Jade Shadows - Tumblr Posts

Jade Shadows related thoughts tm

For context; fandom active since 2016, with various hc & fics

I record all my first runs in case I miss anything or need to refamiliarize myself, but in brief I like it for what it is. Would've liked a more direct content warning than just 'motherhood' which can include a VARIETY of things.

But especially as someone critical on DE's tendency with smaller stories (and hoping between mediums of story telling), I went in with no expectations besides it being Stalker related. That whatever happens doesn't conflict with personal hcs, they can split off etc, and did not share an expectation that it'd be lgbt+ rep JUST off the expectation of it being released during pride month. Feels unhealthy to go into it expecting a certain outcome from a big company's story telling, especially on the premise of release timing. Just icing on the cake if it is :)

Historically DE has issue with smaller scale stories; they have high ambitions and not a lot of restrictions where they put their resources. From the Simaris Scans, the Prime logs, the various scanning stories, EVEN NIGHTWAVE, which has only to date had three story sets. There's a lot of crumbs of their ideas that don't work or aren't able to work on in a constant rhythm. So not just tooting my horn that "DE is trying their best with what they got", they fumble constantly, and their limits just happen to only be "what resources (money, time, and people) do we have".

I still remember them wanting to do Railjack and TNW all in ONE PACKAGE, in ONE UPDATE, before the pandemic kicked them in the ass.

Again before tangent of historic context; I liked Jade Shadows for what it was, a brief three mission jaunt around as the Stalker. Whom for all intensive purpose of the story is not shown to be very caring of others, and in context at the point out for the tenno for the slaughter. Jade gives context for why Stalker is like that TM; Stalker is selfish, self-serving, unwilling to ask for help, and the only person that spoke up was the Old War Relic that fed his daughter to the Orokin and did nothing to stop his son from succumbing to the same fate by the same man.

Hunhow and Stalker both have issues and it kinda feeds off one another, and Jade didn't deserve the double-wammy. Its a dark story brought of the world ruined by the Orokin and their colonizing empire that ripped up ever resource they could before setting the Sentients out whom they built to be rued of their reproduction if they traveled back through the void. Body autonomy and societal abuses has been a constant theme throughout warframe, and that means sometimes its uncomfortable! That's good! Fiction is a tool to analyze the uncomfortable spaces in a safe manner, and allow the viewer to step away if they need to.

Was it done well? No, it has room for improvement, it could've involved Jade more as an active role instead of just relegated to Stalker's manpain, but its done better than other media who sole purpose from the get-go is some dude's mainpain. Relegated to the end was that Jade and Sorren were both seemingly glad for it, but there was a hesitancy alike to Dagath's situation. It wasn't socially -allowed-, and may or may not be in relation to why they were both transformed to warframes. And may be what was referred to before of Stalker being a 'low guardian'. We may not, or may never, know his mental state at the time, but the weight of the Orokin empire still hung over him as the system changed.

I wish there was more of Jade than just having her laying there as a story piece honestly :( More of her relation to Sorren, why she still stayed with him, more than just as a vessel for the story, you know, give more oofm to the ending of her becoming one of the jade light and a techno-organic baby left in her wake. Her relation to Stalker after the war where she had to save his ass from a default Excalibur. But we didn't and I'm sad. :(

AS FOR the labor section; preempting with how operator got wrapped up in the situation by Stalker coming in and demanding help by the end of his scythe; the circumstances forced to comply just like how the Orokin would do before with others. Stalker is just the same as the 'golden lords', replicating the same cycle of abuse that society saw as normal.

Did I like the thought of teenage character being subjected to the outcome of the events of: society defying pregnancy -> body transformed to a low guardian as punishment -> (potential implications of depending on an abusive system for support, akin to military service to access health care and financial support where if you did not engage you aren't allowed to access) -> Death of the terrible system of oppressive and colonial Orokin empire -> Unwilling to change for the changing society, and unwilling to engage with other victims of the same exact system -> Prolonged inaccessibility to the necessary care to survive a difficult pregnancy until the very last moment?

No; I would've preferred the Drifter if it had to be engaged with, at least in the touchy aspect of child/teenager + pregnancy/labor. It at LEAST has the detachment that they're not actively going through it, it doesn't come with the specific body-autonomy horror of carrying another life to term - which is something I would've preferred more.

