#communications officer doug eiffel

[frog-dinosaur]

Yay I finished Wolf 359!! :'D

[twerlint]

Call it my (if a tad unfinished) gift to you all for Dougmas! Cheers and triple white chocolate mochas with extra whipped cream to yall!

[Audio Transcript from the end credits of Rogue Runners]

[bow-of-aros]

Day Four: Hide and Seek

Summary: Look. All Eiffel needs to do is stay quiet enough in order to survive until tomorrow with his dignity intact. He can totally do this.

(Spoiler alert: He absolutely cannot do this.)

-

Hey folks! After a supremely unhelpful poll, I ended up landing on Wolf 359 for this prompt! So this is for everyone who voted for Lovelace and Eiffel! To everyone else, I hope that you still enjoy this last-minute submission <33

-

Okay. Okay okay okay. This is fine! Everything is totally fine.

These were the thoughts flying through Doug Eiffel’s head as he flung himself through the echoing halls of the Hephaestus. Halls that he currently wished would be a little less echoey as a clang sounded when he swung around a corner a little too fast.

He just needs to find somewhere to hide. As long as he can do that, he can stay quiet, and if he can stay quiet, then maybe he won’t die.

Yeah, folks. This is a life-or-death situation.

There’s something stalking him. Always just far enough out of sight that when Eiffel turns his head, there’s nothing there except for the prickling sensation of being watched.

Another corner flies by and he finally sees what he’s been racing toward.

The blessed storage closet.

And it’s not just any storage closet! It’s far enough from any essential room that nobody had ever bothered to actually store anything useful in there. It was mostly stuffed with useless things like loose screws and fire extinguishers.

The point is, it’s where Eiffel goes whenever he wants to avoid a Minkowski rampage, so it’s the perfect spot to wait out any potential catastrophic disasters.

Eiffel throws the door open before frantically scrambling to catch it so it doesn’t slam against the wall because that would be bad. He manages to snag the latch on his fingers before irreversible damage could be wrought.

A quiet click sounds as he eases the door shut, and Eiffel is left in darkness.

“Officer Eiffel? Why exactly are you hiding in the storage closet?”

“OH— Shit! Hera!” Eiffel hisses, nearly sending a box of something probably very loud flying, “Shhhhhh! Not so loud!”

“Uhhhhhhh… Okay?” Hera lowered her voice to a whisper, “Why are you hiding? Does it have something to do with—”

“No! It has nothing to do with anything! I’m being unfairly and unjustly persecuted for no reason! I’m being hunted for sport and if she finds me she’ll tear me limb from limb!”

Hera has this special ability to make even her silence feel judgmental. Eiffel can practically hear the disbelieving eyebrow raise through the whirring of the engine.

“Wow. Unfairly and unjustly. Sounds like a big deal,” Was that a clang? Did Eiffel just hear a clang?! “So I definitely shouldn’t tell Lovelace where you’re hiding, right? Because she’s been giving me some pretty good offers in return for your location.”

“What?! No you can’t tell her!” Eiffel’s pushing the boundaries of what’s considered whispering, but this is important goddammit!

Then, from a distance, “Eiffel? Eiffeeeelllll?”

Oh fuck. She’s here.

“Hera. Hera! You can’t say anything! I’m your best friend.”

Silence.

“I’ll do my work without complaining to you for a whole week!”

“Deal.”

Yeah. Of course.

Eiffel pulls himself behind a shelf, doing his best to breathe as silently as humanly possible. So for a second, he listens for her footsteps, before remembering that they’re on a space station with zero gravity and they don’t have footsteps.

“Come out come out wherever you are! I just wanna have a little chat!”

Ha! Not a chance. Eiffel’s learned the hard way not to trust Lovelace’s little chats. It’s honestly impressive how someone can sound so innocent and so totally evil at the same time.

“I know that you ate the last of the graham crackers on board. You know that those are my favourites!”

She couldn’t know that. Not for sure!

“I know, because you wrote Eiffel wuz here first. Suck it Lovelace! On the box.”

