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rocicrew · 1 year ago

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i have too many wips/drafts/pieces of writing i never used anywhere. so im posting them bit by bit because why not. some will be more completed, and some will be unfinished, but i like pieces of writing in them, so im releasing them to the world.

Naomi was usually able to ignore the constant aching of her body. Their destination and her motivation made it easier to do so. If she reminded herself why she was doing this, it made it easier to endure the pain that came with each injection and to endure the strain of every single muscle in her body.

But something during that night cycle had brought a numbness with the aching that scared her.

She’d climbed up on their cabin, curled under the covers hoping the exhaustion would bring her sleep and not the thoughts that edged on the back of her consciousness.

Memories of a lifetime ago, that would serve nothing but further upset her.

Jim entered a while after, having to reply to some messages sent by Avasarala. She hadn’t asked for details, just let him know she was going to lie down.

“Thought you’d be asleep by now”, he said with a groan as he sat on the edge of their bunk and began undressing. First his mag boots and then his jumpsuit.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Naomi watched him, her head resting on her pillow and her eyes trailed on the muscles on his back as he took off his shirt.

He turned then towards her with a question in his eyes.

She smiled at how well he knew her. Once that’d have felt terrifying. It still did at times if she were honest. But it also brought her a comfort that'd been long gone. Even for something as simple as this.

She nodded, carefully sitting up without showing any of the intense discomfort her body felt. But he must have known she wasn't feeling all that well because he was already helping her pass the fabric over her head and through her arms.

If it were anyone else, Naomi would've found the gesture condescending. But when she looked at him he had a gentle smile that had his eye crinkling at the corners, all she felt was an overwhelming affection and couldn't stop herself from letting out a huff of air.

They settled into each other, as they did every night, Naomi with her head pillowed on Holden's shoulder and her arm thrown over his torso. And today even that effort felt exhausting.

“I gave birth on Ceres”, his hand that was stroking up and down her side stilled suddenly but she didn’t hear any comment. If she had to guess she’d assume he didn’t want to stop her from speaking at the rarity that was her opening up.

“Probably wouldn’t have made it anywhere else.” On Pallas, in one of the ships she used to make runs with, she didn’t stand a chance.

There was a calmness in which she said like it wasn’t what actually was but a simple fact.

But it was a fact.

It was the gravity of the situation. The corollary of the lack of consistent gravity growing up. A few years back, when she wasn’t the Naomi she is now, she’d have said that wouldn’t be a bad outcome. It certainly would have spared her the heartbreak.

“Naomi-”

“I remember the room I was in… I was alone, but there was this woman singing some song. Must have been a nurse or…”, an OPA member, the kind that once she would have thought as family.

Please don’t ask me about it, she thought. I can’t tell you anything more.

“I don’t think I could understand the words and I’m not sure if I ever learned her name but I still remember the melody.”

It all seemed out of place. Her confession, the topic, everything about it.

Except it wasn’t.

Because her body ached more than ever and she couldn’t help but revert to the last time she’d felt this bad. Because Jim doesn’t get everything yet, he doesn’t get Marco and all she’d been through but he can get pieces of herself. Because it was an indirect way to ask what she needed.

I was alone then, held together by a stranger's kindness. I was alone and scared and in so much pain and I don’t want to be that now.

(She leaves out the code she wrote just a few days after in a room next door. That is harder to bear than the gravity the planet would soon force on her.)

Naomi almost got lost in the memories. Too vivid. Too painful. Neither, both of them.

However, a low hum pulled her out of it. It was nothing like the melody she remembered but no less comforting. Perhaps even more so.

Because unlike the previous time, there was actual love and care behind it. This man… Truthfully she meant for her memory to be taken more metaphorically but the earnestness of his gesture meant more. His earnestness has always been a source of great affection towards him.

She buried herself further into his arms, letting the rumble of his voice soothe her as it vibrated through his chest.

“Mother Elise used to sing this for me whenever I had a nightmare”, he whispered in between hums. “But I'm not a good singer, clearly.”

His small jest was able to draw a laugh, albeit a small one, even here.

“Well, I've heard worse.”

“That's comforting.”

“No, keep going. It's nice. I like it.”

Jim leaned down to press a gentle kiss right at her hairline before resuming with her request.

His steady hand on her side, his deep pleasant scent, the soft material of his shirt on her shoulder and the tone of his voice grounded her back to their small cot better than anything that day.

Every ache and bruising stopped feeling like a distant sensation and came back to here and now. Feeling like her body once again.

In the midst of all that, she hadn't paid attention to the new warmth of the blanket that now enveloped her or had realised how much effort it took to keep her eyes still open.

Before she drifted asleep, she heard Jim whisper, "You're alone anymore. You'll always have me," but the exhaustion overwhelmed her and before she had a chance to wonder if she'd spoken any of her thoughts out loud, she fell into dreams of planets and gravity wells and a different life that would've never belonged to her.

#nolden #For some reason the mention of that in ng i think has stuck with me so it kind of turned into this #past memories will always be complicated and painful for naomi but sometimes despite that #each admission doesn't have to be a grand one even if the underlying emotions are #mine : fics.

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moocowmoocow · 3 years ago

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February Femslash 04 - Fairies

Anna x Nono

There was so much work to do at the refugee camp and so little daylight as clouds continued to blot out the sun. Anna didn’t realize how late it had gotten until she saw other families begin whatever bedtime rituals they could put together in a tent city.

She turned herself toward the tent her family shared with two others. She passed the infirmary and heard the groans of the sick and most likely dying. It was a sign that once again, they must be running low on medical supplies. She traded an interview with the reporter for food and supplies. If they were running out already, it meant that not even Madame Avasarala herself could get her hands on medicine.

That was not good.

When she entered the tent, she heard Nami crying. Nono curled around their daughter, trying to comfort her. “See, Nami? I told you she was coming.”

She saw the tears in Nami’s eyes and felt regret that it took her so long to come home. She laid down next to them in their makeshift bed, wiping her daughter’s tears away and kissing the top of her head. “I’m sorry I was late.”

She knew the tears were a symptom both of being overly tired and fighting bedtime and the stress they had all been through the last few months. She wished she had the words to calm her daughter, to calm the planet, the universe. She could do nothing but wrap her arms around her. “Would you like a story before bed?”

Nami shook her head. “No. No fairies.”

Nono looked over at Anna in disbelief. Nami had been obsessed with fairies lately, ever since one of the childcare workers had told her a story about Cinderella. “Why not?” Anna asked.

“They’re not here. They don’t help,” Nami said before starting to cry again.

All Anna could do hold her while she cried and tell her that both of her mothers would be with her. Eventually, she fell asleep. Nono reached out and rubbed her hand up and down Anna’s arm. ��Did you eat?”

Anna nodded.

“She’s right, you know,” Nono said quietly. “There’s not going to be a magical cure for Earth. What kind of life can we give her?”

This was an argument the two of them had been having for the past few weeks as conditions deteriorated on Earth. Nono wanted to book passage on a ship heading toward one of the new colonies in the rings now that the Free Navy was defeated. Anna felt she needed to help as many people as she could on Earth.

She knew Nono was right. Both of their skills were needed on the new planets and Nami deserved to grow up not surrounded by starvation, sickness and death. She closed her eyes. “I’ll check with the church if they need missionaries.”

