Now you might argue I could just make myself seek out multiple partners to balance it out. But I don’t think this works because I genuinely am too autistic to have more than one partner. I don’t mean this in an ableist 4chan way, but in the very literal sense that various aspects of my neurology just don’t work with it. I’m a huge sucker for routine, and the more stable and consistent things are the happier I am. If I’m going to “make up” for that lost energy I would have to take on more partners and more chaotic schedules, I would have to account for far more strange missed dates and broken schedules, and I would just overall be more miserable than if I just… dated one person.

To be fair this is all theorizing. I was in a poly relationship before and it was OK, but it wasn’t really a real poly relationship (my partner literally hid the fact they didn’t like their other partner from them the entire time despite constant urgings from me to be honest TO THIS DAY. Yes, we literally broke up and they STILL refuse being honest with their other partner). Though, my partner was generally not really putting anything in the relationship with me at all, and I think that’s how I can tell that imbalance would hurt me.

I will admit I also have a weird hang up about my partner actively dating people I don’t like along with me. Maybe this is weird but just the idea of there being a possibility of like, someone I absolutely despise taking up half the time my partner spends (and any less would make me feel bad because it would mean they’re treated as secondary, too! So I can’t even just set up some weird hierarchical thing, because my sense of “unequal treatment” injustice genuinely doesn’t only apply to me, it also applies to other people. So even in the best case scenario where I’m reaping all the benefits of polyamory and none of the difficulties, I’m still unhappy!). The idea of my partner spending half of their time (or MORE if it’s more than one partner I dislike) with someone who’s actively rude or cruel to me or even them actively makes me sick. Why would some actual asshole deserve the love of my life’s time more than me? I could just break up with my partner every time they had a metamour I disliked, but that still leaves all of the other issues, and at that frequency of breakups, isn’t monogamy just straight up easier and possibly even more ethical?

TL;DR I genuinely think I physically cannot be polyamorous and the slight possibility that I’m wrong and I’m just inherently toxic is scaring me.

Or in short, unless the person in question’s life would be a living hell under polyamory anyways, they probably have a limited amount of time set aside for romance, so we’re talking about splitting up percentages of that, not their whole life. If someone set aside 2 hours a day to cuddle partner 1 and 2 hours a day to cuddle partner 2 and 2 hours a day to cuddle partner 3… without eventually having a limit to the amount of romantic time they can spend, It adds up quickly and becomes absurd. The only exception to this would be if romance would basically just mean partners accompanying each other with everything else, in which case, the imbalance still exists and in a way separate from friends or chores or any other time spending activity. Arguably even worse, because then the time being split up between partners is their entire life.

I'm actually kinda hoping that Maryan gets to pilot a Diver now, if only because it would be incredibly funny. She's so enamoured with the thing and it's charming. Plus, she'd probably make a kickass pilot when she's not all cuttled out =)

Much love to the failson on board the Brigand as well! He can't help that he was born fucked up! My man is literally doing a "NOBODY WILL DEBATE ME LEFTISTS ARE ALL VIOLENT" bit, basically turning into a corncob after Shalikova disregarded him. Watching him subsequently get his face pounded by that security lady's buttstock was deeply satisfying, sorry bucko but The Romanovs Deserved It

I wanted to write a lil appreciation of Murati Nakara because she is a wonderful bean.

When you first meet her in the intro to Unjust Depths she almost seems kind of silly. The only things she really has going on are her girlfriend Karuniya, (they seem to have an uncomplicated and wonderful relationship) her skill at diver piloting and her ambition in the military. To be honest, early on I had thought she didn't really have any flaws, but she takes a good while to unfurl and bloom as a character.

Murati is not among the several autistic lesbians in Depths, that I know of anyway, but her staunch hard-headedness is very appealing! Much later in the series she's talking to this scientist lady who knew her parents, the famous revolutionaries the Nakaras, and she is borderline affronted when science lady says "Yeah they did a lot of great shit but they were mostly just oceanographers lol, idealists really" and it's borderline adorable. I can really respect how strongly she feels about her Mordecist beliefs and sense of justice. When she first steps off the Brigand and into an Imperial city, her moment of utter shock at a capitalist hellhole that leaves its people destitute and homeless is superb for her. Murati might be a military-strategic galaxybrain and a steadfast revolutionary, but she's also somewhat green, and her single-minded commitment to justice can sometimes cause problems, like she bothers Captain Ulyana for money to try to house these homeless guys in the Empire, holding up a critical extraction mission.

What I really want from her is more flashbacks, though. Stepping back in time about fifteen years and finding out that not only has Murati always been like this, but she was equally loud and brash about matters of her gender is a wonderful thing. She went from "good" to "great" though when she gave her adoptive parent Deshnov shit about his goofy-ass "allowed you to go on tbose medications" spiel.