Oh. Yeah.

“So, you can come on out, and we can talk about this like adults. Or,” She pauses, mischief colouring her voice, “I can come find you, and you can suffer the consequences.”

A beat. Two. Then, a disappointed sigh.

“Fine. Have it your way.”

Suddenly, the door whooshes open, and there stands Isabel Lovelace, haloed by the fluorescent lights like some sort of avenging angel.

Eiffel had never been the religious type.

He kicks against the wall, rocketing himself past her with a wild, “YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME ALI—Nonononono! Lovelace wahahahahait”

He’d barely gotten past her when she caught him around the waist, reeling him in before clawing her hands into his stomach. A tactic that he found very unfair, by the way.

So, he told her exactly that.

“Wait! Shitshitshihihit dohohohon’t! How did you even—” A lightbulb, “Hera you trahahaitor!”

“Who, me?” The traitor’s voice sounded above him, not even trying to sound sympathetic to his plight, “I didn’t say a thing!”

Lovelace snorted, “Yeah, she just flashed the light outside the closet a bunch of times until I got the hint. Not that I needed the help.”

“Yeah, well, I figured that it couldn’t hurt.”

How could they just have a casual conversation while Eiffel is here DYING?! Lovelace has moved one of her hands up to his neck, her fluttering fingers eliciting panicked squeals amidst the cackling.

“Okay! Okayokayokay I’m sohohohorry!”

Lovelace slows, although she doesn’t stop, so Eiffel takes the opportunity to catch his breath a little bit.

“Are you sure?”

“Yehehehes!”

“Are you really sure?”

“I’m reheheheally sure! I prohohomise!”

“But are you really super duper—”

“YES! Yes I’m suhuhure!”

She pauses for a moment, “Hmmmmm. Alright.”

And then she… Doesn’t let go.

This can’t be good.

“Well! I really should be getting to work! Soundwaves to look at, things to communicate with! All in a day’s work for your friendly neighbourhood communications officer.”

Eiffel tries to pry Lovelace’s hands away from him to very little effect. Yeah, that’s just about what he expected.

“You do know that I still need to punish you, right? I mean, you finished my favourite snack.”

“But—”

“And,” She continues as though he hadn’t even spoken, “I did say that there would be consequences if I had to come and find you. Can’t have it going around that I’m not a woman of my word, can I?”

And the hands that had been resting so calmly on his sides dug in, making Eiffel scream in a way that even the Empty Man himself hadn’t managed before falling back into shrieking laughter.

Then, without missing a beat, Lovelace leaned in real close and spoke into his ear,

“Eiffel? Never try to hide from me again.”

And, well, he won’t make a promise that he can’t keep, so he just keeps on laughing.

[commsroom]

something really gets to me about eiffel and hera talking to themselves while addressing each other - in am i alone now? and the watchtower in particular. i can't say this to you, but you're still the person i want to tell it to. i know there's no way you can hear me, but if you can...

eiffel talks to himself a lot, and he is very used to being alone with no one paying much attention to the things he says, so i'm not sure he ever realized exactly how much until he was on the hephaestus. in the early days of the mission, i imagine hera responded to a lot of eiffel's asides and sort of embarrassed them both. and then that sort of... shifted. their relationship shifted, they got comfortable being around each other, and eiffel's conversations with himself started including hera, too. i like the idea of that as an establishing moment: that, at some point, there was a first time eiffel said something in an empty room, and hera was so used to him talking to himself that she didn't realize it was meant for her, and he asked her, "hera? are you there?"

i imagine hera still talked to eiffel, too, when they all thought he was dead. with each day increasingly longer and more difficult, that she would vent her frustrations to the empty comms room the same way he would've encouraged her to when he was there. she can't talk to anyone the way she can talk to him, and they just... keep talking to each other, even when they can't. they are so much a part of each other, the voice of encouragement and comfort in each other's heads. for so long, all they can really do for each other is talk, and they maintain that connection even in absence. they ask each other "are you there?" like reaching for each other's hands in the dark.

