspecting what had piqued Zaeed's interest. “I barely know anything about Zaeed. Do you see much of him?”

“He has visited the library on a few occasions, but we have only spoken once.”

“What about?” Miranda idly pried, feigning innocence.

“Nothing of significance,” Samara replied, entering the elevator. “He made comment upon how the stars were very...'starry' I believe was the term he used. I wondered if he may have been concussed, but EDI assured me he was not.”

Miranda tried not to laugh, incredulous to think that someone with Samara's long lifespan and broad experience of the galaxy was genuinely finding it difficult to decipher why Zaeed was acting strangely around her. “Samara...” she began with a small smirk, earning a look in response. “I think Zaeed’s attracted you.”

“Then he is woefully misguided,” Samara stated bluntly.

Miranda snorted. “That is the understatement of the century. But yes. I concur,” she said. Zaeed was aiming so far out of his league that it was comical.

“If you are correct in your suspicions, perhaps I should address this before it causes any complication,” Samara thought out loud, seeing the potential for unrequited feelings to become problematic and distract Zaeed from their mission.

“Why bother? Just ignore it,” Miranda suggested with a shrug, surprised she was taking it that seriously. If Miranda had a credit for every time she received unwanted attention from men, she would have owned her own planet by now. “As long as he’s not making a nuisance of himself, then it shouldn’t be problem.”

“Aside from the fact that I would be compelled to kill him were we to meet in different circumstances?” Samara countered. Miranda had to concede that point.

Sure, his mercenary past wasn't an issue so long as they were united in a common cause. But, if they survived this mission, it would be a different story. Samara would no longer be bound by her oath to serve Commander Shepard. It was probably best that Zaeed didn't suffer any delusion that serving aboard the Normandy with Samara might grant him an exemption from her Code.

Samara sighed. “Perhaps you are right that this does not warrant intervention on my part. But I have been celibate for over four hundred years.” Miranda couldn’t help but tilt her head at that figure. “I would prefer that it be clearly understood by all aboard this ship that I have no desire to deviate from that vow.”

“Four hundred?” Miranda echoed. “Really?”

“You did not know this?” said Samara, assuming it was common knowledge.

“I never gave it that much thought, to be honest,” Miranda commented, the elevator doors beginning to open as they reached their destination. She'd had her suspicions, but she couldn't recall it ever being expressly confirmed until now. “Are all Justicars forbidden from marrying or taking lovers?”

“This is neither the time nor the place for that question,” Samara replied.

“Why? I’m curious to learn more about your Code,” Miranda persisted as they stepped out onto the crew deck. “That and I'm fascinated by things I find difficult to fathom. I can't comprehend merely existing for that length of time, let alone...sacrificing that aspect of myself for that long. And I say that as someone who devotes comparatively little time or attention to that part of my life.”

Samara regarded her oddly, evidently choosing to give Miranda the benefit of the doubt that her inquiries were sincere and well-intentioned, which they were. “I serve a higher purpose. The oaths I swore as a Justicar transcend fleeting, selfish whims. I could never permit myself to be in a position where my loyalties were divided. To allow my judgement to be clouded by personal attachments would serve no purpose but to potentially imperil my devotion to The Code.”

“But swearing a vow doesn't change who or what you find attractive. It’s part of who you are, so I'm assuming you must have been tempted at some point,” Miranda casually speculated, seeing no cause to be coy with her queries. “Does that ever go away, or does it just come naturally after a while?”

“Miranda...” Samara cautioned her. Miranda wasn't sure what prompted the disapproval in Samara's voice, but she quickly jumped to conclusions.

“Hey, I am not insinuating that you should reconsider your stance on Zaeed. Believe me, I am firmly on your side about that,” Miranda lightheartedly assured her. “Although, in all fairness, you did once tell me that you used to sleep—“

“That was centuries ago. Even then, the answer would have been no,” Samara cut her off, signalling that this conversation was at an end. Samara still sounded like her calm, patient self, but that had been uncharacteristically curt of her.

“I was just teasing you,” said Miranda, annoyed at Samara's sudden touchiness.

“I do not wish to discuss this,” Samara made her feelings crystal clear, never once raising her voice or speaking with anger. Nevertheless, it was apparent that her mood had abruptly changed at some point on that elevator ride. Miranda wasn't sure when, or why. “Unless there is anything urgent, I would prefer to meditate alone for the rest of day. There is much for me to reflect upon.”

Miranda furrowed her brow. That sounded like an extremely polite way of being told to kindly fuck off. “Are you angry with me?” she asked, failing to grasp what she'd said to trigger this abrupt cold shoulder from Samara.

“No,” Samara answered. Miranda couldn’t detect if her tone was more terse than usual; she was hard to read. “Please respect that I do not wish to be disturbed.”

“...Okay,” Miranda agreed, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back on her heel. Why wouldn't she respect that? Samara didn't utter another word, striding across the corridor to the Starboard Observation Deck, the doors sealing shut behind her. It was then that Miranda noticed a handful of off-duty crew lounging around in their quarters, staring at her. “Something on your mind?”

At that one acknowledgement they all immediately went back to their business, adamantly pretending they weren’t witnesses to any awkward scenes. Typical.

One person, however, did have the guts to share their thoughts with the class.

“Did you just ask Samara whether she'd ever break her vow and sleep with someone?” Kasumi's voice came from behind her, prompting Miranda to turn and glance over her shoulder. “Yikes. What gave you that bright idea?”

“Why shouldn't I ask her that? It's a legitimate question,” Miranda pointed out.

“...Wow. For a second there I assumed you were being sarcastic, but you're actually completely serious,” Kasumi observed. That retort did little to assist Miranda. Wry quips weren't exactly an explanation. “I've seen how much time you spend over there; I figured you were close or something. You...do know that she was married, right? And you know about her kids?”

“Asari don't call it marriage, but yes. Of course I know all that. What has that got to do with anything?” Miranda shook her head, failing to see the connection.

It was hard to see under the hood, but Kasumi looked stunned that she wasn't getting through to Miranda. “You know what? Forget I said anything. There is way too much to unpack there, and I make a better thief than I do a psychologist, so...”

Rather than finish that sentence, Kasumi activated her invisibility matrix and disappeared from sight, unilaterally removing herself from the conversation.

“Thanks for the insight,” Miranda remarked, heading straight to her office.

*    *     *

Miranda exhaled heavily, steeling herself. There were only so many quiet moments a person could secure for themselves when they lived under a giant canvas tent with a thousand other people. Jacob would be coming back to the bunk before long, then her opportunity would be lost.

She could do this. She needed to do this.

“...Begin voice recording,” she said, and her omni-tool responded.

“Hey, Ori,” Miranda began, forcing herself to smile. Oriana would be able to tell something was wrong if she didn't sound as happy as she should have been to talk to her. She had to make it convincing. She couldn't let her voice betray the façade. “Sorry it's taken me so long to send a message to you. I wanted to, I've just...with everything going on down here in London, I haven't had a chance.”

She swallowed. Her throat was dry.

She couldn’t let Oriana see her face yet. The shock of her wounds would be too much too soon. Miranda had to ease her into it. That was the best way to do it. She could reveal her condition after she’d healed some more. When Oriana was calm. When it was less likely to freak her out, and make her worry. 

“I don't know what Jacob told you about me. I hope he didn't scare you. But I'm fine. I'm doing okay. I'm out of the hospital. Have been for a while. I've been, uh...I'm working with the recovery effort. Primarily in an organisational role, overseeing operations, logistics, that sort of thing. I'm sure I didn't need to tell you that. You probably assumed that already.”

What the fuck was she talking about? That wasn't important.

“I, um...”

Miranda trailed off and, with a motion of her hand, paused the recording.

She sighed and ran frustrated fingers through her hair as she flopped back flat onto her bed. “Fuck...” she whispered, recognising what a train wreck this was.

What was she doing? This wasn't the first take. Why was she screwing this up so many times? Miranda wanted to talk to her sister more than anything. Why was this so hard? Sure, there were things about this one-sided conversation that she'd dreaded. Hiding her guilt. Lying to Oriana so that she wouldn't upset her. But drawing a blank like this again and again was beyond pathetic.

She had to keep going. Even if she hated it, she had to get through it and get it over with. She couldn't keep deleting messages and starting over.

“...Resume recording,” she said, willing herself to finally finish one of these. “Sorry, um. Got interrupted for a second there. I just...I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay. I hope you are too. I can't wait to hear from you. And, don't worry; we'll be back together again before you know it.”

She tried to say something else. Anything else. But the words didn't come. 

“I love you,” Miranda told her. “Stay safe.”

Miranda stopped the recording and played it back immediately, ever her own worst critic, hyper-aware of how stilted, unnatural and inauthentic it all sounded.

Seriously? That was the best she could do? The recording barely lasted thirty seconds, and even that was only because of the long, awkward pauses.

It was fake. Hollow. Half-hearted. Miranda was none of those things around Oriana.

Oriana deserved better. But the reality was Miranda wasn't able to do any better. And Jacob was right. Oriana did need to hear her sister's voice. Confirmation that she was alive and well. It would mean the world to her.

Even a shameful excuse for a message was better than no contact at all, right? The longer Miranda delayed, the worse the wait was going to be for Oriana on the other end. It could take weeks for even a simple audio recording to get through the Extranet on a non-priority channel. The sooner the better.

She had to send something. So she sent that.

Miranda closed her eye and rubbed her temple, feeling like utter garbage. It was a feeling that wouldn't go away anytime soon.

*     *     *

“Do you have any sisters?” Miranda asked Samara. It hadn't been long since she finally reunited with Oriana. As such, Miranda was still getting used to interacting with her younger twin, unsure if she was saying the wrong things, and self-conscious about coming off poorly in her messages to her.

“Yes, half-sisters. Although we were never close,” Samara replied, awash in her biotic aura. Evidently she'd let go of whatever had been bothering her two days ago, and had forgiven Miranda for any part she played in it, without so much as requiring an apology from her. Despite remaining confused by the incident, Miranda was content to follow her lead and act like it never happened. 

“Pity. I was hoping you might have some advice for me,” said Miranda, reviewing her latest email exchanges with her sister. She was trying her hardest. She really was. But this was all new to her.

“I may do, although I can claim no expertise on the subject,” Samara offered. She ceased her meditation, always willing to help when Miranda requested it. “Does something trouble you? Forgive me if I did not suspect. You always seem so delighted when you hear from her.”

“I am. That hasn't changed, it's just...” Miranda hesitated as she put her datapad aside, fingers rapping against the armrest, not sure she wanted to embarrass herself by publicising her mistakes. But it was only Samara who would know, and she wasn't inclined to betray anything disclosed in confidence.

No, this was alright. She could trust her.

“...Look, I never lived a normal life, okay?” Miranda continued, keeping her voice hushed, lest anyone was lingering outside the door. “But I'm the big sister. Oriana's supposed to be able to come to me if she needs any help or guidance, and I'm supposed to know the answers. And if she wanted to know about the latest breakthroughs in bioengineering or how to spy on her neighbours, I could write her a bloody dissertation. But that's not what she's coming to me for.”

“Perhaps you should start from the beginning,” Samara recommended, sensing Miranda was focusing more on her own feelings of unpreparedness and inadequacy than on the situation itself. “What has happened between you?”

Miranda sighed, subconsciously massaging her forehead as she leaned on her hand. “She came to me for advice about this boy she likes, who might not like her back. What could I say to that? I had nothing to tell her. I've never had 'boy problems'. In some ways, she probably knows more than I do.”

“You are underselling your experience; you have had relationships before,” Samara noted with a knowing glint, aware of her past history with Jacob.

“If you consider one-night stands relationships,” Miranda mumbled. Jacob was the exception to the rule, and even their chemistry had quickly fizzled into nothing within a couple of months.

Otherwise, her sexual history was just a string of meaningless encounters with mostly anonymous men who weren't important enough to remember anything about. She'd never had those deeper, romantic feelings Oriana spoke of. Not for anyone. The capacity for that sort of intimate relationship just didn't seem to exist in Miranda. Not that it mattered. It didn't trouble her if it wasn't in her future.

If the term didn’t translate, Samara didn't question what it meant, inferring from the implication. She'd walked a similar path once; she didn't need an explanation.

“Anyway, that's not an example I want her to follow,” Miranda concluded.

“Have you answered her?” Samara asked, considering whether she might be able to offer some of her own insight to satisfy Oriana's questions where Miranda could not. She did have more wisdom in that regard.

“I tried,” Miranda grumpily admitted, not pleased with herself. “I looked up dating advice columns on the Extranet and copied and pasted the answers. Which was a moronic move on my part because Oriana's as smart as I am. She caught me out in under two minutes.” Miranda glanced up at Samara's silence, not failing to notice the humour sparkling in her expression. “Don't laugh,” she warned.

“I am not,” Samara replied, far too restrained to allow her composure to falter, though her amusement was plain to see. “That was very kind of you. I am sure that your sister appreciates that you did your best to assist her. Although it would have been preferable for you to be honest with her, she cannot doubt how sincerely you care for her after seeing your efforts. I know I do not.”

Miranda's expression softened. Hearing that was comforting, and it did a lot to elevate her mood. More than Samara realised, and Miranda cared to admit. 

“...Thanks,” she said, genuinely.

Much as Miranda hated to acknowledge it, her father had been a powerful influence on her. She was so much like him sometimes. She'd inherited some of his best qualities, and some of his worst. Miranda hated that about herself. She didn't want to be like him. Especially not towards Oriana.

Shepard had told Miranda there was no harm in Oriana knowing she had a sister who cared about her. But, in her darker moments of contemplation, it had concerned her to wonder whether Shepard might have been wrong about her potential to be a positive force in her twin's life.

What if, despite her best attempts at acting like a decent human being, Miranda was only going through the motions and imitating a connection she wasn't capable of really forming? What if Miranda was just deluding herself into believing her own bullshit? What if she only knew how to fake compassion and empathy after being raised in an environment without it?

All those thoughts and more had gone through her mind at one point or another over the past few weeks. So to hear Samara tell her that she wasn't acting like a complete sociopath and that her failings weren't a sign that she was fundamentally broken actually meant a lot.

“Why aren't you close with your sisters?” Miranda asked, keen to divert attention away from herself, but also sincerely curious.

“I did not grow up with any of them. Not in the same household. There are many years between us, as well as different fathers and mothers, whom I never met. Many in my family also looked down upon my parents' relationship for being an intraspecies union,” Samara casually explained.

“Oh. I'm sorry to hear that,” said Miranda. If her half-siblings were catty towards her for being a pure-blooded asari, it was no wonder they didn't get along.

“It is alright.” Samara shook her head, taking no affront. She did not appear to bear any ill-will towards her sisters now. Her older siblings were probably all dead, come to think of it. Or if not then close to it. “Between both of my parents, I may have more half-sisters than I am aware of.”

Miranda quirked a brow. “So, you could talk to another asari and have no idea she's related to you?”

“This is not uncommon,” Samara answered. “In asari cultures, we do not share your concept of a 'family tree' as you refer to them. It would not be possible to do so, as our relationships often form complex and expansive webs with many disparate connections across the vastness of space and time. Many asari never know their fathers; my kind often choose to raise their daughters alone. In such cases, the father is rarely informed that the meld produced a child.”

“And either of your parents could have been the father in one of those unions,” Miranda deduced. “How could you know you have a sister if your parents don't?”

“Correct.” Samara nodded. “However, they also may well have known every child they mothered and fathered, and consciously chosen not to tell me about them. This is not an infrequent occurrence, as we spend many centuries apart. Families can grow distant. Our lives must evolve and move forward, and we are encouraged not to dwell upon the past. If they did not wish to share with me that they had other daughters, then they were entitled to withhold it from me. It would have been considered improper of me not to respect those boundaries.”

“It's nobody's business, then? Asari don't interrogate each other about who they've slept with or how many children they have?” Miranda summarised, not surprised that they didn't care.

“No,” Samara confirmed. “If we did, it would take most of us a very long time to answer. It is not considered shameful in any way. It is taken for granted as a facet of our lives, and our biology.”

“Do you think that might be one reason why mating with your own kind is frowned upon?” Miranda speculated aloud. If people didn't know who all their sisters were, that created a high risk for accidental inbreeding.

“Yes,” Samara stated bluntly, as though that went without saying.

“Ah.” Miranda awkwardly rubbed her neck. “Here I thought I was being observant.”

“You were,” said Samara, kindly. “However, I do not wish to overgeneralise and create a false impression about my species. There is no one, singular family structure that could be considered dominant or favoured among asari. I merely intend to convey that my disconnect from my sisters is not unique.”

“Why do you think that is?” Miranda inquired, fascinated to learn more. She'd long thought humanity should aspire to be more like the asari in a lot of ways, so discovering more about their cultures and beliefs was always a welcome thing.

“Largely, I believe it is a consequence of our lifespan,” Samara elaborated. “Our species is very long-lived compared to yours. In exceptional cases, an asari could mother or father her first child a thousand years before her last. In a broad sense, it is most common for an asari not to seek a new partner or have a child with a different partner until the children of her last partner have grown old enough to leave home. This, in my view, is the primary reason why many asari may have little connection to some if not all of their half-sisters.”

“I guess that makes sense,” said Miranda, though she had an inherent aversion to the thought of never knowing her sister. “Human families don't always stay together, either. I never had a mother, and my father only ever saw me as a science project, so I can't speak from experience, but I've heard it can be difficult for children to adjust to their parents finding new partners.”

“It would appear that our species share that in common,” Samara told her, in a relaxed manner. “But, as I have said, asari families are widely varied. There is no standard approach that I am aware of. For instance, neither my bondmate or I had any children from previous partners. Our daughters were born only a few years apart, and it was our desire that they should grow up together under the same roof. Many other asari have sisters and half-sisters they were raised with, or who they were raised by in circumstances where their mother passed.”

Hearing Samara mention her family caused Miranda's mind to deviate from her original query.

“Your bondmate was another asari, wasn't she?” Miranda asked. She wasn't entirely sure how being a carrier for Ardat-Yakshi syndrome worked, but she had been under the impression that only purebloods could be Ardat-Yakshi, meaning Samara would have needed to have a child with another asari to pass it on.

Samara's expression faltered, turning stony. “Yes,” she answered, emotionlessly.

“And you were the mother of all your children together, weren't you?” Miranda continued, curious as to how this disease worked. Samara seemed to think the fault was inherent in her, but Miranda couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't more likely that both parents needed to be carriers of the gene to have three Ardat-Yakshi daughters. “Do you think things would have turned out differently if you hadn't—“

“I would prefer not to speak of this,” Samara quietly cut her off, but the firmness of her voice was unmistakable. This was a very painful subject, even four hundred years later. She was not willing to revisit it.

“...You're right. I'm sorry,” said Miranda, dropping the matter entirely. She wasn't about to repeat her error of two days ago. If she had the opportunity to avoid causing Samara offence a second time, she was going to take it.

“It is not your fault,” Samara assured her, aware that there was no malice behind Miranda's line of inquiry. “But that aspect of my life is my own.”

Unfortunately, Miranda could rarely leave a question unanswered.

She hadn't failed to notice that every time she delved a little too deep into the subject of Samara’s bondmate and children, she inevitably touched a nerve. Just when it seemed like Samara was open to discussing it, a shadow would come over her, and then she would completely shut down and refuse to talk about it. Miranda didn't understand why, and that was a problem, because if she couldn't grasp what the issue was then it meant she was in a disadvantageous position.

And it wasn’t just her family either. The last time Miranda said something to upset her, she hadn’t mentioned her bondmate or her children. So there were clearly sensitive matters at hand that Miranda hadn’t even fully identified yet.

Knowledge was power. Knowledge was strength and safety. If she didn't have a more accurate picture of what it was that made Samara keep reacting that way when she brought up particular topics, and if she couldn’t figure out where those invisible lines between ‘okay to ask about’ and ‘strictly off limits’ was, then there was nothing to stop Miranda from potentially offending her again.

Miranda was a problem-solver by nature. Leaving anything unresolved didn't sit right with her. But the defining events of Samara's past took place over four hundred years ago, on Thessia. How was she supposed to find out any useful information when Samara was unwilling to speak of it?

It wasn't impossible to track down answers, but it would likely be arduous. It would take time, more than she could afford to devote amidst their mission.

On the other hand, if she found the opportunity to learn more about Samara expediently, then any lead was definitely worth further investigation...

*    *     *

It was nice to have a moment of peace.

Miranda stood by the River Thames, gazing out over the landscape. She’d been granted a reprieve from work to attend medical appointments, monitoring her health, following up on her recovery. They’d taken nearly the whole day.

It had been worth it, though; the doctors had given her as close as she could get to a clean bill of health in her current condition. There were no signs of sepsis, though they were keeping her on oral antibiotics just to be safe. They had warned her she may experience fatigue and weakness for some time.

Her skin grafts were healing well. There had been some contraction, and there would always be burn scars, but her body was not rejecting the synthetic skin. There was no apparent risk of infection. Frankly, the day when she no longer had to bother Jacob for help cleaning her wounds couldn’t come fast enough.

Work kept her mind busy most days when she wasn't in her bunk. It was a welcome distraction. But it didn't ward off the thoughts that came in quiet moments, when she lay in her bed at night. Or moments like this.

Sleep often eluded her, and it was poor quality when it didn't. Her dreams were disturbed by bright flashes and memories of her desperate struggle to survive after the shuttle crash, haunted by the faces of death – those who had fallen under her command, or by her side. The visions showed no signs of abating.