Nono knew how hard of a decision that was for her. She squeezed Anna’s arm in thanks. Anna hid her face in her daughter’s hair to hide her tears.

#anna volovodov #nono volovodov #nami volovodov #the expanse #anna x nono #femslash february

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starfleetdoesntfirefirst · 4 years ago

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Popping back into disco fandom after a busy week and decided to give my incomprehensible meta from earlier this week a reblog; however, discovered that this webbed site hid it and realized that, despite my scrupulously including no links, it very likely was hidden because of my tongue-in-cheek use of a certain phrase, so decided to just repost instead sans webbed site phrase. Anyway,

Thinking about the degree to which Cpt. Georgiou’s story is about kindness and integrity, and the degree to which that means that (long before the events of later in the season make this incredibly explicit) it is therefore about the enemy within.

Like any self-respecting Star Trek captain fangirl, I have firm opinions on Georgiou’s Coolest Moments, Most Underrated Qualities, etc. The moment that beats out of a hell of a lot of Cool Underrated Moments/Qualities to reach second-place, extremely-close-to-first place for me is the moment when she tells Burnham that retreat is not an option not only because they’re in Federation space but also because they are the only line of defense for the space station and the Andorian colony behind them.

It’s not really a quotable-quote, but to me, it’s one of her most awesome moments, because it’s what makes much of the rest of the pilot episodes an awesome story about a captain and her crew looking out for innocent people, rather than about a captain risking and ultimately losing her ship and multiple members of her crew for the sake of space!diplomatic posturing.

But my first-place Underrated Georgiou Moment is the one that it’s tempting to call that moment’s inverse: We don’t start shooting on a hunch, and we don’t take innocent lives, period.

Georgiou looks out for the people on the base behind her, and she looks out for people in the starship confronting hers, which is only the inverse of looking out for innocent people if you’re willing to stake their lives on the assumption that they are not innocent.

<food/diet talk> I once read an advice column where someone had written in to say that they wanted to eat more ‘healthy food,’ but that fast and processed food was faster, cheaper, and better-tasting. The advice columnist began their response with Well, you’re right–fast food is faster, cheaper, and better-tasting! At the time, having grown up with years of war-on-obesity type messages about how home-cooked fresh-vegetable-based meals were in fact Faster and Cheaper and More Delicious than fast food, I clutched my pearls at this.

What the advice columnist said was, of course, in many contexts, correct. We tell our children that fresh food is always cheap and easy to prepare and will save them, </food/diet talk> and that kindness feels good and pleasant and makes their lives better, and sometimes it does, but sometimes it’s brutal and painful and entirely capable of making things worse. I think one reason I find Georgiou’s Trek Captain StoryTM comforting is because of the way her story as a whole makes me feel less alone in not necessarily associating acting with kindness with feelings of softness or pleasure or fulfillment.

Acting with kindness is so often swallowing a grenade; wrapping your arms around it. Matter can’t be created or destroyed and even in the movies whose directors haven’t seen the Mythbusters episode about how jumping on a grenade probably wouldn’t work anyway, you can’t put the pin back into it. The pain has to go somewhere.

Kindness and integrity are about shouldering the pain–even though you don’t deserve it; even though the very act of taking the pain onto yourself not only hurts you but also might in turn hurt someone else. Or, sometimes, kindness and integrity and supporting someone else are about finding a way to offload some of the weight onto another, different someone-else who doesn’t deserve the pain either but maybe, in this moment, is more capable of shouldering it than the person you’re looking out for would be. Kindness is entirely capable of wounding its practitioners, or, to paraphrase Seven of Nine: It’s hopeless and pointless and exhausting, and the only thing worse would be giving up.

Despite all those poems about women being wolves (the idea of wolves), and letting our teeth drip with blood and thorns grow from our hair, much of the time the person in the path of our aching teeth is not the person who deserves to cut by them. Have you ever wished someone, a good person!, ‘Good morning,’ and gotten a perhaps-justified glare from their exhaustion-smudged eyes? Because they’re in such a bad mood, because they’re in so much pain, because of course they would have glared at anyone who spoke to them? Except that, of course, it turns out they were quite capable of warmly greeting their boss or their lover or the more valued–and less visibly disabled–person who walks into the room after you. Even justified rage and pain and desire, when released indiscriminately, often do discriminate.

Near the end of Discovery Season 1, I remember reading a review that encapsulated Mirror Georgiou as being mirror-universe-evil but also a better strategist than Prime Georgiou, because she was quicker on the uptake than Prime Georgiou had been when Burnham spoke with each of them, respectively, about the current relevant threats. But deciding who is better at threat assessment necessitates defining what is a threat.

There’s a piece of fan art I’ve always wanted to paint if a) I had significantly greater art skill, b) I had the literal weeks it would take to paint a multi-panel art piece, and c) art on the theme of ‘person protecting someone else with their body’ didn’t inevitably come across looking like the “this is so sad” poorly-scaled soldier protecting cartoon toddler meme: Captain Georgiou and a small Shenzhou, a la all those sick Janeway-chilling-with-small-floating-Voyager-in-space artworks, standing in space with the space station behind her and the Klingon fleet in front of her. She is protecting the space station behind her from war; in subsequent panels, the viewpoint revolves around her and the little Shenzhou, and the images behind her shift to show the people we know and love on the Discovery–Culber and Stamets kissing; Burnham and Stamets releasing the tardigrade back into space; everything we recognize from ST:DSC’s Federation as innocent and loveable and worth protecting.

But as we circle back around to the same viewpoint again, the images shift. Instead of the Klingon fleet in front of Georgiou and the Shenzhou, we see the innocent people living their lives on Qo’noS; behind her, we see Mirror Georgiou bombing the rebel base; Mirror Georgiou preparing to execute Burnham; Cornwell and Sarek working with Mirror Georgiou to destroy Qo’noS; Qo’noS exploding into fiery nothingness. Is Prime Georgiou defending what is behind her from what is in front of her, or holding back what is behind her to protect the rest of the universe?

What is a Star Trek captain’s coolest #Underrated Moment?

Would Captain Georgiou have been able to effect more net positive good in the universe if she’d been just a bit more ruthless, a bit less Captain Kirk and a bit more Chrisjen Avasarala from The Expanse, and had elbowed her way up in the ranks to become an admiral by the time of the war? Maybe! To quote another advice column: “Should” Éowyn have stayed behind in Edoras to be Queen? Probably.

(Because that one’s a complimentary quote and Tumblr will hide the post if I link: “Commander Logic tells you how to get unstuck,” captain awkward dot com, which I do not endorse entirely as an advice site but which definitely has its moments.)

But then, of course, there’s no woman-Hobbit tag team to kill the Witch-King of Angmar (who is most definitely not Innocent People), and then maybe Admiral Georgiou helps create a better Federation that flawlessly averts the war in the first place and buys all of its citizens a new puppy, or maybe a Georgiou who would make the choice to ruthlessly cut her way to the top is, in fact, the Georgiou we meet at the end of Season 1 who made the choice to ruthlessly cut her way to the top and now stands there, using a mirrored Starfleet to control a mirrored universe.