[officerdougeiffel]

when eiffel is talking to bob in ep 54, bob says that the captain of the previous ship that encountered them valued music more than anything else. in change of mind its shown that music is also special to lovelace, she only ever relaxes when listening to music. minkowski loves musicals and musical theatre

all the ships that encountered the aliens had people who hold music dear to their hearts. but from what I gathered they were the only ones on their crews to be like this. except minkowskis crew, because eiffel also loves music

(image IDs under cut)

[image ID] 1st picture. a screenshot of the transcript for episode 54 of wolf 359.

BOB : THIS.

He SNAPS HIS FINGERS AND-

In a corner of the room, a RECORD PLAYER COMES TO LIFE. It begins to play Beethoven's SONATA PATHETIQUE. Eiffel FROWNS, confused.

BOB (CONT'D) : THE FIRST TIME WE ENCOUNTERED YOUR SPECIES. THE MISSION LEADER, COMMANDER ZHANG, SHE VALUED THIS TECHNOLOGY MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE.

2nd picture. a screenshot of the transcript for wolf 359 change of mind.

LOVELACE : All right. See you in a few.

She floats upwards, looks down... sees the tiny figure of Lambert growing smaller and smaller... And then she looks up. The song she listened to last time begins to play. She's at peace.

3rd picture. a screenshot of the character bio for minkowski.

An immigrant of Eastern European origins, Lieutenant Commander Renée Minkowski is an accomplished pilot, expert tactician, and closeted lover of musical theatre.

4th picture. a screenshot of the transcript for episode 54 of wolf 359.

EIFFEL (CONT'D) : Well, Bob my man... you gotta check out some of the latest advancements. Otis Redding. Zeppelin. Taylor.

(snaps his fingers)

Sir Mix-A-Lot. I think he's been doing some ot the best scientific work of the last fifty years.

[ID end]

[occudo]

✨ Happy Birthday, Communications Officer Doug Eiffel! ✨

Commission for the lovely @commsroom , thank you again!!

[specialagentartemis]

Something always fascinating to me is the "character who thinks they're in a different genre" phenomenon. The theme of the story you are telling determines what the right and wrong actions to take are; but the characters, reacting in-universe to the situation, don't know what story they're in, and the exact same responses can be what saves you or damns you depending on what kind of story the author is telling and what the story's message is about what life is like.

In Wolf 359, Warren Kepler approaches the mysterious and powerful aliens with threats; he kills their liaison and tries to position himself as a powerful opponent. However, he's shown to be wrong and making things worse: his preemptive aggression is unwarranted and unhelpful and bites him in the ass. The aliens want to communicate and understand humanity and share our music. It's Doug Eiffel, the pacifistic (and kind of scaredy-cat) communications officer who loves to talk and share pop culture, who talks to them and understands that the aliens are scary not because they want to kill us but because they don't understand the concepts of individuals and death. Talking to them, communicating with them, understanding where they're coming from and and bringing them to understand a human point of view, is what succeeds. Openness rather than suspicion, trust rather than aggression. Kepler thinks he's a dramatic space marine protecting the Earth from the alien threat by showing them humans are tough and can take them, but that's not the kind of story this is.

Conversely, in Janus Descending, Chel is in awe of the strange and beautiful alien world around her. She wants to touch it, understand it, get up close to it. When she sees a crystal alien dog, she wants to befriend it, despite Peter's warning. But when she gets close to it, extending her arm in greeting, it attacks her and drags her down into the cave to try to eat her. This sets the inevitable tragedy in motion. Suspicion is warranted; trust will get you killed. Because this is a sci-fi horror, with a major running thematic reading about how racism and sexism will destroy your brain and your society, and how the people who think they're too smart to be prejudiced don't see their own prejudice and will end up ruining the lives of the people they still don't fully see as equals, this kind of trust that Chel shows this strange alien is tragic. However it is also a horror story where there are very real hibernating space snakes ready to wake up and eat the fresh meat that has landed on their planet, and by being too trusting Chel has accidentally introduced herself to one.