When she couldn't get to sleep, or deliberately delayed it due to what awaited, she often lay awake thinking about the Normandy's crew and what had become of them in the war. All of them. Not just her squadmates.

With Shepard gone, Miranda was the highest ranking person left from the original SR-2. That was a responsibility she took seriously. If anyone was going to track down potential survivors, it had to be her. And, if she couldn't find them, then she would be the one who had to contact friends and family members to let them know they were missing, if there was anyone left to deliver the news to.

Miranda had checked reports from other cities when they came in. Information was spotty at best, but it did get through. She searched for any mention of familiar names, or people who matched the description of any members of the Normandy crew she was aware of, from every iteration of its service.

But she would have lied if she said there wasn't one person she looked for more than others – the one person she knew to be alive, and who she felt closer to than anyone else on that ship; the woman who had saved her life.

Samara.

It had been far too long since she left, and nobody had seen or heard from her since. The stark silence was disconcerting. Miranda was starting to worry. Nobody had found her in another corner of London. Or, if they had, nobody had documented her presence. If she was no longer in the city, then she'd offered no word of her departure. That seemed so unlike her. Or perhaps it didn’t.

Miranda knew that the Code came first for Samara, before everything else. The only reason they'd been able to form the bond they had on the Normandy was because Samara had temporarily sworn her allegiance to Shepard. Once that was over, she had no reason to stay by Miranda's side for any length of time.

It shouldn't have hurt. This was all to be expected. But it did. It left an unfamiliar ache in her chest to think that the connection they'd forged was just an illusion – that their time meant far less to Samara than Miranda thought, and that she was just projecting its significance to herself onto someone who didn't share that opinion. She supposed that it shouldn't have surprised her if that was indeed the case. Her father's voice in the back of her head certainly told her it was petulant and childish to waste her time on the frivolous pursuit of a personal rapport.

But Miranda knew that the voice of her insecurities spoke falsely. She'd been there for all those countless moments enjoyed in one another’s company, and she had a perfect memory. Miranda was hardly the most astute at reading other's emotions, but surely she would have seen in Samara’s face if their connection was purely one-sided. Why would she even need to lie about that?

They had a friendship, didn't they? A real one. One of the few Miranda had ever known. And it was definitely mutual. So why didn't Samara care enough to come and check whether or not Miranda had survived her injuries?

“Thought I'd find you here,” Jacob's voice portended his arrival behind her.

Miranda uttered a faint snort. “My love of polluted water and crumbling bridges is notorious,” she remarked, looking out over the scene as Jacob joined her on the railing near the Thames. “You sound more chipper than usual.”

“Only because I've got good news. You know how they’ve been looking to move people off the streets and into any buildings that are safe to occupy? Well, guess who just got new digs,” Jacob announced, showing off a set of keys, thrilled to finally escape tent city. “Hard work pays off; they said I was ‘priority personnel’.”

“If you're waiting for a round of applause, you've got the wrong woman,” said Miranda, turning back toward the view over what was left of Westminster Bridge.

“You should be cheering. Everywhere I go, you go. Unless you prefer the bunk. Because I’m perfectly happy to leave you there,” Jacob jokingly remarked.

“No. Getting out of the cold would make a nice change. As long as I don't have to climb too many sets of stairs,” Miranda replied, unable to muster much enthusiasm given her prior ruminations. Even though leaving Hyde Park was a welcome prospect, it didn't exactly feel appropriate to start celebrating.

At the end of the day, they were still all alone.

“It's nothing too flash, and we'll be sharing with about ten other people. But it's an improvement,” Jacob said with a shrug and a smile. Miranda didn't respond, half-consumed in other thoughts. Jacob didn’t fail to pick up on her evasive behaviour. “What's up?” He stepped forward, sensing something on her mind.

Miranda's gaze wavered slightly, but she covered it. “It's nothing.”

“Look, not to put any pressure on you, but if you can't talk about it with me, who can you talk to?” Jacob reminded her, turning around with his back to the railing. Miranda couldn’t argue against that. But she wasn’t accustomed to leaning on others, having lived her entire life in the expectation of bearing everything alone.

“Allow me to rephrase – it's not any one specific thing. A lot's happened. I'm still processing it all, I guess,” she murmured, and that wasn't a lie.

“You didn't get bad news from the doctor, did you?” Jacob queried, concerned.

“No,” Miranda assured him, shaking her head. “That's all going better than anyone could have anticipated. Anyone who doesn't know me, anyway.”

Jacob was visibly relieved to hear that. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Not really,” Miranda muttered, preferring to keep her thoughts her own. 

Although, come to think of it, that wasn't entirely true. There was at least one thing Miranda could think of that Jacob might be able to provide more information on. Something that was weighing on her more heavily by the day.

“...Hey.” Jacob glanced up when Miranda broke the silence. “Not to change the subject, but how long did you say it had been since you last heard from Samara?” she asked, unable to shake the peculiar void left by her absence.

“Since before you woke up,” Jacob answered plainly, exactly what he’d told her last time. What's more, Jacob knew Miranda would have remembered that. She never forgot anything, unless she didn’t care enough to pay attention to it in the first place. “You worried something might have happened to her?”

“No,” Miranda coolly shot that down. “Samara has been fighting on her own for centuries. She can take care of herself. Hell, she's even more capable than I am, and she's the last person I'd expect to do something stupid to get herself hurt.”

“But you're worried,” Jacob pointed out, knowing her far too well to believe that deflection. Miranda sighed. He was right. She was. “Talking helps. Want to try?”

“I just don't understand it,” she admitted, seeing no sense in letting herself dwell on what troubled her longer than she already had. Besides, Jacob was the last identified person Samara had spoken to. Perhaps he could offer some insight that Miranda was lacking. “It's like she dropped off the face of the Earth. She really didn’t tell you anything about where she was going?”

“Nah. You know Samara,” said Jacob with a nonchalant ease, unperturbed by her disappearance. Yes, she did, Miranda thought. Better than Jacob realised. “She’s not the kind to leave a note. She just comes and goes as The Code wills.”

“But she should have been back by now. Or contacted us, at least,” Miranda mulled over the puzzle aloud. “Not even a word. Nothing. They aren't even bringing in survivors who claim she rescued them anymore. That's...” She trailed off, shaking her head slightly. That wasn't the Samara she knew. Or she thought it wasn't. There had to be an explanation. Maybe something had happened.

“I know what you're thinking,” Jacob began, well-acquainted with Miranda's single-minded determination to leave no problem unresolved. After all, she’d been the one to track down his father. “You can't go out there and look for her.”

“Of course I can't, Jacob; I have no clue where I'd start, even if I did have the resources to mount a search,” Miranda matter-of-factly replied, uttering a dismissive scoff. Not to mention that Miranda wasn't the type to get distracted from greater goals by personal matters. Aside from those times where she absolutely had. Those were clearly exceptions. “And that wasn't what I was thinking.”

“Then what was?” Jacob prompted, curious.

“I...I don't know,” Miranda admitted. Too many different things at once. Too many disconcerting possibilities, all borne from a common root. But, at the core, there was one kernel of doubt that seemed to cut deeper than any other.

What if Samara just didn’t care?

For as much as she tried to look for evidence to convince herself otherwise, she couldn’t disprove it. If Samara wasn't hurt, then that meant she was staying away by choice, even though the last time she had seen Miranda she was laying on a hospital bed, with no certainty whether she would live or die.

She hadn’t even lingered long enough to receive confirmation that Miranda was going to wake up before she went off to do what her Code demanded. And she hadn’t returned to learn what had become of her.

Even complete strangers likely would have followed up on the condition of someone they rescued, right? Code be damned, there was no excuse for abandoning her on what could have been her deathbed. Miranda thought she and Samara were close enough to mean something to one another.

But obviously they weren't that close, or else Samara would have been here.

That realisation left Miranda with an alien sensation in her chest that she couldn't entirely describe, and one which she was uncomfortable talking about.

She’d never been...rejected by anyone before. Discarded. Cast aside.

Was this what that felt like?

“I've never known you to not know what you're thinking,” Jacob observed.

“I wouldn't even be here right now if it wasn't for her,” Miranda acknowledged, meeting Jacob's gaze, her eye no doubt betraying some element of her inner turmoil over this. “She's the only other one of us who we know for a fact survived. But I never got the chance to see her or thank her or ask her how she is. She hasn't even come back to check on my condition, or say one final goodbye. Maybe you don't agree but...that doesn't sound like the Samara I knew.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. You know she checked on you,” said Jacob, folding his arms as he sat back against the railing. A fleeting shift of expression flitted across Miranda's brow. “I know you didn’t forget what I told you about how she reacted when the doctors wanted to turn off your life support.”

“No, I guess not,” Miranda quietly acknowledged. “But I wasn’t awake for that, so you’ll forgive me if it’s difficult to reconcile that with her current behaviour.”

“Look, I can't pretend that I get where she is emotionally, but...well, she's kind of like you, I guess,” Jacob supposed. “And that's how I know she was worried about you, because she expressed it exactly how you would have.”

“How would I?” Miranda asked, arching her eyebrow, with a hint of genuine doubt. She could honestly count the people she’d ever truly cared about on the fingers of her remaining hand, so she hadn't, to her recollection, ever had to cope with someone who was important to her being seriously hurt.

“You would bury yourself in your work and focus on it as hard as you could, because working gives you an outlet and keeps you sane, but you would go and check in whenever you had a free moment in order to stay updated,” Jacob explained. Miranda couldn't dispute that. “That's what Samara did with you.”

“For a couple of days,” Miranda added, making sure that specification wasn't overlooked. It did rather change the complexion of the situation. “Then she left.”

“Yeah. Because she's a Justicar, and she has a binding responsibility to every other victim out there. She’d be breaking her oath if she ignored it. Why are you taking it so personally?” Jacob asked, oblivious to the friendship that had been formed in the seclusion of the Starboard Observation Deck.

“I'm not, Jacob, I just...” Miranda trailed off.

She was taking it personally. She was reading into things that had perfectly logical explanations, moping around like a lost puppy, ignoring all the things Samara had done for her and all the signs that she wasn’t apathetic to her.

And maybe Jacob was right that she should have been satisfied with these answers. The Code was The Code, and Samara was always going to put her selfless service to justice ahead of anything else. What kind of friend would she be if Miranda didn't understand that – if she expected Samara to compromise her beliefs? Why couldn't she accept the obvious explanation as good enough?

“Never mind. Forget I said anything,” Miranda finished, shaking her head and walking away from the railing, tired and frustrated and no closer to feeling any better about Samara’s absence, or deciphering the meaning behind it.

To his credit, Jacob didn't push the issue.

*    *     *

A blue glow bathed the Starboard Observation Deck. Samara and Miranda meditated side by side. Miranda concentrated on the biotic ball she’d formed between her hands, keeping its shape steady. The simple task helped clear her head of conscious thoughts, allowing her to access a different state of mind.

She didn't even hear the door open.

“Is this a bad time to interrupt?” Shepard's voice broke Miranda from her trance, causing her to look back over her shoulder. Samara didn't even flinch.

“You would be welcome to join us, Shepard,” Samara extended a friendly invitation. “And my time is always yours if you require anything.”

“I was looking for Miranda, actually,” Shepard explained, giving a small gesture towards her to that effect. “I went to your office first, but EDI told me you were in here. I didn't realise you were busy. I'll come back later.”

“No, no, I'm free,” Miranda assured her, dropping her biotic field and getting swiftly to her feet. It didn't matter what hour of the day it was or how much she had already accomplished beforehand; work always took priority. That was what made Miranda so effective. “What do you need, Commander?”

“I've been thinking about implementing those upgrades Jacob and Garrus suggested to the Normandy's weapons and armour,” Shepard began.

“Good idea,” Miranda replied. Given what had happened to the old Normandy when it faced an attack from the Collectors, any advantage they could get going forward would be a wise investment. “Where do I come in?” she asked. Shipbuilding was one area in which she could offer little to no expertise.

“These upgrades require rare minerals. EDI can scan nearby planets, but if you could do some research and narrow down a list of planets that might be rich in the minerals we're looking for, it would save a lot of time and fuel,” said Shepard.

“Certainly. I'll have a list of suitable candidates ready by morning,” Miranda obliged her request, turning to Samara. “We'll pick this up again some other time.”

“I look forward to it,” Samara cordially replied as her guests took their leave.

Just as they both stepped towards the door, Miranda noticed a strange smile on Shepard's lips. Miranda eyed her Commander suspiciously, but made no comment until after they left the room, and were out of Samara's earshot.

“Do I want to know why you're smirking?” Miranda remarked as she walked at her side, keeping her voice low, lest anyone else overhear.

“I don’t know. Do you?” Shepard quipped, approaching the elevator. Miranda didn’t even indulge that with sarcastic laughter. “I’ll admit; I didn’t peg you as the type to make friends aboard the ship. It's nice to be proven wrong.”

“What, because I'm supposed to be incapable of basic social interaction? I'm perfectly civil, Commander.” Shepard looked like she could have voiced disagreement on that, but elected not to. “But, I will be honest; I do enjoy Samara's company over that of anybody else on the ship.”

“Even over me?” Shepard joked, hitting the button to call the elevator.

“Yes,” Miranda answered frankly. Helping her protect Oriana meant Shepard had earned her trust in a way few ever had, and the closer they grew the more Miranda found to like, but Andrea still only came in about third, behind Jacob. They may have butted heads a lot, but after everything they'd been through together he took a sentimental edge. “If that makes us friends, then so be it.”

Shepard chuckled at her blunt honesty, unoffended. “Not that my opinion matters, but I think this is good for you – being friends with Samara.”

“...But?” Miranda filled in the blank, sensing there was a caveat.

Shepard sighed as she waited for the elevator. Evidently Miranda was right, even if Shepard hadn't intended to voice any reservations she might have held aloud. But Miranda had broached the subject, so it was unavoidable.

“Despite popular opinion, you've never struck me as someone who says or does things to upset people on purpose. Samara's a lot wiser than I am, so I don't doubt that she realises that too. Just be careful with her, okay?” Shepard advised.

“Careful? With what?” Miranda didn't hide her puzzlement. “Samara's a matriarch. She's a strong woman, in every sense of the word.”

“Yes, she is,” Shepard concurred, her tone unchanging. It was clear from her expression that she'd spoken to Samara a lot, following Morinth’s demise. “But even the strongest of us have things we hold close to our chest, for good reason.”

“I'm not an idiot, Commander. I understand what she's gone through recently. I've done my best to support her. Not that it's any of your business, for the record,” Miranda noted. She didn't need to justify herself, or prove her good intentions.

“No. You're right. It's not.” Shepard raised her hands as if in surrender, backing off. Evidently she wasn’t looking to criticise Miranda or make her get defensive. “And I appreciate you being there for her. I'm sure Samara does too,” she said sincerely, glad Miranda had been so considerate of Samara's emotional well-being, although it was completely unexpected given her usual demeanour.

“So what's the problem?” Miranda confronted the issue directly, not about to let this go until Shepard shared her thoughts, whether she wanted to or not.

“There is no problem. I meant it when I said I think this is good for you. Both of you.” Andrea ran a hand through her hair as the elevator finally arrived, sensing Miranda would hold it against her if she didn’t speak her mind. “But you do have a tendency to be so focused on what matters to you that you don't take the thoughts and feelings of others into consideration, even where it affects them.”

Miranda paused. “No. I don't agree with that,” she responded. She wasn't offended by Shepard's opinion, but she thought it was misplaced. “Of course I take others into account when I make decisions, where it’s relevant. If I cared that little about people, I wouldn't be trying to save humanity from the Collectors.”

Somehow, Shepard didn't seem surprised by that answer.

“I’m not saying you don’t care. And I’m sure you don’t do it deliberately. I’m just saying you can be a bit...careless with people’s feelings sometimes. And it can read as insensitive,” Shepard advised, choosing her words delicately.

“Isn’t that their problem?” Miranda countered. “How other people choose to interpret me is their business. But I’ve never had that problem with Samara.”

“None of this is meant as an insult. I just don't want you to inadvertently say or do something you'll regret. That's all,” Shepard clarified as she stepped into the elevator, keen to let this go. It really wasn't that big a deal, and it certainly wasn’t an indication of any distrust. It had barely been worth mentioning.

“Something I'll regret?” Miranda echoed, furrowing her brow, wondering if Shepard knew something she didn’t. “Like what?” Miranda stared in confusion as the elevator doors closed, leaving her alone with her question unanswered.

Miranda frowned in puzzlement. What a bizarre conversation.

She didn't understand what Shepard was getting at, or where that had come from. She'd never confronted Miranda for tactless behaviour before. Her mind did hark back to the incident with Samara in that very spot a few days ago, wondering if word had spread that Miranda had caused her to storm off, but Andrea hadn’t mentioned it as an example. She’d only spoken in hypotheticals.

If that incident had been what sparked Shepard’s concern, it wasn’t like Miranda needed a warning. While she still wasn’t sure what she’d said to cause offence, Miranda had been more cautious since. Besides, Samara was a rational adult; she was perfectly capable of telling Miranda when she crossed a line.

Why was Shepard so concerned about Samara's well-being all of a sudden, anyway? Samara may have suffered a great tragedy, but she was by no means fragile. She was a Justicar, for crying out loud. Words weren’t going to hurt her.

Certainly, taking her daughter's life had been a profoundly heart-rending experience, but like the resilient person she was Samara hadn’t let it destroy her. If anything, she’d come out better for it. Miranda admired that about her.

Nevertheless, Miranda was no fool. It went without saying that she wasn't stupid enough to say something flippant about what had transpired with Morinth. She’d witnessed Samara’s sorrow firsthand. And, despite Shepard’s concerns, Miranda didn't discount Samara’s feelings as an irrelevance. Far from it

She wasn't a loose cannon like Jack. Miranda was nothing if not professional. She was never at risk of being incapable of moderating her own behaviour. She had a low tolerance for incompetence, admittedly, but otherwise she treated people with basic respect. Why the hell did Shepard of all people feel the need to caution Miranda about something she was already doing faultlessly?

Unless Shepard knew something about Samara that Miranda didn't...

Hmm. Now that was a thought.

*    *     *

“It's been a month. You can’t honestly be convinced that it is worthwhile to continue looking for survivors,” said the President of the European Council, communicating via a secure channel from somewhere in rural France.

Brussels had been hit hard early in the Reapers’ invasion, as had all of Earth’s major centres. For their own safety, any world leaders who hadn't been indoctrinated or killed during the invasion had been smuggled into remote locations by various special forces. With the Alliance Parliament destroyed and the bulk of military leadership currently outside the Sol system, that meant supranational governments were now the highest authority ground-side.

“How can we stop now?” Miranda asked, refusing to accept that instruction. “I understand making tough decisions, but this is unreasonable. If we give up, then not only are we abandoning parts of the city we could otherwise be expanding into, but we're condemning anyone out there to an almost certain death. That window of opportunity isn't going to be open for much longer.”

“What window? We won't find anyone alive at this point,” The President proclaimed. “Search and rescue is no longer a priority; our focus must be on consolidating our existing settlements, restoring infrastructure and ensuring our current population won't succumb to illness or starvation.”

Miranda sneered, tempted to interrupt her again. She'd been hearing this same message from authority figures non-stop since forcibly discharging herself from hospital and joining the relief effort, just in slightly different variations. She hadn't dragged her battered body back into action in order to be told to sit and wait as their already faint chance to save lives dwindled. But she didn't need to call the politician out on her bullshit. Someone was already speaking for her side.

“With all due respect, Madame President, every time it's been declared that it's 'too late' to possibly find anymore survivors, we've gone out and found people alive,” said Commander Bailey, the closest thing to a leader London had at the moment, for good reason. He'd been there to clean up the Citadel after Sovereign's attack. He knew a thing or two about how to react to wide-scale destruction.

“We're in the middle of London, not the bloody Sahara,” Miranda argued, managing to refrain from scowling at the holographic projection. “We’ve made contact with numerous outposts in various parts of the city, and the story is always the same. The power may be cut off, but with ingenuity and a bit of luck they’ve been able to scavenge enough food and water to sustain themselves.”

“Then what is the urgency?” The President countered, annoyed. Miranda’s eye narrowed. “If people are surviving outside the green zone, I am not stopping them.”

“The issue is that these isolated outposts won’t last forever,” Bailey explained, keeping an even tone. “They can only sit around and wait for the outside world to make contact for so long before circumstances force their hand. They don’t have the manpower to get nearby hospitals up and running, and they can and do run out of options. I’ve already heard reports of missing persons who left these outposts to look for other people, who haven’t been heard of since.”

“I can attest to how dangerous it is out there,” Miranda chimed in. “If they don’t think we’re looking for them, people will grow desperate, and risk everything to save themselves. Even if they remain where they are, supplies will run out. Every second we wait is sentencing probable survivors to slow starvation.”

“I understand that,” the European President sombrely replied, acknowledging that her decision would likely cost lives, “But we have to cut our losses and move on. Earth is a logistical nightmare. While we calculate the fallen, ships from every species in the galaxy continue to land. Every habitable city is already overburdened with their numbers. They were not prepared for this.”

“We have no control over that.” Miranda shrugged her shoulders. “You need to coordinate with the leaders of the other Council races. They decide when and where their people land. It’s their responsibility to take charge.”