Here is the story we got instead: Georgiou was a captain and not an admiral, and she didn’t avert a war, and she lectured Burnham like a child and was space-racist about Saru and didn’t even always wrap her own indiscriminate cruelty and pain and desire safely in her arms.

(And yes, I’ll always be disappointed that we didn’t get seven seasons of Captain Georgiou, or one season of Captain Georgiou and six season of Captain Burnham and background Admiral Georgiou, or… Prime Georgiou isn’t just comforting and hopeful and inspiring; she has flaws and impulsiveness and ruthlessness herself. What would it be like to see the story where she grows?)

But she did not start shooting on a hunch, and she did not take innocent lives. She put her own ruthlessness into the service of holding back what was behind her as much as facing down what was in front of her. She changed the people who she served with and captained, like every other cliched metaphor of ripples in a pond, and when Starfleet became the enemy within, and partnered with her own mirrored enemy within to try to kill millions of innocent adults and babies and children, it was the woman who had been the Shenzhou’s first officer who was the first to stand and say No, and the woman who had been the Shenzhou’s pilot who was the second.

I enjoyed seeing Mirror Georgiou stab Mirror Lorca as much as I enjoyed seeing Éowyn stab the Witch-King of Angmar. I don’t have a problem with the power part of power fantasy. But sometimes the Underrated Moment looks uncool. Sometimes the only way to act with integrity is to give something up rather than to Stand Up For Yourself The Way You Deserve, and the only way to look out for someone else hurts you in a way that is painful and awful and unfair. Even the most satisfying power fantasy is still a fantasy.

I would have preferred to see Lorca live and stand trial for crimes against humanity not for his sake but because a Terran Empire that condoned death as a consequence for failure is only a mirror to a Federation that condoned life in prison as a consequence for mutiny.

What do you see as Starfleet’s greatest threat?

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avelera · 8 years ago

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That was the price for screwing up. More dead children. So she wouldn’t screw up anymore. She could practically see Arjun, the gentle sorrow in his eyes. It isn’t all your responsibility, he would say. “It’s everyone’s fucking responsibility,” she said out loud.

"Caliban's War" by James SA Corey - The Expanse Hello, have you heard the good word of our queen and savior, Chrisjen Avasarala?

#chrisjen avasarala #avasarala #the expanse #caliban's war #james sa corey #I want to be her when I grow up #that line hit like a punch in the gut #yes it IS your responsibility #everything is all of our responsibilities

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someplace-that-is-else · 5 years ago

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‘Go into a Room Too Fast, the Room Eats You: How I Fell into the Expanse’

If I was being honest…I had never forgiven them.

By them, I mean the Sci-Fi Channel. For what? Cancelling Sliders. It had been my favorite sci-fi show of all time. It was the one that resonated with me. It was a show that inspired me to write. So much so that I did my first fan fiction, fiction done by a fan for a show.

Then there was Farscape. I had no intention of watching that either. Especially after losing Sliders to it I believed. And who would watch a show that was essentially Muppets in Space. Or so I thought. But boy, did it prove me wrong! After avoiding it for the majority of its first season, the finale episodes…and the introduction of a certain leather-clad half-Scarran…caught my eye. I slowly, but surely was hooked…until that was cancelled, too three years later. Never again, I thought.

Since my ‘never again’ pledge, the Sci-Fi Channel had changed. After years of allowing itself to devolve into a channel full of constant movies, reality tv, and wrestling (Wrestling? Really?), SyFy (the name they decided to rebrand themselves as) finally decided to get back to what their purpose was supposed to be: sci-fi…old and most importantly NEW.

One of the new shows was The Magicians. I remembered seeing the book when I was still living in Little Rock, Arkansas in the local library. I never knew it would become a show. More fantasy than sci-fi, but I liked it. Usually it was on Wednesdays.

One Wednesday I happened to be home. I saw the new episode. And then I felt lazy. I allowed my television to stay on the same channel rather than turn it.

I had been looking down. My ears still heard dialogue and sound effects. But I was not paying attention. Then a boom sounded off. I looked up. There was someone on some planet. They were in a space suit. All hell was breaking loose. It was intercut with space. Then I remembered that The Magicians was scheduled with another show called The Expanse. I texted my friend Lee about it since I remember she had mentioned it in passing.

“Turn off the television,” she texted.

“What?” I texted.

She said I couldn’t watch it. That I had to go back and watch it from the beginning. I thought she was being silly on one hand. On the other hand, I wanted to see what happened in the scene that I had just watched. In any case, I turned the channel.

But…I was already intrigued.

About A Girl…Or Is it? The Expanse Season 1

The Expanse took place in a future where Earth and Mars were vouching for power with a people in an asteroid belt (called Belters) caught in the middle. That was what I first started to get as I started on Season 1. Great world building in my opinion, complete with their own ways of speaking, dialogue, and traditions.

And Season 1 was also a slow burn.

A detective on the hunt for a missing rich girl.

A man and his crew who get framed for something they did not do and make an unusual discovery.

A female politician who swore like a sailor who stumbled onto an intergalactic conspiracy. What did they have in common? They were all part of the same story…the discovery of an alien element called the protomolecule.

Not that they realized it. Yet.

If I had to label the first season anything in terms of a genre, I would call it a mystery. Viewers were right there with Detective Miller (played in perfect noir by Thomas Jane) as he went in search of Julie Mao, the daughter of the rich man. Yeah, there was spaceships due to the frame-up on James Holden and his crew. There was the hint of aliens, but for the most part The Expanse stayed very noir with the hint of a conspiracy as provided by the swearing politician Chrisjen Avasarala. As the first season ended, the storylines converged. Three different people were part of the same storyline.

It was a storyline that I continued to follow right into Season 2. Made easy by the fact that the people who wrote the books (James R. A. Corey), it followed quite well alongside the books I heard. I also loved the world building that was going on. The politics of Earth. The culture of people who lived on the Belt. How people from Mars were which was a more military mindset than people from Earth.

I even saw the scene that I saw that one Wednesday. It was to introduce a Martian character named Bobbie. Another storyline introduced into all of this mystery.

And then it happened.

I was on Season 2, Episode 5. I was about to head into work. I had gotten dressed. I was about to turn it off…

…and the episode went left into hard core sci-fi.

The scene I had heard was faithful to the scene in the books that The Expanse was based on. The special effects were breathtaking. The visual was stimulating. Ethereal even. And the dialogue and action were on a whole other level. And storywise, the story of Detective Miller was reaching the end of an arc.

I went on to work. However, the scene stayed on my mind. It was the last scene in that episode. It would be hours before I was home again. Hours before I could watch the next episode. My mind was on all the possibilities of what could happen next. In that moment of seeing how my mind kept coming back to that episode’s end, I knew.

I was hooked.

Gone?: The Expanse Season Three and the Almost Was

I had been late.

And by late, I meant that I had not watched the latest episode.

It was Season Three of The Expanse. After hinting at war between Earth, Mars, and the Belt over the protomolecule, war finally came through in Season Three. Holden and his crew (love interest Naomi, crazy mechanic Amos, pilot Alex) had turned into a nice team as well as become a family. Chrisjen Avasarala had even been roped into, joining the team for an arc.

So of course, the SyFy Channel had to cancel it.

