#was originally about w359

[topayitfoward]

Survivor's Guilt. Every single character. All of them.

[popsicle-stick]

will you meet me halfway?

anyway i finished wolf 359 earlier this month and ive been insane ever since so i had to get this out my system. i Care for them so so Deeply

[automatonwithautonomy]

i love when you're watching characters scurry around in a little lab-rat maze and you zoom out to see the scientists studying em. then you zoom out further to see they're also just little rats wearing lab coats and pretending to take notes and the real scientists are shaking their head fondly and chuckling and THEN you zoom out further and the actual true scientists are looking thoughtful and upping the drugs in the cage AND THEN you zoom out further, and these are the real ones this time, i swear, BUT THEN -

[hephaestuscrew]

When you listen to the funeral in Boléro when you're 19 and are fairly naïve and have been lucky enough that you've never had a death close to you, you think Hera doesn't understand "why they have to be gone" because she's an AI and she only has 4 years of life experience to go off and it's inevitably difficult for someone without a physical body to conceptualise death. But then you get a little older and things happen and you realise No, that's just what grief is like.

Hera thinks that it doesn't make sense to her because she's missing something, because there's something that her creators didn't put inside her head, or at the very least because she's never experienced that kind of loss before. She thinks there's something that can be explained to her that will make it easier to come to terms with the deaths of people who've been a part of her life. And Eiffel struggles for an answer, or rather a way to explain to her that there is no answer; "Hera, we don't… I don't know that there's… That's not what this -".

The truth is that there's nothing that Hera is missing. What is happening inside her head feels "wrong and stupid and wrong" because that's just how it feels when someone you know dies. That's how the other characters are feeling too, even if they express it differently.

Hera thinks that she feels the way she does because she's experiencing things differently to her human crewmates, but that's not really the case. She's just being the most honest about those feelings.

It's not an artificial intelligence grappling with human situations that she can't understand. It's a person struggling with grief in the way that any human struggles with grief.

Hera's feeling that she doesn't know how to deal with this, her inability to stop thinking about the fact that they're gone, her sense that there must be some set of instructions she wasn't given, her desperation for a way to make it better or easier, her plea for things to somehow make sense… It's all just so incredibly, heart-wrenchingly human and real.

[tawodiii]

Hey, Hera? Are you there?

Of course, Doug.

Commission for @commsroom

[harpoonsandmusicals]

It’s pride month, have my random queer w359 headcanons!

Hera is trans. Obviously. Sexuality wise, I don’t think she’s really met enough people to tell for certain. Her feelings for Maxwell were very strong, were they romantic? Does she really know what that means? She’s working on that one.

Eiffel is aromantic bisexual and completely clueless about that fact. He fully believes romance was made up for the movies and that all dudes find other men a little hot. He is painfully cisgender.

Minkowski’s gender is a little masc and spicy but mostly cis as well. She read a book on how to support your trans coworkers and it honestly made her worse and more awkward instead of helping. She’s aware that she’s bi but trying not to think about it. Being ok with other people being bi is not the same as being ok with herself being bi

Hilbert sold his gender and sexuality to clear space in his brain for more science

Lovelace is very very lesbian and also the only one of the crew who is actually engaged with the queer community. She went from her very queer original crew to these disasters and is having a terrible time trying to figure out how to explain what aro is to Eiffel. Her gender is lesbian. She’s probably cis but I can see reading her as trans too

[tanis-drawings-2point0]

originally drawn for the wolf359/tma october prompt 6: Crossover Ship, because I like thinking about a time before canon where minkowski w359 and tim tma met while hiking and hit it off well :') <3 (and maybe even... 😏😏😏)

[commsroom]

I'm really glad for all the love you've put into w359 fanworks. every time I see you post about it, my heart glows a little.

I'd originally felt that way while listening to the show, and your interpretation & vision feels so tightly knit to the source material. you even go farther in your explicit discussions about hera, her autonomy, her emotional depth, her treatment by other characters, and her arc as a trans allegory

totally understand why you might feel embarrassed, but I wanted you to know: thank you 💜

oh, that's so sweet of you to say!! i'm honored you think so.

i genuinely think there's a case to be made that eiffel/hera is as canon as the parameters for romance in wolf 359 allow it to be. like: gabriel urbina's policy was always "never confirm or deny 'on-screen' romance unless absolutely necessary" and from the AMAs we know they at least discussed it with regard to eiffel and hera, though we'll never know how that conversation went. it's not really a secret that sarah shachat and zach valenti, at least, viewed it that way. i still think about zach saying (paraphrased) that he thinks his non-answer is an answer, because if he didn't ship them, he could just say so.

