#TSCOSI spoilers

[cindereleanor]

Okay I know don’t normally post fanfic (or even write it for that matter!), but I finally* finished off this Starship Iris piece that I got really excited about on here so thought I might as well share it!

Thank you @munchiezxx for the post that inspired this, and @iffeelscouldkill and @tunedtostatic for enabling me XD

(*When I say 'finally', I really do mean it: technically most of this is something I wrote I think 2 years ago???😅 God knows why it took me until now to feel like finishing off and posting it. My mind is a mystery to me, but hey, at least one way I'm consistent is in my obsession with this podcast🤷‍♀️😂)

[thevoicefromthestars]

[wall-e-gorl]

[cream-and-tea]

while i do think junipers decision to keep her voice off the air in 2.09 was both smart and a good call it is somehow SO funny to me that she got a member of The Rumour Crew(tm) to do it instead. like. can u. can u imagine being a revolutionary/igr agent tapping into the feed/literally ANYONE who listened to the case files and you tune in to hear about what tf is happening in san ramos and this anonymous reporter starts talking and ur just like:

[ID: the woman yelling “beyoncé?!” meme with the text at the bottom of the image replaced with “CAPTAIN TRIPATHI??” instead. END ID]

[jaggedwolf]

air support, we need you (or: tscosi 2x09)

some bomb dropping, ofc, spoilers below duh

same game, top three things i had feelings ‘bout in reverse order

3. time skip time! Everyone could use a bit of a breather, even if it can’t live up to Arkady’s goat farm dreams

I thought all the planet assignments made sense, even if the completionist in me wanted it to differ more from the split that had already happened this season

ok ok the shipper in me was 50-50 but we’ll address that later

2. my man park!! is back!!! 

Showing up with an anti-aircraft missile launcher as a wedding gift. I kept joking that Park would keep up his finale trend of showing up as a surprise being cool (as cool as Park can be anw), and thought it wouldn’t happen till it did!

and him also quietly saying the defector wasn’t Shelly....Park...are you going to talk about this...

narrowly avoided extended crew singing for the third time, will he keep up this success rate?

I would take a mini-episode that just followed Park in the second half of the season (Park: I am an independent man who needs no crew)

1. Arkady attacking Krejjh because she thinks they’re an enemy, AND then McCabe pulling a gun on her to make sure she didn’t run away. Bro. Bro, that shit was a direct hit to the id. Do I even have words for how good that was

Knowing what was about to happen as soon as Arkady said “You” in that tone of voice, ugh

Krejjh saying Arkady instead of First Mate Patel in desperation, and then brushing it off with a :D after

But god, McCabe. They’ve been so compelling this season, and yeah, maybe they’re approaching everything like a nail with the hammer they’ve got that shoots bullets, but the point is, it fuckin works 

Arkady buys the threat (the promise of her crew’s safety?) more than she buys Krejjh’s reassurances 

(though reading the transcript, Krejjh specifically telling Arkady “Science Officer Liu will never forgive you”, not “forgive us”, is excellent too)

“the only authority figures yet to disappoint me” / “I’m not an authority figure” / “you don’t get to decide that” is just like. embedded in my mind. just McCabe going no, you don’t get to run verbally either.

Do you ever think about how Arkady and McCabe had like, different kinds of fucked up childhoods compared to the rest of the crew. Like obviously McCabe ending up an agent so young and the stuff about their family suggests a pretty secure background, but it feels like the IGR and Dwarnian war starting when they were 12 gives them a kind of cynicism that meshes well with Arkady’s, in a way that’s distinct from how Arkady and Violet’s morbidness mesh, or Arkady and Sana’s pragmatism

ok more character feels under the cut

don’t scandalize the grandparents

A married man! 

Impressed he made it through the season with no baddies wrecking his oxygen

Always ready to point out that Arkady is actually as much of a nerd as he is

AKA I didn’t realize it was a Mozart reference till he said so. Arkady defies the jock-nerd chart

okay who of Arkady or Krejjh is gonna tell him about MMA fight outside, or did they do a whole team debrief. For Arkady’s sake I’m hoping not the latter, though I guess everyone else would like an explanation for McCabe’s gun-pointing??

likes solving problems without guns, would prefer solving them by FLYING SPACESHIPS 

Krejjh watches McCabe’s gun strategy work on Arkady and goes “do you folks really live like this?? why???”

I do love that their first thought on what to do next is to run a bunch of supplies around, probably between human populations that are going to be a wary at seeing a dwarnian show up. (Eat it, Eejjhgreb)

Kinda wonder if their feelings about getting choked out by their buddy are in fact more complicated than “it’s chill dude, please don’t do something stupid”

The cutest vow

who needs to calm down your crewmates with annoying words when you can just point a gun at them

Seriously where is the human-dwarnian war AU where it lasts longer or happens later where McCabe is the baby sniper posted to Arkady’s unit and they squabble a bunch (and perhaps kiss? When I wrote my third ever ficlet for this fandom never did I anticipate actually being interested in that)

what % of their Mirzakhani choice was thinking “what if Arkady tries to run from the goat farm and no one’s around to point a gun at her” jk jk

Their exclusion of Park from authority figures that didn’t disappoint them is fascinating. Is it that he left hoping for Shelly when it probably wasn’t her, or that he isn’t an authority figure anymore, a combination there of?