Wait? What?!?

That’s right. Like so many shows before it, SyFy was cancelling The Expanse. After rebranding themselves as a SCIENCE FICTION channel again thanks to this show, DARK MATTERS, KILLJOYS, and good sci-fi miniseries, they were cancelling what was debatably their current flagship (because a case could be made that THE MAGICIANS was that, too) show. After putting my trust in them again, SyFy had gutted me again.

Oh, well. I guess I could try to enjoy the last few episodes of Season Three, right?

I listened. That day I was working out from home. Meanwhile, the latest episode was playing on my laptop. Holden was in a weird environment with what was Detective Miller who SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!...was dead and now part of the protomolecule. In hot pursuit was a team of Martians. And when they all made it to the same spot and despite Bobbie (she was part of the Martian team sent to arrest Holden…long story) playing moderator…all hell broke loose.

And…a Martian was taken completely apart. By an ancient alien defense system. It pulled off the armor, the skin, and then turned him to matter…ash…for the planet. The acting. The effect. The music. It all came together beautifully.

‘Fuck me!’

And I had stopped doing pull-ups. Jaw on floor. And I wondered again…

…what was SyFy thinking cancelling this great show?

---

Sometimes I forget.

Times have changed since the day SLIDERS. Back in the day, fans had to accept that a show was cancelled. Or they would have to write in by letters. Or even send a signatured item.

Not so much anymore. Since 2000, fan bases had gotten more organized. Thank you, internet, for fan bases’ ability to get organized and campaign for a show to come back. To get a network to change its mind about cancelling a show. Dollhouse. Timeless. And the fans of The Expanse…used emails and in the case of Amazon Studios, an airplane.

As luck would have it…the president of Amazon Studios, Jeff Bezos, was a fan of the series. A fan…who wanted to see how the story ended. So…at a panel…he shocked the creators and stars of the shows (and the fans) by revealing that The Expanse would have its next season on Amazon Prime. Even better…later on…it was revealed that Season 5 was confirmed before the December release of Season Four.

Good. A show that could pulled in the casual reader on a random Wednesday was a show that I felt had room to grow. While SyFy continued to have a bad track record when it came to actual sci-fi on their channel, I had to admit it. I was glad that I had left my channel unchanged that night. I was glad to have some hardcore science fiction that I was into. And better yet, there would be more years of it to come with nice twists, relatable characters, and situations that resonated in today’s world.

So I was glad Lee had told me to start at the beginning. No need to rush. Let the show take its time, and you would be rewarded. And so I was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEENk6_XFoA

#theexpanse #syfychannel #syfy #scifichannel #themagicians #sliders #Wednesday #roomeatsyou #room #eats #sciencefiction #amazon #jeffbozos #detective #mystery #noir #farscape #wrestling #timeless #dollhouse #killjoys #darkmatter #tvshows #jamessacorey #books #amazonprime #fans #belters

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isagrimorie · 6 years ago

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[January Meme] - Discuss leading ladies in Sci-Fi TV

"Discuss leading ladies in sci-fi television shows. Compare, contrast, who do you lovel who do you not?" via @cleoselene

I’ll limit this to a few shows: Star Trek DS9, Farscape, Firefly, Fringe, Doctor Who, Star Trek Discovery, The Expanse, Legends of Tomorrow, Person of Interest, Killjoys, and Star Wars.

Breaking shows down further:

Space SciFi:

Star Trek, Star Wars, Killjoys, Farscape, Firefly, and the Expanse

Under Star Trek I’m going to focus on Deep Space Nine and Discovery and for me, I’ll pick Kira Nerys as the main leading lady, and for Discovery there’s Michael Burnham.

It’s interesting to look at both of them coming from different eras in-show and IRL. DS9 is the first time Star Trek tries something a little more complicated. (Not that Trek hasn’t done it with TNG but DS9 tackles things in a more in depth way, due to being a station with a set of recurring characters).

Kira Nerys was a rebel, a freedom fighter against the Cardassian Occupation and sometimes she also gets called a terrorist. It’s not something Kira shrugs off too, she knows what she did in the name of freedom. She’s very clear eyed on that. If DS9 were written immediately after post-9/11 this would never be allowed.

Michael Burnham is also a character of her time, where Kira embraced the morally ambigous side of her, Michael's comfort level with violence and the number of people who died because of her bad judgement sits heavy on her shoulders.

She’s not used to that, she’s a Starfleet Officer, and as a Starfleet Officer who grew up in Vulcan it’s not a prospect she grew-up with. Michael had a set path, which was derailed.

Kira and Michael have different-life experiences and upbringing. One isn’t necessarily better than the other, just different. Kira grew-up in fighting a guerilla war. Michael was traumatized at a young age and grew-up in a very emotionally locked down household. Michael struggles to find her feet between the two, maybe three worlds she straddles over. Michael chooses to be Starfleet.

Kira didn’t want to be Starfleet and only started softening on that stance later in the series.

ATM though since Kira has a finished story, and because she’s stayed with me the longest, Kira edges Michael out a little.

Star Wars This is another formative show but it’s only really recently that I’ve become really invested in Star Wars, with one caveat. I’m invested in the animated arm of the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

But! Princess Leia is the OG and she’s the template of most of the fantastic women in the ‘verse.

This top spot is shared together with Ahsoka Tano. Ahsoka was Anakin Skywalker’s apprentice and is instrumental for making me like Anakin in the way the Prequel movies failed to do. The other reason why I love Ahsoka so much is because of how she developed from a really snarky kid to one of the best characters in the Star Wars ‘verse. She has a rich history and an incredibly enigmatic future.

Space Opera

Farscape: This is such a fantastic, zany and colorful space show. It’s grand in scale and the acting is phenomenal. Everyone is fantastic here and then there’s the Radiant Aeryn Sun, a soldier who grows beyond what she knows and becomes such a vibrant character on her own.

Firefly: Space Cowboys, it’s only one season and as things go now I am glad we only have one season. This show had a lot of women but for me, the stand outs were Zoe Washburn and River Tam.

Killjoys seem to be a spiritual successor of both Firefly and Farscape. It’s another zany show with twists that surprise me, and really really interesting world building. It is also a space show where the lead is unquestionably a woman, Dutch. A former assassin slave Princess who forms complicated and complex bonds with people.

Hard Space Fi

‘The Expanse' has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to complicated and complex women. I haven't started season 3 but I know the season adds on with more fantastic women with their own stories and agendas.

Chrisjen Avasarala is one of the more fascinating people in the show, she is a seasoned diplomat and politician who always took an "Earth First" approach. This comes in conflict with several characters on the show who each have theth own agenda. There's Naomi Nagata a' Belter' who wanted nothing to do with fights and causes and slowly re-learn 8 to be one.

The Expanse is such a rich and vibrant story that I think everyone can stand shoulder to shoulder together in the number 1 spot.

The Douglas Adams Sci Fi

I mean, not really but I don’t know what else to categorize both Doctor Who and Legends of Tomorrow

Legends of Tomorrow

Zany doesn’t even cover this lovable show. It started out kind of a mess in season 1 and then slowly the writers threw the rule book out and what started out as a story with a standard squared jaw hero (Rip Hunter) and an unfortunate love story (Sorry Hawks) is now one of the most queer friendly and irreverent shows. The new lead of the show is Sarah, a former assassin and she leads a bunch of misfits accidentally breaking time to save time.