and that's kind of how i feel about eiffel/hera within canon. like. anybody at all familiar with shows the wolf 359 writers like (especially things like btvs and farscape) can tell you there are plenty of scenes that mirror and meta-textually reference scenes from other shows. both gabriel urbina and sarah shachat were huge fans of the new doctor who, and whatever you believe the intent was, i find it hard to believe they didn't at least know they were evoking "if it's my last chance to say it, rose tyler, i-" with "and hera. hera, i-" it's what isn't said, the fact it has to be left unsaid, that speaks the loudest.

and anyway, talking about hera and romance / sexuality is especially interesting to me because it's not a given for her. it's not assumed to be something she should want or can have, and the way that intersects with her canon disability and with readings of her as a trans woman re: autonomy and desirability is very interesting (and very personal) to me, especially in the broader context of stories about AI women. but that's a topic for another post.

it's not a new observation by any means, but i think there can be a tendency to treat romance as separate from character analysis, and that's always sat poorly with me. romance isn't unique in either a good or a bad way, it's just... one type of relationship people can have. i think a lot about the unique approach wolf 359 has to romance because, while i understand why a lot of people would find the lack of romantic subplots refreshing, the characters aren't written to be intentionally disinterested in sex or romance (in some cases, textually... the opposite, even), so much as the writing carefully skirts around it. and... i don't know! there's something fascinating there.

obviously, i think you can recognize what's important about eiffel and hera's relationship (that it's the most equal one hera has ever had, that he has no real hierarchy over her or expectations for her other than companionship, how they share values and mutually support each other, etc.) without needing that to be romantic. and i think you can even acknowledge there's some degree of romantic intent without being invested like i am or "shipping" them. but i do think there's some intent there, and i think the the themes of the show can be expanded in some interesting ways to explore that beyond the intentional ambiguity of it. if you want to.

i would also never deny having an emotional bias here!! complete objectivity is never possible because we always bring parts of ourselves to our interpretations of art, and that's only amplified by how close to my heart wolf 359 is as a story. but i do really want to communicate, to the best of my ability, how much love i have for the show and how much thought i put into it. and i definitely don't mind being known for my love of eiffel/hera; they're my favorite characters from anything ever, both individually and together. but i do get kinda embarrassed when i talk about them too much, because it's not that i don't have plenty of thoughts about every other character and aspect of the show, it's just... that they are close to my heart in a particular way. anyway. i really appreciate it, thank you!!

[iersei]

hi im mutuals with both 1 billion dndads blogs and 1 billion tma/wtnv/w359/taz/manyotherpodcasts blogs and like i just have to say. im fairly sure you are genuinely skewing the vote here. i felt so odd voting for glenn instead of lup, instead of isabel lovelace, instead of KRAVITZ. and i voted for him and looked deep inside myself and was like "why did i do this? because its funny?" and realized thats exactly why. this is all fucking hilarious. i witness your blog daily and it has the same desperation as an irl election if not far more so. theres not anything else on your blog and if there is its because you drew it for someone who voted. i have a mutual who was upset about annabelle cane not winning and was like honestly, if you were as passionate as iersei, maybe you would've had a chance. you're picking glenn close up like one of those screaming toy chickens and successfully smacking aside every character ive seen this website lose their minds over every couple of weeks perpetually since 2016 at the latest. glenn fucking close of all people. id say theres sexier dndads characters but honestly im not sure if there is anymore. i think its all glenn. i wonder how long it will take you to go back to being a normal, non-glenn-sexy-tournament themed blog. i hope you carry this sheer unfiltered passion into everything you do. because its the funniest fucking thing ive ever seen. please keep going

AS A CLOWN AT HEART, MY FIRST COMMITMENT IS ALWAYS AND FOREVER TO. THE. BIT.

anyone who knows me will tell you that they are completely unsurprised by how thoroughly i have dedicated myself to this. i wear my heart on my sleeve. i am loud. i am passionate. and when i commit, i FUCKING COMMIT.

and i ask of you. what is the greatest measure of victory. nay, of sex appeal in general on tumblr dot com. than some freaks doing some unhinged nonsense and pissing off a looot of people that just don't Get It in the process?

the reason why cecilsweep was so entertaining to watch was because. he swept against the victors of the original tournament on twitter when the rematch rounds came around to tumblr. it's because it was unexpected, but people were adamant and they were passionate.

and here? in this sphere? where nightvale is such a fucking behemoth of a powerhouse that their popularity necessitated another bracket? it doesn't carry the same energy.

you know what does?

one hot and sexy mess of a man submitted by one person with zero propaganda clawing his way up to the top. knocking down a lot of really popular characters in the process with close (heh) victories and hard fought battles. all because a handful of really desperate freaks really really want him carnally.

that's what it's all about baby. and that's why, in my heart, we've already won.

