Oh man, I love this. I'm so impressed by how distinct everyone is, both in their dialogue and their POV prose, they're just... right there as I'm reading. All of these little behind the scenes moments are so well chosen, too. The theme tying them together, the repurposing and managing with limited resources is so weill chosen, just thematically, and they fit together really well. Coming back to Eiffel's improvised birthday cake and reading them all celebrating together, the warmth and togetherness of that moment contrasted with the much more dejected emotions of the earlier birthday scene.... it's great. It makes my heart do things. Before, he was celebrating his birthday thinking about the family he lost. Now, he's celebrating with his new one.
I think my favorite part is Hera with Maxwell just because your Hera POV is so good and so, so interesting. I love all the stuff about what it feels like for her to switch memories from one place her.. self to another, love the ever present tension as she struggles with glitches and bugs, love how you, just like the show, sidestep the "person or machine???" question entirely and come up with something that's seamlessly both. Also, a special mention to her working around her own coding with the "definitely advice, definitely not a command." There's the gray Ai-morality I love her so much for! And I'm a huge fan of your Minkowski, too. She's my forever girl in canon and you write her so well, all her dogged determination and her doubts and her uncertainty with people and oh, all the times she thinks of home. Loved getting all these little details about her home life. Honestly, I teared up a couple times, gasped softly in a few places. Not just because of Minkowski, but because this fic is such a tender, intimate look at these three and the comfort they find in each other and how they've managed to shape these amazing bonds and these strong connections in a place designed to divide and grind them down. This was a wonderful read!
Thank you so much! I was listening to the show from scratch as I wrote this-- it's funny (or, you know, heartbreaking) listening to it that way, because it gets rougher for them all, but they also become more themselves and that (with the except of Hilbert) is a good thing.
I love Minkowski because she is a genuinely good person-- and she puts the work into it as well. I think it's actually pretty meaningful that she's the only commander to keep all of her crew alive, right up til the season finale-- Lovelace didn't manage that, and (despite being one of the powers that be), neither did Kepler. Minkowski is good at her job, and it matters to her, but she's also a good person-- not a smooth person, and awkward with people, but fundamentally good. And on the long list of the worst things Cutter and co ever did, taking Minkowski's dream and turning it against her is definitely on there.
Hera and Maxwell... I loved writing that scene, even though it was kind of painful at the same time. I mean, the last few episodes of this season broke me, in multiple ways (and were airing as I tried to write this, which, never again). Maxwell does acknowledge Hera's personhood (none of Hilbert's insistence that she is a machine), but then she did what she did, because she was someone that would do things like that. I think she genuinely liked Hera and worked to save her life because she didn't want to see it over.. but she was still sympatico with Jacobi, Kepler ("Shh, don't struggle, it'll just make this harder. If it helps, by the time I'm done, you're not going to remember any of this."). Maxwell was someone that would do that to another person. "Let's go be monsters," as Jacobi says.
(And at this point, what I really want from the show is just for Eiffel, Hera and Minkowski to have nice things-- just an episode of kittens and puppies and dancing on Cutter's grave with Mr Koudelka, that's all I want.)
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Stonestrewn Tue 24 Jan 2017 11:40AM UTC
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jamjar Wed 25 Jan 2017 11:22PM UTC
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