Sometimes they make the Doctor’s exploits... who am I kidding, they’re almost the same level of crazy.

Doctor Who

Speak of the devil, and the Devil walks in the form of a shape-changing ancient alien (at this point) eldritch and their Blue Box. To use the TV Tropes parlance: Doctor Who is the Trope Codifier. Doctor Who is space show, a time travel show, it can even be a procedural. Doctor Who is not stuck in one genre. It can be different things in every episode.

The force of Chaotic Good in their universe, and because of the Thirteenth Doctor, Doctor Who joins the list. Thirteen is a continuation of the Doctor we know but she is also someone new. Thirteen is a work-in-progress. It is interesting, in a list of ex-assassins and soldiers as protagonists, the Doctor has the highest body count of any heroic character I know.

SciFi Procedural

Fringe

Olivia Dunham started as a fantastic character with her own flaws and complexity and enormous badass-ness... until the moment the showrunners lost interest in her and started favoring Peter Bishop over Olivia. I still love her but it’s tempered by the knowledge of what happens to her character in the later seasons. Olivia deserved better. Astrid deserved better. Nina deserved better.

Peter Bishop took a lot of air and it annoyed me that the final shot of the show is about Peter.

Person of Interest

This show is so good. The final season might have dropped a ball a bit but man, I didn’t expect what seemed like a normal CBS procedural turning into a prescient, grounded cautionary Sci-Fi story.

It also is a show with a phenomenal set of characters and one of the best antagonist turned One of the Team characters in Root and then, later Sameen Shaw. If Fringe has superpowers and weird science Person of Interest is in a bit more grounded reality with one key difference-- Artificial Super Intelligence is real.

The show predicted the Snowden-NSA a year or two before it exploded, and it predicted that US elections could be tampered with.

So in this draft—- it’s really hard to choose, I love each of them for different reasons. Some stand a little bit over the others. This is a bit of a cop out, I know but I do love them all!

So, uh, DRAW!

#january meme 2019 #january meta meme #january talking meme #doctor who #tv: fringe #person of interest #farscape #firefly #star trek

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feather-aesthetic · 6 years ago

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Pick Me Up

A/N: I don’t think there’s been a tickle fic of these two yet (or of anyone in The Expanse), so I present to you... the first Bobbie/Chrisjen tickle fic.

Rating: PG

Fandom: The Expanse

Pairing: Platonic Bobbie/Chrisjen (can be interpreted as romantic)

Summary: Bobbie finds Chrisjen on the roof, and in order to get her down she makes good on her threat from the Guanshiyin to pick her up. Chrisjen draws on her skills as a grandmother to get revenge.

Words: 2,282

The wooden shingles were warm against her back, heated by the lingering strains of sunlight meandering across the horizon. A breeze tugged at her clothes, languid and pleasant, caressing the corners of her mouth and rustling the crisp leaves scattered around her. Chrisjen nestled deeper into the blanket she’d brought with her, hair splayed out across the roof. The sky greyed while she watched, the azure of daytime sinking into a deep evening indigo. Soft sounds of the night came to life, crickets humming in the tall grasses. Chrisjen relaxed, inch by inch, in the solitude her roof provided. Luna loomed at the edges of her vision, silver and black craters unchanged despite the cities spread beneath its surface. Arjun and the rest of her family were there, she knew, safe from the shitstorm that had come with her rise to Secretary-General of the UN. That thought alone loosened six muscles in her back.

A clattering to her right caught her ear, and Bobbie climbed through the window, bare feet crunching one of the Autumn leaves. She was staying with her for a few weeks while Chrisjen sorted out her reinstatement and return to Mars. The tank top and shorts meant for sleep seemed out of place on Bobbie, lending her a softened, tousled look. She sat down next to Chrisjen, curling her knees to her chest and her arms around her legs, and with her hair falling around her shoulders and blowing in the wind she looked so like the day Chrisjen had found her on the beach, stoic and tired and in awe of the beauty of Earth. Chrisjen flicked her eyes over to the younger woman, who was staring out over the tops of the buildings on the horizon.

“Look up,” she grated, voice rough from disuse and exhaustion, and Bobbie complied, lying back next to her to avoid straining her neck. “You can see Mars from here,” Chrisjen pointed out, gesturing to the bright gleam in the sky. Bobbie was quiet.

“You can see Earth from Mars, too,” she said eventually, voice low in the dim light. “I used to look up at the Earth all the time when I was young, wonder if some Earther kid was looking up at Mars the same way I was. More than anything, I wanted Mars to have the chance to look like Earth, all blue and green instead of red dust. I watched all the holovids of Earth, thinking that someday, future Martians would get to look up at a sky like this one, would get to see an ocean not filled with garbage and dying fish. I thought that knowing future generations would get that would be enough. But…” she trailed off, hesitancy clear in her voice.

“But?” Chrisjen prodded her onwards when it became clear she wouldn’t finish the sentence on her own.

“I think I just wanted to see it for myself.” She could never tell another Martian that, that the planet that had raised and provided for her wasn’t good enough, that she longed for the open fields and fresh air and rolling oceans only Earth could provide.

“I suppose Earth with its light pollution and poisoned oceans will have to do. Is it everything you’d hoped for?” Bobbie was silent, letting the chirping of the crickets surround them. Chrisjen turned her head to the right to look at her. The marine was staring up at the sky, stars reflected in her eyes like moonbeams scattered across a choppy ocean. Her lips were parted slightly, as though she couldn’t quite catch her breath, and as Chrisjen watched, a tear escaped the corner of her eye and slid down into her hairline.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. Chrisjen reached out before she could stop herself and smeared the salty trail with the pad of her thumb, wiping it away. Bobbie’s breath caught in her throat at the movement, but she made no move to stop the older woman.

“It is,” Chrisjen agreed, voice gravelly in the relative quiet of the night. Another wind blew across the roof, stronger this time, worming its way through her silken pajamas and sending a ripple of goosebumps through her body. She suppressed a shiver at the sensation, and felt Bobbie shift closer until she was pressed against her side. The girl was like a furnace, firm and radiating heat, and Chrisjen melted into the contact.

The soft huff Avasarala made when she shivered alerted Bobbie to the Secretary-General’s plight—Martians ran hot, always had, so she’d barely noticed as the temperature had dropped steadily around them. Bobbie impulsively scooted left a few inches, until she felt the older woman’s cool skin press against her own. Chrisjen seemed to relax at the touch, resting her head against the marine’s shoulder. Bobbie let a small smile grow over her face as Avasarala stilled, apparently having settled down. From her brilliantly cutthroat politics to her seemingly contradictory ability to be heartwarmingly sincere, the newly appointed Secretary-General never failed to surprise her, and her apparent penchant for cuddling was no different. It was a huge sign of trust for Avasarala to let her guard down, to be so vulnerable in Bobbie’s presence, and the marine’s heart swelled at the realisation. It occurred to Bobbie, then, that mere months ago she wouldn’t have spared a thought for the woman, and now she was offering her own body heat to stave off the cold. An unexpected but overall pleasant turnout, Bobbie surmised, turning her attention back to the stars. They looked different from Earth, through an atmosphere. They were fewer, dimmer, faded by a barrier of air and water vapour, and seemed far more inviting than the cold vacuum of space she would stare into from beneath the domes of Mars. Seeing them like this, she understood why her distant Terran ancestors had taken to the stars. The night sky had been to them then what the ocean was to her now—an unknown, a mystery, an adventure. Another sound joined the chorusing crickets around them, a faint, stuttering grumble by her ear that she quickly categorised as snoring. Avasarala really must have trusted her, then, that or she was completely exhausted. Bobbie could hardly blame her; the woman had been working herself to the bone ever since they had returned to Earth and she had been ‘promoted’. The marine resolved to let her sleep as long as possible before bringing her inside. Shifting so that she was curled more securely around the older woman, ensuring that she wouldn’t fall off the roof in her sleep, Bobbie allowed her eyes to fall closed and her breathing to even out, drifting into a light sleep.