“At the end of the day, they have no choice but to come to Earth,” the President responded, evidently having had those discussions. “The quarian fleet may be feeding the dextro-races for now, but none of the others brought adequate rations. God only knows how we're supposed to keep peace with angry, starving aliens behind the guns of battleships. They can't all go into stasis! We need to start producing again before everything we have in reserve is consumed.” 

“No offence, ma'am, but it's not our job to fix that,” Bailey said plainly. “We already have more aliens in London than we have the space or provisions for. That overcrowding is only getting worse by the day. Ordering us to sit around on our asses or to go become farmers isn't going to improve the situation.”

“Not when you phrase it like that, but you could be devoting your time and attention to tasks like construction, or send the ships you use to scour the wasteland to the countryside so workers can begin producing fresh food. And I don’t doubt that Ms Lawson could be a valuable asset if she turned her mind to formulating solutions for our broken mass relay,” the President pointed out.

“I appreciate the compliment, and I have every intention of addressing higher-level problems when people's lives aren't at stake,” Miranda responded.

The President shook her head, visibly stressed. “Why are you advocating for this, anyway? I've read your status reports on London. You don't have enough room or supplies for the survivors you've already found. How can you possibly justify wasting resources and manpower searching for more?”

“As we’ve tried to tell you, moving into other parts of the city and getting them up and running again is vital to London’s sustainability,” Miranda asserted. “I am not opposed to making sacrifices for the greater good – letting some die so that others might live – but what you're asking for is counter-productive until we have a viable base to build upon. We do have to expand the green zone now, before disease and hunger set in. It's our only chance of averting catastrophe.”

“But—“

“With all due respect, this is not up for debate,” Miranda cut the President off without any regard for her status. “We have no choice but to clear the roads and get infrastructure and supply lines working again, to locate habitable spaces, to find buildings that are intact, to reopen hospitals, to get people out of overcrowded parks and into temporary housing, or more suitable shelters. The fact that we still have a chance of finding survivors only adds to the urgency.”

“I'm in agreement with Ms Lawson,” said Bailey, presenting a united front. “Right now, our streets are flooded beyond capacity. As it stands, the situation is tenuous as best, and unmanageable at worst. There could be riots or epidemics if we don't act soon. We're already on the brink of famine. We'd be better off if we could offload the people who can't contribute into residential zones. Then maybe we can establish some form of order and start using the soldiers and volunteers who are still fit and healthy enough to be put to work to their full potential.”

“Every city on Earth is rife with these problems! Stop focusing on yourselves like you owe nothing to the rest of us!” the President all but spat. “Do you expect us to continue to divert resources to your relief effort indefinitely?”

“No, but I expect you to allow us to make do with the resources we have,” Bailey stated frankly. “And you could try and get the leaders of other species to stop interfering. I can’t make progress when I’m being undermined on all sides.”

Bailey was right. Contradictory orders from outside sources were becoming as serious problem, preventing him from exercising authority over those who hadn’t actively joined his relief effort as volunteers. It seemed like each separate military organisation was looking out for themselves, which meant they were reluctant to lend Bailey any assistance. A divided London was certain to fall to pieces.

Bailey may have been the closest thing London had to a recognised leader, but he was operating with little support outside of Alliance personnel. And, while there had been aliens from all species willing to step outside their own chain of command and take up work at their HQ, they were the exception rather than the rule. Most never abandoned their first loyalty to their own military.

They were doing damn well in light of the circumstances, to be sure, but things would be much better if he just had official approval to make a concerted push into unexplored parts of the city – to order people from every species to move out, instead of sitting idly by because they didn't know who to follow.

Miranda imagined the situation wasn't that different elsewhere on Earth. London just had it worse because of the vast numbers left stranded by the battle there.

Many with working ships had seen the sense in heading to other cities already, since London clearly couldn't support them all. In some ways, their departure was a good thing, but, in others, it was a waste. Those ships could have been useful, even if they’d only taken more refugees with them, instead of leaving them behind. The level of disarray and lack of communication only made it harder to reinstate any semblance of structure amid the chaotic aftermath.

“If you leave me no alternative, I can authorise Alliance military forces to take direct control of the situation in London, Commander,” the President warned. It wasn't a threat, just a step that wasn't out of the question. “I have trusted you to work in concert so far. But, if you cannot maintain order, someone must.”

Before Bailey could speak, Miranda stepped in.

“Paralysis is not 'order'. Although London may be a powder keg, we can and will keep it under control, but that won’t be possible while you ignore our advice. Unless we intervene now, London will collapse, and we will be forced to shift the burden of our population onto others. So, if you want to create fewer problems, I'd recommend you support our plan to expand and recover who and what we can,” said Miranda, following the example of a fallen friend in being diplomatic.

Honestly, Miranda thought it would have been more effective to shoot the politician and put someone competent in her place. But the President wasn't there in person, so she supposed that was off the table. Solving problems with speeches had always been Andrea's strength rather than hers. Miranda just hoped some of Shepard's uncanny luck and charisma had rubbed off on her.

The President paused, giving Miranda's words some thought.

“Very well,” she reluctantly conceded. “I will authorise a drive to expand our habitable territory across all cities, including London, and I will speak to representatives from other species to ensure cooperation in this endeavour. But be warned that, if this is unsuccessful in rectifying your problems, then that is on you. There will be no more excuses. Following this, I will divert excess resources and personnel away from London and into arable parts of Europe. I think you'll find others will not do you the kindness of giving you such forewarning.”

“Thank you, Madame President,” said Bailey, politely nodding his head and saluting before the transmission was abruptly terminated. He sighed. “Well, that's a start,” he remarked. Most of the time, the outlook was so bleak that all one could do was pretend that days like these counted as good ones.

In a sense, they were. Better than the bad days, at least.

“It's not a start. This should have happened weeks ago, and we never should have had to fight for it,” Miranda spoke, her voice strained with frustration, masking a faint wince as she leaned on her crutch. “Anyway, I should get to work. We have to compensate for the delay this political posturing has caused us.”

Her physical discomfort didn’t escape Bailey’s attention.

“For as much as I admire your dedication, you know you’re more use to me alive than dead,” he commented, folding his arms like a disapproving father. Thankfully not in the same manner that would have described Miranda's, though. “You’ve done an outstanding job, Ms Lawson. Now take some damn medical leave.”

“And sitting on my arse would accomplish what, exactly?” Miranda countered, fed up with copping flack for doing the work everyone else was either too stupid or inept to do. Whether Bailey was joking or not was irrelevant, given her mood. They needed her. She made strides that others didn't, and accomplished what others couldn’t. She was the best. “Honestly, you're starting to sound like Jacob.”

“You say that like it's an insult. He’s a sensible guy. You should listen to him,” Bailey remarked, audibly smirking. He was a gruff, serious man, but he did seem to enjoy riling Miranda up in jest. Probably because she could take it. That and her desire to shut him up was a powerful motivator; it brought out her tenacity.

“Why bring this up now?” Miranda asked, perplexed, and a little suspicious, limping along beside Bailey as she followed him out into the hallway. “You know I was being treated for sepsis when I first contacted you, right? This is the least incapacitated I’ve been since I started working here.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Sepsis? Really?”

“I defy medical explanation,” Miranda dryly replied. That wasn’t an exaggeration either. But that was a long story. Too long to get into right now. “Point is, I know I haven’t done anything to make you question my reliability all of a sudden.”

“Maybe not, but you sure as hell do look exhausted at the end of the day. And right now,” Bailey observed, suspecting she was pushing herself too hard.

“I like being exhausted,” Miranda answered honestly. It kept her mind off things.

At that, they came to a stop in the corridor. “Alright then. I'm not going to pussy-foot around this; the reason I bring this up is because I figure you want to do with this operation what you did with the Wolfe Gang at the hospital,” he pointed out. “You plan to go out into the field in person if you can, don’t you?”

“Who's going to stop me if I do?” Miranda stated bluntly.

“I could have you detained, you know,” Bailey noted, though it was clearly an empty threat. “All I'm saying is, you're one of the privileged few who has an actual place to live at the moment. So, when we get the green light to go out into the field, just stay home that day. Don't go getting yourself killed on my watch.”

“Tell you what, I promise I'll rest when I can be sure you and your people would be even half as effective without me,” she remarked. It wasn't smugness, just truth. In fact, from what Bailey had come to know of her, this was practically humility. “Until then, I'd recommend you trust that I know what my body is capable of. My judgement has never been wrong yet.”

Bailey almost mustered a grin. Miranda had an attitude. Ordinarily, not a quality he liked. In fact, it might have made Miranda impossible to work with, if it weren't for the fact that she was exactly as good as she said she was and delivered better results than anyone else on his team as consistently as clockwork.

Noticing his response, Miranda softened. Much as she may have bickered with him, she knew she couldn't have accomplished what she had without Bailey's help and unwavering support. As an ex-Cerberus agent, people were unlikely to follow her. Being a former member of the terrorist group that had been attacking, slaughtering and conducting experiments on thousands of innocent people did not inspire confidence in a leader. Bailey, however, people listened to. People trusted him. And he allowed her to do her job, despite her past.

London needed somebody like him – somebody Miranda couldn't be. Moreover, he'd proven his competence. It was fortunate he hadn't been among the millions who sadly failed to make it off the Citadel in time to escape the Reapers.

Now, the Citadel was a smouldering wreck – scattered debris in the sky. Miranda supposed most of the people still trapped inside had died when the Citadel hit the mass relay, not in the massive explosion when the Crucible was fired. She wasn't sure which death was worse. But this wasn't the time to ask that.

“Well, are we just going to stand here all day, or are we going to make the most out of the time we've got left to get organised?” asked Miranda, patience running thin. She was ready to get back out into the wasteland, and make something amounting to a difference in this post-apocalyptic hell-hole.

Bailey nodded his head. “Best words I've heard all day.”

“Alright. I'll begin making arrangements,” Miranda affirmed.

“Oh, and Ms. Lawson?” said Bailey, stopping Miranda before she could hobble off. “Let Mr Taylor know you'll each be leading your own teams.”

Miranda's brow quirked, surprised Bailey was letting her go. “You're serious?”

“Start preparing your people; I don't want there to be any delays when we get approval to move out,” Bailey continued, dismissively waving his hand as he returned to his duties. “I'm counting on you, Ms Lawson; don't let me down.”

Once he departed, a small smile tugged at the corner of Miranda's lips, satisfied to have been given that opportunity. She knew the odds of finding anyone she knew personally were slim, but she'd be damned if she didn't want to turn every last ounce of strength she had in her body to combing the ruins for any trace of anyone who she served beside on the Normandy, living or dead.

She might even see Samara again.

*    *     *

“Hey.” Miranda glanced up when Shepard spoke to her. “You doing okay? You got pretty banged up back there.”

“I'm fine, Commander,” Miranda answered, trying not to wince. As fine as anyone could be after getting bullrushed by a yahg and nearly crushed to death. She was still pissed off at herself for letting her guard slip like that, sour about getting taken out of the fight. Miranda had fallen short of her own standards, and Shepard and Liara had been forced to fight the Shadow Broker alone.

“You're sure?” Shepard pressed, sounding concerned.

Miranda realised she was unconsciously nursing her ribs and made a concerted effort to stop. “I've had worse. I don't need to be rushed to medbay, if that's what you're asking. Besides, I think you’re needed.” She nodded her head towards Liara, aware of Andrea's existing relationship with her. “Take your time.”

Andrea followed her line of sight, realising what she was implying. “Thanks,” said Shepard, appreciating that Miranda was allowing them a private moment.

“See? Even I can be sensitive sometimes,” Miranda quipped.

Shepard smirked at her before following Liara deeper inside the ship, leaving Miranda alone in the control room, but for the holographic VI hanging about.

Miranda leaned back against a panel and glanced about herself while she waited, idly curious about the technology and resources that the legendary Shadow Broker once had at his disposal. Or, well, she supposed there was a new Shadow Broker now. Maybe there would always be one.

Cerberus had dealt with the Shadow Broker in the past, never on good terms. To Miranda's knowledge, The Illusive Man had always perceived the Broker as a threat and a potential enemy, refusing to use his services lest it avail the Broker of information he could turn against them. His caution had proven prescient when the Broker allied with the Collectors. But, now that they had seized his ship, Miranda was sure The Illusive Man would be eager to make use of it.

As Miranda examined the control room, she couldn't help but find it funny how dated most of the technology was compared to any Cerberus facility she’d worked at. Maybe that was deliberate. If everyone assumed the Shadow Broker relied on cutting-edge technology, using older models made his network harder to hack. More likely, the ship was just so old and keeping its location hidden was so crucial to the Broker's survival that he'd never been able to modernise.

Before she got more than a third of the way around the room, an open terminal nearby caught Miranda's eye. She recognised familiar names on the screen – the names of her squadmates. Checking to make sure nobody but the VI was watching, Miranda went to investigate, her curiosity piqued.

Browsing the terminal immediately revealed that these were the Broker's files on every relevant person aboard the Normandy. The Shadow Broker must have been accessing the data he held on each of them at the time they boarded his ship. There was information about everyone at her fingertips. Every single person.

If Liara intended to keep this information, Miranda didn't begrudge her for that. Smart. It was what she would have done, in her position. Given her relationship to Shepard, no doubt Liara would prefer to keep an eye on those closest to her.

As she scrolled through the list, her own name came up. Miranda checked that file first. Her eyebrow arched. Contrary to providing tactical intelligence, the information was distinctly...personal. It contained records of her online dating history, medical records, even messages between her and Oriana.

Hmm. Invasive. Was this how it felt when she did that to everyone else?

She didn't delete any of it from the server. Liara would know. Besides, she probably didn't have that much longer before Shepard returned, ready to leave.

There were still so many other names there, though. Thane. Kasumi. Jack. Garrus. Jacob. Mordin. Tali. Samara. Every single member of the team. She couldn't pretend she fully trusted every person on that list. She didn't, and many of them felt the same way about her. Even when it came to those she felt closest to, she couldn’t forgive herself if she let this information slip through her fingers. 

Miranda may have undergone something of a transformation since first joining the crew of the Normandy, but she hadn't changed that much.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Miranda synced her omni-tool to the Shadow Broker database, downloading as much of the data on her Normandy comrades as the system would allow her to. She wanted to know everything about everyone, leaving no trail behind for Liara to detect anything amiss.

As such, when she returned to her office that evening, Miranda couldn’t wait to dive into what she’d obtained. She had a wealth of options to explore.

Most of it turned out to be garbage, honestly. She read Jack’s terrible poetry, and Grunt’s extranet search history. She found out what movies Jacob was viewing, no surprises there. Those were all things Miranda already kept track of.

Other information was more...revealing. Things she wouldn’t have known otherwise. Information from years ago, not from aboard the Normandy.

As she closed Thane’s file, Samara’s name caught her eye. Miranda opened the Broker’s records on her without hesitation. Miranda would have been foolish not to. She’d touched on sensitive issues enough for it to become a recurring problem  – one that even Shepard had warned her about.

Any method that might aid Miranda in demystifying Samara’s past was a welcome one. Contrary to the popular saying, ignorance was not bliss. The longer she remained blind to any relevant information, the more likely it was that Miranda would repeat the mistake of saying something inadvertently offensive. If she did that too often, it would almost certainly damage their burgeoning friendship.

Second thoughts never crossed her mind.

The Shadow Broker only had so much intel on Samara. A conversation with her daughters. A list of possessions bequeathed to the Justicar Order. But it was still extremely useful; those names, dates and connections to Samara’s past around four hundred years ago made it significantly easier for Miranda to follow further leads, and track down more files related to her family on Thessia.

She didn't consider it an invasion of privacy to do so. It was just research. All this information was either on file with the Shadow Broker already, and the rest of the leads she hunted down were readily available to the public.

Well, not all of it. Some did require hacking into police records once she knew exactly where to look, but it still wasn't exactly a secret. At no point did it occur to Miranda to stop digging, or that she was going too far down the rabbit hole.

One by one, she started accessing files from that critical period, painting a detailed picture of Samara’s life around the time of her daughters’ diagnoses.

What she found was illuminating, to say the least.

In the years prior to becoming a Justicar, Samara had been living the most boringly, blisteringly normal upper middle class existence imaginable. She lived in a good neighbourhood in a four-bedroom house. Her bondmate was an associate at a prominent law firm. Samara was an actuary in a finance company. Their three daughters, close together in age, all attended the same prestigious school.

From the available evidence, it was clear Samara maintained an active social life. She had a gym membership. She played for her company's sports team. She attended community events with her neighbours and had a reputation as a rising name in her field, on the path towards potentially owning her own risk-management and financial advice company by the time she became a matriarch.

By all accounts, she was a typical, everyday, if high-achieving middle-aged mother. The sort of person nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to.

That had all changed, almost overnight.

Rila was the eldest daughter. She had been the first to be tested, and the first to be diagnosed as an Ardat-Yakshi. She was taken away almost as soon as the test results came back, before they even had time to process the news.

They probably only got about five minutes with her as a family before Rila was whisked away by the authorities, never to be held by either of her parents again.

The devastation of losing Rila in an instant hit their family like a tonne of bricks. Samara did her best to be strong and hold it together for the good of her loved ones, but everything unravelled around her with shocking speed. 

There was a record of medical notes from a counselling session (mandatory for parents of Ardat-Yakshi children) detailing how all appeared to be going well. Samara’s bondmate had just returned to work after a ‘nervous breakdown’. The psychiatrist seemed pleased with their progress, noting that both of them were doing their best to recover and support one another after their horrible news.

Only a few weeks later, there was a death certificate.

Samara's bondmate.

Suicide.

The official cause of death was exsanguination. According to the incident report, she was found in the bathtub. Victim's bondmate contacted police. Body discovered when she returned home from work, after collecting their children from school. No foul play suspected. A suicide letter was present on scene.

A copy of it was in evidence.

There was no way in hell Miranda was opening that. She couldn’t. Even the thought of it made her sick. The police report already said too much.

Samara's partner felt that this was their punishment. They'd been arrogant, ignoring the risks inherent in a pure-blooded union. She couldn't look at herself or Samara without seeing 'the curse' they had passed onto their child. She couldn't live with it, this sickness that they had unknowingly carried inside them. And, as Falere and Mirala approached testing age, she could not bear her fear that they would share their sister’s fate.

'I cannot love monsters,' she'd said, which meant she couldn't love Samara, her children, or herself. And she'd taken her own life to prove it, consumed by despair.

It was hard to imagine what Samara and her children had gone through. Samara couldn't have been oblivious to her partner's conflicted feelings following Rila’s diagnosis, or her struggle. But she had just been going about her day like any other day, putting on a brave face for her children, maybe daring to think that they could heal from this and find some semblance of normalcy, even without Rila...and she had come home to find the woman she loved dead in the bathtub.

In an instant, any hope they had of moving on with their lives had been snuffed out.

Nothing would ever be ordinary again.

Perhaps that explained why Mirala had turned into Morinth. Her behaviour had changed after her father's death. She became angrier, understandably. There were mentions of her becoming violent at school. She lashed out at teachers and fought with other students. All the while, her own test loomed nearer. They were monitored closely the whole time, Mirala and Falere, because of their sister's diagnosis. It was said to be a 50% chance they would possess the same illness.

Then Falere was officially diagnosed, only about two years after her elder sister. Mirala's test was due two years after that. Falere cooperated. Mirala didn't.

She knew she would fail the test, just like her sisters had, and that she would be forced to endure the same fate. So she ran the day she was scheduled to take it.

They found the body of her childhood best friend twelve hours later. The first person Mirala had melded with. The first person she'd killed. Morinth had still been a child at the time. She probably hadn't fully grasped that there was no way for an Ardat-Yakshi to safely meld with anyone. Maybe she'd hoped she didn’t have the syndrome. But it didn't matter. There was no going back from that.

The police had interrogated Samara, accusing her of facilitating her daughter's escape and assisting her in evading detection. Samara had insisted she had no clue where Mirala was. But she admitted that she felt responsible all the same.

In the transcript, Samara confessed that she had tried to emotionally prepare Mirala for what might happen, explaining to her that she might have to join her two sisters, and that she would live a life of seclusion and comfort. Instead of calming her, those words had stoked Mirala's panic and pushed her over the edge. It was no wonder she had stolen the opportunity to take flight.

Samara blamed herself for everything. Her daughters' condition. Her bondmate's suicide. Mirala's escape. The death of that poor, innocent child.

And everyone else blamed her too. She returned to her home alone, a pariah, locked away with the memories of her broken family, and society’s contempt.

Samara lost her job, citing poor performance. There were reports of vile, anti-pureblood vandalism on her home, never investigated. The child Mirala had killed, her mother had been Samara's friend once. They played on the same sports team. But not after that. Miranda deduced that much when her name came up on an assault and battery report against Samara. No charges were laid.

Miranda deduced even more from the next police report.

They'd been called to Samara's house by a frantic neighbour. Evidently, the only one who still gave a shit about her and didn’t despise her for the disease her children bore. She broke into her home when Samara didn’t answer her door or respond to phone calls, and she found her lying unconscious on the floor.

Samara had been prescribed drugs that Miranda recognised as common asari anti-depressants, and tried to overdose on them. There was a record of her admission to hospital, where she was held as an involuntary patient until she was deemed to no longer be a danger to herself. She was released back to the same empty home, the same hollow shell of a life, the same crushing isolation.