...i'm gonna keep fighting like hell though because i refuse to give up on anything and it is WAY TOO EARLY to give up now. SO EVERYONE READING THIS SHOULD GO VOTE GLENN CLOSE [HERE].

peace and love and sexualizing that old man on the planet earth <3 i refuse to ever change <3

[clonerightsagenda]

One of those get to know you posts!

tagged by @herawell

LAST SONG? U2's "40" because I'm working on questions for our scholar bowl competition's 40th anniversary and I'm trying to create a whole round of 40-themed questions.

FAVORITE COLOR? Hard to pick one, but overall I prefer cool tones. Recently painted my bathrooms teal.

CURRENTLY WATCHING? Nothing at the moment, but I am eagerly anticipating the next season of Great British Bakeoff, although I'm also morbidly curious about which cultural foods they will destroy this time.

LAST MOVIE? Oh man. I honestly can't remember? It might have been Glass Onion, actually.

SWEET/SPICY/SAVORY? Sweet tooth. It is my prime vice, and I think it's actually gotten worse as I've grown older, although my current meds tanking my blood sugar might be connected to that. Baked goods are my passion.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS? Single and unwilling to mingle.

CURRENT OBSESSIONS? This year has been a lot of me revisiting old obsessions. Funnily enough I'm pretty sure I cycled from FMA to W359 the *first* time and now I am doing it again. We'll see what I migrate to once I finish my w359 relisten; I'll have to look at the suggestions I got again.

LAST THING YOU GOOGLED? "keelhaul", to re-immerse myself in the horrifying origin of that phrase. Fun fact: I did not know it was literal until I read the Baru Cormorant books.

People I’d like to get to know better: I never know who to tag on these things; feel free to do it if you'd like!

[ame-in-the-rain]

been working on two kaleipro videos which will hopefully come out next month or so, but because it’s been on my mind I wanna go over the etymology of all the character names

Cecil Nelson- name origin mostly comes from the patron saint of music named Cecilia who was martyred. I guess you could connect how Ferron might see Cecil as a sort-of martyr in his Kaleidoskull plan. The name means blind, which I like to connect to her eyes/albinism. Nelson is a pun on Cal, (lit. Neil Son). Also I made Cecil and cal’s initials mirror each other when I first created them, (CN and NC)

Warren Ferron- I just named him Warren after Warren Kepler because 14 y/o me was still riding on that w359 high. But a Warren is typically a burrow for rabbits, matching with Cecil’s bunny imagery. Ferron derives from the prefix “ferro-“ which means iron. This was because he was originally a part of this lemonverse thing for morally grey scientists, so I wanted a name with a pun on grey

Neil “Cal” Callaghan- we know why he’s named Neil so moving on. Anyway the only good improvement out of that god damned server was that someone thought Callaghan sounded like “call again” (like “call me back” in touch-tone telephone) so I’m stealing that and plagiarizing that. Same thing about the initials here but also Cal’s Irish. I’m sticking him in my Gaelic Group™️ of characters.

Cade Ar- THE ARCADE JOKE CAME AFTER I NAMED HIM. I named him Cade because I couldn’t find a name that started with “Cab”. And then I realized I could make the worse character name ever. Apparently Cade as a name means round? Take that what you will

Emerson Moon- nothing really of note, I think I just subconsciously named her Emerson because I know an Emerson irl. But the last name Moon is probably from “Ó Mocháin” which means early, so I guess that could represent her insomniac nature. Also another character in the Gaelic group haha

Ichigo Ichinose- Go Ichinose is the music composer for the Pokémon series so ichiGO ICHINOSE. But also minus the “nose” part, her name can be read as “ichi go ichi” (一五一) or 151, 151 original Pokémon. Also her name in kanji is 一之瀬苺

Ernie Wright- Ernie’s is pretty simple, coming from the lyrics in I Earn My Life, EARN/EARNIE, and “if I wasn’t always right.” Also his ex-wife’s name is Laura which I’m pretty sure is named after that lady Barney knows in blue shift

Reagan Pending- yeah yeah Reagan from Ronald Reagan. But his last name is Pending because when I was talking about him to my friend, I said “this is Reagan last name pending” because I hadn’t come up with a last name yet. But I think he though Reagan’s last name was the word pending. So now it is because I think that’s funny. Also pending like when a house is on the market because him and Ernie are architects for the housing market

[st-peculiar]

The Ouroboros Cycle

Part 1/2

A Wolf 359 & Time:Bombs AU where Warren Kepler survives and is given character development that makes him only slightly better of a person.

