okay remember how I said I wanted more Murati flashbacks, my heart might not be able to take it. In 8.11 you get to see ten year old Sonya and I'm like BAWWWWWWWW LOOK HOW CUTE SHE IS, LOOK HOW EXCITED SHE IS AT GETTIN GENDER AFFIRMED Zasha is such a cool older sister, she lectures about the meaning of combat and supports her kid sister transitioning... but like look at this adorable lil autist, "It's like crazy how good I am" yes it is you little fucking lovable dork, you ARE the hero!!! and she has a stuffed cuttlefish lol. I wonder what thats about =)

Also the mech fights in this chapter? 11/10 no notes, Sieglinde getting battered by Khajida with two chainswords while receiving a vicious roasting had me like FUCKING GET ER KHAJIDA, SHOW THAT BITCH WHAT A UNION PILOT WITH SOMETHING TO FIGHT FOR CAN DO!!! Similarly, Sonya diving out of the way of the Option drone, baiting it to shoot the Jagdkaiser because Selene is a fucking idiot? When Sonya says I'm not a lab rat! I'm Sonya Shalikova! You think this is fun? Are you enjoying yourself?, uncritical support to Sonya in her pitched battle to murder Selene. There is an interesting footnote tho:

"She generated no ambient emotions for Selene to pick up. She was invisible to psionic senses."

I thought Sonya just had really strong latent powers that stopped Maryan from reading her, but... is the implication here that Sonya is invisible to psionic vision cause shes just that fuckin autistic that her emotions are unreadable?

Shalikova felt like crying - she was crying - there was so much pouring out of her. She knew it was irrational, but she was so affected by the emotions she felt from Selene.

It definitely feels subtextually like psionic autism. Lol.

In other news, and since it so rudely interrupted the climax of battle, (a classic shonen battle trope) oh god for fuck's sake, I didn't realise we'd be getting flashback scenes of sad egg vibes in this, oh it puts me in mind of James H in Nevada holy shit. Going home to his shitty apartment in Star City to try on a dress and smoke weed and be depressed, as Marina does. I am so fucking dismayed that the word transvestism survived from the surface world, oh fuckin man Republic delenda est...

I do find it kind of funny that Marina has to shoulder all the internalised transphobia in this plot, because everyone else is too cool and rad.

He's also expressed his fears. Which are the same fears I have. Societal backlash, family issues, friends, employment. We live in a safe neighborhood in a safe city, but we are surrounded by an ocean of reactionaries. But I legitimately feel like we can overcome anything together.

In other semi-related news, my therapist diagnosed me with OCD on Tuesday. Which isn't surprising really. I have some powerful compulsions that are driven by an extreme fear of rejection. I'm pretty sure most of my internalized transphobia comes from those same fears of rejection. I know for a fact that my complete inability to talk about this stuff with my partner is driven by those fears.

All in all it's been an interesting week.

Hate seeing "AFAB vs AMAB" essentialism and "transfems are like this" bullshit even on lefty places like here. I'm probably just being oversensitive and should delete all social media but youtube animal facts. I feel like I can't trust anywhere on the internet to accept trans people.

I still find Maryan to be a deeply weird character, which I guess is what happens when you get vat-grown to be a navigator for a warlord, but I'm down with her motivations and find her endearing, her backstory seems neat c: She is a land of contrasts; she has this adorably idealistic speech about how she believes everyone can and should use psionics, all deeper-understandings-between-people stuff... but we're talking about sandwich-thieving, dream-influencing cuttlefish lady, lmao. She has interesting ideas.

I was laughing my ass off when Maryan was giving that speech and Shalikova was like "Yeah but u got no dialectical materialism fam, no peace while the bourgeoisie persist" shine on, Sonya Shalikova.

Meanwhile Norn is a character who's improved by leaps and bounds to my eye. I think her main issue is she's always got this mask and can't say anything without making it a Disney villain monologue or something, so she can seem kind of silly sometimes, but her little moments of kindness I find very admirable, she's sweet at times:

"I don't understand. What- what's the point for you? Why would you go out of your way and challenge Euphrates? Why would you agree to release me afterward? I don't understand! I'm just a random piece of biological equipment!"