After that, there wasn't much information. Some updates on Mirala's presumed whereabouts, and crimes she was suspected to be responsible for. But for Samara, the next notable record of her was that conversation with her daughters the Shadow Broker had recovered. That was the day before Samara bequeathed all her possessions to the Justicars and swore her life to their Order.

Miranda could only speculate as to precisely when and how that decision came about. But she had no wish to dig deeper after the horrible things she’d already read. She had uncovered more than enough. More than she had any right to.

And, for the first time in her life, she felt rotten to her core.

Was this what Shepard had been warning her about? Had she known or sensed how deep Samara's wounds ran? Was that why she was wary of Miranda being careless with her trauma?

It was only as Miranda sat there processing that emotional rollercoaster that remorse began to bubble up inside her. Sure, she could justify it to herself that it wasn't really an invasion of privacy to learn things anyone present at the time would have known, because Miranda was nothing if not an expert and defending her own actions. But unearthing confidential records that went to Samara's mental state, her innermost thoughts, and her attempt at taking her own life?

Yeah, even Miranda felt uncomfortable with that.

She should have realised earlier that there was no separating the two. How could she read anything about such an intimate and painful part of Samara's past without crossing a few boundaries in the process? It wasn't like Miranda hadn't known what she was doing. She'd chosen to violate her trust and her privacy in the full knowledge and appreciation of what that meant.

She would have done this to everyone on the ship without a second thought. Hell, she already did, as a daily routine. She dug into their past. She hacked into their private messages. She spied on them. Not a single person on this ship didn't know how little Miranda cared to respect their agency.

So why did this feel so wrong?

Well, either way, Miranda had got what she wanted, right? She'd wanted to understand what happened in Samara's past and with her family in order to be able to grasp how profoundly it must have affected her and why she flinched at the mere mention of the subject. Now she fucking knew. Boy did she ever.

Be careful what you wish for. Because you might just get it.

*    *     *

Miranda was never truly satisfied with anything so one would have been forgiven for assuming from her complaints that she disliked their apartment. There was no way before the war that twelve people occupying a small three-bedroom apartment wouldn't have violated health and safety laws. There were way too many stairs she had to climb on one good leg. The water supply was spotty at best. And the bathroom situation was better left uncommented on altogether.

However, she was actually pleased with the upgrade. It was a relief to be out of tent city. For the first time since leaving the hospital, she had her own private space to sit and think. Since she wasn't a socialiser and was in no condition to battle the crowds in food queues, she tended to be the first person home. Even when she wasn't, if she wanted peace, she could head up to the roof with a laptop.

On that afternoon, about half her roommates were home, most of them in the kitchen and lounge area, either cooking dinner or hanging around shooting the breeze after a long day. Miranda kept to herself, seated at the small desk she'd set up in her bedroom, working on her computer, making the final preparations for her search and rescue team, ensuring everything was in order for tomorrow.

She'd already secured the assistance of Shiala and the Feros colonists. As promised, they were only too happy to help after Miranda had assisted them in securing the medicine they needed. They wouldn't be on Miranda's team as they didn't have any of the kind of specialised equipment necessary to be of immediate use to her, but they would be offering backup and support, helping evacuate any survivors and maintaining supply lines to and from the search front.

They would only have a couple of days, they had to make the most of this effort.

“Miranda,” Jacob's voice caught her attention. She hadn't heard him coming, something that almost never used to happen to her before her hearing was damaged. He was short of breath. She could tell he'd been sprinting across the city to get to her. “Whatever you’re doing, put it down; I got a message.”

“From Samara?” Miranda assumed, immediately getting up from her desk.

“No.” He shook his head.

Without another word, he handed over a datapad, leaving the room and closing the door behind him, electing to give her privacy. Miranda arched her brow in confusion and touched the screen. A video was already queued up.

She didn't dare to hope. Except she did.

“Hey, sis. It’s me.”

Miranda barely made it past the first word before the full force of seeing Oriana again hit her square in the heart. Her knees quaked, and she had to sit down fast as her weak leg buckled, almost collapsing onto the edge of her bunk bed. 

Her head swam from the shock, and she felt like she was about to fall off the face of the Earth. Suffice it to say she had not been emotionally prepared.

“I...don't need to tell you it's me, because this is a video message and you can see my face, can't you?” Oriana grimaced at her choice of words. “Ugh. Sorry. I don't mean to sound like an idiot, but I'm having a one-sided conversation with a black screen and not hearing you talk back to me. This feels so weird.”

“I know,” Miranda murmured, the soft glow of the screen illuminating the dark. 

“And now I'm rambling. Great start, Ori.” Oriana paused, swallowing heavily, her eyes downcast. “I don't know if you'll ever get this. Communication keeps blacking out everywhere, and...and well...I received a message from your friend, Jacob. I think it's old, but...He told me you were hurt pretty badly. That you were missing for five days. That you were in surgery for a long time. That you might not—”

Oriana's breath hitched, unable to speak that thought. Miranda's heart broke as she watched her sister struggle to blink back tears. That was her fault. She had forced her sister to bear that pain alone. She had made her worry like that.

“But, then...you're you, you know?” Oriana’s voice cracked as she spoke. “You might secretly be a huge nerd, but you're also an unstoppable, all-powerful space badass, so you have to be okay. You're going to hear my stupid rambling someday. And...we're definitely going to see each other again. We only just met, yeah?”

Miranda never normally cried. Except when it came to her sister. The first time she’d seen her. When she’d been forced to let her go. When, after nineteen long years, they finally met. But this? This didn’t only make her cry. This wrecked her.

Oriana's voice. Her words. Her fear and sorrow. It tipped her over the edge, and swamped her in a sudden surge of emotion that destroyed every wall in its path.

She broke down and wept like she’d quite literally never wept in her life.

“Whatever you did on Earth, it worked. You saved us. I mean, the mass relays are gone, but we're still alive, right? We have a chance at a future. We can come back from this. Somehow, we'll find a way. Someone will figure out how to rebuild them. It has to be possible. When that happens, you can come back to me. Or I can go to you. Whatever. We can be together in person again, like we're supposed to be. So you have to live to see it. If not for you, then for me.”

Miranda's fingers gently brushed the screen, certain the teardrops on her cheek mirrored the stains on Oriana's, the light of her image reflected on her skin.

“If you ever wake up, please send me a message. Even an email. Just let me know you're okay. I don't know if we'll be able to talk properly anytime soon with the Extranet the way it is. I imagine we're just two among billions trying to contact each other. But...fuck them; you’re the only one I care about.”

Through her tears, Miranda almost uttered a laugh at that. She and Oriana, they were both so different but...sometimes they were exactly the same.

“I love you,” Oriana said sincerely, unknowingly meeting her sister’s gaze through the cruel divide of time and space. “Please be okay.”

With that, the message ended.

The only thing Miranda did before recording her reply was wipe her eye and take a second to catch her breath. She had to reach out to her. Yes, she had already done so, but not as she truly was. Not openly. Not the way Oriana deserved.

She had to make right what she'd done wrong; she needed to be real.

She hit record.

“Oriana, I...I don't know if you've received the last message I sent you. To be honest, I don't care, because I just...I just got yours. Your first one.” Miranda brushed the hair out of her face. Doing that exposed her half-burned face, cotton and gauze concealing her now empty left eye socket. The tablet was far enough away that it clearly showed where her left arm stopped above the elbow as well.

“...This is why I only sent you a voice message before,” she confessed, realising this was the first time her sister would grasp the extent of her injuries. “I didn’t want to frighten you. And I didn't want you to worry about me. But...hey, at least people won't have any trouble telling us apart when you're older.”

Miranda managed a tearful smile. She'd never been good at jokes. She honestly didn't have an ounce of humour in her, thanks to her father's influence. The closest thing she had was sarcasm. But for Oriana, she would certainly try.

“It looks worse than it is,” she continued, glancing down self-consciously. “I'm not in pain. Not much, anyway. Not anymore. I'm already back at work, like I told you before. I...If that message got through. But I really am fine. I wasn't lying when I said that. I've never lied to you in your whole life, even when you didn't know me. Except...Except when I left for Earth and promised I'd come back.”

Her voice caught. Her breath choked and she shuddered as she fought back a sob.

“I'm so sorry.” Miranda’s resolve dissolved, pleading for forgiveness. “I'm so sorry I put you through that – not knowing if I was going to survive. And I'm sorry I came here because, if I hadn't, we wouldn't be stranded light years away when I swore to you that we were finally going to get to be a family. And I'm sorry because...I gave you my word I'd be back when I never truly believed I'd make it through this. But then, you already knew that, didn't you?”

More than anything else, that had been the one thing that ate away at Miranda's conscience, and kept her awake at night. For all the other harrowing thoughts that haunted her nightmares, none were worse than the fact that she knew she was lying to Oriana about her chances of returning.

Miranda had come to Earth fully expecting to die in the fight to save the galaxy. Maybe that had just been wishful thinking. Maybe she would have preferred that to living with the consequences of her cowardice, and facing responsibility for deserting Oriana to go play at being a hero.

She didn't feel like much of one now. Heroes didn't get their whole team killed.

“Please keep sending messages. I know I don't actually have to ask that of you. But I need to hear your voice, and not just because yours is a thousand times more positive than mine. Although that helps.” Miranda brushed the moisture from her eye, but it was in vain. “The only reason I am who I am today is because of you – because I had to protect you, and keep you far, far away from...you know who. Without you, there is no...'unstoppable space badass' or whatever you called me.”

Miranda couldn't help but utter an emotionally broken laugh at that. That was such an Oriana thing to say. Sometimes it seemed impossible that she and her sister really did share completely identical DNA. Oriana was so light-hearted and funny and empathetic, the exact opposite of Miranda in those respects. Nature versus nurture, and all that. They made a good study in which traits were which.

“...It was also your voice that kept me going after the shuttle crash,” Miranda confessed. “I was out in that wasteland for what felt like eternity. Alone. Hurt. But every time my body wanted to stop, I thought of you, and I kept going. Samara never would have found me if not for that. So please...stay in contact. I don't mind what you say. Just...something. Anything. As long as it's you.”

Words couldn't encapsulate how wholeheartedly she meant that. It didn't matter what Oriana said, or how stupid and inane she probably thought it was. Miranda would have killed just to hear her waffle on about nothing. Just to hear her speak. Just to know she was living her life.

It made all her sacrifices feel like they were a little less in vain, if they'd played any part in keeping Oriana safe, happy and healthy. Even if they hadn't, it made the vast distances between them feel a little smaller.

She sat in silence for a long moment, the numbers on the recording still ticking by. Even though she wasn't saying anything, she didn't want to end it. Doing so felt like severing that faint connection between herself and her twin, not knowing how many days, weeks or months it might be before she heard a reply. But time wasn't going to wait for her. She still had a job to do tomorrow.

She sniffed and straightened up, pausing to think if there were any last words she wanted to add. But there weren't. Not that occurred to her in that moment.

“I love you, Oriana,” she said – the only person Miranda had said those words to, and the only person for whom that statement had ever been true. “Goodbye.”

Miranda switched off the recorder. She didn't play the message back. She just sent it, and hoped it reached her sister quicker than the last.

Jacob didn't ask any questions when he came in to check on her when she was late for dinner. He just hugged her and let her process her mixed emotions in silence until the tears stopped flowing, and the sobs stopped tearing her throat.

*    *     *

Guilt was an emotion Miranda was not well-acquainted with.

Miranda rarely saw beneath the surface when it came to her perceptions of others, satisfied that her first assumptions were always correct. She never got close enough to anyone to care what they thought of her, or to spare a thought for the emotional impact of her actions. People’s personal feelings didn’t matter to her. And they weren’t Miranda’s problem. Hence, it was hard to have many regrets.

But that didn't apply to Samara.

In only a few short weeks, Miranda had grown to value Samara’s companionship in a way that was...completely new and unfamiliar to her. Miranda had never been allowed to have friends growing up. She’d never learned the skills necessary to make them. And, as she’d entered adulthood, her independent and self-sufficient nature (along with her difficulties relating to others) ultimately convinced her that she neither needed nor desired it. She hadn’t missed anything.

Samara was the first person she’d met who made Miranda appreciate what a genuine rapport actually entailed, and how it could enrich the quality of one’s life rather than needlessly distracting from it. None of the time she’d taken to get to know her had ever felt like a waste. Nor did those moments where Miranda had allowed herself to show vulnerability, and listened to Samara’s sage advice.

Unlike most other people, Miranda usually didn’t struggle to connect with her. Maybe that was because Samara wasn’t dominated by her emotions either. She didn’t react to things in irrational and unpredictable ways. She was perfectly capable of putting her personal feelings to one side, and talking things through logically.

Perhaps that was why, when something did upset Samara, Miranda tended to take it more seriously. And with good cause, because so far it was always something that made complete sense. Something even Miranda could understand.

The events surrounding her family were no exception. And that placed Miranda in a dilemma. Because she could foresee the reasonable consequences of her actions in violating Samara’s privacy if they ever came to light.

And, for once, she cared.

Scarcely a moment had passed since Miranda had gone digging into Samara's past without her consent that she hadn't second-guessed her decision, or wished she hadn't stumbled across the Shadow Broker terminal. She told herself it was a waste of time and energy to beat herself up over it. It was too late to undo it now. This exercise was pointless. But it didn't silence her unease.

On one level, she didn't think she should regret it. A voice in her head told her she shouldn’t feel compelled to apologise, because, technically, she hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. Not by her standards. It was nothing she wouldn't have done and hadn't already done to others a thousand times without blinking.

And, unlike other times, she hadn't done this to gain an advantage over Samara or to report it to The Illusive Man. Miranda's sole reason for investigating further into her background had been to gain a better insight into her, and to try to reduce her risk of accidentally upsetting her in future. Admittedly, those reasons were still selfish, but they weren’t malicious. It was only because she'd come to care about Samara as a friend that she'd delved as deep into her past as she had.

Conversely, it was only because of their friendship that Miranda was questioning her actions. It mattered if Samara felt betrayed or hurt by anything she’d done.

Even if she never found out, that didn’t exactly put Miranda’s mind at ease. Whether Samara realised it or not, Miranda had opened Pandora’s box and released her deepest secrets, and that lid could never be closed again.

Samara was her closest confidant aboard the Normandy, and now Miranda knew, in intimate detail, how the worst moments of her life had unfolded, unravelling the fabric of her entire family, leaving her with nothing but unimaginable grief and mournful memories. Her children's diagnoses. The suicide of her partner. Mirala's first murder. The way her friends and neighbours had turned against her. How Samara had attempted to take her own life.

Miranda knew all these things, and she could never un-know them. Every time she looked at her, that forbidden knowledge was there. And Miranda couldn't even express sympathy for what Samara had gone through, or comfort her, because doing that would expose her treachery. It just had to sit there in the pit of her stomach, an unspeakable transgression, perpetually gnawing away at her.

She’d never felt that before.

Miranda had lived her life without shame, never once craving absolution for any of her sins. She’d never lost sleep over the people she wronged in pursuit of her own ambitions or the furtherance of Cerberus’s goals. She was always justified.

But not here.

For the first time she could recall, she craved forgiveness. But she was too afraid to confess and repent, for no other reason than because Samara’s opinion of her might be permanently damaged if she revealed what she’d done. And Miranda couldn’t reconcile with losing her, even if she deserved to.

She hadn’t been this scared in a long time. Not since she was a child, hiding minor mistakes from her father and his disproportionate retribution.

In retrospect, Shepard’s warnings to be careful with Samara made perfect sense. More than that, they’d been prescient, a prologue to future events. 

Was this what Shepard had been referring to? Had she known all along? Shepard did have an uncanny ability to understand people. Maybe she'd recognised the hollow heart Samara carried with her. Maybe they’d talked about it.

And to think, all this time, Miranda had assumed Samara was at peace with her past, troubled only by Morinth’s murders and recent death, purely because she didn't let her pain show. Between the two of them, Samara always seemed like the stronger one. Then again, maybe she still was. She had persevered despite what she had endured. Miranda had been damaged far worse by far less. 

Well, either way, Andrea had been right; Miranda had done something she regretted. Just as Shepard predicted, Miranda had been so narrowly focused on pursuing her own desire to learn more about Samara's history that she had barged through any barrier of privacy like a battering ram without sparing so much as a thought to her wishes, or how she would be affected by that.

She should have listened to her. She should have left it alone.

“Miranda?” Samara prompted Miranda to open her eyes. “I understand that we are meditating, but...” Samara trailed off, visibly searching for the right words.

“But what?” said Miranda, too frustrated with herself to be self-conscious.

“You seem quiet,” Samara tactfully pointed out. Maybe it wasn't the quiet itself that struck her as odd, since she and Miranda could spend hours in the same space without exchanging a word, but the tension she sensed in it.

“I'm just...concentrating,” Miranda assured her, dodging the question. That slight hesitation didn’t go unnoticed, confirming Samara’s suspicions weren’t misplaced.

“If something troubles you, perhaps I can be of assistance,” Samara offered.

Miranda's teeth grazed her lower lip. Samara's unconditional kindness twisted the knife. It was a stark reminder that Samara would never have betrayed Miranda's trust. “No. I think this is one of those cases where I need to help myself.”

“Very well,” Samara respected her wishes. “I am here if you need me.”

“Hmm.” Miranda glanced down. Perhaps there was something. “I never apologised to you for upsetting you the other day, did I?” she asked, well aware that she hadn't. “I'm sorry about that. I shouldn't have pushed you into that conversation.”

“Your apology is not necessary, and I should not have reacted in the manner I did. There is much which I have not told you, or anyone else aboard this vessel. You cannot be expected to intuit all that may cause me discomfort. But I thank you for apologising,” Samara graciously replied, forgiving her mistakes.

“You know, I think you're the first person I've spoken to who doesn't make me feel humiliated for admitting I'm wrong,” Miranda acknowledged. If only everyone was as easy to talk to as Samara. Maybe she’d do it more often.

“Show me any person who has never been wrong in their life, and I will show you a liar,” Samara replied, a relaxed smile tugging at her lips. “Though we should all aspire to better ourselves, no one should be shamed for imperfection.”

“Tell that to my father, if you ever meet him,” Miranda remarked.

She did feel better, having made some small amends to Samara for something, even if it wasn't what she ought to have expressed remorse for. But it didn't lift the weight from her mind, every moment a conscious reminder of what Samara had gone through with her family, and the private grief she still bore.

But, come to think of it, maybe Samara didn't have to carry that all alone.

“...Samara, can I ask you a personal question?” Miranda began. Samara tilted her head, receptive. Miranda wasn't so sure that would last once she asked what was on her mind. “Can you tell me about your bondmate?” she said, genuinely wanting to be able to connect with more of that part of  her life. Only, this time, she wanted to do it the right way. “Only if you're comfortable with it.”

Needless to say, Samara was taken aback by the abrupt question. She glanced down, her gaze heavy. “Forgive me, I find it very difficult to speak of her.”

“Of course you do,” Miranda replied in a sigh, understanding why. How could she be so stupid? It wasn't any of her business. “You're right. I shouldn't have—“

“It was strange. I had never considered myself to be unhappy in my life prior to that point. But, when I was with her, I realised I had never truly known happiness, or love,” Samara reminisced, her voice soft and wisftul. “She completed me, and elevated me. I can say with no falsity that she made me a better person.”

Miranda didn’t interrupt, watching the expressions play across Samara’s face as she drifted into thought, remembering brighter days from a distant lifetime.

“I had just returned to Thessia, for my mother’s funeral,” Samara explained. “Her passing was...very sudden. I had not been told that she was ill, so it was...difficult to bear. I could not accept it, or comprehend that my chance to reconcile with my mother before the end had, in essence, been stolen from me. I harboured a great deal of anger and resentment towards my sisters over this.”

“I’ll bet you did,” Miranda said quietly, certain she would have felt the same had she been in her position. Not that she had a family of her own to compare with.

“One day, a complete stranger approached me at the temple of the Goddess, and wanted to know if I was okay,” Samara recalled their first encounter. “She had seen me there several times recently, and was concerned that I always seemed so upset. She bought me a cup of tea and something to eat and listened to me bare my soul. I do not know if I could have endured that day without her,

“I do not remember the things I said,” Samara continued. “But somehow she must not have thought me a raving madwoman, because we kept spending time together, and within a few weeks we had already become close friends. We were friends for over two years before I recognised that I had fallen in love with her.”

“What was she like?” Miranda said curiously, eager to learn more about the woman she'd only read about in police reports and medical records, and about the life she and Samara shared together for nearly a century.

“She was a strong woman, but gentle. Devout in her faith. She never harmed a soul in her life,” Samara described her, unable to help but smile fondly at her memory. “She was stalwart in her convictions, but never harsh or severe. She was warm and kindhearted, sometimes to a fault. I learned much from her.”

“Isn’t it taboo for asari to be together?” Miranda asked, prepared for Samara to stop her if her questions crossed a line. “Did that...affect you when you started dating? Were either of you uncomfortable with changing your relationship?”

“I had no concerns, but she did initially, yes. However, it is not so rare as one might think; I can guarantee that there are far more asari who have melded with another asari than there are those who have not,” Samara assured her. Though that couldn’t be proven, Miranda trusted her authority on the matter. “And is not forbidden to become bonded or produce children. While social stigma does exist, the law does not permit discrimination against purebloods, or asari-asari unions.”