Okay I’m finally getting around to this

For obvious reasons spoilers for Wolf 359 and Time:Bombs below the cut

Remember when Doug was in the weird middle place when he was sucked into Wolf 359 and met Bob? That’s where Bob transmits information (on a “need to know” type basis) to Doug, including that of the origin of that extraterrestrial race. There was mentions of a second race they came into contact with, and that’s where they set up the inter-species trade system or whatever it was called, I’m paraphrasing from what I remember okay

So, hypothetically, what if Kepler’s body was plucked from space by these extremely powerful extraterrestrial beings? For the sake of realistic space happenings (though I doubt anyone really cares about the realness of these scenarios), Kepler definitely, 100%, did die. With my brief research period, I know that first; anyone put into space with zero protective gear at all (aka Kepler) would have passed out within 15 seconds from lack of oxygen, and gone braindead within three minutes. The fluids would have then boiled inside his body, then freeze, and overall, would have deteriorated the majority of his insides.

Then, here’s where the aliens come in. I don’t wanna hear ANYTHING about my interpretation of this because these are ALIENS and I also don’t give a fuck if you don’t like what i have to say. We’re all aware that these aliens are stupidly powerful, based off of the canon information we were given. So, I don’t know how this would go specifically, but somehow, the remains of Kepler floating through were taken by either of the alien races we know of (or, for worldbuilding reasons, an entirely different species (which is an idea that I like a lot because then I would get to create an extraterrestrial society and the nuances and such)). And they put Kepler back together. Bit by bit, Warren Kepler is rebuilt by foreign hands, parts of him are replaced, or he’s given a new body in its entirety. And let’s be honest, the aliens have little personality databases loaded with the personality of everyone that ever came within the proximity of the star. So, canon-wise, it’s pretty possible that beings can be put back together.

Now, with this new and improved body, Kepler is sent back to earth. I haven’t decided how exactly it’s done, but it fucking happens because I say so.

In my mind, between the end of w359 and the events of t:b is about 3-4 years. This is the time traveled back to earth (by the Hephaestus crew), a readjustment period (healing from the effects of living in zero grav for so long, mental processing, etc), and then the reintegration period, putting themselves back into society, some under a new identity, namely being Lovelace and Jacobi. Lovelace becomes Tatiana, a reporter, and Jacobi becomes Mark Midland, a member of team 214’s bomb disposal crew.

To me, it kinda makes sense, yeah? Lovelace knew nothing about what was going on, right from the beginning. Her crew was dying all around her, and she couldn’t do anything to stop is, even though she was the commander, the person her crew looked up to for guidance. Then the original Lovelace died, and the Lovelace we know, the “alien” Lovelace, replaced her. And even then, she still didn’t know. She didn’t know that she wasn’t even the original Lovelace, just some near-identical but offbrand stand-in and a tool that was being used by the aliens to collect information for them. Then, she gets a second chance, back on earth. She becomes a person whose job is to know things. She becomes someone that people look to for the facts.

And Jacobi. He finally gets to grieve. He finally gets the time to shut down for a while, and get out of the mindset of soldier and survivalist. He’s tired of taking orders from everyone. But what use is an explosives expert in this world he comes back to? Objectively, it really isn’t that different. Same concrete buildings. Same people around every corner. Sometimes there’s some good people, people who are good to him. But they never stick around for long. And he’s okay with that. Everyone that Jacobi’s ever trusted, loved, had died. Alana Maxwell. Warren Kepler. The people closest to him. His family. Maybe, for a while, he goes anywhere he can. He sees places, he meets those people who were good to him, and he moves onto the next. And eventually, he stops. He finds a place where he can use his talents. He excels. And that’s how we find Mark Midland on the last day of his probation time in time:bombs. The team he works with isn’t anywhere close to being the same people he once worked with, those years ago, but it’s nice.

