#also it just generally takes a toll on her mentally bc she goes into patients minds often

[cosmicheartz]

Hmm have been thinking of my future au a bit and the whole intern program and who graduates and who drops out

[elaphaemourra]

🖊 + Any of them ~

Hooooo this is a fckn, You Have Given Me Too Much Power. I have So Many Words.

Gonna be real tho, this is gonna be a Big Thing about Mita bc I have a fckn AU where he's the Outlander and I have some FEELINGS ABOUT THIS. Bc he's part of my main continuity as an adjacent player to the IA and BH storylines, sharing agent crew/other random shit with Phaeyla for the IA stuff (he got Vector and Scorpio, Phae got the rest) and serving as Another sidequest generator for Jeni in the BH line (I give Jeni so many nerds to keep track of whoops).

(THIS IS ALREADY LONG, AND I'M ABOUT 8 PARAGRAPHS IN, SO IT'S GETTING A READ MORE WHILE I'M STILL THINKING ABOUT IT)

Uh, TL;DR, Mita is handling being Commander about This Well:

OK SO in NORMAL canon he goes with Lana and Koth to go fetch the Outlander (who I decided is actually one of Zal's apprentices, a Voss named Thera-nal, until Zal fckn goes 'no fuck this. I have ghost experience. Gimme the emperor u don't have to deal with this urself' and steals Valk from her bc Good Inquisidad Takes On The Oof Ghost For His Kid) and then gets fckn Ditched on Zakuul. Like straight up that whole 'get the outlander on the ship, Vaylin is 3 meters away FUCK FUCK FUCK' thing, he pushes Thera-nal on and then the ship takes off. Without him. And he does a dive off the platform bc he's like 'nah' @ Vaylin and knows he can survive a Really Long Fall. It's all very dramatic, very ciffhangery. I'm still writing the next chapter beyond that in Left Behind.

He ends up fckn, roughing it on Zakuul, gets himself a sort-of job posing as an assassination droid in a gladiator ring (bc i'm a NERD for gladiator shit), grows up, gains some confidence. Knife baby gets a grow up and a glow up. It's awesome.

BUT. BUT I HAVE AN AU WHERE HE'S THE OUTLANDER. AND IT'S AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF WHY HE SHOULD NEVER BE IN CHARGE OF ANYTHING EVER.

He and Lana don't like each other. It's a Thing. They can put their differences aside for the sake of Professionalism or when they give each other the 'r u seeing this shit' Look when someone else is being Stupid in both their opinions, but they don't like each other (this is true in the normal canon as well, they're very antagonistic to each other, it's a little silly how petty it is but it's Fun). Despite this, and their tendencies to piss each other off on purpose, Mita thinks she's the most tolerable of the initial Pile of People. The Conflict between Koth and Senya was A Lot for him to handle, and he doesn't do Leadership Positions very well. About an hour after they picked Senya up, he was already out of patience.

The constant arguing got to him SO FAST, it ran him out of patience and Fucks so quickly, he started getting real snippy. By the time they got to asylum he was throwing around threats to people who couldn't keep their Shit to themselves. He TRIED to do good things, to pull together enough patience and good will to be Benevolent in his actions, but as his patience fell apart, so did basically everything else good. Mita getting Tora was a whole Thing where he did the Nice Thing by making her apologize to Vik and when she talked back he turned around and drew a knife on her, told her to keep her mouth shut if she was going to complain because he WOULD kill her, and he DIDN'T need an engineer/mechanic THAT much. That he'd use her corpse as payment for the next batch of cargo, which, MITA. WHAT THE FUCK, MAN.

He started falling into MUCH older patterns of thinking, refusing to take any action that was Any risk to himself. It's a thought process he had before he got shoved full of implants, before he realized that he could be a Better Person and started being a rebellious little shit in Intelligence and taking risks that helped Other People instead of just being single-mindedly focused on his own self-preservation.

He's falling back into it, which is BRUTAL because he's making more and more devastating choices, and where he saved people by shutting down that reactor on the First blip of Zakuul, before he ran out of Patience and Fear, and he did Good Lightsided Things to Help People, he just went off with Kaliyo to blow the absolute shit out of that whole thing, and where he used to be like 'shit, we need to make things Better', now he's started talking about Vengeance. Which uh. Does me a Concern about Knife Baby.