“But it happens anyway,” Miranda stated the obvious. Just because it was illegal to discriminate didn't mean people didn't find ways to act upon their prejudices.

“Yes,” Samara conceded. “Unfortunately, the world we live in is an imperfect one, built upon the flaws of imperfect people. She sought to fix it, which is why she pursued a career in law after we met. Her idealism was ill-suited for a system that fosters inequality, privileging the corrupt and disadvantaging those who value character over personal gain. She fought for justice, but rarely found it.”

“You do the same,” Miranda observed.

“I was not the person then that I am now,” Samara reminded her. “Though I believed myself to be otherwise, I was less compassionate towards others, and prone to moral relativism. I had less sympathy for the plight of others, and thought they should be self-reliant. Some of my views had merit, and not all of them have changed, but I was misguided. I did not appreciate how fortunate I was.”

“But you've become nothing if not a crusader against injustice, just in a different way than she aspired to. You defend the defenceless, and cut through the bureaucratic red tape that allows corruption to thrive. I’m sure she’d be proud of that if she saw you now,” Miranda postulated, hoping she took some comfort in that.

“Perhaps,” Samara neither agreed nor disagreed. “But my endeavours are distinct from hers, in that no Code ever compelled my bondmate to be virtuous. She just was. She walked the righteous path of her own accord. To the extent that she was able, she was tireless in her efforts to advocate for clients who fell through the cracks in the system, and those whom the laws of Thessia failed.”

“That sounds very noble, but if she worked at any reasonably sized firm she was more likely representing the rich than the poor. And every lawyer ends up on the wrong side of a dispute at some point. It's part of the job,” Miranda stated frankly.

“You are correct. She was often forced to act against her conscience. She said it was worth it in order to keep her job, so that she could continue to use her status and position to assist those clients whose cases genuinely mattered to her at no cost. Those moments were truly rewarding to her. However, they were few and far between. I knew she struggled with this,” Samara confessed.

Miranda noticed Samara's thumb was unconsciously tracing circles on the back of her other hand. She didn't think she'd ever seen her fidget before. It occurred to her that this was probably the most openly she'd reflected on her bondmate in a very long time. Possibly since her death. It was obviously a painful subject to bring up. But that didn't seem to be deterring her. Maybe this was cathartic.

“She was very different from you or I,” Samara continued. “You thrive when challenged to your limits. Pressure does not defeat you; it fuels you. The more tirelessly you work, the stronger you become. But this was not so for my bondmate. The stress undid her, and gnawed away at her. She was often overburdened and overwhelmed, and began to buckle under the weight. When she came home, she dreaded answering the phone, afraid it would be work. I loved waking up in the mornings and facing the day ahead. She loathed it.”

“That doesn’t make you different.” Miranda shook her head. “You describe your bondmate as gentle and kind. I might be neither of those things, but you certainly are,” Miranda pointed out. Samara had never been otherwise towards her.

“No. In this, you and I are alike. You are a hard woman, as I am. And I was moreso then,” Samara quietly confirmed. “Perhaps that is why I failed to grasp how heavily her work weighed upon her. I misconstrued it as mere frustration, even as she became unwell emotionally. After she passed, I...” Samara stopped suddenly, taking a long moment to compose herself. “I often thought if I had been softer, she would have confided in me. And I could have saved her.”

“People aren't unbiased judges of their own state of mind. It isn't your fault if she didn't tell you. She probably didn't want to acknowledge it herself. Or maybe she didn't want you to worry,” Miranda comforted her. It wasn't fair for Samara to blame herself for her partner's mental illness. She had no control over that.

“With respect, I have thought about this a great deal over the centuries,” Samara replied, her voice calm, but layered with deep, unabating sorrow. “In retrospect, it would not have altered her fate. Because I would not have listened.”

Miranda blinked, taken aback by that frank statement.

“There were signs that her health was in decline and our relationship was deteriorating that I was too blind to see,” Samara admitted. “We were under strain. And I was not sensitive to her needs. I was always pushing her to be resilient – to be an example to our daughters. When something was amiss, I would say, 'weather this, and it will pass, and you shall be the stronger for it.' I did not know then as I know now that it cannot always be so. I was too rigid and simplistic. Arrogant, even. Would that I had heeded her sooner.”

Samara trailed off into troubled silence. Miranda didn't know what to say to that. She couldn't comprehend living with that level of regret. The closest thing she could imagine was if she had never rescued Oriana from her father.

Even if the blame was unwarranted, how could someone ever forgive themselves if they felt responsible for...essentially killing someone they loved?

But Samara’s bondmate had a lot to answer for too. Far more than Samara did. She may not have been in her right mind, but her actions had hurt the woman she claimed to love so deeply that it damn near destroyed her.

Miranda’s first instinct was to think it selfish and cowardly to abandon her family rather than face reality. But, intellectually, she knew that was simplistic. Medical opinion was clear that depression and anxiety didn’t work that way; it wasn’t a moral failing or a question of willpower. That was her father’s influence talking. Besides, Samara had been driven to the same despair too, and she was far from weak. Samara had the most unshakable resolve of any person Miranda knew. 

Still, Miranda couldn’t understand what would make someone want to do what she’d done, or why Samara wasn’t angry at the mere mention of her.

Could someone ever forgive the person they loved for taking their own life?

“...Do you still love her?” Miranda asked, aware of the painful way their relationship had ended, and grasping to some degree the hurtful things her bondmate had said in that letter. Perhaps it was a stupid question, but she'd never felt anything like what Samara had described, so she didn't know.

Samara glanced down at her hands, clasped together in her lap. “Eternally.”

As their conversation trailed into silence, a strange sense of relief washed over Miranda. That gnawing sensation in the pit of her stomach faded. Samara had willingly shared information about that part of her life. It was out in the open now. She had tacit approval to know...most of what she knew.

Even though she wished she had not sunk to employing those underhanded methods, Miranda had come to better understand the ever-present shadow that Samara carried with her. It wasn't always on the surface, and it didn’t mean the moments where she was visibly happy were fake. They were real. But echoes of her past lingered, inescapable. And she would always bear that heartache.

In the span of less than five years – which, to an asari, was the equivalent of a couple of months – Samara had lost everything that gave her life meaning. Her bondmate. Her children. And it had broken her. At one point, she believed she'd had nothing left to live for. Yet somehow she had found the strength to rise from the ashes like a phoenix and keep living. She'd survived, and endured.

Anyone who was privileged enough to be privy to that part of her story could only marvel in awe upon recognising what an astonishing feat that was.

“Thank you for sharing all of that with me,” said Miranda, appreciating that she had indulged her petty questions. “I know it’s hard for you to talk about.”

“It is,” Samara acknowledged, visibly drained by their conversation. “And yet...if I am not mistaken, you may be the first person who has asked me to.”

Miranda arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Justicars do not discuss the people we once were with one another. And I have travelled alone for a very long time,” Samara informed her, her voice barely above a quiet whisper. “...I am grateful that you encouraged me to speak of her again, but...from now on, I think it would be best to focus on the task ahead.”

“Of course. I agree.” Miranda nodded her head, taking that as an indication that Samara was not prepared to reveal anything further, and did not wish to dwell on her past more than she already had. Miranda didn’t have a problem with that. Samara wasn’t obligated to reveal anything she didn’t want to.

Miranda still regretted not respecting that boundary sooner, but her failure just made her all the more committed to never breach Samara’s trust again.

She couldn’t erase what she’d done, but she could change her behaviour going forward, and prove herself worthy of Samara’s confidence. She deserved that, especially if Miranda truly was the closest thing to a friend she’d had in centuries.

“You really are an incredible person, Samara,” Miranda told her.

Samara held her gaze for a moment, meeting Miranda with a faint effort at a smile that never reached her weary eyes. “I am not, but thank you for saying it.”

*     *     *

#fic #miranda lawson #samara #femslash #mass effect

[simonjadis]

Review: The Last Jedi

I’ve been wanting to write this since I saw TLJ opening night, but I write for a living, which cuts into free-time writing. Here is my review of The Last Jedi.

Warning: The Last Jedi spoilers Also Warning: this is very long

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

Before I dive into what works and what does not work for The Last Jedi, I want to say two things:

First, that my favorite installment of Star Wars canon is Star Wars: The Clone Wars and that my three favorite Star Wars films, independent of The Last Jedi, are Return Of The Jedi, Revenge Of The Sith, and Rogue One, in no particular order.

Second, that someone's opinion on The Last Jedi differing from my own does not change my opinion of them. There are some films—such as 2016's Ghostbusters—where fondness or dislike is heavily politicized in a way that makes me wary of people who dislike them (If it's any indication, my cheeks hurt from laughter when I left the theater after seeing Ghostbusters). The Last Jedi is not one of these films.

I mention my favorites from Star Wars because I believe that every reviewer should start with that. I cannot tell you how many vague reviews I saw of The Last Jedi (I avoided any detailed ones, post-embargo) that I didn't know if I could trust. I saw other takes from reviewers—that The Last Jedi was “the best Star Wars film since Empire Strikes Back.” These reviews are not helpful to me, because while that's a popular favorite, anyone using Empire as a touchstone for best Star Wars films has different priorities than my own.

And that ties into why I wanted to make that second statement. Everybody has different priorities when they see films, and there's more to that than genre. I don't just mean that some people love space battles more than others, or that different people have different favorite characters. Some people (including writers and showrunners) are more invested in story, while others are invested in continuity or worldbuilding or character consistency. And the list goes on.

So, someone who likes or dislikes the The Last Jedi isn't automatically stupid or wrong or problematic. And I have to mention that because I have seen some alarmingly bad takes—not on the film, but on people's reactions.

For example (because I've seen this a lot, though not directed at me), assuming that someone dislikes a film because their fan theories weren't correct is toxic and rude.

I should also mention that I have still not read any post-embargo reviews of The Last Jedi, including from good friends of mine (though I'll read those as soon as this is complete). Though I discussed the film with my companions for a couple of hours after we returned, as we were still processing it, I want to give my take on the movie.

So, The Last Jedi is, in my opinion, not a great Star Wars film. I struggle to think of a film aside from The Phantom Menace that I enjoy less. The Empire Strikes Back probably ranks just above it, at the bottom of the Star Wars barrel.

To quote George Lucas, The Last Jedi was “beautifully made.” I never thought that I'd be impressed by George Lucas' shade, but here we are.

Spoilers below:

THE GOOD

I'll explain why I feel that way, but I want to start by talking about positives. True spoilers abound beyond this point, folks.

The film was beautiful and beautifully made.

I have longed to see Leia use the Force since I, as a child, first saw Return of the Jedi. I was disappointed to not see it in The Force Awakens, but very glad to see her racing through space. Some people suggested that the scene was not realistic, but I would point out that Darth Vader (Leia's dad) survived being delimbed and ignited. Darth Maul survived being cut in half. Those are trained Sith, but it sets a powerful precedent for surviving the unsurvivable through the Force. Leia was not hit directly by the explosion, but sucked out into the vacuum of space. Cloaked in the Force, she survives long enough to pull herself to the airlock door. It was a powerful scene and I loved it.

I don't know that I'd die for anyone, but I would certainly kill for Billie Lourd. Or for Gary Fisher. We all mourn Carrie Fisher, but seeing how extensive Billie Lourd's role was in The Last Jedi—particularly in comparison with her small cameo in The Force Awakens—really warms the cockles of your heart. Her character is not explained, and while that might irritate me if she were played by essentially anyone else, I enjoy that she's Billie Lourd and the audience knows who she is and implicitly accepts her friendship with Poe Dameron and trusts her to be a good person.

There is a lot of good about Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo. First of all, she has a baller first name. “Holdo” is a little close to “Hondo,” as in Hondo Ohnaka, Obi-Wan's pirate boyfriend acquaintance. But it's Star Wars and Star Wars names are bound to overlap. Some people apparently believed earlier in the film that she might be a traitor, but I only took her behavior as a typical Lawful Good performance versus Poe Dameron's Chaotic Good antics. Things turned out to be a little more complex than that. Also, she had really nice hair. Her “he's dangerous” and “I like him” lines about Poe were honestly delightful. I wish that she'd been more forthcoming (especially given how wildly informal the Rebellion, from which the Resistance seems to have been formed, has always been).

Finn's bacta outfit (what a neat idea!) and interactions with Poe early on were great. I know that it's technically queerbaiting, but if Disney won't let the canon Star Wars gays appear in films, it's at least appreciated that Poe has had zero female love interests. Unless we count some semi-flirting with Holdo, which is fine since they're both gay. It was clear that Poe being the one to find Finn was a gesture to the fact that they're almost universally shipped with each other. That may be the closest that we see to StormPilot on screen, but at least it's something.

Rey was my favorite part of The Force Awakens. I thought that a lot of her time in The Last Jedi seemed . . . wasted isn't quite the right word. She went to Porg World (whatever you call the planet where Luke has retired to satisfy his lactation kink) to learn the ways of the Force. Honestly, I feel that she might be better served if she were to go unearth forgotten secrets on Moraband, but I resigned myself pretty early on to the idea that Rey will probably avoid the Dark Side. Anyway, I still absolutely love Rey. Not only because she's a tiny Sand Lesbian from Sand Trash Planet, and not only because she's powerful. She earnest and somehow, despite being a scavenging orphan, manages to be relatable at times. Truth be told? I like her more than I ever liked Luke.

Rey's look was also amazing, though, as my friend pointed out, Rey's wearing a vest, and vests are as much a lesbian uniform as leather jackets are for bi girls.

ROSE IS SO GOOD. I don't just mean that her actress is a precious wonderful delight of a human being, though that is also true. Rose herself is really likable. As with Leia, this is a character where my adoration for the actor certainly exceeds my love for the character but the character is also great. Anyway, while “Rose” doesn't seem like a great Star Wars name (and, worse, we now have “Rose” and “Rey” as two of the, like, seven new characters who are still alive), I liked her blend of sweetness and determination.

Speaking of Rose: Finn is wonderful. I don't know what to make of that kiss (except that, it makes sense, especially if you think that you're dying), but even though I was bummed that Finn didn't wield a lightsaber in this film (what are they doing with him?), I think that he's a treasure.

In many ways, The Force Awakens was a rehash of A New Hope. I am so pleased that The Last Jedi did what appears to be a speedrun of both Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi so that we can have more, new storytelling in Episode IX.

There's that moment where Rey is on Porg World and she talks to Luke about the rise of the Empire and about Darth Sidious and it's a sign of how starved I am for references to or even acknowledgement of the prequels that this was a highlight for me, but it was. It was my favorite character from the sequels saying the name of my favorite character from all of Star Wars canon (and one of my all-time favorite characters from anything), Sheev Palpatine.

If you ask me what I liked about The Last Jedi, the first image that's going to pop into my mind is the image of the First Order's weapons firing at the Resistance ships at range, and we see . . . shield impacts. The recent-ish Star Trek films (and, sadly, Star Trek: Discovery, which I love but that's another post) have refused to show shield impacts during space battles, for reasons that I cannot fathom. It has long been part of Star Wars that we just don't see more than a flash of light when energy weapons impact standard deflector shields (we do see it with thermal shields and certain types of terrestrial ray shields, but not with ships). Anyway, I love space battles and spaceships and there's something about seeing energy weapons impact on shields like that . . . it just lights up my mind's happiness centers like a christmas tree.

Vice Admiral Holdo's big Space Kamikaze (though problematic from a worldbuilding/plot holes perspective) was really fucking cool and such a powerful moment. More on the negative aspects of that in the next section.

Rey's parentage wasn't really a let down. Like most fans, I had my own theory (Rey Palpatine), but since she clearly wasn't a Skywalker and since really the only lineage storyline in Star Wars canon is about the Skywalkers, it's nice to see an ex nihil Force-user with power like Rey's. It's hardly unprecedented. Even ignoring Anakin (who may have been created by Darth Plageuis or by the Force), neither Yoda nor Palpatine are ever suggested as having originated from Force dynasties. Sometimes, it doesn't matter who your garbage parents were, and that's a great message for Rey's backstory. (Though, truth be told, some wonder if this is a deception)

When a friend of mine got to a certain Plot Point of Dragon Age, she DMed me on Twitter, with “Flemeth you ol' bitch! Tits out and everything!” While that message warmed the cockles of my heart, it also really stuck with me, because that went through my head at Kylo Ren's topless scene. I'm not making fun of him (he looked great; even better than in The Force Awakens), but my friend's thoughts echoed through my mind. Also, she was in the theater with me.

BB8 is my beautiful precious son and I was so delighted to see him get to gleefully murder people!!! That moment really helps him fit in with other murderous Star Wars droids like R2, Kaytoo, and Chopper. But BB8 was more adorable and reminds me of a precious chihuahua I used to walk. BB8, you're doing amazing, sweetie!

That red, salty planet? Gorgeous. I've heard that it was Krayt, though we did not see one of its famous dragons. Maybe someone mentioned the planet's name during the film? I should disclose that I can't follow every word without subtitles and only take away, at best, 80% of the dialogue from a film without subtitles. I hear the noises just fine, but I have auditory integration issues that are just one of several factors that make me a nightmare to talk to. Anyway, love that gorgeous planet.

Speaking of subtitles, I've heard that someone saw The Last Jedi with subtitles and that, during that early scene with Poe negging General Hux, he referred to Hux as “Hugs.” That is amazing and beautiful and I would never in a thousand viewings have caught it.

The First Order Dreadnaught? Gorgeous. You shouldn't need a Death Star to absolutely demolish a base from orbit. And orbital bombardment is right up there with space battles among my favorite things. It just goes right to my happiness centers.

The Red Guards: like all of the aesthetic choices that Snoke inherited from Palpatine, his Red Guards were truly inspired. I love the variety in their vibro-weapons. The Soul Calibur-style weapon was particularly memorable. That whole fight scene with Kylo and Rey and the Red Guards? Absolutely stunning.

I love that the Skywalker Legacy Lightsaber is destroyed. That thing has a terrible track record with hands. I also love that Rey was the first to recover after that tug-of-war with Kylo; it reminds me of the end of Palpatine besting Yoda in the Senate. I'm excited to see what sort of lightsaber Rey crafts for herself . . . and also interested in learning where she plans to get a kyber crystal.

THE BAD

Snoke was, for me, the biggest disappointment of this film. A lot of The Last Jedi's angrier defenders have mocked fans for having the audacity to want to, you know, know who the characters are or what's going on. No one in the sequels has been as enigmatic as Supreme Leader Snoke.

Here's the set-up: in The Force Awakens, we see Snoke only via hologram as he instructs Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren, though interesting in concept, has not impressed me (I'll go into that), so I had hoped that perhaps I would at least like Snoke. As I mentioned, Palpatine is my favorite character in all of Star Wars. He lifts me up where I belong. He's also one of the most iconic characters in all of fiction, and a tough act to follow. With Hux being rude (and not Force-sensitive) and Kylo being weak, I hoped that Snoke, at least, would excite me.

We do see more of Snoke in The Last Jedi, but his is . . . profoundly rude. As my friend Rachel said as we sat processing after the film: “In my day, the Dark Side had a little class!” Snoke has a Hugh Hefner vibe to him and I mean that in the worst possible way. His golden robe was, I thought, an inspired design choice as it deviates from Dark Side Black while still allowing him some contrast from his (gorgeously) decorated throne room and Red Guards. The man wearing that robe, however, was not to my liking.

Back to the set-up: We briefly see Snoke in The Force Awakens, and he piques our curiosity. And then we begin to read the canon novels, where we learn that Palpatine—as Emperor—sensed some sort of profound Dark Sidedness beyond known space. He set up multiple observatories in order to assess that part of space, and was apparently planning an expedition before he was betrayed and murdered at the Battle of Endor. Apparently, it was his will that any Empire that could not support its Emperor was too weak to do its job, so his contingency plan, should he fall, was for only the best of the Empire to venture into unknown space and find whatever Dark Side presence he'd felt and, hopefully, find new leadership with the strength to bring order to the galaxy. In the novels, Admiral Rae Sloan goes with Brendol Hux and Brendol's young son, Armitage Hux (that's the general we see within the First Order), on this voyage into unknown space.

I can only imagine the disappointment that Palpatine's Force Ghost (or whatever the Dark Side equivalent is; we know that they exist in canon, as Darth Bane was able to manifest before Yoda on Moraband) must feel at Snoke. Palpatine was betrayed and killed by his apprentice, sure. But that apprentice was Darth Vader, one of the most powerful beings that the Galaxy Far Far Away has ever seen. And Palpatine was, at the time, a little occupied—you know, killing Luke.

In contrast, Snoke was actively reading Kylo Ren's mind when Kylo killed him. Though the words that Snoke uttered were transparently misleading (along the lines of the Delphic Oracle's famous prophesy to Croesus: “If you proceed, a great power will fall”), Snoke was actively sensing Kylo's thoughts and, well, we haven't seen anything about Kylo Ren to suggest that he's some master at the arts of deceit through the Force. Hell, Kylo didn't even sense whatever Force connection Snoke apparently forged. In contrast, while Palpatine and Vader went on an adventure together in the novel, Sith Lords, Sheev was able to sense Vader's dominicidal thoughts. At one point, Vader silently imagines grabbing his Master and lifting his frail, old body into the air, and Palpatine grins with delight at him, and Vader understands that Sheev knows exactly what's going on in his mind. Palpatine also foresaw an attack against his Star Destroyer with such clarity that he remained in “safe” zones of the ship at all times, sensing well in advance which portions of the vessel would be the first to fall.