Chrisjen fought to open her heavy eyelids when she felt someone squeezing her shoulder. Bobbie was wrapped around her, and judging by the pleasant warmth she felt where their bodies met, she had been for a while.

“Ma’am,” Bobbie was saying. “Let’s get you inside.” Chrisjen closed her eyes in displeasure.

“Fuck off, Bobbie,” she muttered, not an ounce of venom behind her words. Bobbie laughed quietly.

“Should I pick you up?” Chrisjen snorted at the reference to their conversation aboard the Guanshiyin.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” she mumbled, snuggling deeper into Bobbie’s side. The older woman let herself slip back into a doze, falling backwards into sleep—and then she was being lifted up in a rush of cool air, arms beneath her knees and shoulders, and she snapped awake. “Roberta Draper, put me the fuck down,” she grated, shoving at the marine’s chest in an effort to squirm away—a futile one, as Bobbie’s arms only tightened around her. Chrisjen’s eyes widened as Bobbie stooped to step through the window, tilting her at an extreme angle, and she clutched weakly at Bobbie’s muscular arm as the ground rushed up to meet her. Bobbie straightened, glancing down at her cargo in amusement.

“You really are tiny,” she teased. Chrisjen looked her dead in the eyes in an attempt to convey her irritation.

“I’m a perfectly normal size, you’re just fucking huge,” she shot back. Bobbie nudged the door to Chrisjen’s room open with her foot and deposited her on her bed, a little rougher than was strictly necessary in Chrisjen’s opinion.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Bobbie sprawled on the edge of the bed, near where Chrisjen was pushing her mussed hair out of her eyes.

“You’ll regret that,” she threatened, apparently not seriously enough because Bobbie laughed.

“What are you gonna do? You’re too small to cause any damage. And I’m too strong for you.” The smirk spreading across Chrisjen’s face was nothing short of diabolical.

“Perhaps,” she conceded. “But you forget I’m a grandmother.” She lunged, and Bobbie barely had time to realise what was happening before she dissolved into a fit of laughter.

“What,” she gasped, flailing, “what are you doing?” Chrisjen grinned at her, a rare, genuine smile. The older woman was an excellent and completely merciless tickler, and was using both of those traits to her full advantage. Already, Bobbie was lost in hysterical giggles, twisting her body away from the tingling sensations. “Ma’am!” Bobbie spluttered, so startled and flustered that she was at a loss for words. Chrisjen dug into any open patch of skin she could, finding and exploiting weak spots Bobbie hadn’t even known she’d had. Her sides and ribs, Chrisjen found, were particularly susceptible to the same squeezing that would have her grandson in stitches. Bobbie arched her back as Chrisjen’s dexterous fingers lingered at her hips, laughter taking on a higher, more breathless pitch.

“I did warn you,” the older woman deadpanned, apparently deaf to the plight of her guest. Chrisjen hadn’t been kidding when she’d warned Bobbie of her grandmotherly skill set; she managed to evade all of Bobbie’s increasingly feeble attempts to grab her hands. The girl’s uncoordinated efforts to protect herself only made it easier for Chrisjen to get at the ticklish spots she’d discovered.

Bobbie curled her arms around her waist in a last-ditch effort to fend off the scritching, squeezing, evil fingers. Chrisjen took it as a personal challenge, spidering fingers all across her stomach and feeling the muscles twitch and contract beneath her fingertips. The girl was surprisingly ticklish for a marine, although she certainly didn’t seem like one now—any semblance of danger was gone, the soldier weakened by her own helpless giggles. Her laughter was hearty and strong, bubbling from deep in her chest as she squirmed weakly. She kicked out when she felt Chrisjen pinching at the tender flesh above her kneecaps.

“Stop!” she squealed, a flush forming on her cheeks from laughing so much. The girl practically shrieked when Chrisjen’s fingers found their way under her arms, digging her heels into the mattress and arching her back in a desperate bid to escape.

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson about picking me up,” she teased, rich accent making Bobbie blush more. Sensing that she was about to reach her limit, Chrisjen withdrew with a final squeeze to the younger girl’s side. As soon as she was freed, Bobbie curled into a ball, gasping for breath. “Well,” Chrisjen began, reclining smugly on her pillows, “if I had known the secret to taking down Martian marines was so easy, the war would be long over.” Bobbie wasn’t sure if slapping the woman would be going too far. It had been decades since anyone had touched her like that, playfully, without fear or rank getting in the way.

“The kids used to mess around with each other during training.” Bobbie sighed shakily, unfurling her limbs and stretching them out. “It was a waste of time, but I never had the heart to tell them to stop. Those were some of the only times I’d seen joy on their faces. I couldn’t take that away.” She could feel Chrisjen looking at her, but Bobbie continued to stare up at the ceiling, steadfastly avoiding her gaze. Chrisjen’s face softened, that almost imperceptible relaxation of the skin around her eyes and cheekbones, at the realisation that Bobbie still mourned for her fallen unit. The politician reached out and placed a tentative hand on Bobbie’s shoulder. Bobbie released a controlled breath, blinking rapidly, and turned onto her side, facing Chrisjen. “Do you ever—” she halted, seemingly losing her nerve, before pushing on, “do you ever see them? The faces of the people you couldn’t save?” Chrisjen blinked slowly.

“No,” she finally said. “I don’t see the people I couldn’t save because I’ve never tried to save anyone. I see the faces of everyone I’ve gotten killed.” Her voice was thick with loathing, and she closed her eyes against the sudden onslaught of heartache. Bobbie reached up, grabbing the wrist nearest her shoulder.

“Ma’am,” she begins, “all due respect, but that’s utter bullshit. Maybe that’s what you see when you close your eyes, but when you open them—every single person on this planet owes you their life. I owe you my life, for all it’s worth.” Bobbie bit her lip, wondering if she’d said too much, but Chrisjen opened her eyes after a few moments.

“Thank you, Bobbie,” and she knew she’d said the right thing. They were silent after that, words no longer necessary in the darkness. Bobbie sank into the mattress, cheek nuzzling against the blankets as she glanced at Chrisjen. The woman was nearing sleep, Bobbie could tell from the way her eyes dimmed and her grasp on Bobbie’s shoulder softened. Bobbie let her eyes drift closed, allowed the warmth of their contact, hand to shoulder, palm to wrist, to fill her up until she felt the tug of sleep overwhelm her.