Kepler, suspicious and ready to shoot any alien he doesn't understand, would likely have survived Janus Descending; Chel, with her enthusiasm for learning about and meeting aliens, would have been a wonderful and helpful member of the Wolf 359 crew.

In a similar manner, in Alien, Ellen Ripley yells to the rest of her crew not to bring the attacked crewmember with the alien on his face back on the ship and into the medical bay, you don't know what contamination that thing might have; she's ignored. She tells them not to let the crewmember out of quarantine even though he seems fine; she's ignored again. Ripley is the one person protesting this isn't safe, we don't know what's going on, and she is consistently ignored, until an alien bursts out of her crewmate's chest and then eats everyone and Ripley is proven to be right and also the only survivor. (And it turns out that the science officer consistently overriding her protests was an android sent by the company that contracted them, and said android was given orders to bring the alien back so the company could study it and do weapons development with it, try not to let the crew find out about it, and kill them if he had to in order to do so!)

Ripley's paranoia and mistrust of the situation was correct, because Alien is a space horror and the theme is in space no one can hear you scream (also corporations consider you expendable).

Conversely, in All Systems Red, we have a damaged and almost-combat-overridden Murderbot being brought back into the PreservationAux hab medical bay after being attacked by other SecUnits. Gurathin becomes the one person protesting this isn't safe, we don't know what's going on, he doesn't want to let Murderbot out because it's hacked and probably sabotaging them for the company contracted their security and sent it with them. Gurathin thinks he is the Ellen Ripley here! He is trying to warn his teammates not to make a dangerous mistake that will get everyone killed!

However, All Systems Red is a very different story than Alien, and Murderbot is neither a traitor on behalf of the company to sabotage them and steal alien remnants for weapons development, nor a threat to the humans - it's a friend, it's a good person, and it wants to help them against both companies willing to screw them over. Trusting it and helping it is the right thing to do and is what saves their lives. Gurathin is proven to be wrong.

If everyone on the Nostromo crew had listened to Ellen Ripley, they would still be alive (except Kane. RIP Kane), because this is a horror story about being isolated and hunted and going up against this horrifying thing that wants to kill and eat you and just keeps getting stronger. If everyone on the PreservationAux team listened to Gurathin, they would all be dead, because this is a story about friendship and teamwork and trust and overcoming trauma and accepting the personhood of someone very different from you.

Same responses. Different context. And so very different moral conclusions.

Warren Kepler was about how the brash violent over-confident approach to things you don't understand is wrong, and that openness and developing that understanding between people is what's important; Chel was about the tragedy of trust destroying a Black woman who wanted so much to believe in a world that could be kind and beautiful. Ripley was about a woman whose expertise and safety warnings were ignored and brushed aside and everyone who did so died because of it; Gurathin was about how even justified fear shouldn't mean you make someone else a scapegoat and mistrust them because they seem scary.

Sometimes you're in the wrong genre because you need to be, because the author is trying to show how not to react to the situation they set up in order to build the mood and the theme they're trying to convey.

[vampireonthestairs]

okay i’ve listened to exactly two episodes of midnight burger but i would do anything for her (gloria). it’s like wolf 359 if doug eiffel was a sad burger flipping podcast man instead of a sad communications officer podcast man

[just-some-guy-joust]

Just Some Guy Joust - Contestants List

Note: This is NOT the order of the brackets. Like with the last tournament, the order of the brackets will be a surprise. This list was randomized from the brackets I set up and does not represent who each character will be up against. The only thing you know for sure which side of the bracket they're on. When the polls go up, they'll be posted in order based on the list here, NOT based on where their brackets actually are!

Round 1 of Side A is over! Round 1 of Side B is CURRENTLY UP!