What's more is that, not only should Snoke have seen it coming—he just died immediately when Kylo ignited the saber. A normal person might die from being cut in half, sure. That's not shameful. But a master of the Dark Side? Darth Maul was cut in half and then fell a distance that I wouldn't even care to guess. He went on to survive for many years on a planet made of garbage and fire. Maul was only Palpatine's apprentice; meanwhile, we see Snoke lose consciousness and die immediately from a (cauterized) wound to his waist. Unless his heart is stored in his waist (I know that he's an alien, but his heart definitely isn't there; it's usually useful to keep those behind ribs), that makes Snoke a lil' bitch among Dark Side “masters.”

The lack of information about Snoke also means that we don't know a lot about the First Order.

First, we don't know how to feel about the First Order's goals. Obviously, their means are immoral—abducting children and turning them into soldiers, destroying an entire solar system in an effort to destroy the New Republic government (which really shouldn't have worked, by the way, since the galaxy could just elect new senators). But is their goal to conquer the galaxy to create a safe and secure society? We don't know their goals beyond taking over the galaxy; more insight into Snoke would help us to better understand what drives the First Order.

Second, was Snoke some kind of Dark Side hermit that Rae Sloane and Brendol Hux found somewhere in the unknown reaches of space? If so, where is the First Order getting its resources? Was Snoke instead some sort of local ruler within uncharted space? If so, why is his entire army (right down to his interior décor and his personal guards, not to mention his fleet and soldiers) drawn directly from Palpatine's playbook?

And, again, what is Snoke?

For a lot of reasons, he's clearly not a Sith; that has been confirmed. He says that Kylo is “first of the Knights of Ren,” so . . . are Knights of Ren all Dark Side wielders? The simplest explanation is that “Ren” is like “Sith” or “Darth,” and another school of the Dark Side. What does that make Snoke? Is he the “Lord of Ren” or something?

We've seen exactly one thing from Snoke that's entirely new, and . . . we only see the Force Immobilization from Kylo Ren. Interestingly, and please correct me if I failed to notice an instance of it, we did not see it at all in The Last Jedi, but saw it more than once in The Force Awakens. Snoke presumably taught that to Kylo, but . . . other than that, he doesn't seem to bring anything new to the table.

Snoke Force-bullied General Hux through a hologram. This is not new. In Return of the Jedi, Vader Force-choked Admiral Kendal Ozzel after establishing visual contact via a communicator screen. We don't know Snoke's distance from Hux in that scene, but since Palpatine Force-chokes Dooku, lifting him into the air, via holo transmission over the considerable distance of Coruscant to Dooku's homeworld of Serenno, this was already established as a possible (though likely difficult) feat.

Snoke struck Kylo Ren with Force-lighting, which of course is well-established as being a power of the Dark Side, wielded by Palpatine and Dooku, but also wielded in slightly different forms by The Son (on Mortis) and by Mother Talzin, leader of the Nightsisters.

Kylo Ren uses the Force to interrogate, but this is a simple combination of Force Persuasion (Jedi Mind Tricks, used by almost every Force-user at some point or another) and sensing things through the Force. Vader duels Luke on the Death Star II and learns that Luke has a sister. Palpatine is almost always aware of the thoughts and feelings of those around him. Multiple Jedi use Force Persuade simultaneously to try to force the truth out of Cad Bane. We see the Force used for interrogation (almost precisely as Kylo Ren does) when the Seventh Sister, one of the Inquisitors who answers to Vader after the death of the Grand Inquisitor, attempts to use the Force to interrogate Ezra Bridger. It's a two-pronged effort to divine the truth while also attempting to pry secrets from the individual.

Snoke is not shown forging the bridge between Rey and Kylo, but this has precedent—once again, we look to Palpatine. He once used Dooku's connection to Yoda (remember, Yoda was once Dooku's mentor) in order to assault Yoda's mind in an effort to break him. While Yoda spends the final decades of his life as a barely-intelligible swamp-hermit who would rather literally die than tell the truth, this particular assault on his mind was not successful. Palpatine accomplished this without any proximity to Yoda, but rather through the use of Sith Sorcery. Snoke is not a Sith, but we must imagine that he accomplished this “bridge” via . . . well, I suppose that we'd call it “Ren Sorcery.”

Don't get me wrong, the “Force Pause” or whatever it is that Kylo Ren did in The Force Awakens was super cool and I love that it's a thing. But, in general, Snoke feels like a bargain basement attempt to fill Palpatine's role until Kylo could kill him and take his place as the Supreme Leader of the First Order. That might not be as bad if Kylo seemed, you know, impressive.

Finally, because I've just written the last 1,608 words about Snoke and need to move on to my second greatest disappointment with The Last Jedi, I should mention that I've been joking that Snoke has never actually killed anyone in his life and just bluffed his way into leading the First Order. He's weak and rude and the sequels could have done better, even with a temporary character meant to die in his second movie.

So, yeah, what we don't know of Snoke is a frustrating mystery and what we do know of Snoke is disappointing.

My second biggest issue was one of Luke's characterization.

Contrary to what you might assume, I am not talking about Luke's retirement to Lactation Kink island on Planet Porg.

I mean, that's an issue—since he's repeating the Cranky Old Hermit mistakes of Obi-Wan and Yoda who came before him. In fact, even Obi-Wan seemed to have a better attitude and degree of optimism than Luke, and that's after his apprentice, uh, personally purged the Jedi Temple. Luke lost his first class of students but Obi-Wan lost an entire galaxy and a Jedi order of thousands.

But, you know, sometimes Jedi just go off to do loner stuff on strange old islands that are home to whimsical characters. The Light Side is rough like that.

No, my issue comes from that, frankly, inexcusable scene in the tent. The one that “explains” why Kylo and Luke had their big falling out that resulted in Kylo murdering his fellow students.

Luke has never been one of my favorite characters in Star Wars, but I can tell you this much: the whole point of Return Of The Jedi was that he would literally rather die than kill Darth Vader, who had personally killed thousands and was an accomplice to everything that the Empire had done for, well, all of Luke's life.

So, to put it plainly, I cannot reconcile Luke Skywalker, the character, with the man Mark Hamill played in The Last Jedi. With a man whose first instinct after sneaking into his nephew's room to probe his thoughts is “gotta murder him in his sleep!” I'm not opposed to the idea of characters who are willing to murder other characters in their sleep. Again, Palpatine is my literal favorite character. But that particular deed is simply not in Luke's wheelhouse.

Now, some argue that this scene was necessary in order to bring Luke and Kylo to where they are for this trilogy.

I don't believe in adjusting a character's established behavior to suit the story. I like character-driven stories where what happens makes sense based upon the individuals involved and their environment.

But there are totally doable ways to tell that story.

How I would do it? Luke would notice warning signs about his nephew, sense that things aren't quite right (from his point of view), but appear to other students to be ignoring a problem. Meanwhile, one or two of Luke's other padawans might attempt what Luke attempted—trying to sense what's going on with their fellow student. An inexperienced pupil, sensing a darkness, might draw a weapon, causing young Kylo (before he was Kylo Ren) to awaken . . . just as Luke bursts into the room. So then we get the panic, and the tearing down of the roof. When Luke digs himself out of the rubble, Kylo has killed all of the padawans who were unwilling to join him. He might even believe that Luke was involved in the “attack.”

Luke being arguably too passive would be a totally believable and character-consistent mistake. Instead I just sat there, thinking . . . this is like telling me that, actually, Tarkin adopted all of the children who were off-world but orphaned by the destruction of Alderaan. That's just not something that this particular character would do. If you want to write a different character, do that.

As a result of this huge character difference, I've nicknamed Mark Hamill's character in The Last Jedi: “Jedi Joe.” Because, you know, he's just not consistent with Luke.

My third biggest issue with The Last Jedi is the timeline.

How long was Rey on Planet Porg? Days? Weeks?

Meanwhile, Vice Admiral Holdo and the Resistance are literally counting down the hours until they run out of fuel.

I say “meanwhile,” because Rey and Kylo's little ForceTime conversations make it emphatically clear that these are concurrent storylines.

We don't know how long the Resistance “fleet” (it's just a few big ships) spends in hyperspace before they return to normal space and the First Order shows up to attack them, but it can't be for long, because Star Wars FTL is much, much faster than, say, Star Trek's. I can't imagine them spending more than a couple of days in hyperspace, if that long.

So, how much time did Rey spend on the island with Luke? Are days just very short on Planet Porg? Running parallel to the Resistance being pursued by the First Order, this seems to be a problem.

Speaking of the Resistance fleeing from the First Order . . . what the hell was up with their “tracking.”

So, let's say that the First Order has developed the tech to track a ship through hyperspace. Or maybe they just have an infiltrator (or someone turned traitor) or got a tracking device aboard one of the ships. I'm willing to accept that . . . random technological development or whatever.

But General Hux was on a regular Star Destroyer when he established that tracking lock, right? So why is it that, later, that tracking lock—the one that they need to disable—is on Snoke's command ship? Can you just pass it back and forth like it's no big deal? They talked about it like it was some sort of delicate connection, easily foiled. One or two lines could have explained it, but if there was an explanation, I missed it.

Incidentally, I mention the idea of an infiltrator or a traitor within the Resistance because this would have really made it easier for them to explain why Vice Admiral Holdo was being tight-lipped about her plans. Though, quite frankly, Poe Dameron destroyed Starkiller Base. He should be above suspicion. The Resistance shows no signs of being a formal military. They're sort of a cobbled together grassroots thing, not unlike the Rebel Alliance, so it's not like they have this strict need-to-know command structure where no one is allowed to ask questions.

As my friend Rachel pointed out after the film, a lot of problems could have been resolved by the characters if they had simply spoken to one another and communicated like adults. This isn't necessarily a flaw in the film, but it sure is frustrating for the audience. The message that bold heroic actions aren't always the answer is an admirable one, but the circumstances make it seem to be a failure of leadership on Holdo's part.

Speaking of Holdo, I'm alarmed that these Sequels seem reluctant to give us new alien characters. We've seen Maz Kanata and Snoke, but all other aliens have been in the background or they've been Chewie. Holdo could have been an alien. She could have even retained the lavender look as a Theelin (like Asajj Ventress' bounty hunter gal pal, Latts Razzi). I totally support Rose being a human, but Holdo—particularly since she was not going to survive anyway—could have been a sorely needed alien character.

Also while we're on the subject of Holdo:

As I mentioned, Holdo's death was one of the most powerful moments of The Last Jedi. In science fiction universes such as Stargate or Babylon 5, FTL travel is entirely removed from the physical world. Flying a ship “through” a planet is fine in the same way that, on a planet, flying an aircraft far above a building does not damage the building below. In Star Wars, that is not the case, which is why they have complex hyperspace lanes and elaborate calculations (often made by specialized droids). Which is why, when she went to “lightspeed” (no more the speed of light than their “lasers” are actual lasers), her ship so effectively damaged Snoke's flagship and took some Destroyers with it. But the implications of this were obvious. Why, then, has this sort of tactic not been employed widely before? Could a few carefully placed transports in FTL have demolished the Death Star without Luke's special magic aiming? Couldn't every Star Destroyer be disabled or destroyed by, say, a garbage scow piloted by a single droid that goes to hyperspace in the direction of the ship? This kind of tactic would forever change warfare in Star Wars—even retroactively.

The only way that I can wrap my head around it is to suggest that perhaps the flagship's shields were recycling and therefore couldn't be brought back up in time to prevent Holdo's maneuver from being effective. Perhaps normal deflector shields protect ships from being impaled by other ships traveling through hyperspace. There's precedent for shields recycling (for example, thermal shields are shown to have a brief cooldown between being deactivated and reactivated), so we can accept that whatever type of Star Wars shields the First Order uses were on cooldown to conserve power while they leisurely bombarded the Resistance ships from range, and that Hux and the others on the bridge couldn't bring them up quickly enough to save the ship. Because otherwise . . . Star Wars seems to be broken.

Did they just kill Captain Phasma? Or did they seem to kill her . . . again . . . after doing basically nothing with her this whole film? I was hoping to see more of her in XIII, not less.

Maz Kanata's scene? Where she's doing vague cool stuff while also on the Space Phone? That was kind of a mess. It's fine if you liked it, but I felt like it was trying too hard.

C3PO had a red arm, taken from another droid (there's a whole backstory to it). He had it in The Force Awakens. The Last Jedi seems to begin precisely where The Force Awakens ended (just look at Luke receiving the lightsaber), so . . . when did C3PO get an arm transplant? Or did he receive it between the destruction of Starkiller Base and Rey's arrival at Planet Porg? We don't know how much time passed (though it seems silly to suggest that Finn would be comatose for for all that long; in Star Wars terms, his injuries were not that severe).

Empire Strikes Back has some of the heroes go to a gambling planet—Bespin Cloud City is effectively Space Vegas. The Last Jedi does the same, but this time it's more like Space Monaco. There were parts of that sequence that I enjoyed, but other parts I did not. I get that Rose and Finn's journey wasn't supposed to succeed for narrative reasons, but they actually harmed the Resistance. DJ didn't just fail; he betrayed them. Also, DJ is a terrible Star Wars name.

Of course, there are questions as to how DJ betrayed them. Perhaps I need to watch the film again, but as my friend Cattlin pointed out, Finn and Rose spoke to Poe, and then Poe was knocked out and woke up in the escape pod along with Leia. That's when Poe learned about the pods. How exactly did DJ learn about them in order to betray the knowledge to the First Order? (If anyone knows, or if I am missing something here, I am genuinely asking, so please let me know)

You know the scene at the beginning where, thanks to Iden Versio's intelligence-gathering, the Resistance knows where to hit to First Order Dreadnought in order to cause the most damage? Those bombers don't make sense to me because they are literally bombers. A bunch of slow-moving ships that literally drop bombs, perhaps using their own internal gravity, seem like a terrible choice. I'm not demanding that they use Y-wings again, but they could use, like, a ship that's in any way practical or good to deliver bombs. Perhaps a vessel that doesn't set off cataclysmic secondary and tertiary explosions in the form of its fellow bombers when it gets hit by enemy fire would be nice. (I know that Star Wars tech isn't based on Earth tech and therefore doesn't have to make sense in a speculative sense, but literally dropping round black bombs is not the way to win a fight).

Speaking of not winning fights: Kylo Ren.

I get that, because The Last Jedi takes place immediately after The Force Awakens, Kylo didn't have time to undergo character development that would be required to make him in any way impressive, either through his skill with the Force or through his temperament. But it was disappointing to see that not only was Snoke a weak jerk, but Kylo still has his issues. I like that he killed Snoke—like, the old guy's good at moving stuff around with the Force, but you don't get an award for that. I like that he seized power for himself. I liked that he put Hux in his place. But I'm not impressed with him as a character yet. I want to like him. I think that he has a lot of really cool potential, but I don't see him meeting that yet. I hope to see that in Episode IX. I hope to see him acting as a real leader, making smarter choices, and ideally giving orders to other Dark Side individuals (where are these other Knights?).

I also want to see Kylo showing greater strength and insight through the Force.

I don't know what the First of the Knights of Ren is, exactly, but ideally, he should notice when his creepy boss is using Space Magic to set him up with Rey. And he sure as hell shouldn't be getting tricked into a fake duel with an illusion in front of his whole army.

I'm okay with Luke having the power to project an illusion. While there's precedent in Star Wars canon (Mother Talzin does a lot of illusion work, including projecting an illusion of herself to Serenno from Dathomir while attacking Count Dooku), I do wish that he'd at some point hinted that he'd learned some things that the old Jedi Order had never managed. Maybe through meditation, maybe through old Jedi lore, or maybe through people he's met on his travels. (So far, the only Dathomir Witches that I know to be canon are the Nightsisters, and also they were all murdered by General Grievous under orders from Count Dooku; older, EU materials portrayed Nightsisters as only one faction on Dathomir, with other clans that were much friendlier to Jedi and to the Light Side of the Force—that would be an easy option)

I'm even okay, from a lore perspective, with Luke being able to deceive Kylo Ren with it. Maybe tricking Force-users is part of the ability. That scene's parallels to Obi-Wan's final duel with Vader are obvious, though Luke's death at its conclusion were more reminiscent of how his mom died.

But … the dice? The Fake Ghost Dice? That struck me as weird, after. Sure, Star Wars illusions can be powerful, but why bring your sister a fake memento? Aside, I mean, from a desire to deceive the audience. (Though seriously, shout-out to my best friend, Jeff, for predicting that Luke wasn't really there. I did not; I had assumed that his X-Wing being underwater on Lactation Kink Island was a Chekhov's Gun device to prepare us for Luke's departure. I was bewildered that Fake Ghost Luke was wielding a blue lightsaber in his duel, which only made sense after it was revealed that he was an illusion)

Weird that he died from it, though. My friend Cattlin was dreading the possibility of Luke dying, but I had accepted it. (After all, I already watched my favorite Star Wars character die, in Return of the Jedi)

Speaking of the Skywalker Legacy Lightsaber . . . the blade on it looked like it was filmed in 1980. Lightsabers looked so much better in the prequel films. Based on how Kylo Ren's lightsaber looks, lightsabers could look incredible in this film. In some scenes, they do. But that particular one tends to look washed out.

Along those same lines, they used muppet Yoda in a transparent attempt to distance themselves from the prequels. Thanks, I hate it. I don't know why dead Yoda has weather-control powers now, but even that pales beside how annoyed I am that both Sequel films seem to be scrambling to assure fans that they're not like the prequels.

Cattlin has a shirt that reads: “Shut up, nerd. The prequels are good, actually.” It warms the cockles of my heart whenever I see it.

There were a few bits that struck me as odd directing choices, but I don't know enough about cinematography to identify them.

Like everyone else, my opinion about The Last Jedi is a product of my personal interests and priorities. That's life.

#Star Wars #The Last Jedi #Star Wars The Last Jedi #The Last Jedi spoilers #TLJ #I wrote this all in one day because I am out of my got dam mind

[old-long-john]

looks like you are someone in the black sails fandom who agrees that every character is pretty damn flawed (except for, like, madi, and we didn't see enough of thomas hamilton to see his flaws but i am certain he had them) but I have to say some of fandom and their determination to make silver THE VILLAIN of the show just reminds me, over and over, of the quotation "civilization needs its monsters". like you can write john off as an evil white "het" man, even though he is clearly bi, but

in my opinion people like john silver are only made because society makes them. i think silver was probably wounded young, and then just wounded over and over for a period of years that almost certainly felt like forever, as prolonged trauma does, and it is so frustrating to me that fandom doesn’t want to embrace how complicated and tormenting and heartbreaking and infuriating that john silver is. but then i look at state of world and my country (usa) and need for scapegoat in all things, well. 

Thank you for this ask. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and it’s been frustrating me too, so it was nice to be given a reason to actually say something about it. I hope you don’t mind me answering it publicly (let me know if you do and I’ll delete it). I’ve spent about four days trying to work out an answer to this that I’m happy with though, because it feels like some of my thoughts might be skating on thin ice and asking for trouble if they’re not carefully expressed, and that’s not at all what I want. I’ll stick this under a read more so I don’t clog people’s dashes.

Honestly, at this point I’ve pretty much stopped interacting with any ‘discourse’. I’m so tired of it. I’m reconciled to the fact that everyone in the fandom is mostly set on their opinions by now, and that’s totally fine, when people stay polite about it. Everyone brings their own shit into the viewing of a show (and I mean that in the nicest way). It’s not just unavoidable, it’s incredibly apt and a powerful thing when it comes to understanding stories like this, which attempt to show us such a broad range of human experiences and conditions and complexities. With a show like Black Sails especially, that doesn’t allow you to be a passive viewer, that demands engagement to be able to understand it, it’s no wonder people feel so strongly about so many aspects of it, and often find themselves feeling helplessly understanding of or very personally wounded by certain characters’ choices. And being part of a fandom which is filled with a beautifully diverse group of people, with opinions informed by their beautifully diverse life experiences and personal baggage, can be such an amazing way to broaden one’s own horizons and see things from different points of view.

That being said, the other side of it is exactly what you described: being exposed to mind blowing bullheadedness. At this point I pretty much just share the same irritation as you. I understand the reasons why some people can’t forgive the things Silver did, and I understand why some people just plain don’t like him (hell, I hated him too when I first watched S1). That’s for them to decide, if it even is truly a decision and not one of those things that exists somewhere beyond choice. I know I couldn’t choose to hate him now or to not understand to a really quite painful extent the fears and emotions that motivated him to do what he did. Quite honestly, I’ve only watched that 4x10 forest scene twice and the second time I was so angry with him too, but I still understand, and it hurts all the more for it. As with so many of the most powerful moments in this story, they’re at their most moving when you can see all the ways in which both parties are right, and choosing a side is almost impossible.

Like you said though, what’s really beginning to grate on my nerves is this idea that Silver is the villain of the piece; irredeemable, two-dimensional, bland, or simply the ‘abusive cishet white man’ (a tag I’ve seen too, and one that made me roll my eyes so fucking hard I almost sprained something. Tumblr’s a truly magical land of over-simplistic juvenile twattery sometimes). It’s utter bullshit, and it feels like my annoyance has taken a step up out of the complexities of canon and into the difficulties of tumblr and fandoms. Sometimes I really think some people could benefit from stepping away from the bubble of tumblr and going outside once in awhile. (Do you hear that? It’s the sound of my fragile glass house shattering around me.)

