People Put An Unrealistic And Very Specific Expectation Into This Quest And I Feel Like Thats Probably What Ruined Their Experience - 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.