(Full list of characters in text format is under the cut)

Side A

Sasha James (The Magnus Archives)

Reigen Arataka (Mob Psycho 100) - died round 1

Joy (Underworld Office/Charlie in Underworld) - died round 1

Junpei (Zero Escape)

Horse (Centaurworld)

Phone Guy (FNAF) - died round 1

Gordon Freeman (HLVRAI)

Joshua Gillespie (The Magnus Archives) - died round 1

Namari (Dungeon Meshi)

Shez (Fire Emblem: Three Hopes) - died round 1

Henry Stickmin (Henry Stickmin)

Stanley (The Stanley Parable)

Whole (Chonny Jash's Charming Chaos Compendium) - died round 1

Larry (Pokemon)

Luke Carder (Inscryption) - died round 1

Leorio Paladiknight (Hunter x Hunter) - died round 1

Barry the Quokka (The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog)

Tommy (HLVRAI) - died round 1

Ulala Serizawa (Persona 2: Eternal Punishment) - died round 1

April O'Neil (TMNT - All versions)

Tsuzuru Minagi (Act! Addict! Actors!) - died round 1

Matt (Woe.Begone)

Gilear Faeth (Fantasy High - Dimension 20)

Apollo Justice (Ace Attorney)

Emmet Brickowski (The LEGO Movie) - died round 1

Stahl (Fire Emblem: Awakening)

Doug Eiffel (Wolf 359) - died round 1

Jack Townsend (Tales from the Gas Station) - died round 1

Frisk (Undertale) - died round 1

Brian Pasternack (Yuppie Psycho)

Trevor Hills (American Arcadia)

Barry Bluejeans (The Adventure Zone: Balance) - died round 1

Side B

Carol Kohl (Carol and The End of The World)

Jaehee Kang (Mystic Messenger) - died round 1

Paul Matthews (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals)

Emma Perkins (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals) - died round 1

Su Moting (God Troubles Me) - died round 1

Satou Hiroshi (Disastrous Life of Saiki K.)

Chilchuck Tims (Dungeon Meshi) - died round 1

Michelle Nguyen (Welcome to Night Vale)

Tad Strange (Gravity Falls)

Colin Robinson (What We Do in the Shadows) - died round 1

The Bard (Wandersong)

Usopp (One Piece) - died round 1

Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby)

Link (Ocarina of Time) - died round 1

Kazooie (In a Manor of Speaking) - died round 1

Connecticut Clark (FlorkofCows)

Samwise Gamgee (Lord of the Rings)

Hitomi Shizuki (Madoka Magica)

Junpei Iori (Persona 3)

Han Solo (Star Wars) - died round 1

Tomoya Mashiro (Ensemble Stars!) - died round 1

Peter Sqloint (Just Roll With It: Apotheosis)

Cabbage Merchant (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Marta Cabrera (Knives Out) - died round 1

Greg Universe (Steven Universe)

Yuuki Mishima (Persona 5) - died round 1

Gingerbrave (Cookie Run) - died round 1

Arthur Dent (Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy) - died round 1

Elsen (OFF)

Mob (Mob Psycho 100)

Tadano Hitohito (Komi Can't Communicate) - died round 1

Rung (Transformers - IDW Continuity) - died round 1

[st-peculiar]

I’m relistening to the mini episodes of wolf 359 today and I would like to remind you all of the fact that Communications Officer Doug Eiffel enjoys Hawaiian pizza.

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

Sexiest Podcast Character — Scripted Bracket — Round 4

Propaganda

Hera (Wolf 359):

I don't care if she's an AI with no physical form, she is HOT

my digital wife <3

oh it's always "i want a hot computergirl with poor cable management to glitch on my shit" and "i want to fuck her until she bluescreens" on this website until it's time to put your money where your mouth is. i have a post about usb penetration with tens of thousands of notes. i see the things you all say. you have a hot computergirl in front of you and this is how you all repay her? you would abandon her? prove yourselves as the computer sex website; vote for hera NOW!!!