Basically none of the advisors actually LIKE him. At best, Senya and him have a solid enough mutual understanding of Work Vs Free Time between them, but she's also Pissed that he keeps taking the Big Death Options and fucking over her citizens. Theron's basically constantly giving him the Pensive Side-Eye because of how consistently Freaky Mita has become. Their first interaction was Prickly at best, and Mita hasn't gained any more patience.

Ofc, Mita and Lana just Don't get along, but they at least vibe on the level of 'i am So Done with everyone here' and she's pulled him aside more than once to get him to cool off a little. Though mostly she pawned him off on HK, when the droid was still aroujd, so she's at least Done Something for his mental state, and he liked that droid enough for talking with him being Relaxing. Kind of.

He's a volatile Commander who Can and Will pull people who irritate him aside to threaten them with mortal or bodily harm, or yeet a datapad at the wall for that Big Sound, or just punch a wall while he's got gauntlets on, to get everyone to Shut Up and Pay Attention so he can yell at them for not keeping their Interpersonal Shit out of the war room and out of his presence. He's basically single-handedly driving the Alliance into the ground, driving it forwards through pure force of will and by making people scared enough to work together without Complaining, hoping that Arcann will give before he or the Alliance do.

He's refused every offer by Valkorion for Everything, and right now that's his saving grace.

Koth bounced, furious with Mita and Kaliyo's 'let's blow this bitch up' thing, and Mita's little circle of people he Actually Likes has uh, maybe Not the greatest influences among them. His inner circle is Kaliyo, Scorpio, Tora (which surprised me, but they are Remarkably chill with each other for people whose introduction was Humiliation and Death Threats, like, a 'they'd vibe and drink in a dark corner together' sort of deal), and Even More Surprising, Aric Jorgan.

Completely separate from the Alliance Advisory Squad, Jorgan seems to be REALLY good for Mita. He's just kinda, it's Working Out. Mita's doing Nicer Shit when Jorgan's around. I'm not sure if it's just, the lack of Shit-Stirrers, the comfort and familiarity of military company, Jorgan's 'ur not the boss of me' thing back in the swamps on Zakuul, or what. But Mita's doing Good Shit when that rad cat man's around. Hell, it might be that he just doesn't want to disappoint his new friend. But like, they're actually a STELLAR team friendship-wise. Mita's actually Relaxed enough to get shit done efficiently, do LIGHTSIDED SHIT, and he basically ONLY brings Jorgan when he goes raiding star fortresses. Kaliyo and Scorpio are higher up on Mita's 'would send out alone' list, but only because he worked with Kaliyo when he and Phaeyla got assigned to each other, and Scorpio was HIS team member.

Even with that though, Mita's reputation among Alliance personnel isn't a Kind one. He's terrifying, volatile and quick to snap at anyone and everyone who gets on his nerves. People avoid him in the halls unless they Absolutely Need Him, and there's ABSOLUTELY a network of people you can ask as a 'where's the Commander now' if you really need to spend the day Avoiding Him.

He's also leaned Heavily into the aesthetic of Big Scary. Dressed like a Sith all in black and white and grey (and a Republic insignia on his belt just for the added cognitive dissonance that gives him), with a Delightfully Menacing Helmet that makes him nigh unreadable. The voice modulation is something he Knows how to use to make himself more intimidating, and he knows how to hold himself to make Pointed Silence into something that can cause fear. He really leaned into that 'scaring people into working for you' thing, which isn't sustainable, and he KNOWS it isn't, but he's hoping to get shit done fast enough that it won't MATTER how unsustainable that type of leadership is.

He's Stressed and Tired and Angry, and he's going down a deep dark hole. He needs to be fckn, sat down and Confronted about where he's going because he MADE that choice to be better, on BALMORRA. It cost him his free will, his autonomy, and his identity. He was PHYSICALLY unable to say his own name without his upper body motor function locking up, for a long time, because it was part of the programming of his implants. He gave Everything up to be Better, and it took so much to get those things back, and now he's squandering it all by falling back into who he used to be.

He needs some Time to Chill The Fuck Out, an Intervention for what he's doing with himself, and a goddam nap.

Knife Baby is Stressed Out. He's the Team Medic. He was never designed to be In Charge, and it took its toll Very Quickly, and it's devolved into something Brutal and Unsustainable. Which is why this is an AU, and why my Canon Commander for the timeline is Zal.

Zal's a good leader, good under pressure, patient and fair almost to a fault, and a good person.

Mita can't handle the strain, and he KNOWS it. But he's doing it anyways, and will drag the people around him down with him if it means he'll win in the end. And in the mean time, he's frustrated, volatile, and Not Very Fun To Be Around.