#chrisjen avasarala #chrisjen #bobbie draper #bobbie #bobbie x chrisjen #chrisjen x bobbie #the expanse #tickle #tickle fic #tickling #im so gay for them #they're my life #ticklish!bobbie

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rukhsandbooks · 3 years ago

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I liked that Holden and Naomi continued as a couple in this book. I love the way Corey embeds tenderness and emotion between the various characters. All the little moments between Naomi and Holden and of course Avasarala and Arjun are just so perfect. The break up (not saying who because spoilers) is also so brilliantly simple (even though I was kinda all like ?!?! until I got to chapter 34). Despite loving those 4 characters, my favourite narrator (and perhaps even character) in this book was definitely Bobbie. I also loved the relationship between Avasarala and Bobbie.

I don't think I'd survive in space because I don't even like putting my winter boots and coat on in the morning so what makes anyone think I'd be able to not only wear a space suit all the time but also keep it in working condition?! That being said, I would love to try mag boots. I feel like you could have a lot of fun with them.

I wonder if the police and investigation units here on our earth track pizza orders because everyone loves pizza so people are probably ordering pizza even when planning or committing crimes. I say this because where did the pizza come from when Prax enters the room?!?! My friend claims there's 3D pizza printers but I'm skeptical.

I continue to be amazed that I never heard hype about these books or considered seriously reading them before my friend suggested them at the end of 2021. I’ve 100% been spamming him with messages as I read and think about the story. Sorry dude.

I feel like I’ve been living under a rock the last decade-ish. Apparently these books are my other friend's husband's favourite books and my work mom just started watching the show?! Obviously The Expanse has been around me... I've just been busy… living in another world? I’m so glad I’m reading them now and can't wait to watch the show because apparently the actor that plays Avasarala is "SO FUCKING GOOD" (and grows pistachios in her hair...) and I have so many questions about whether what I’m imagining is what the cast/crew are producing.

So far the stories and dialogue have made me feel all the things, and surprisingly have made me laugh more than I expected. "Meow meow cry meow meow". Also, if Soren eats cookies all day, then I as Rukhimonster am definitely qualified to work for Avasarala! If someone wants to buddy read these with me, or has read them and is willing to let me spam them with messages, DM me!! I have so much to say/discuss. I'll probably be interrupted by #FlirtyFebruary so you even have time to catch up.

#rukhsandbooks #bookish #booklr #bookblr #bookblog #bookstagram #bookpic #book thoughts #book review #booksbooksandmorebooks #the expanse #caliban’s war #james s a corey #sci-fi #scifireads #scifiromance #bookaddict #bookworm

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ellestra · 7 years ago

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Setting up the pieces

After Bobbie being all brash and refusing answers and the crew of Roci being all suspicious and Holden not giving a shit it got all better when Avasarala finally woke. She bonded with Amos at magboot wearing training. She praised Holden’s heroism. And then she tried to manipulate him to follow her plan but he’s done with being hero for all humanity. One child and he father is all he can do now.

The best part however was how they all shared what they know. I love when that happens on shows. People not communicating always frustrates me. And after all this time they finally getting the idea how big the whole conspiracy is. Who is good, who is bad, and what really is going on with the protomolecule. But Naomi also realises that Earth doesn’t have it - it was only Mao who did - and now she feels Belters finally have a trump in their hands due to her betrayal. She wants to keep it this way.

That message from Alex’s wife was heartbreaking but he deserved it after telling her she and their daughter come second for him. And at least they made him make up with Naomi. And give her food.

This episode was stuffed with tantalising glimpses into Amos past. He used wear pumps before he went to space. He is from Baltimore and the only way out was death so he died. Now everyone who loved him thinks he is dead but here he is so Prax shouldn’t lose his belief in finding Mei. She’s not dead yet. Not even infected and even managed to soften Mao’s heart.

I’m sure we all hated Errinwright and Strickland already but the show makes sure we really, really know how awful they are. Even Jules-Pierre Mao has some empathy and semblance of conscience. These two deserver the to be eaten by the storms they sow.

Strickland doesn’t even understand why experimenting on kids might be wrong (and keeping them being happy is just so their cortisol levels stay low and they absorb protomolecule faster). I’d be with Avasarala’s “nuke it from orbit” take if the kids weren’t there. Instead I hope Strickland gets destroyed by his own experiment - Katoa preferably.

Errinwright not only goads Sorrento-Gillis into war and then into making it worse with any means possible but when it backfires and lives are lost he shifts the blame on Anna. What are 2 million people to his plans to take what’s growing on Venus for Earth and make himself a hero. And Anna keeps screwing his plans so he tries eliminate her through guilt. I hope she keeps screwing them until Avasarala can destroy him. Publicly.

I was angry at Cotyar for killing Theo after all that happened but I understood. He would’ve told everything he knew and Errinwright friends are in clean-up mode. They wouldn’t survive telling truth to admiral Nguyen. Not that Cotyar did much lying. The good news is he managed to find some friends and now we are sure admiral Souther is on the side of the good guys. He was a good bet after he resigned for moral reasons but it’s good to know Avasarala was right about him. Admiral Nguyen is corrupt but he is actually giving them lucky break by taking Agatha King to Io and Avasarala. That’s the ship she wanted. And it’s primed to rebel and switch to her cause.

The only issue is she’ll want them to secure protomolecule for Earth and Naomi is not going to like that.

#the expanse #chrisjen avasarala #bobbie draper #amos burton #prax meng #mei meng #Naomi Nagata #alex kamal #jim holden #cotyar #gotyar ghazi #jules-pierre mao #sadavir errinwright #admiral souther

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moocowmoocow · 4 years ago

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Femslash February 03 - Buttercup

Chrisjen hated this goddamn contraption so much. She glared at Bobbie who insisted on her doing these ridiculous exercises. She was about to complain, loudly, but soon found herself entranced by rhythmic nature of whatever Bobbie was doing with her arms and weights.

Bobbie set the weights down. “While flattering, watching me do my reps does nothing for your own legs, ma’am,” she said, pointedly looking at Chrisjen’s stilled legs in the leg press machine.

“I have twenty other things to do right this minute and I fucking hate this thing,” Chrisjen replied, hating the petulance in her voice. But she did. Earth wasn’t going to rebuild itself, nor apparently was Marco Inaros going to blow himself up. And she fucking hated getting hot and sweaty for no good reason.

Bobbie moved to a new position and picked her weights up again. “Do you want to be able to walk in Earth’s gravity when you go back?”

“Yes.”

“Then suck it up, buttercup.”

Chrisjen sighed. She knew Bobbie was right and she hated it. She was about to start again and curse Bobbie in every language she knew, when she realized something. “Do you even know what a buttercup is?”

“I’m assuming it some weird Earther food?”

She found these little gaps in Bobbie’s knowledge endearing. They were reminders of what she took for granted. “They’re flowers. I’ll show you some, when - “ she swallowed hard. “If they even grow on Earth anymore.”

Bobbie’s eyes softened. She put down her weights and made her way over to Chrisjen. She leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her mouth. “Ten more and we’ll hit the showers, Avasarala.”