Renée Minkowski (Wolf 359):

killed a man with a harpoon while bleeding from a gut shot. you can't argue with that kind of sex appeal

There is a scene where the main character Doug Eiffel expresses his surprise at the fact that Minkowski, his commanding officer, has a husband. It's probably intended to be read as "Oh wow, she's such an uptight and boring stickler for rules, how could she have found someone to marry", but in my heart it is because she's so butch that Eiffel's brain is short-circuiting trying to figure out how it's not a wife back home. That is sexy!

Commander Renee Minkowski didn't survive for five years on a collapsing space station where the LEAST of her problems were a mad scientist using her coms officer as a petri dish and a plant monster living in the walls, memorize all 1001 rules of Price and Carter's Deep Space Survival Procedure's and Protocols AND manage to gain Communication Officer Douglas "Dougie Fresh" Eiffel's respect to lose to some "sexy" British man. Go my followers! A vote for Minkowski is a vote for all women stuck in sci-fi horror space stations!

Vote Minkowski! What's sexier than a woman of authority? They call her "Sir" and they MEAN IT. She is in charge of this disaster. She IS the very model of a modern major general. She is everything to me <3

How dare you not add Renae’s monster hunting a plant monster for a month canonically in the sex appeal. For shame. Jk jk.

[twerlint]

There is so much love in my body for this man and this silly little show with all the little guys in space <3<3<3

[echoes-through-the-void]

Lil sketch of communications officer Doug Eiffel

[commsroom]

OK I need you to point me to the nearest entry point into this fandom. I don’t know what this is, but you popped up on my dash.. and I need to know what this is. Please lead the way.

oh!! that's exciting. yes. okay!! wolf 359 is a science fiction audio drama about the isolated and questionably competent crew of a deep space research station, the u.s.s. hephaestus. the initial four characters are comms officer doug eiffel, 'everyman' pop culture guy who really, really hates his job; commander minkowski, who cares about her job and the rulebooks that come with it a little too much, and desperately wants to feel like she's keeping everything under control; dr. hilbert... eccentric? station medical officer and mad scientist whose methods and mission objectives are not entirely above board; and hera, the station's mother program, who struggles with her job and the ways she's perceived by others.

there are other characters who show up later - i would say only three of the above characters are "main" characters, while the actual fourth main character is introduced in s2 - but that requires way more context, and i don't want to get into spoilers, obviously.

wolf 359 is a character drama - it's my personal gold standard for character writing - and the brief descriptions i gave you are the most surface, surface level parts of them. the writers once said something about it, like... that they weren't interested in subverting typical sci-fi character archetypes so much as looking at them and asking "why would a real person behave that way?" and i think it really worked. whether i like them or not, they all feel like real people to me. it has great sound design and a lot of "physicality" in the performances for an audio-only show, which i think comes down to gabriel urbina's film background and the way the scripts are written and performed. (and alan rodi's incredible soundtrack and sense for music cues.) you can't see a lot of what's in the scripts, but they're acted out in a way that you can kinda feel it anyway. i love that.

here's a fan made trailer that i think captures a lot of the right energy. it's a show about a lot of things, but some of the primary themes are communication + music, and i think the collaborative nature of the show itself adds something very sincere to that. it's also about corporate and medical exploitation, resisting dehumanization, what makes us human, connection, identity and autonomy, guilt and accountability, the stories people tell themselves to justify who they are or what they feel it's necessary for them to do, and, of course, the enduring philosophical question: "what's wrong with handcuffs?"

you can check it out at the website i linked above, or anywhere you can listen to podcast feeds! it's free, but they added ads a few years ago, which i hate, so you can pay a dollar here for the ad-free feed if that'll make a big difference in your ability to enjoy it: https://www.patreon.com/Wolf359Radio

it's a sequential story, nothing you really need to know about listening order except that i recommend not skipping the mini episodes (they have important character context and are where they are in the feed for a reason) (with the exception of mission mishaps ones near the end; those are comedy bonus episodes you can listen to whenever) and that you should definitely watch the live show after ep 26 and listen to special episode change of mind between s3 and s4.

i also have a folder here of every recording script where i edited any parts that were different from the show's dialogue + added transcripts for the ones that didn't have available recording scripts, if that's something you'd find useful! i also recommend checking them out just to see what i mean about how they're written.

the first season is pretty short, so i'd say stick with it until at least episode 12/13 (two part finale) if you can - i love the first season, personally, but that's the point it really becomes serialized, and so that's where i think you can safely say if it's something that's going to capture your interest or not. ... and that's it! sorry this is kind of an essay, but i got excited about it. i hope you love the show, please keep me updated, and let me know if there's anything else!!