"No you are not. You are a scared girl who is being done wrong in the same way that I was by the exact same people."

"So- so what? If that's what you think then are you turning your back on the Sunlight Foundation?"

Norn grinned. "The only reason I am 'helping' them is to take advantage. To stop them from getting their way all the time. I won't stand them for them having you, so I took you away. You don't belong in their silver cage."

Adelheid spoke up. "Selene, Norn won't admit it, but she does care about you."

Like I wasn't expecting much from the Selene-Norn connection, but this is my favourite dysfunctional gay family.

Conversely though I gotta say, I sincerely do not understand Selene's wonderment at her parents existing. It would probably be deeply disquieting to have been made as a genetic weapon, as an experiment with intent to kill, sure; but that is what her parents did, basically, as she had already assumed. The only extra "context" it provides is that she's a genetic experiment made by some woman having an affair. I guess personally I've never been that concerned with the intent for or context of my existence, partly because I can't ascertain it. Sure, it'd be super weird if I found out tomorrow that I'm secretly a lab experiment or whatever, but that wouldn't change my existence on its own. Someone somewhere brought me into being; beyond that, it's mine to decide what to do with. It seems weird to me that Selene is so obsessed with the idea that two people vat-birthed her for a eugenics experiment, instead of the usual Katarran vat-birth for a specific job.

And then on top of that, the "context" that Selene is so obsessed with is apparently being a really good genetic superweapon:

"She was the fruit of the search for psionic potential in the human gene, and surely, that meant her mother had succeeded! She was a genetically psionic wunderkind!"

What the fuck do you care if mummy's eugenics project worked out? She's all tied up about a FATEFUL DESTINY and being SPECIAL, yeah ok Link sure. Got a divine bloodline in there to go with it? What a weird turn, and I liked Selene.

"In this single moment, Gertrude's dreams could crumble right in front of her. All of her work, suffering, all the begging and cheating and the corpses she climbed - for nothing."

Self Awareness Gertrude does not reflect on her actions. She truly does think in waves. The battle against the Antenora is just starting up for the Brigand crew, and I'm pretty hyped.

Meanwhile,

Right? She wished the little nagging voice in her head was more supportive.

MOOD, SONYA

I like seeing Shalikova being CO as well, her internal bitching about how much better Murati is at this has me like OMG GO SIT WITH HER ✨ I believe in her ability to do this sometime since Murati is a perfect bean and could not be more approachable if she tried. I find the icy dynamics between them fascinating though, it really seemed back at the 3rd Battle of Thassalid that Sonya outright hated Murati or smth

So here is your incredibly blursed thought for the day: They should kiss. Murati and Sonya would make kind of a fun pair... Not as much obvious chemistry as Ulyana/Aaliyah or indeed Sonya and Maryan, but the way so much of Sonya's mindshare is spent thinking jealously/in admiration about how much better of a CO and tactician Murati is... combined with that initial awkwardness, I'm seeing it already. Sonya, nervous and gay, using her reverence for Murati's battlefield acumen as a shield to hide her hopelessly gay crush. Murati is very hardheaded, but I can see her wanting to be soft on a squadmate, being taken a little with Sonya's obviously flustered demanour, and things blossoming a bit from there.

That could be a cute AU fic, I think. Writing a blursed T4T pairing for Unjust Depths cause there's not any so far? Even though it feels a bit dirty, I may or may not be willing to brutalise A) Karuniya and B) the fan-favourite cuttlefish narratively to make this happen.

I'm actually kinda hoping that Maryan gets to pilot a Diver now, if only because it would be incredibly funny. She's so enamoured with the thing and it's charming. Plus, she'd probably make a kickass pilot when she's not all cuttled out =)

Much love to the failson on board the Brigand as well! He can't help that he was born fucked up! My man is literally doing a "NOBODY WILL DEBATE ME LEFTISTS ARE ALL VIOLENT" bit, basically turning into a corncob after Shalikova disregarded him. Watching him subsequently get his face pounded by that security lady's buttstock was deeply satisfying, sorry bucko but The Romanovs Deserved It