Black Sails is not perfect. I am fully aware of that. But the one thing the writers managed incredibly consistently (mostly) was creating complicated, flawed, and human characters. There are only a handful of characters who approach being two-dimensional, villainous, or flawless, and they tend to be the ones who had the least screen time to be developed, or served more as plot devices than characters. John Silver was certainly not one of those. People are free to despise him, people can be horrified or outraged or disgusted by his choices, people can even just not personally find him that interesting, but reducing him to just The Villain? That’s choosing to be ignorant and refusing to engage with the text, simply because it doesn’t suit their own narrative. Good people can do appalling things, and bad people can do good things, and most people (and so most characters in this story) are neither of those two extremes, but horribly messy shades of grey, just trying to do the best they can for themselves and their loved ones with what resources they have. Some people are better, some are worse, but most traverse that middle ground, rarely remaining static or uncomplicated in their ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’, and Silver is most certainly among us complicated good-bad people. Refusing to acknowledge the depth of those nuances pisses me off because it feels like such a disservice to the hard work of everyone involved in creating this show and the astonishing things they accomplished with these characters and their relationships. Beautiful art deserves fair and thoughtful analysis. Anything less than that feels like a waste of everyone’s time. Why bother consuming a story like this and investing so much time and energy in discussing it if you’re not going to engage with it in an honest way? It’s possible to hate a character but still appreciate their complexity.

What you said is so true. It’s abundantly clear (from very early on, if you actually take the time to look for it) that Silver is a very damaged person, good at reading people but dead set on avoiding becoming attached to them (and the things that suggests are not pleasant), and someone who had nothing in the world but the clothes on his back and his wits. He was never going to be an idealist, because the world had made him a realist. Even if people think his choices in the end were abhorrent, surely they must see why he made them? To be in a position to end a war, which he saw as only an unwinnable nightmare, to save the people he loved from death (and every other innocent bystander whose lives would have been weighed against the cause, without their consent, and sacrificed in its pursuit). How is that difficult to understand? Even if it seems unutterably selfish or short-sighted, it’s the easiest thing in the world to empathise with on a human level. And his love for both Flint and Madi just isn’t up for debate. It’s right there in every scene, and confirmed in every interview with the writers. Even if he loved them poorly, he still loved them. That’s a very human thing too. Perhaps people would’ve felt differently about him if they’d definitively told us what those ‘unending horrors’ he’d suffered in his past were, but they didn’t and so we have to read between the lines. It just doesn’t take that much effort to see those lines flashing like neon signs throughout his arc, if you aren’t actively trying to ignore them for the sake of stuffing him into that box labelled ‘Long John Silver – Moustache Twirling Villain’.

It was also a pretty damn significant element of his story line that his becoming disabled slammed a whole lot of doors in his face, gave people a reason to judge him as less than other men, and left him desperately clinging on to the one vaguely happy life and future he had left within his reach. Are people conveniently ignoring that aspect of his character arc because it doesn’t fit in with that tumblr attitude of ‘boo, fuck white cis men. They’re all disgusting and none of them can know true suffering or injustice in this society that favours them’? Of course those privileges exist, and of course white male characters so often get free passes for things they really shouldn’t, and those are things that desperately need addressing and I wouldn’t try to minimise, but I don’t see how going balls to the wall in the opposite direction and refusing to see nuance makes any more sense. Especially when it comes to a story set during that historical time period and a character who we all saw have one privilege (being able-bodied) violently ripped away from him. Anybody who can dismiss as irrelevant the impact of his disability and the profound suffering and limitations that came with it is being wilfully blind. (I’ve written absurdly excessive meta about the significance of that.)

There are infinite different ways to suffer and end up irreparably damaged, and just because he doesn’t know some types doesn’t mean he hasn’t experienced others and hasn’t been truly and deeply scarred by them. It’s not a goddamn competition. This isn’t a world where only the most widespread and systemic suffering ‘counts’. Half of the point of this story was showing us the myriad fucked up and inventive ways in which the structure of ‘civilised’ society shat (and still shits) on anybody who wasn’t sat comfortably at the top. Or simply the ways in which ‘civilised’ society didn’t give a fuck about anyone else shitting on the little people either. Of course he hasn’t suffered the specific and enormous cruelties that say the people Madi was fighting for suffered, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t want to live whatever hellish past it was that he couldn’t even speak of either, and which sits within the context of this whole narrative of fucked up pasts as the single one too awful to be named. I also definitely wouldn’t want to live the present that saw him mutilated and handed a lifetime of suffering that no ideological war could in any way redress. And I’m really not trying to weigh his suffering against other people’s, or trying to build it into any kind of justification or excuse, because that way lies ignorant fuckery and it isn’t my point. The only point I’m trying to make is that some people’s determined lack of acknowledgement of the ways in which he was a beautifully complicated, damaged, suffering, good-bad person too is aggravating to me as someone who is in awe of the intricately complex things the writers and actors accomplished throughout this story. More than anything I just don’t see how anyone can have watched his whole character arc and honestly come to the conclusion that he’s bland and two-dimensional, or that his relationship with Flint was insincere or insignificant (to either of them), or that his ultimate choices can be explained simply by labelling him Evil™. He isn’t even as simple as that in bloody Treasure Island.

It doesn’t even seem to be about whether or not people see Silver’s actions as defensible at this point. It does seem to have devolved into a division between people who have very different opinions on that, but ultimately see why he did those things, and people who refuse to engage with the more sympathetic aspects of his character at all, for whatever reasons. Maybe because it makes the whole thing more difficult and uncomfortable when you have to accept that The Villain was an ultimately shifting and amorphous thing that was someone or something different for every character, and that in some ways Silver was as much a victim as anyone else in that story, and it was partly the result of the ways in which he was victimised (before and after we met him) that bound him to a course where he ended up horribly hurting the people he was trying to help. Nothing is ever black and white, in real life or on this show, and trying to reduce it to that is being either intellectually lazy, disingenuous or obtuse, and missing so much of the beautiful subtlety of the writing.

This answer got way out of hand…but yeah. John Silver isn’t a hero or a villain, because he is not a two-dimensional character, and he sure as fuck isn’t bland or boring. Few people on this show are. We’re all of us in love with a bunch of thieves and murderers and master manipulators. But that’s the point. They’re all just people, beautifully multifaceted and forced to extremes at the very edge of the world and clinging on to life by the skin of their teeth. They’re complex and fucked up and every single one of them running away from something or running towards something else. With barely thirty seconds of thought I could find sympathetic things to say about almost every single character in this show, even if those things wouldn’t be enough to tip the balance of judgement in their favour or make me like them. I’m completely aware that Silver is far less in need of defending than some unfairly maligned characters on this show, but I think perhaps to a certain few it’s the complexity of the writing and therefore the necessity of complex interpretations that needs defending. Nobody is obliged to forgive Silver or to like him, but if they’re happy to forgive and like other characters who have done equally fucked up things or worse ones then that’s a double standard they really ought to take the time to consider. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose, but a story like this deserves better.

#I'm not sure why I've felt so nervous about posting this #but I've written and deleted at least four times as much as I actually ended up happy with #I suppose it's the idea of coming across as saying 'don't be mean to the white boy!1!!' that's worrying #but hopefully it's clear that that's not the point I'm trying to make?? #I hope #because it's really not #I'm just so tired of people being obtuse about this when so much care and effort went into the writing and performance #of this character #it's lazy and irritating #poodle snake's as complicated and fucked up as any of them #and that means he's also as capable of genuinely good intentions as any of them #just #respect the fucking art people

[likeaguardianangel-archive-blog]

send an ask: get to know your author: Answer them all please :D

omg xD honestly. why this? i can’t haha.

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

Not that I know of? I feel like I get the urges to write certain subjects and then I look around eagerly and hope that someone will like it enough to write it with me. I haven’t purposely held off on too much. Although I guess I do hold of on M/F couples with Barry sometimes, though it’s not really about the story and more about what I’ve said in #2.

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

Oh god. I get embarrassed so easily. I’m probably most embarrassed by any smut I’ve written. Because I always feel like such an impostor. I know so little about it in truth, haha. I’m always like ‘oh god, I am this virgin over here who really doesn’t know how that shit feels’ and then like dramatically flop on my bed or something. So I guess those types of things I get embarrassed by easiest, as I am the kind of person who can write words like dick or cock or whatever, but saying it aloud gets me all flustered. It’s truly embarrassing.

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

Usually I just write from what I read first, the first paragraph and go from there. Sometimes though, if my rp partner said such a good line that my muse was like ‘omg I have to say /this/’ then I start from there and work my way through the post backwards. But that doesn’t happen super often. Usually it’s just the first to last strategy.

4) favorite character you’ve written

I think that’s a tough choice. Like, I’ve written so many characters, and I’ve loved them all for very different reasons. But since I’ve been missing this one particular character lately, I’m going to say him: Jacques Crevette. He was originally a character from a Disney RPG, a personified version of the shrimp from finding nemo. I know, you’re probably looking at me right now like: why such an obscure character?? The thing is, they had an awesome skeleton for this character, featuring the ability to heal via touch, and I thought that was so so fascinating. It’s really funny, because the skeleton originally said this character would be aloof etc., but my muse sort of became its own thing. A bouncy, energetic, people loving character that liked to sing when he was happy, but also sing when he was having a tough time. He was an interesting muse. I think the fact is he was so weird, and to me it feels I developed that character from the ground up and I am incredibly proud of him. I miss him something fierce.

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

Well, I was surprised that I ended up writing Barry. For a while there I really didn’t think I would be doing that. But I also think...okay so there was this intense character in this fandom I was in (les mis), and i would have the desire to write him (Enjolras), but I was so so so incredibly intimidated by the idea of writing him. Like, I was sure that my take on him would be so terrible and it would end up being this horrible disaster. Honestly, a lot of muses I took up from the les mis fandom were like that. I lack confidence sometimes. It’s how I am.

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

I’m not sure. I try not to go back and look too often because I tend to be pretty self-conscious about what I’ve written. I have anxiety so it’s not very productive for me to take a look at what flaws I can find. I know what I want to do better with (description), and for me that is more than enough.

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

Wellll. I say I write, but I can never say what I write or really who I write with. My mom used to put down my rping a lot when I was growing up, so I’ve learned to just...keep what I write to myself, even when I’m really excited about what I’ve been writing. No one really knows that I rp and that’s kind of how I think it’ll stay tbh.

8) favorite genre to write

Oh man. I love a little bit of the romantic comedy sorts of elements, but also angst/drama. Fantasy is always fun (dragons guys. Dragons are the fucking best). Really anything that is missing a bit of realism is great. I mean come on guys, I write The Flash. I love the superpowers and the ridiculousness in some ways.

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

Sometimes I go to Netflix and I do a rewatch of the Flash. Usually it’s like the sad episodes where Barry cries (admit it: he’s beautiful when he cries), but sometimes it’s episodes like the Duet one which is just fun. So fun. And then other times if it doesn’t need that much of a push, just my own motivation, I pull up my spotify playlist for Barry and I listen and let the words that I think fit him wash over me and help me get writing.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

I can do either one. Honestly I write with my family in the living room at times, and others I write while I’m in my room alone. Really that doesn’t matter to me as long as no one invades my personal space with it.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

I think I’ve improved some of my writing of dialogue? Honestly, Barry is such a talkative character, it’s really been a focus for me to work on intonation and emphasizing certain words based on how he’s feeling. So I think that I’ve gotten a bit better with that? I don’t know, that’s the best I can come up with.

12) your weaknesses as an author

Dear god I mean....I think I write too much in my character’s thoughts and not enough of actions or what’s going on at that same time. Honestly that’s what’s been bothering me the most. I’ve been trying to improve that but we’ll see how that goes.

13) your strengths as an author

Ummm....that I’m willing to go in so many different directions? Idk that I can write decent dialogue, and I think that the characters I do choose to actually put out there have such strong personalities. I might struggle in description, but I do make up for it with their thoughts and what I think would impact them the most. Is that a strength? I feel like it is.

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

I make playlists for muses as a whole. So I have a Barry Allen playlist, a Steve Rogers playlist, etc. And then I have a couple of ship playlists and that kind of thing. I don’t ever base it on a thread, but I do on characters and their relationships.

15) why did you start writing?

Well my friend introduced me to an rp thing when I was like...11? at the time I was god awful, but I really enjoyed it and I would see some talented writers who were doing so much more at the time, more in depth, paragraphs and all and I wanted to be able to get to that point. I am, perhaps on occasion competitive for the weirdest reasons. The first few things of writing were like horse based or hp based, but I think when I got to HP stuff, I wanted to be able to write things that the books or movies just didn’t cover. I wanted to be able to put voice to things that could have happened but didn’t.

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

Haunt me? Oh god yes. I did a horrible, truly horrible take on Lucifer from SPN. I just...the directions I went make me really mad at myself. Like just...no. no no no no no. I’m scarred just thinking about this. Ugh god help me but I was so fixated on a thing back then. I refuse to be like that. Yikes. Just. Yeah. Lucifer. Even thinking it is embarrassing, so I just don’t want to go any further in detail there.

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

I would tell myself not to push myself before I was ready. Not to throw myself in the adult world before I really knew what I was doing. When I was thirteen I was already writing smut and stuff which is just...I shouldn’t have. You see the stuff about illegal and all now, but nobody was making a big deal out of it at the time. But I think I could have benefited just...not doing that until I for sure was ready.

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

Ummm. I’m not sure? I think maybe the Percy Jackson books a little bit in terms of the snarky little thought process of the character and the way that’s done. Ummm....I don’t really know how to describe my writing style so I’m not sure if certain works did influence me like that. There’s that novel the Things They Carried which has a unique way of describing things and thinking. Maybe something from there, Harry Potter without a doubt as that is a huge influence. Maybe some Tolkien? Eragon? I don’t know man.

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

Well, if it’s really complex I end up opening a word doc, as I have a super organized rp partner who did it long before I did. And since they influenced me there, I now write up timelines if I feel like I need to remember/mark it down. I honestly haven’t done that with anything on here yet. I probably should. But you know. Whatever. The point is yes. Google docs if I need to organize things.

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

It depends on the day and the mood. Sometimes I can just sit down and whack out multiple replies and keep at it. Other times I write one or two and then say ‘good job Lena, you done enough today’ and go read. It really depends.

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

I cringe. Honestly that’s just the way I am. I can’t look back on stuff too often for that reason.

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Yeah. I can’t write anything about space/outer space or throw any of my muses in that sort of setting. I also can’t handle other people writing excessively detailed gore? It’s like, if I don’t have the control on what gore it is and how it’s done I just...I feel sick and I can’t do it and I overthink about it. Like one time another writer killed off my muse’s husband, and the way they did it (without consulting me on that particular way of dying) well it had my nauseous for weeks. I think most anything else I can write if we talk about it, but those two things are iffy for me.

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

I feel like my brief tenure in an apartment has helped me a little in context of thinking of how some of my muses would live etc. Before that I only had the vaguest idea of how people handle apartment living. Haha. I know, it’s helpful to experience shit. I can’t think of much else.

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

Yes. Actually for a thread me and @keeperoftheliars were doing, or are still doing I think technically. I like...look. The reason I originally wasn’t going to do Barry is cause I don’t science. I feel kind of bad for leaving the science out a lot of times but so does the show. They often forget to demonstrate Smart Barry who is in fact a CSI etc. Anyway, I’m digressing, but Barry had to talk about fingerprinting criminals, and to my immense displeasure, I did research what would happen if people damaged their fingerprints in often gruesome ways and what would be done about that. Unpleasant. For my writing of Steve Rogers, I read up a lot on the different illnesses that he had, on how he would have lived in the past, in order to understand what things he might still do today, out of habit, or out of respect for that time period. Yeah, I definitely research where I can on subjects I don’t fully grasp.

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

(okay so this is a few paragraphs, but i really really enjoyed this starter)

As was becoming the frustrating norm, Barry just wasn’t fast enough. Zoom had an insane strength to him, only bolstered by Barry’s own speed. The loss of his father had caused something in him to shatter. The hatred towards the other speedster fueled Barry, but as he chased the other through his city, he knew that that hatred alone wouldn’t help him stop the guy. But it pushed him forward anyway.

Barry had shut off his coms half an hour into this ridiculous race with Zoom. He knew what his friends and family wanted. They wanted to work together to handle him. But Barry had lost enough in this fight to want them to have nothing to do with it. The man had been monstrous enough to kill Barry’s father right in front of him. He likely wouldn’t stop to think about his feelings with anyone else important to him.

He couldn’t watch another person he loved die. And, admittedly, he was still slightly bitter about the fact that his friends had locked him in the pipeline to keep him from going after Zoom. He kept running, twisting past cars and trees and chasing after Zoom, always chasing. He had never had a moment where he had come close to equaling the other’s speed.

At some point though, it seemed Zoom tired of simply having Barry chase him around, and before Barry knew it, the other darted out towards the speedster. catching him completely by surprise, the other speedster’s punch hitting him in the stomach and sending him flying backwards. The lucky thing: he didn’t crash into any cars or civilians. The unlucky: he collided with a very solid wall, not having had the time to ready himself to phase through it as he could have.

Everything ached. And Zoom was there a moment later, grabbing him by his throat and lifting him up, seemingly delighted by the power he held over Barry. Barry managed to get a few hits in, and found them running again, though this time it barely went another block before he was sprawled on the ground in the park. He groaned, forcing himself to his feet as he tried to prepare himself for the next blow.

#ooc #about the mun #this took a while xP #keeperoftheliars

[undothedamage-blog]

Talking About Abuse

Strap in, this is a long one. Skip to the bottom for a TLDR if needs be.

It’s impossible to spend time in the #abuse tags on Tumblr and not run into discourse re: personality disorders. 

And it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot because I’ve stumbled across the dividing line trying to figure out where I stand. And I think both sides need to remember this:

Mental illness does not make someone abusive. But an abuser with a mental illness may be particularly cruel.

It’s a point that abuse expert Lundy Bancroft has made, and he knows what he’s talking about.

Ideally, I’d like to see the abuse community create new terminology. What exactly, I’m not sure. I’m certainly open to suggestions. Egotistical abuse? Trumpian abuse? Egocentric abuse? Conceited abuse? I don’t know (personally, I prefer Egocentric). We’re not actually trained and qualified to diagnose our abusers with specific disorders. So I’d feel more comfortable avoiding terminology that is already well-defined as something specific that may or may not accurately apply to our situations and that, imo, removes some responsibility from abusers for their choices and behavior.

That said, on the other side of things I’d say to think long and hard about whether you want to attack and possibly re-victimize somebody who is in the long, hard process of recovery from abuse for talking about things like “narcissistic abuse.” Not everything is about you. And if you have experience with mental illness you should consider using that experience to fuel compassion for victims (who are highly likely to be suffering their own mental illness as a result of their abuse) rather than launching into them because they are repeating the terminology that was handed to them by somebody else. By all means, educate people via posts on your own blog. But if you must call out a specific person (whether by reblog or anon asks), remember that the person on the other side of that screen has just spent a very long time, years or decades in some cases, being put down, attacked, criticized, shamed, and endlessly treated as wrong and stupid. If you want to engage with them, don’t do it in a way that will trigger them. And don’t treat them like just another ableist asshole. They’re trying to make sense of what has been done to them and a lot of the people providing answers and hope to them for the first time are teaching them this vocabulary. These people, the ones with a large audience and significant influence, are probably who you should be asking to reconsider their wording.

However, I want to emphasize again to my fellow abuse survivors, that not all abusers have personality disorders (in fact, most probably don’t). Not all people with personality disorders are abusive (and we should really, really hesitate to add to the stigma they face). And abusers who DO have personality disorders would probably still be abusive even if they were magically no longer mentally ill. So just as I ask people to have compassion for victims, I’d ask victims to have compassion for the mental illness community and embrace language that allows us to talk about certain flavors of abuse without co-opting words from the DSM nor contribute to stigmas that harm others (especially when we consider that the mentally ill are often more likely to be victims of abuse themselves). We are, generally, on the same team. And it really requires very little effort to just abstain from using certain phrases or words. 

Again, mental illness does not make somebody abusive. Don’t let abusers get away with using mental illness as an excuse by perpetuating language that implies otherwise.

It boils down to the same problem I have with people calling mass-shooters or terrorists “crazy.” For one thing, it dissolves their responsibility and that’s bullshit. For another, it further stigmatizes mental illness. Millions of mentally ill people every day manage to live their lives without hurting a fly (though many mentally ill people are, in fact, hurt and abused by others). And, perhaps most insidious, it absolves society of any blame for helping create abusers.

It is NOT mental illness that makes, for example, a man shoot up a bunch of people because his girlfriend dumped him. It is entitlement. And we need to face the fact that our culture absolutely contributes to teaching men they are entitled to a woman’s attention, affection, body, emotional labor, etc. We celebrate media that repeats the trope that even the most mediocre of man will be rewarded with a beautiful woman that adores him. We talk about the friend-zone as if it’s a real thing and it is something that women unfairly do to victimize men. We tell women that they’re feelings are wrong and they should be flattered by sexual harassment. We legislate that women’s bodies don’t belong to them (and even afford corpses more bodily autonomy than living women). We tolerate misogyny in our music, movies, television, and government. We teach women they are responsible for preventing assault instead of teaching men not to assault. We teach generation after generation that “boys will be boys” and that girls should just tolerate their bad behavior. 

