#riding on a small act of mercy from her otherwise dickhead father

[friskarm]

this is something that had been really evident in previous episodes, but miorine is really unaware of herself, isn’t she?

i made a joke to some friends about how mio is really putting her whole pussy into looking after suletta, but she really really is! and this episode really put a lampshade on just how unaware mio is of how her actions look to others. suletta might be gullible enough to believe that miorine is only looking out for herself, but nika isn’t! shaddiq certainly knows exactly what’s going on.

you can argue (and on god, mio Would) til the cows on earth come home about how she’s just doing this to put herself in a favourable position to escape to earth. if she’s unattainable to the three houses by virtue of having an unstoppable pilot (and machine), she’s no longer useful to them, and thus she can fade away into the background and better escape. this is true.

you could argue that yeah, of course it’s in miorine’s best interest to keep suletta happy. to help her pass her exams. to stand up for her when she’s being bullied. to make friends with her friends and help them out - even offer to lend them dresses! to chaperone her to stupid parties so she can see if that boy she likes happens to be there!

but it has never been exclusively about that, not for a second. because miorine’s life has been characterised by having nobody to stand up for her. the reason she’s so damn prickly and standoffish and combative is for her own survival! there’s no way she could have made it through life in the position she has, as delling’s daughter, with nobody to look out for her without it.

and yet, the very first thing this strange, cringeworthily anxious girl from mercury did is stand up for her, in the one place it mattered to her -- her greenhouse. miorine protested at the time that suletta was making decisions for her, but baked into that was the assumption that suletta would lose. her entire demeanour changes the moment she sees suletta shift from pathetic to confident, and she lets suletta take control -- “you can win?” -- and suletta wins.

suletta says that the way people treat miorine is wrong, and then puts her money where her mouth is in the only way that matters in asticassia.

no wonder miorine is willing to go so hard and so far for suletta! i’m sure it’s been a long, long time since miorine’s had anyone in her corner.