BUT CONSIDERING, how within USAmerica legislators have been stripping that same body autonomy from afab people, allowing far worse to happen than just "press button to go into labor" its good to have such difficult topics handled! Because shaming it, disallowing conversations around it, or even shaming the 'thought' around even the briefest of acknowledgement, is no better than the pro/anti fandom bullshit that are two extremes of tolerance or intolerance.

As a story beat it stripped both the player and the operator of body autonomy for that ONE moment; an operator that had put a brief trust in helping the Stalker, to help a warframe with an affliction they had no idea of going in.

And, said as personally, as uncomfortable as it may be, it also speaks into the moment of an adult coercion of a child or teenager. He walks in and asks for help with a scythe aimed at the person they ask for help, it's not a plea, its a demand, to which the details are never discussed. Especially under a guise of 'don't want to say no' isn't easy to get across in a quick way within dialogue, so they leave it to interruption. And so has to go along with it, no matter what happens, and it just end with an astral projection event of the results of such a predicament.

It's a dense cluster of subject matter that is hard to get across, and if it resonates or not, tasteful or not, its handled in a delicate way that other media would just fuck up with majorly.

I'm not touching the fandom built expectation that i'd be yoai. That's on ya'll getting riled up after witw and wanting token instead of what warframe has already been doing. LGBT+ as people instead of tallies.

whether you enjoyed Jade Shadows or not, please remember that pregnant people, people who are struggling with infertility/reproductive ailments, and people who want to have children are also people who use tumblr + play warframe. Some of the comments about this quest/Jade have been weird.

Thoughts on the newest update

Spoilers!!!

Now that I've had some time to let everything stew and can make coherent thoughts...

First, I do wish the quest was longer and we could at least see more of who Jade and Stalker/Sorren were before becoming frames. It wasn't bad but could've used much more time!

I'll admit, I wasn't sure how to react with the pregnancy reveal. Was I shocked, disgusted, horrified, unsure? And then it hit me.

The Orokin never valued life.

We already knew this through multiple stories of mutilation, forced mutation and experimentation. But it never hit me before as to how low the orokin would sink into the endless abyss of evil until Jade. They took a pregnant woman and her lover and turned them to warframes with no memory of one another. But the worst part? They did so with their unborn child as well. Why? To make an EXAMPLE. I have no doubt our peachy friend Ballas designed her with the express purpose of slowly dying as her child sucked out her life force. They took Jade and Sorrin's minds, memories and even autonomy just to feed into their narcissistic sadism.

All because they broke the rules.

And in the end, i'd like to believe that, with the help of our tenno, Jade was able to give one last middle finger to her 'former masters' and the streak of filth they left behind by saving her kid, letting Sirius/Orion live on. She WANTED to have a child, and by damn she fucking DID!

Fuck you Ballas, you may be able to fridge Jade but she had the last laugh!!!!

If you think Jade was just an "incubator" and had no autonomy or choice, block me please.

Some of y'all are all about pro-choice, women's rights and bodily autonomy until a woman makes an active choice that you personally do not like. Please look at yourself in the mirror and see how weird you're being.

You're the ones being misogynistic, not the quest, and it was not preaching pro-life or whatever the fuck y'all are insisting on.

Have y'all forgotten one of the lead directors is a woman? Who would've overseen this quest being made? Have you forgotten how pro-women and generally pro-autonomy this game always has been? Literally the biggest point they make constantly is autonomy being ripped away is bad, it's horror, this quest is a tragedy, not a horror.

That is all.

/jade shadows spoilers

I need people to stop implying that agency is only when a woman doesn't want to be pregnant. There is nothing to ever insinuate Jade is robbed of her agency, in fact the one thing we know about her is that having a child mattered to her. Protecting a woman's agency is, believe it or not, also protecting her agency to want a child, not just to not want one, and it comes across so weird to take a story about a man fighting in literally every conceivable way to save his partner and then, when realizing it was literally unavoidable, saving the only part of her that could be saved, the literal physical embodiment of their love together, and make it a "uh she was only a baby machine this shit sucks"

I absolutely agree that Jade needed more time and we needed a better introduction to her character, but to inherently vilify the act of having a child and wanting to protect it is so incredibly weird and reductive to me