It's fairly uncommon to see trans kids in fiction, unless it's some kind of Young Adult, coming-of-age story I guess, likely because the vast majority of trans people now still transition in their 20s or 30s. I'm weird though, and so the idea that an indignant, righteously angry 12 year old Murati had to lash out against Deshnov (and probably everybody else Idk) to get her way and be who she is? Wow, she just like me, fr fr. That's something I can really relate to, and even just hinting at that kind of hardship for her has me deeply invested basically for free. I feel a great affection for the First Officer, the Brigand couldn't ask for a better Diver Leader and I'm always excited when she is onscreen. Murati, my beloved ❤

"In this single moment, Gertrude's dreams could crumble right in front of her. All of her work, suffering, all the begging and cheating and the corpses she climbed - for nothing."

Self Awareness Gertrude does not reflect on her actions. She truly does think in waves. The battle against the Antenora is just starting up for the Brigand crew, and I'm pretty hyped.

Meanwhile,

Right? She wished the little nagging voice in her head was more supportive.

MOOD, SONYA

I like seeing Shalikova being CO as well, her internal bitching about how much better Murati is at this has me like OMG GO SIT WITH HER ✨ I believe in her ability to do this sometime since Murati is a perfect bean and could not be more approachable if she tried. I find the icy dynamics between them fascinating though, it really seemed back at the 3rd Battle of Thassalid that Sonya outright hated Murati or smth

So here is your incredibly blursed thought for the day: They should kiss. Murati and Sonya would make kind of a fun pair... Not as much obvious chemistry as Ulyana/Aaliyah or indeed Sonya and Maryan, but the way so much of Sonya's mindshare is spent thinking jealously/in admiration about how much better of a CO and tactician Murati is... combined with that initial awkwardness, I'm seeing it already. Sonya, nervous and gay, using her reverence for Murati's battlefield acumen as a shield to hide her hopelessly gay crush. Murati is very hardheaded, but I can see her wanting to be soft on a squadmate, being taken a little with Sonya's obviously flustered demanour, and things blossoming a bit from there.

That could be a cute AU fic, I think. Writing a blursed T4T pairing for Unjust Depths cause there's not any so far? Even though it feels a bit dirty, I may or may not be willing to brutalise A) Karuniya and B) the fan-favourite cuttlefish narratively to make this happen.

I still find Maryan to be a deeply weird character, which I guess is what happens when you get vat-grown to be a navigator for a warlord, but I'm down with her motivations and find her endearing, her backstory seems neat c: She is a land of contrasts; she has this adorably idealistic speech about how she believes everyone can and should use psionics, all deeper-understandings-between-people stuff... but we're talking about sandwich-thieving, dream-influencing cuttlefish lady, lmao. She has interesting ideas.

I was laughing my ass off when Maryan was giving that speech and Shalikova was like "Yeah but u got no dialectical materialism fam, no peace while the bourgeoisie persist" shine on, Sonya Shalikova.

Meanwhile Norn is a character who's improved by leaps and bounds to my eye. I think her main issue is she's always got this mask and can't say anything without making it a Disney villain monologue or something, so she can seem kind of silly sometimes, but her little moments of kindness I find very admirable, she's sweet at times:

"I don't understand. What- what's the point for you? Why would you go out of your way and challenge Euphrates? Why would you agree to release me afterward? I don't understand! I'm just a random piece of biological equipment!"

"No you are not. You are a scared girl who is being done wrong in the same way that I was by the exact same people."

"So- so what? If that's what you think then are you turning your back on the Sunlight Foundation?"

Norn grinned. "The only reason I am 'helping' them is to take advantage. To stop them from getting their way all the time. I won't stand them for them having you, so I took you away. You don't belong in their silver cage."

Adelheid spoke up. "Selene, Norn won't admit it, but she does care about you."

Like I wasn't expecting much from the Selene-Norn connection, but this is my favourite dysfunctional gay family.

Conversely though I gotta say, I sincerely do not understand Selene's wonderment at her parents existing. It would probably be deeply disquieting to have been made as a genetic weapon, as an experiment with intent to kill, sure; but that is what her parents did, basically, as she had already assumed. The only extra "context" it provides is that she's a genetic experiment made by some woman having an affair. I guess personally I've never been that concerned with the intent for or context of my existence, partly because I can't ascertain it. Sure, it'd be super weird if I found out tomorrow that I'm secretly a lab experiment or whatever, but that wouldn't change my existence on its own. Someone somewhere brought me into being; beyond that, it's mine to decide what to do with. It seems weird to me that Selene is so obsessed with the idea that two people vat-birthed her for a eugenics experiment, instead of the usual Katarran vat-birth for a specific job.

And then on top of that, the "context" that Selene is so obsessed with is apparently being a really good genetic superweapon:

"She was the fruit of the search for psionic potential in the human gene, and surely, that meant her mother had succeeded! She was a genetically psionic wunderkind!"

What the fuck do you care if mummy's eugenics project worked out? She's all tied up about a FATEFUL DESTINY and being SPECIAL, yeah ok Link sure. Got a divine bloodline in there to go with it? What a weird turn, and I liked Selene.

Hate seeing "AFAB vs AMAB" essentialism and "transfems are like this" bullshit even on lefty places like here. I'm probably just being oversensitive and should delete all social media but youtube animal facts. I feel like I can't trust anywhere on the internet to accept trans people.