Or worst of all, is it that when he didn’t kill Krejjh back in 1x10, that really was a disappointment, no matter how much it might’ve been mixed with relief, and you can’t undo that moment?

What if they and Park talked. But I don’t think Park is going to goat planet, so that seems unlikely.

Their apology to Sana for heightened Martineau security! And Sana reiterating the profound gratefulness bit, gah

mostly read other people’s words and yet sparked consideration of two different OT3s, her power.

you know what, everyone deciding Sana is the best person to read words makes complete sense

There was one specific moment this episode that sent my mind into a tizzy about V/A/S, and it was Arkady going FINE GO ASK THE CAPTAIN THEN at how firm Violet was that Tripathi would be the one driving her, not Arkady.

I need you to understand that my V/A/S OT3 opinions are such that my shipping feels were more set off by that than Sana and Violet telling Arkady they were proud of her for choosing goat planet or whatever, like I don’t even know what dynamic was so captured by that argument, rip at Arkady having to be systems apart from them again

Though ofc my heart was buoyed by Sana’s earnest “Kady, you do more than that”, I want these two to go do a job together again, I miss that

To shift gears, I cannot believe “Lenny” started out as Sana being absolutely furious at the people threatening her crew and has ended up a teasing in-joke between her and Park, my Sana/Park shipping feels were very content. (When does Sana learn that Park didn’t get to hear the long list of fake crimes the Rumor crew specifically confessed to Lenny? This must be fixed. Tell him about the diamonds!)

Campbell said “Park, let me show you where we’ve been sleeping.” and my brain went. Wait. This is actually a good OT3?? Park is already unnerved by Sana’s earnest captaining, he should get unnerved by Campbell’s default magnanimity, please consider this

this is also where I point out that all these major characters have very convenient names for indicating ships solely via letters. V/A! B/K! S/P/C! This may solve my ot3 tagging problem...

get off that cotton candy boat, vi

Haha I loved that line from Doc Robinson she’s so no-nonsense, love Violet agreeing to work with her

Doc also said menders and I thought about this post again and also the team split and ahhh

But no, I very much liked Violet gently crushing Arkady’s goat farm dreams, and the two of them awkwardly discussing the very awkward stage things are at while still getting a feel for how the other operates

These nerds are trying and I’m still fond of them

at some point I was gonna make fun of Vi for not being able to drive before realising 1. she probably didn’t want to deprive the others of a vehicle 2. that would be incredibly hypocritical of me

wait does the igr have excellent public transport when they aren’t bombing it i take back every bad thing i’ve said abou-

*ahem* same question about the MMA fight debrief I had for Brian, it would be so funny if the situation was so rushed that like, Arkady+McCabe explain to Brian on the farm and Krejjh has to tackle everyone else

tick, tock, walking bomb, when it stops, nobody knows

arkady is so whumpable, and this show knows it

Redundant, but love how terrified of herself she is after hurting Krejjh and how strangely reassured she is by McCabe’s gun antics. And how she doesn’t like thinking of herself as an authority figure on the ship even though she literally is as First Mate

is ready to monologue about all major life events and the crew frickin knows it

is trying to help herself and stuff, still grumbling about it. in worse shape this season than last - probably all the constant discussion of the inevitable war just kept building stuff up and she kept ignoring it because haha who wants to deal with this prickly mess of a person haha

did i mention she’s the best

hope she gets her full goat farm dream one day, even if it’s not on actual goat farm

[corona-de-spatio]

I only discovered Starship Iris a couple of months ago and I definitely didn't foresee getting so attached so quickly that the season 2 finale would actually have me crying in the car in front of my boyfriend during Brian and Krejjh's wedding. You never really see Jewish representation in SciFi and it means so much to me how unapologetically Jewish Brian is. Thank you, Jessica Best, for this beautiful experience. I am patiently awaiting season 3 with hope in my heart.

[iffeelscouldkill]

the only way out is through

A/N: All right, buckle up friends, because the first of my Fics to Process Episode 2.07 is here. Some of them will be fix-its, but not this one xD

THIS FIC CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE STRANGE CASE OF STARSHIP IRIS SEASON 2 EPISODE 7 (the most recent one). Do not read beyond this point if you haven’t listened yet! It won’t make much sense anyway!

Warnings for description of a gunfight and bullet wound, disassociation, and discussion of/dwelling on grief, death and violence.

---

“Shit!”

The gunshot seared into the ship, and Arkady swore as her ear burned with pain. She’d been hit. She fought down the instinct to clamp one hand to her ear – then Krejjh and Jeeter would know she was injured. The last thing this situation needed was more panic.