“Fuck you.” Chrisjen gritted her teeth and did fifteen. She was going to walk on Earth. No asshole was going to take that away from her.

#bobbie draper #chrisjen avasarala #the expanse #femslash february #chrisjen x bobbie

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The Expanse Season 5 Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/39Jj8xj

This article contains The Expanse spoilers.

The reunion of the Rocinante crew (minus one) and Avasarala’s return to power provided some measure of resolution in The Expanse season 5 finale, but even with season 6 being the final outing for the show, the story of the protomolecule is far from over. Showrunner Naren Shankar helped shed some light on those final moments, including the nature of Laconia and the status of several characters whose arcs are ongoing.

The Rogue Martians Bring the Protomolecule to Laconia

Let’s start at the end and work backwards. There was something dangerously familiar about the dark swirls that engulfed Sauveterre and Babbage as the Barkeith passed through the gate to Laconia.

“These are the things that Holden’s been concerned about from the very beginning of the season,” explains Shankar. “When he goes to Fred’s office, and he says, ‘I think there are entities inside the Ring. I think they destroyed the protomolecule builders. I think we’re waking them up.’ And at the end of the season, sure enough, the audience sees he’s right. They have been woken up! They are taking an interest in our world in a very dangerous way.”

That may mean the Barkeith disappeared from existence on its way through whatever dimensional warp the gates use, but plenty of other Martian defectors did make it to Laconia, a planet with significant Builder technology, including an orbital station.

“You’re not sure what is up there!” says Shankar. “You see a structure… the only reference point you have is what they discovered on Ilus back in season 4: that there are giant machines of some nature on these planets, that these are, to some extent, constructed planets built with the technology that built the Ring gates — the protomolecule technology.”

What Happened to the Barkeith in The Expanse Season 5 Finale?

By Kayti Burt and 1 other

The Expanse: The Complicated Legacy of Alex Kamal

By Michael Ahr

The Return of Cortazar

Cortazar, who has been the foremost expert in the protomolecule since The Expanse season 1, is talking about entering phase 3 construction, and it’s clear that the protomolecule sample for which the Martians traded their warships to Marco Inaros is a key element in activating the technology. Could we be looking at a Builder spaceship? And if so, what could the MCRN breakaway faction want with it? Although a minefield protects Laconia from anyone trying to pass through from Sol system, there’s nothing keeping the ex-Martians from returning with some serious firepower.

What’s Next For Drummer?

In the meantime, the fate of other characters might also benefit from some clarification. What of Drummer, for example, and the split within her family?

“She commits them to a course of action that essentially destroys the thing she was trying to preserve, and there’s no way around it,” Shankar says. “She does it for a perfectly believable, sympathetic, ethical reason: she’s not going to kill people that she cares about no matter who commands it. But it comes at tremendous cost. That absolutely has ramifications.”

Is Filip Beginning to See Marco’s Manipulations?

Filip seems to have come to a realization about his father as well in The Expanse season 5’s final moments in which he loads a gun and speaks nonchalantly about Marco’s plans.

“It’s an interesting moment, and it would probably support lots of different readings of it,” Shankar notes. “This is a soul who’s in turmoil, and he’s in a very confused and conflicted place: still bound to his father’s side, but maybe not as emotionally attached to his father as he once was. But also, where can he go? You’re sort of trapped in the house with your emotional abuser.”

The Rocinante’s New Crew Member

While some families fracture, others grow. The Rocinante crew may have lost Alex, but they gained Clarissa. “Amos wanted to keep her on the ship, and Holden said yes — or Amos said Holden said yes,” Shankar says, laughing. “These are two souls who have constantly resorted to violence to solve their problems. The difference between them is that Amos feels nothing when he does it, and Clarissa feels everything. She feels the weight of every terrible thing that she has done, and Amos I think senses that and is trying, to the extent that he can, to give her a path for getting through the world.”

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The Expanse season 5 finale is, in some ways, merely an intermission before the conflict continues in the sixth and final season. Marco is still a threat; the protomolecule and the Martians who have it are even more dangerous; and whatever lives in the Ring-space that killed the Builders is even more terrifying. With a series finale only ten episodes away, the stage is set for this epic space drama to conclude in explosive fashion.

The post The Expanse Season 5 Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3tumjky

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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andordean · 7 years ago

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Chrisjen Avasarala, The United Nations Deputy Under Secretary of Executive Administration.

(When I grow up, I want to be her.)

#the expanse #chrisjen avasarala #queen

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starfleetdoesntfirefirst · 4 years ago

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But my first-place Underrated Georgiou Moment is the one that it’s tempting to call that moment’s inverse: We don’t start shooting on a hunch, and we don’t take innocent lives, period.

<food/diet talk> I once read an advice column where someone had written in to say that they wanted to eat more ‘healthy food,’ but that fast and processed food was faster, cheaper, and better-tasting. The advice columnist began their response with Well, you’re right--fast food is faster, cheaper, and better-tasting! At the time, having grown up with years of war-on-obesity type messages about how home-cooked fresh-vegetable-based meals were in fact Faster and Cheaper and More Delicious than fast food, I clutched my pearls at this.

Kindness and integrity are about shouldering the pain--even though you don’t deserve it; even though the very act of taking the pain onto yourself not only hurts you but also might in turn hurt someone else. Or, sometimes, kindness and integrity and supporting someone else are about finding a way to offload some of the weight onto another, different someone-else who doesn’t deserve the pain either but maybe, in this moment, is more capable of shouldering it than the person you’re looking out for would be. Kindness is entirely capable of wounding its practitioners, or, to paraphrase Seven of Nine: It's hopeless and pointless and exhausting, and the only thing worse would be giving up.

The real Not Safe For Tumblr: despite all those poems about women being wolves (the idea of wolves), and letting our teeth drip with blood and thorns grow from our hair, much of the time the person in the path of our aching teeth is not the person who deserves to cut by them. Have you ever wished someone, a good person!, ‘Good morning,’ and gotten a perhaps-justified glare from their exhaustion-smudged eyes? Because they’re in such a bad mood, because they’re in so much pain, because of course they would have glared at anyone who spoke to them? Except that, of course, it turns out they were quite capable of warmly greeting their boss or their lover or the more valued--and less visibly disabled--person who walks into the room after you. Even justified rage and pain and desire, when released indiscriminately, often do discriminate.

There’s a piece of fan art I’ve always wanted to paint if a) I had significantly greater art skill, b) I had the literal weeks it would take to paint a multi-panel art piece, and c) art on the theme of ‘person protecting someone else with their body’ didn’t inevitably come across looking like the “this is so sad” poorly-scaled soldier protecting cartoon toddler meme: Captain Georgiou and a small Shenzhou, a la all those sick Janeway-chilling-with-small-floating-Voyager-in-space artworks, standing in space with the space station behind her and the Klingon fleet in front of her. She is protecting the space station behind her from war; in subsequent panels, the viewpoint revolves around her and the little Shenzhou, and the images behind her shift to show the people we know and love on the Discovery--Culber and Stamets kissing; Burnham and Stamets releasing the tardigrade back into space; everything we recognize from ST:DSC’s Federation as innocent and loveable and worth protecting.

What is a Star Trek captain’s coolest #Underrated Moment?

What do you see as Starfleet’s greatest threat?

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