And unlike before, he questions and pushes back. He doesn’t just take those orders, but he says, “what if we could do that better?” And, “I don’t agree with how that’s done.” He changes things for himself, and he’s better because of it.

Kepler returns to earth just months before time:bombs. Everyone thinks he’s dead, and if he’s honest with himself, he almost wishes he were still dead. He became the very thing that he hated. He wasn’t human anymore. Remember that quote? “And that means I’m on Jacobi’s and Minkowski’s side, even if they don’t think I am.” It purposely leaves Doug and Lovelace out of it. He knew from the beginning that Lovelace wasn’t really human, and Doug is just fucked up enough that, in Kepler’s mind, he isn’t quite human either. And here he is, still alive and kicking, somehow surviving his body being put back together in ways he can’t even begin to imagine how, by those same non-humans he was against. He doesn’t know who he is anymore, really, or even what he is. All he knows is that he is back. Everyone he knows hates him, so where can he really go? For the first time, Warren Kepler is well and truly alone.

He, too, wanders. But this is running. Somewhere inside him, he knows he’s running, from himself, the things that happened to him, what he’s done to hurt the few people (the very few people) he’s actually ever cared about.

So it’s a while before Kepler finally stops. He finds himself in New York, (Do we see where this is going?) and he finds people who should have been lost to him, those who should have been permanently rid of his presence the moment he was sucked into space.

Oddly, he finds Minkowski first. It’s an utterly ordinary occurrence, and, in a very different scenario, could have been something regular. Maybe it’s a grocery store, or in a cafe, your choice, but it happens somehow.

Minkowski, the moment she could move normally back on earth, went and found her husband, who had thought her to be dead for around 3-4 years (I’m roughly guessing here, so do correct me if I’m wrong). I think, for a while, she and her husband tried to make it work between them, but Minkowski would have been too changed, so different from the person she was when she first went into space in 2013. They eventually agreed to an amicable divorce. No hard feelings, but there was of course a little bit of grief. But it was for the best. Through that time, Minkowski, Doug, and Lovelace kept in contact with each other. They tried to keep Jacobi in the loop, but he got as far away from his past as he could, which included separating himself from those three.

(Just to add some more world-buildy things, I think they would have figured out a way to have Hera’s personality database loaded onto some other technology, and it allowed all them to stay connected. Those devices have an advanced connection and they could access one another from very large distances. No, I know nothing about technology. No, I do not care. My AU, my rules.)

(Also if anyone wants to hear my thoughts on post-canon Doug I can make a separate post because I have some thoughts on that guy)

Because Doug had all his memories drained from him, Minkowski couldn’t truly have her best friend (and as much as she would hate to admit it, Doug probably was her best friend) be there for her in the rough time after her divorce, but she still had Lovelace. They grew closer, blah blah, and then post-canon Lovekowski! Yay! Sapphics! Everyone cheered!

By the time Kepler accidentally finds her, she is doing a lot better. She’s happy, she has a pretty good life despite all the shit she went through. Then, some of the progress crumbles the moment she catches a glance of Kepler. We know that in canon, multiple characters experienced hallucinations during their time in the Hephaestus, so it’s not unlikely that Minkowski had them too (I can’t remember if she did have those hallucinations or not so lmk if she did or not). Obviously, she’s real shaken when she goes back to her apartment where she’s living with Lovelace. Lovelace tries to assure her that maybe it was just a similarly built man, not a hallucination, and certainly not Kepler. “He’s dead, remember? Jacobi said so.”

“But we never saw his body, Isabel. And even then, death was still an unstable subject up there.”

(I mean just imagine how that conversation could go. My mind is going a million miles a minute here and I’m on a roll)

This post was getting really long, so I split it into two parts. I’m almost done with the second, and I’ll reblog it under this one after I’m done, which should be soon.

Does anyone want to hear about my Warren Kepler lives crossover w359xtime:bombs au

[nightvale-thoughts]

liking a podcast character is so embarrassing because why is an mp3 file making me blush

[1-800-sexy-mad]

I think Change of Mind is a masterful wolf 359 episode but for me it's very ... emotional to listen to, for lack of better wording. we the audience know full well that almost every one of these characters are now dead. These characters who we are getting to see joking together and bonding and having connections with each other (side note, the wolf 359 writers are VERY good at getting you attached to characters, even when they only have two hours) are dead. we know that their deaths were long and drawn-out and painful, and yet here they are in this episode we're listening to now. It's a glimpse into a past that will never exist again, and especially when framed through lovelace's eyes - these people were her friends and members of her crew, and she still believes that she failed them in some way - it is very painful to listen to.

