They Wanna Kiss So Bad They Fucking Hate Each Other

They wanna kiss so bad they fucking hate each other

I don't see nearly enough people talk about Kepchel being the most toxic of exes.

The fact that it would be Eiffel running in to see her, not the other way around.

She sends him into space. She sacrifices her own best method of escape to save him. He sacrifices his to go back and save her. Where in the original finale, Minkowski has to grapple with the fact that she tried and failed to save Eiffel, in this version Eiffel has to deal with the fact that she was right. He didn't save her even when he came back; it made no difference. If he had gone back to Earth, nothing would have changed except the few last words she gets to say to him. For a moment, he thinks she was right all along, that going home would've been the best option. He couldn't have helped her anyway.

But he's wrong. On the Urania, headed back with everyone, Eiffel is the one who takes on the task of reteaching Minkowski who she is. Of course, he's reverent and kind and tells her what a wonderful commander she was, how sharp and determined and headstrong. It takes almost a month before she comes storming in, recordings in hand, demanding to know what he really thinks of her. It takes another few weeks for her to realize she has a husband, because in the chaos of adjusting, Eiffel never told her. By the time she makes her way through all of his logs, they're back on Earth.

Those two are so intertwined, I can't imagine a world in which Eiffel doesn't do everything he can to help her, and it breaks my heart-

Random thought to get thrown out into the void: what if Minkowski had been the one to get memory-wiped instead of Eiffel? What would that change, thematically?

It would lose the punch of the self-centered coward making the final sacrifice that it being Eiffel has. It has a touch of “captain goes down with her ship” about it. We don’t get as much time on her and Hera’s individual relationship as we do with Eiffel and Hera; what would a Minkowski-and-Hera final stand and goodbye look like? It could be interesting from an Eiffel perspective; Minkowski pushed him and taught him so much and now it is time for him to help lead her?

I don’t know. Interesting thing to think about though.

My thoughts on the SI-5

For as much as a lot of fandom romanticizes the SI-5 as a friend group, Kepler really did Jacobi and Maxwell so dirty. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he got it in the end, and the character himself is hilarious. But I need to talk about this. This man is insane and needs to be held accountable.

First of all, he meets them at the very lowest points of their life. Maxwell is isolated from her family and support systems, and it’s implied her career is heading for the toilet due to her fight with the ethics board. Jacobi’s career is totally over after he was blacklisted from his work, and it’s implied he doesn’t have strong support systems either. Kepler knows that and uses it to manipulate both of them into working for him. They both, especially Jacobi, have such a strong loyalty to him because they saw him as their only way out of their situations, and Kepler does not match that loyalty at all.

How do I know this? Because he was totally cool with Maxwell dying. Didn’t shed a tear. And when Jacobi called him out for that and threatened HIS life? Kepler was like “well okay. Guess we have to shoot Jacobi then.” I was reviewing my episode reactions, and I totally forgot he told Minkowski that. Like he didn’t hesitate or even try apologizing to Jacobi or admitting he was wrong first, he jumped right to “kill Jacobi instead.” He also had the audacity to say “how could he (Jacobi) do this? After all we’ve been through? 🥺” and then what they’ve “been through” is Kepler buying Jacobi fireworks (1) time, admitting to stalking Jacobi and Maxwell for years before he hired them (creepy), harassing and threatening them if they fail to comply with his orders, telling Jacobi and Maxwell they’re worth about as much as a glass of whisky and he wouldn’t miss them (which is verified by his reaction to Maxwell’s death and brief willingness to kill Jacobi to save his own skin when Jacobi tries to get revenge), lying to Jacobi and Maxwell and keeping secrets from both of them, and being an arrogant jerk of a boss who treats them more like his patronized pets than his friends. It’s actually funny how Kepler is shocked that wouldn’t be enough to keep Jacobi’s loyalty after gambling with the life of his best friend. He’s so blinded by his own ego it’s hilarious. Like buddy, it’s a miracle of desperate circumstance that either of them were loyal to you in the first place, you pompous whisky-worshipping buffoon.

You even see it in the little details. Kepler talking to Cutter about Jacobi and Maxwell behind their backs on that one call, the way Jacobi calls Maxwell “Alana” but Jacobi and Kepler use their formal names for each other until the very end when Kepler calls Jacobi “Daniel” and acts legitimately terrified to discover what Cutter and Pryce’s true plans are. Which again, love the way the redemption arc was done and those little details show you proof that Kepler rethought his views and isn’t doing this on a whim and that Jacobi and Maxwell’s friendship, as compared to their relationships with Kepler, was a stronger and more real and genuine friendship. I mean, headcanon what you want, write the SI-5 how you want. But a lot of people seem to either love or hate the whole SI-5 group (I admit this was me for a long while, though I do love post-redemption duck and whisky boys) so it’s easy to gloss over these internal dynamics within the SI-5, but if Kepler survived, I would personally need him to acknowledge just how much of a jerk he really was because yikes.

I LOVE IT HERE

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When SI-5 and the crew of the Hephaestus clash it's not a pretty sight...

@ghostcat-cosplays as Dr. Alana Maxwell kaiidth_cosplay as Warren Kepler owenisamassivenerd as Daniel Jacobi magpieclaws.cosplay as Isabel Lovelace @confusiondoodle as HERA kiwi_cosplays_ as Doug Eiffel

THIS

Minkowski's entire arc is about structure. Her rigid adherence to protocol is what gets the crew into as many messes as it gets them out of! She's comfortable with what she knows and relies heavily on environments where everything is as good as scripted.

When thinking about autistic Minkowski, I do also love that the conclusion of her story isn't abandoning structure; it's using it. She figures out how to take all of this rigid framework and use it as a tool to get her people home safe. Even more than that, she learns to communicate, even when it means admitting she doesn't understand, because she's found people who won't shame her for not catching a pop culture reference. I love. The her

i have so many feelings about autistic minkowski