#anyways Tuya is every duplicitous short control freak latina girl representation ever

[blood-starved-beast]

No one really talks about this comic but I’ve been reading Monstress (2015) lately and I can’t stop thinking about Tuya and Maika. I’ve only read up to Issue 35 at this point so my preceptions could change as I catch up but it’s fascinating how despite being the person who arguably knows Maika the best, the one Maika outright admits knows all her secrets, Tuya is the one most unhesistant to betray her.

Granted, it took Tuya years to actually do the betraying necessary, but when she was once again given the opportunity she takes the shot and gives her the poison Corvin refused to do. I can’t help but think of the rationale in that in being the person who knows Maika (at least, an earlier version of Maika) the best, Tuya has grounds to fear her the most.

Tuya was there in Constantine. She saw the damage Maika and Zinn wrought the first time, the explosion that either directly or indirectly leveled a city and killed 100,000. She saw the lengths a teenage Maika was willing to take to get answers about her past (a past Tuya intentionally hid, I might add. In some way). The blackouts, and the violence. She knew (at least, prior to current events) that Maika would go out of control and people will be dead. That, to a very young girl as she was in Constantine, is traumatizing. It’s horrifying. It will happen again if the prophecies are to be believed.

It is also no secret that people want to weaponize that. One could count in one (1) hand the amount of people trustworthy enough in the comic that wouldn’t want to weaponize Maika and Zinn in some manner or form. All others want her destroyed. Maika is a target, either way she’s becoming someone’s puppet or is going down. Tuya, the Baroness of Last Dusk, knows this well. And Tuya, in her need for control, believes herself to be the best person involved to make that decision - she after all, would be in direct control of the body, Maika is after all “asleep.” It is a better choice than the alternative. She is, the best alternative. 

It is such an interesting thread. This theme of control, and autonomy. Who has control, who has power. Maika has all this physical power, but is she really in control?