Okay I am very happy to see more and more people call out the weirdos, namely the ones villainizing pregnancy and all that, But I wanna talk about the startling amount of people I've been seeing popping up calling Jade and Stalker's romance "cheap, boring, easy" just *because* it's woman-loving-man or "straight" as these people keep calling it.. How wild is that-? to call a romance boring because of the gender of the people involved? they're not calling it boring cause of writing but because of their damn genders? hello?? do you know how insane that would sound if said about a sapphic or achillean (mlm) couple?? imagine if someone said that about Albrecht and Loid they'd get flamed so fucking fast dude. Do these people also forget bi/pan etc. wlm relationships exist? or that straight genderqueer people and relationships exist?? that queer wlm relationships just exist as well in general??? I'm a bi woman in a relationship with a bi trans man, JUMPSCARE! we exist! while I understand being tired of wlm romances cause there's enough out there to get to hell and back, that doesn't mean they should just, not exist? or that they're inherently bad or boring? not only is that just weird period but it also erases the people and relationships mentioned above. (also goes against the whole equality thing we've all been fighting for my guy) also like, the last time we got a wlm relationship between major/important characters in warframe was god damn Ballas and Lotus and that shit was abusive, we needed a healthy one to balance it lmaaoooo. Annd to my knowledge there hasn't been any romance between two warframes before these two yet so it's not like they've done it before to warrant the groaning? you know it's odd how I almost felt this type of attitude coming, I was witnessing a concerning steady rise of hating pregnancy in fiction from one side of the internet and just general hatred of wlm relationships on the other side of the internet, such a shame it all came to a boiling point and targeted this quest that really didn't deserve it. Honestly looking at it without the stained view of people the quest is just as good as all the others before it, short, sweet and impactful. I really enjoy it and have been trigger happy with the block on anyone slightly annoying about it cause at this point it feels like we don't even play the same game lmao. anyways this will likely be the last post about people being weird as I don't wanna bring more negativity to the tag and I'm tired of people pff but posts like these are unfortunately important cause if you let the mold sit it'll contaminate and ruin everything. Jade, Stalker and their beb deserve all the love they can get, I will not tolerate slander. >:[

"I hope Jade deluxe will get rid of her belly" *kills you with a hammers*

didnt want to say anything about jade shadows/jade, but some of you guys are nasty.

i think people should understand that whatever choices that women make about their own bodies. they do not owe anyone an explanation for their choice.

why is it, when jade chooses to keep her child, people suddenly want to jump and ask a million questions and justifications on why she wants to keep her kid? she wanted a family, and even when the orokin punished her for wanting that and turned her into a warframe, she fought and went through literal war to keep her kid anyway.

i would understand this criticism if thats the ONLY way women are portrayed in warframe, but its not. we have a woman standing up against her abuser and who leads an entire faction who respects her and loves her, we have a woman who is the literal leader of a unionization, we have a trans woman who is part of said union, we have multiple female warframes that have lore about going against the orokin.

i wonder why when there is a character that actively chooses to be a mother does everyone suddenly hate her as if this game has never had plot points about motherhood and family.

like, im sorry if jade didn't do the "girlboss" choice for you? do we just think that women who want to have kids/start families are not valid anymore?? i am all for critiquing the way women are portrayed in media, but excluding a woman and irl women's experiences for choosing something you personally do not like is the real misogyny here.

accept all women's choices about their bodies, not just the ones you like.

(btw to the people who liked this quest because you think its some pro-life message. you're an idiot.)

Me and my new friend. Let us enjoy a headcanon that Stalker is overprotective as he can be because that's funny. . . Also how the hell do I fashion frame?? I am shit at it

If you care about Jade Shadows spoilers at all, a major plot point of that quest is brought up here but this post is about the community being fucking insufferable. you have been warned

'oh my god they released a quest about straight people and childbirth during pride month' who fucking cares. why do you care so much honestly. At first I thought the 'if this character is straight I'm killing myself' posts were jokes but it's an old and tired joke if so. It is so obnoxious, and that's coming from the ultra queer™️ whose corner of the internet is saturated in queerness. Not everything has to be queer, and, god forbid, straight people (and anyone else) having children should be allowed to be discussed actually! are we 12 years old? why are people pissing themselves over this and screaming about how the fictional character had no agency? if your first thought when seeing a female character giving birth is to call them an incubator there is something deeply wrong with you.

Jade shadows shows a side to both the corpus, hunhow, and stalker, that we wouldn’t usually see.

We see hunhow, destroyer of worlds, be caring, he knows what it’s like to have children, he cares if the child lives.

It shows how even the sisters, people who are as strong as liches (and at some points as aggressive) can also show care, as soon as she hears the child crying.

Finally, it shows the stalker, the hunter of the Tenno, be caring, it shows how much he cares for jade by having him go to ask the Tenno for help, his greatest enemy.

I'm in a state currently of knowing what happened and not knowing what happened