[nobodysdaydreams]

Thinking again about the parallels between Cutter and Pryce and Eiffel and Hera as characters and in terms of the dynamics of their relationships

Because Cutter is the Director of Communications and Eiffel is a communications officer.

Because Pryce is the AI Specialist and Hera is the AI modeled after her and they have the exact same voice.

Because Cutter and Eiffel both help Pryce and Hera communicate when they have communication difficulties (Cutter by handling the "people" aspects of their partnership, and Eiffel by helping Hera when she was dealing with everything Pryce and Hilbert did to her).

Because Pryce and Hera both struggle with disabilities (Pryce with the ones she was born with and Hera with the ones Pryce built into her design), and Cutter and Eiffel still view them as incredibly smart and capable even when others do not or did not because of these issues.

Because Cutter and Eiffel both drink and smoke and struggle to let go of have similar "bad habits" (though Cutter found a way to dodge the negative side effects and make his vices look "classy" so he doesn't have to try to fight the temptation like Eiffel does🙄)

Because Cutter and Eiffel both do ridiculous silly things despite the intensity of their situations that Pryce and Hera, as "serious" as they are, find endearing and occasionally indulge in, like Eiffel's fake radio show that he did with Hera and Cutter's silly tips in his manual that he wrote with Pryce. (Also the fact that Cutter dragged A GRAND PIANO onto the space station just to play it dramatically that one time for vibes, I'm sorry that was too extra).

Because Pryce and Hera both hold grudges against people they feel have wronged or humiliated them (although arguably Pryce has no ground to stand on, she still feels the need to show up those who have defied her. She insists on calling Hera, who went against her programming, an "it" and tries going against Cutter's orders to attempt revenge, telling Hera "she'll never be rid of her", and after Maxwell betrays Hera, Hera is reluctant to forgive her and coldly tells Eiffel that they "shouldn't throw funerals for animals").

Because Pryce and Hera use similar phrases in different contexts, though the most notable one I can think of is Pryce calling Doug "boy" (derogatory) and Hera calling Doug "good boy" (affectionate).

Because Cutter was scared when Pryce was in danger and Eiffel freaked out whenever Hera was hurt or in pain.

Because when Pryce was in danger, Cutter considered jeopardizing the mission goals for her, and Eiffel gave up his memories for Hera.

Because despite these similarities, there are differences between their relationships and aside from the obvious differences of "yeah they're similar, but Pryce and Cutter are really evil and really old", the other big difference between these sets of characters is Cutter telling Pryce that her one job is to "back his plays" and that the one thing that terrifies him isn't aliens, enemies, or the laws of physics, but her improvising in the moment vs. Eiffel telling Hera that he trusts her "with his life" with no questions asked.

Going insane over these parallels. Scratching at the walls. My favorite space friendship built on mutual love and trust vs. the grossest most immoral "partnership" of all time.

[wolf359comic]

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Image description under cut.

A comic page with three panels, colored with dot tones.

Panel 1: A close-up drawing of a back-lit space station, made of a bunch of different tubular modules and solar panels, in front of an orange start, with the caption "U.S.S. Hephaestus, 1900 hours."

Panel 2: A close-up drawing of one of the individual tubular modules, with radio dishes and antennae and two portholes visible, with a speech bubble that says "This is the audio log of Communications Officer Doug Eiffel."

Panel 3: A close-up of one of the portholes, with the light of the star reflecting in it, and a speech bubble that says "I am speaking to you from the comms room of the U.S.S. Hephaestus Station."