So, yeah. Maybe a lot of us have, in fact, been abused by somebody with a personality disorder. But unless we’re a psychiatrist, we’re not really qualified to comment on that. And we’re shooting ourselves in the proverbial foot when we frame our discussions about abuse in terms from the field of mental health. Because mentally ill or not, abusers will continue to abuse as long as they feel entitled to do so. If we borrow language from psychiatry to frame the conversation around abuse, we make it too easy for everyone to throw their hands up in the air and say “well, we can’t really do anything about it” (especially when talking about disorders that haven’t found successful treatment options).

And that simply isn’t true.

Because, guess what, we CAN do something about abuse. Now, we can’t do much about individual abusers. Only abusers can change themselves. But, and Lundy Bancroft talks at length about this at the end of Why Does He Do That, society and individuals can absolutely do things to combat problems that contribute to abuse and to protect victims. Things like:

BELIEVE VICTIMS. The rate of false accusations of abuse is, despite what MRAs would have us believe, incredibly small. Bancroft says “There is a natural temptation to speak out forcefully against abuse until the man whose behavior is under the microscope is one of our own, and then we switch sides. But we can’t have it both ways. Abuse won’t stop until people stop making exceptions for their own brothers and sons and friends.“ He also says “Nothing would work faster to end the abuse of women than having the friends and family of abusive men stop enabling them. And that begins, in turn, with making sure that you listen carefully and respectfully to her side of the story— something the abusive man never does.” (emphasis mine) 

TEACH WHAT ABUSE LOOKS LIKE. Bancroft specifically advices therapists, the clergy, etc. to “provide some basic education to any male about partner abuse. Give some examples of abusive behaviors, describe their destructive impact on women and children, and explain that a man is entirely responsible for his own actions.” I think a huge aspect of why people discount women’s reports of abuse is that they don’t recognize abusive behavior as, in fact, abusive. This comes back round to entitlement and justification as well as abusers and their allies tendency to point to worse forms of abuse to say “that’s what REAL abuse looks like, what I’ve done isn’t REAL abuse.”

REFORM THE JUSTICE SYSTEM TO BETTER PROTECT VICTIMS AND FORCE ABUSERS TO FACE REAL CONSEQUENCES FOR THEIR ACTIONS. I won’t go into the details on specific changes that need to be made. This post is already super fucking long. You can find Bancroft’s suggestions in Why Does He Do That.

I’d add that we also, as a society, need to:

REFUSE TO SUPPORT MEDIA THAT IS MISOGYNIST. If it promotes the idea that men are entitled to behave in controlling or abusive ways it doesn’t deserve our attention, accolades, or money. We should also stop handing out awards to abusive men as if separating their performances and public persona from their abuse doesn’t teach them (and others) that abusers can abuse without consequence.

CHALLENGE DAMAGING IDEAS AND STATEMENTS. This is particularly important for men to do. If you hear dudes complaining about the friend zone, or celebrating rape culture, or otherwise espousing sexist and harmful ideas, call them out. Make it clear that such views are entirely unacceptable.

LISTEN TO FEMINISTS, SJWs, AND OTHER SO-CALLED SNOWFLAKES. There’s a false notion that when progressives voice concerns or complaints about micro-aggressions or subtle sexism, or whatnot that they’re focusing on small stuff and should just get over it. But the reality is that the small stuff matters. All the various small things add up to a culture that sends abusers the messages of entitlement they use to justify their abuse. Take the Bechtel Test. I recognize it is only one step in beginning to evaluate whether a movie is, in fact, sexist. But, generally speaking, any movie that doesn’t feature enough named, female characters with dialogue about something other than a male character sends the subtle message that women’s roles revolve around the men in their lives. It says that woman are accessories to a man’s story. When feminists call for more women in the writers’ room of television and movies, it goes so far beyond just wanting to level the employment playing field (though that’s important in its own right)! More women contributing to scripts means more well-rounded women characters and less sexist tropes being repeated. It means more boys growing up consuming media in which the world presented to them is not one that revolves around men.

If you’re still with me at this point in this long-ass post I just want to say thank you. I know tumblr is usually a place for more pithy communication. But I go on at length because there is just so much to say that is so important.

That said, here’s a TLDR for those who can’t handle the endless wall of text (I’m ADHD, I can empathize):

The abuse community would do well to create new terminology to discuss our experiences that doesn’t rely on language which may inadvertently harm the mental illness community.

Be patient and kind to abuse victims if you want to talk to them about how something they’ve repeated may be problematic so that you can avoid triggering them or adding to their trauma.

If somebody asks you to reconsider your language, be kind and sympathetic and remember that they may share more of your experiences than you realize. 

Society can do a lot to prevent and combat abuse.

And most importantly let me repeat this:

Mental illness does not make somebody abusive. Don’t let abusers get away with using mental illness as an excuse by perpetuating language that implies otherwise.

#abuse #mental health #ableist slur #personality disorders #cr*zy #crazy #mental illness #tldr #text #triggers #trauma #talking about abuse #language #terminology #narcissistic abuse #stigma #feminism

[hollowjourney]

The "Bad Session™" is as follows:

Part 1) The Setup. The party consisted of me (Fighter), our DM's brother (Rogue), and our other roommate (Warlock). Also joining us as a guest was our DM's boyfriend (Bard). To preserve anonymity, I will only refer to people by their class or as DM. Warlock and Bard had only been playing the game for less than a year, and both have attention problems, so sitting down and reading the Player's Handbook to get an idea of what their characters can do is extremely hard. Warlock had been playing her character for a few months and had an idea of how to use her character. Bard on the otherhand had never played this character OR a bard before and had know idea what he was doing. DM had promised to help Bard make the character, but never actually got around to it. In all fairness, Rogue and I should have noticed Bard wasn't playing his character to his potential and stepped in to mitigate damage, but so should have DM. None of us did. The campaign takes place in the Cr*t*cal R*le T*l'D*rei setting.

Part 2) The lead up to The Bullshit. The previous session our party had spent several hundred gold purchasing a real nice carriage. Pimp My Ride kind of carriage. DM was super into our carriage shopping experience at the time. This session opens with a rift in the earth swallowing our carriage, killing our horses, and wrecking the vehicle we'd spent all of an hour buying, and ten minutes driving. After assessing our situation and progressing further into the cavern we found ourselves in, we were thrust into a boss rush of sorts. Four doors, four aspects of the evil gods to fight. The first fight was Zehir, who went down in one hit for comedy. The next fight was Lolth. This one was really good. We were in a massive cavern with a thunder cloud at the entrance. We could grab the lightning bolts and throw them at Lolth for massive damage. Aside from us being only level 11 or 12, Lolth having thousands of hit points (the only real way to hurt her was the lightning bolts), Bard not knowing what he was doing, and my character being useless because of his 10 dex, the fight was good. The two best fights were over after that, and both were killed by Rogue. The next fight was Bane. We entered the arena to find a near endless expanse of burned forest. The fight was a straightforward slugfest until Bane got back up from death. We had to figure out to take his head and plant it in the ground. It was boring as fuck. The burned out forest wasn't even difficult terrain so after the aesthetic wore off, the arena was revealed to be total ass. We wound up killing Bane about 5 times with no difficulty. I say "we" but it was really just Rogue. I got one. Bane kill, he got 4, no one else got any.

Part 3) The Bullshit. The last door was Tiamat. Her aspect took up a 3x3 space in the 5x5 room. Bard and Warlock hung out outside the room taking potshots while Rogue and I took all the hits. Rogue tried to leave the room and DM establishes that nothing can leave the room. So the first problem is obvious. A 5x5 room with nothing but the boss anchored to the center and taking up 9 squares of the 25 possible squares is beyond lazy and frustrating, and gimps half the party who rely on ranged attacks, and the party member who relies on maneuverability. The next problem is that this is the first time this party had ever faced a dragon, and the first time Bard and Warlock had faced one as players, and this was 5 dragons in one. DM asserts it's not a dragon, but since he was using dragon abilities and resistances, it was a dragon mechanically. Bard has been using 1 (one) spell only, and no class abilities. DM should have realized Bard had no idea what he was doing. Then things go sideways. DM allows Tiamat to stick a head out of the room, grab Warlock, and drag her character into the room. She uses her magic item to fly 240 feet straight up, and then DM gives Tiamat infinite range and drops her to 0HP. She falls, the impact making her fail 2 death saves immediately. My character has been down, taken a hit, and failed a death save normally. The DM says the one remaining head is going to bite Rogue, then says, "Oh wait, it makes more sense for it to slam its wings into the ground," that was an AOE that hit me and Warlock, killing us both. We'd been fighting that thing for an hour and a half, and made NO mistakes besides Bard not knowing what bards do (which is on DM in my opinion, he promised to help Bard with the character and never did), and half the party dies in two rounds. He saw Warlock and I were upset and said, "You guys shouldn't be upset. That went really well. Sometimes characters die. If that had happened to me, I'd be perfectly fine with it." Fuck you man. I know you. You've been my best friend since 2006. You would NOT have been alright with it. You also don't get to say that until it has happened to you. You could have prevented our deaths. You could have stuck with attacking Rogue who easily couls have survived the bite, and then stabilized one of us. You could have given Bard ANY direction on his character. You could have made a monster that wasn't a chore to fight. You could have designed an arena that wasn't a goddamn dinner plate. It was obvious halfway through that fight that none of us were having any fun. Fuck you.

Part 4) Further Bullshit. After that, DM took a break from D&D for a few months and came back with a one-shot he wamted to run. All four of us from The Bullshit were there, plus one more we'll call Thief for now (his in game character, not him as a person). We've all made evil characters because we're supposed to be robbing some guy blind. Thief has been playing only as long as Bard and Warlock have, but he watches Cr*t*cal R*le, so he has a skewed idea of how players communicate in game, expecting a group that has played together for only a year and a half to have the same level of comfort and understanding as a group that has been playing together for several years. He and Warlock are also very different people. He is, by his own admission, very oblivious, and Warlock is, by her own admission, very sensitive to certain things. So the whole one shot they've been butting heads and it all comes to a head at the final boss. Warlock deduces that he's going to leave us all to die (which is what he wanted the boss to think) and blows up because that would have sucked all the enjoyment out of the session (which is 100% true). DM shuts down and walks out the front door without saying a word while Theif and Warlock argue, and Rogue, Bard, and I try to mitigate things. When DM finally gets back, after we've all sorted everything out and are all friends again, we fill him in on some of the conclusions we came to, trying to explain that not all of the argument is DM's fault. We do insist that DM should have noticed things were breaking down and stepped in. His response was, "That is NOT my job." Every player has the responsibility to look around and make sure the rest of the group is enjoying itself. The DM, as the organizer, the referee, the guide, however you want to put it, is the one who must take the most responsibility for the enjoyment and engagement of the group. None of us did that, but he denied that he had any of that responsibility at all. After this he took another LONG break from DMing. He came back with Waterdeep Dragon Heist. Despite my intense lack of interest for the setting, I tried really hard to be interested. So did everyone else. But none of us were into it. Probably because DM was running most of us, (Rogue, Bard, Thief, and thief's sister) through it already. I'm fairly certain he only started DMing tye one with me and Warlock because we made a stink over how the version of Waterdeep with us was organized first, but the one intended to exclude us (that's what it was, plain and simple, no matter what he says) had two whole sessions before ours had one. He eventually gave it up, and only admitted to cancelling it after we mentioned that it had been months since we had played and wanted to play. A week later he asks me if I'd be up for a one shot with pre-generated characters before he tries to revive the T*l'D*rei campaign (which we all still love despite The Bullshit). I said I was excited for it. It's been two months and no further mention. Ball's in your court. Play, or tell me to stop hoping for anything to happen.

Part 5) Surrounding factors. Ever since The Bullshit happened, he's been really bad as a roommate, and Warlock and I have gotten on his case for it numerous times. I get that his job is shit, but that's no excuse for you to not do your chores. Or to not do them to completion. Or to just be a generally oppressive force when you come home. I've given up reaching out. He's refused to talk about it too often, and disrespected me too many times for me to have any faith that he'll actually get enough of his shit together to even pretend he cares anymore. I don't blame him if he doesn't want to play with us. We have hounded him to stop making our lives miserable, and that does come across as us attacking him most of the time. I do, however, blame him for not communicating. I blame him for making this house we're all sharing feel oppressive and unwelcoming. I blame him for not putting in even half the effort I do when I clean. I blame him for letting the cat litter sit for weeks on end if we don't notice (it's such an easy chore that I often think I've done it more recently than I have). I blame him for being a passive aggressive asshole if one of us lets a chore go too long despite giving him more leeway than he frankly deserves in the same circumstances. I blame him for ruining our friendship over a single failed D&D session.

#personal #if you read this I wish I could be sorry #I'm not #you've been an awful friend lately and I'm hurt #I have deliberately censored words to try and avoid having this blow up #if this starts getting insane notes I will delete this post

[theunabridgedgamer]

Shutter (Vol 1 - 3) Review

Talking psychotic robot clocks, grand old school adventure, and cyber roman lion bounty hunters. This one has it all, and is one hell of a journey.

Also, bear in mind, minor spoilers.There is also one specific quotation from the end of Volume 2, but it is block quoted so it can be easily skipped. I try to avoid the majority of the story’s twists and turns, but some examples and key points needed to brought up. I apologize for the inconvenience.

So, without further adieu, this is…

Shutter (Volumes 1 - 3)

Writer: Joe Keatinge Artist: Leila Del Duca Letterer: John Workman Colors: Owen Gieni Cover Artist: Leila Del Duca Format Read: Collected Trade Publisher: Image

You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do this one!

Shutter is a prime example of what makes comics so different from other media. It is as heavily reliant on its vivid visuals as it is its razor sharp writing, and it blends the two (along with twists on several comics conventions) into a riveting tale of famed explorer and photographer Kate Kristopher dealing with the sins of her father while trying to figure out her own identity. Also, things like this happen:

Yes, that is an assassination hit being ordered in Sunday newspaper comic strip paneling. The story uses this sort of framing device at several points, actually, and while you’d think it might clash with an otherwise more “Gabriel Ba but somehow more intensely on acid than usual” aesthetic, it works remarkably well. In fact, the story seems to pride itself on continually breaking traditional barriers without even a hint of smugness or pretension. It knows the story it wants to tell, it wants to tell it as well as it can and it does not give a shit how crazy the means to tell that story may become.

It uses flashbacks sparingly yet has an incredibly complicated history for all its characters. It changes narrative framing to seemingly minor characters, building them up only to kill them off or shift course entirely until far later down the line, like something out of Urasawa’s Monster. The world is too complex to be fully explained in one series, let alone a single book. The sheer density of it all hits you like a freight train, and you just cling on for dear life as it rushes along.

And when I say it rushes along, I mean it flows fast as all hell. The sense of momentum to Del Duca’s art is amazing, and makes me hope that some day this comic will get turned into something animated. Each panel looks like a frame of animation given an extra polish of detail. You have to linger on each page and just soak in all the details. The earthy tones of the world give Shutter a rather grounded feel, and are contrasted by the bright hues whenever conversations get intense or bullets start flying. The layers Gieni adds punctuate the world when other colorists might have simply given the line work all the emotional reigns.

Owen Gieli’s coloring, lighting and shading, on top of Del Duca’s expressive line work and use of perspective; just absolutely astounding work all around.Credit must also be given to the lettering by John Workman. The lettering is not only varied and impactful, but the bubble placement is always directing your eye to the next critical moment.

The story itself is also quite endearing, despite the larger than life setting and progressively large cast of characters. At the heart of all things is Kate, daughter to the famous (and now deceased) explorer Chris Kristopher, and current travel photographer. She’s got a flat with her transwoman friend Alain and a talking robot cat clock. Life was always an adventure for Kate, but after her father’s passing, she’s tried to put those times behind her.

However, when a gang of rabbits, ninja spirits, and a robot start fighting over Kate against a lion mafia hit squad (yes I just wrote that sentence with a straight face), things quickly begin to unravel as all of Chris’ past choices all start to come crashing down on Kate. A quick visit to the old family home leaves Kate with more questions than a struggling 20-something ex-adventurer can handle, leading to a struggle to regain control in the face of a world determined to force her down a path she refuses to go down.

Among the early revelations for Kate is that her father sired several children, some of which would very much like for Kate to be dead, and others just as innocent as Kate in the ongoing schemes for power and revenge. Along the way, cyber-foxes, secret societies, and even inter-dimensional entities come to blows with Kate and her ever shifting group of allies.

If there’s one thing you are probably noticing at this point, it’s that a core focus of the entire series is on defying expectations and cutting your own path, even if you struggle for it. From the way the story is told to the actions of our protagonist, the traditional Campbellian hero’s journey gets tossed out the window in favor of a protagonist who actively says things along the lines of “no, f**k that noise, we’re doing this my way” and grapples with the consequences; which is part of what makes Shutter so interesting.

In improv, you’re taught to always say “yes”, no matter what, but Shutter makes a compelling argument for how much more interesting things can become in a story when you dare to say “no”. Volume 2 encapsulates this beautifully with Kate’s rant when she stands before a coallition of her enemies who have been pulling the strings and causing suffering for all those she cares about:

I’ve been trying to deal with it all. Sometimes very poorly and definitely too reactionary because I hoped it’d go away on its own. Sometimes I caved in and ended up doing some really stupid shit, like running off with a minor and possibly killing a fox or jackal or whatever she was, instead of using my brain. And the whole time you all keep relentlessly coming at me with this issue or that whatever, and I kept trying. And I kept messing up. Because everything you all want out of me isn’t who I am.

Everybody feels like I have to deal with their crap or alter my life to suit their needs and do things their way. But guess what? FUCK EVERYBODY! You all want me? You all got me! But on MY terms. Kate Kristopher is back. By popular demand. And she’s going to fight every one of you morons until your collective bullshit is straight up non-existent. Any questions?

So long, Hollywood bog-standard “the chosen one” narrative storytelling! While some stories have taken this concept and rolled with it, like Avatar: The Last Air Bender, Shutter does all it can to flip that notion the hell off and tells it to go jump in a lake.

It’s a sentiment that appeals to us all, dealing with a world that always demands more of us than what we’re often prepared to give, and is a universal story as a result. The at times absurd scenarios Kate and company find themselves in work because the unusual is normal in the world of Shutter. You can’t get lost in the grass critiquing a particular political angle or detail because the world is intentionally built to shut up that noise and get everyone to sit down and focus on what it’s actually trying to tell. It’s kind of a reverse mute-button, going full blast to keep your attention.

For example Chris Jr., Kate’s secret little brother, has to use a shotgun on someone at some point in self-defense. They address it and talk briefly about it, but in the context of survival and making snap decisions, not the gun itself. Alain being trans is a part of her character development, they even devote a flashback to it, but that’s not even a tenth of Alain’s character as Kate’s best friend and an awesome ass-kicker coming in to save the day. The existence of deities is known and some pay reverance to arcane aspects of the world but others don’t and no one blinks an eye either way. Ghost ninjas aren’t terrifying so much as a nuisance, with people dismissing their ancient moans as a running gag for the first volume.

it’s not that the story doesn’t obviously have a liberal slant, and it’s far from pro-spirituality, but also isn’t taking potshots at anyone (unless you’re part of an ultra-secretive Illuminati-esque organization, in which case, um, hi!). And in our current online and political landscape, that is a refreshing change of pace.

As if I haven’t gushed enough, it must also be said that good gravy are the amount of cogs in motion in this story just utterly insane. I wasn’t kidding when I said the story could pull Monster levels of bouncing about, with character development for the whole cast and a litany of sub-plots playing out. Also, unlike certain video games, these sub-plots do get properly fleshed out over time, even if the narrative can ignore certain plot beats for a time before bringing them back into focus.

There’s also a sequence in chapter 3 that goes so meta that you almost double-take at the sequence on display. It’s pretty typical for such a surreal universe to have a crazy drug-induced dream sequence, but Shutter goes out of its way to really knock your socks off, and that’s all I’ll say.

Beyond that, I fear I’d spoil too much of the experience for you describing what happens. The series so far has reached Volume 4, and I’ve got my copy patiently sitting on my desk as I write up this review. Each act of the story has taken two volumes, so I’d imagine it will take at least until Volume 6 to wrap everything up.

If you’re interested in catching up before Volume 5 gets collected, you need to decide if you are going physical or digital. Digital copies have been fairly cheap on Comixology recently, but I honestly plan to get the copies I have digital in physical form at some point. The volumes do cost $15 a piece, but the art is just so much more vivid in physical form, with some of the best covers I’ve seen in ages.

                                              In Summary

Shutter is probably one of my new all-time favorite series. It’s fresh, interesting, laser-focused and realistic of its limitations but also ambitious as hell within those very same boundaries. I can’t wait to see how Kate’s quest to solve the conspiracies and save her friends pans out, but odds are good it’s going to be one hell of a final fight. Until then, it’s going to be a very trippy, hilarious, poignant, and beautiful ride. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Shutter-Vol-1-Wanderlost-TP/dp/1632151456/ref=pd_bxgy_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=EYFQSKZBNEHSEWH74TY8 For: $3.99 - 14.99 (Depends on if you get it digital, especially in the case of sales, or physical) Next Time: Giant Days (Volume 1) FOR REAL THIS TIME!

#Shutter #Comics #Comic #comic book #comic books #comic review #image #image comics #inkblots and madness #indie