[hephaestuscrew]

If you want to add another emotional layer to these thoughts, you can think about the way Minkowski tells Eiffel "Listen to - [...] LISTEN TO ME!" in their conversation before the Sol blasts off. She speaks over him and cuts off his protests to ask him to listen. She's desperate to explain herself to him. She really wants him to understand her reasons for sending him back. But even so, she doesn't explicitly tell him what I'd argue is the most significant reason for her action (her care for Eiffel as an individual). I think there's a kind of tension there - the intense desire for her motivations to be understood, versus an unsurmounted difficulty in directly expressing all of those motivations.

I'm always emotional about the fact that, when Minkowski tries to justify her choice to send Eiffel back to Earth on the Sol in the finale, she never directly expresses a reason for her decision that's specific to him. 

She tells Hera, Lovelace and Jacobi "If - if - we don't make it through this... if we don't stop this... people need to know what's coming. They need to know what's happened." She gives them a reason which is logical, practical, and impersonal. It's a 'big picture' reason, focused on humanity as a whole. Minkowski's own emotions don't really enter into this justification at all. That's the kind of decision-making she wants her crew to think she's using. If this was Minkowski's main motivation, it wouldn't matter who was sent back, so long as they could explain Cutter and Pryce's plan. I don't think Hera, Lovelace, or Jacobi believe that this was the main reason why Minkowski sent Eiffel back, and I'm not sure whether Minkowski expected to actually convince them. 

Jacobi asks "did you tell him that before or after you sent him on his merry?" But in fact, Minkowski didn't tell Eiffel at any point that he needed to tell the world about events on the Hephaestus. If her primary motivation had been about having someone to deliver a message back to Earth, she would have given Eiffel suitable instructions - she wouldn't have just trusted him to figure it out. 

Instead, the most direct reason she gives to Eiffel himself for why she's sending him back to Earth is "I need to know that at least one of us makes it back. That I got someone through this." This is a more personal reason, where Minkowski's emotions are relevant, but it's still not explicitly about Eiffel himself. It's about saving "at least one of us", as if it doesn't matter who that "somebody" is. I think this justification is closer to the core of Minkowski's motivations than what she tells the others afterwards. Her responsibilities to her crew as a Commander have always been important to her, and she doesn't want to have failed in keeping them safe. And Eiffel is the only member of her original crew who she's able to save in this way. Hilbert is dead, and transferring Hera over to the Sol to be sent back to Earth on her own would come with a whole host of problems. 

But I don't believe for a moment that the reasons she sends Eiffel back are purely practical and abstract. I don't believe for a moment there's no personal significance to her decision to save him specifically. I don't believe for a moment that it was all about her practical plan for the wellbeing of humanity, or her desire to have fulfilled her duty to at least one non-specific member of her crew. She doesn't just need to save "someone". She doesn't just need to save "at least one of us". She needs to save Eiffel. She needs to save her friend.

The closest she gets to saying aloud that her motivation is about her care for Eiffel in particular is when she says "Go home, Eiffel. Hug your daughter. [...] Goodbye, Doug." She was prepared for those to be the last words she might ever say to him. And there's at least something in these lines that implies she wants Eiffel specifically to return to Earth. I don't think it's that she saves him because he has a daughter. I think when she tells him to go home and hug his daughter, it represents more than that. It's about how she wants him to be able to move forward and live his life. It's her saying that he deserves the interpersonal connections that are valuable to him. It's about her not wanting his story to end there on the Hephaestus. 

It kind of breaks my heart that even in that situation, she can't fully say aloud that the reason she wants Eiffel to survive is because she cares about him specifically. She has to give the justifications that are about her as a Commander and not about Eiffel as her friend. She doesn't tell him that she's saving him for his own sake, because he matters to her so deeply, because his safety is so important to her. 

And I really wish I could believe that Eiffel didn't need her to say it, that he could just understand just from her actions how much she cares about him. But as the Sol flies away from the Hephaestus, he tells himself that he's there because he "never had quite as much chest hair as Lieutenant Commander Renée [Minkowski]" and because he "could never get it right". So I don't think Eiffel ever really appreciates that Minkowski sends him back not because of what he can't do, but because of who he is: her friend, one of the most important people to her, someone who has brought so much value to her life, and someone whose death she refuses to contemplate.

[palukoo]

.