“Evasive maneuvers, folks, brace yourselves!” Krejjh yelled cheerfully, and Arkady gritted her teeth as she was thrown around in her harness. She felt a slow trickle making its way down from her ear. Was it visible?

“Arkady, you’re bleeding.” She could hear Sana’s voice of concern as she took in Arkady’s graze from- wait, no, that was in the past. That was in the past, and Sana wasn’t here right now. She was doing this without Sana.

Jeeter was saying something, complimenting Krejjh’s flying, and then he turned his attention to Arkady. “Arkady, you okay?”

“She’s bleeding?!” Now it was Violet, pure panic in her voice over the comms. God, Arkady needed to staunch the bleeding before they got back to the Rumor, or Violet would – wait. Not the Rumor. The Iris. Wrong ship, wrong memory, wrong crisis. Get it together, Patel. She’s not here. They’re not here.

“I—”

“Arkady?” Jeeter repeated, sounding concerned.

“What?” Arkady demanded. Things were – fuzzy. The pain in her ear was sharp and clear as anything, but everything else felt – distant, like a dream.

“Did they hit you?”

She needed to staunch the bleeding before Violet saw. No, no, this was a gunfight, she needed to fight back. “Where’s my gun?”

“You don’t know where your gun is?” Krejjh repeated in disbelief. Arkady tensed, her hands clenching into fists.

“Here!” Jeeter said quickly, thrusting it at Arkady. She took the weapon and held onto it, fingers remembering the familiar grip. The shifting sand around her stabilised. They were on Vashren’s ship. Vashren’s stolen ship. Goddamn “vehicular burglary”.

“If we’re distracting you—” Jeeter began.

“No, Jeeter, I’d say the problem is all the bullets,” Arkady replied acidly. Her ear had faded to a dull throbbing, though she’d need to find some gauze or a bandage soon. She took aim out the open door of the jumpship.

It was stupid to wish Violet were here, freaking out about her injury. Pointless to wish that she could step through into the door of the medbay, smelling of antiseptic and medicine and those bags of dried flowers Violet hung everywhere to try and mask the smell, and see her- see Violet and hear the upset and concern in her voice even as she tended to Arkady’s wound with the steadiest of hands.

But just for a moment, she wished it anyway.

---

“McCabe?” Violet called softly, through the closed door to McCabe’s room. She knocked again, tentatively. “RJ?”

No answer. McCabe had emerged from the bathroom, white-faced and shaking, and nodded once when Violet told them to be ready for takeoff. The second they were safely in the air, McCabe had disappeared into their room, and hadn’t emerged since then.

As the ship’s medic, Violet was extremely worried about McCabe. As their crewmate – as their friend, even… There just weren’t words to put to what McCabe must be going through. And Violet knew she was so, so far from being able to understand it.

She knew her presence outside the door was the last thing McCabe would want right now. But she had volunteered to come down here and try to talk to them, because it wasn’t fair for the Captain to take everything upon herself. And she could tell that Sana, like the rest of them, was barely managing to hold it together.

The only way out is through, Violet told herself, which was a mantra she used sometimes to motivate herself through tough situations. She knocked again, a little more firmly. “McCabe? The Captain asked me to come and find you. We’ve found a way to… uh.” Get it together, Violet – however hard you might find saying it, it can’t even come close to how McCabe is feeling about all of this. And they deserve better than hesitation. “We’re going to… cremate her. Your friend. We thought that you’d want to come and say goodbye.”

Violet held her breath as she waited, long moments stretching out. Nothing from the other side of the door.

Silently, Violet breathed out, her shoulders slumping. More than anything, she wished Arkady were here right now. She wished they weren’t half a crew, dealing with this, the worst thing that had happened to them since their catastrophic getaway on Elion.

But at least none of them had really known the guard on Elion. None of them had grown up with him.

Those events felt so far away now, like they’d happened to another version of Violet. But Violet could remember the look on Arkady’s face after she’d concussed the guard; her expression in the kitchen after she’d confessed to killing him so that he wouldn’t have to live in pain.

Violet thought that Arkady, of all people, might be able to get through to McCabe. To find the words to connect with what they were feeling, words that Violet was currently failing abysmally at finding. Violet’s mind balked every time she tried to imagine having grown up the way Arkady did – raised on a literal prison planet, thrown into the violence and bloodshed of a planetary rebellion and then a fight for survival, followed by an intergalactic war just ten months later. She knew she couldn’t comprehend it, and Arkady didn’t want her to try. But if there was anyone on their crew who knew about death and loss, it was Arkady.

Violet rested a hand against the smooth, grey surface of the door. She missed Arkady with a sharp, physical ache, but now wasn’t the time to get caught up in missing her- in missing anyone. Not when McCabe was on the other side of the door, and needed her.

Maybe Arkady would have been the right person to talk to McCabe. But until she made it back, Violet was going to do the best that she could.

[munchiezxx]

i want mccabe and arkady and brian to frolic with goats together. i want them to become unlikely besties and come back to the crew with a bunch of weird inside jokes no one understands

[tradedsymmetry]

The strange case of starship iris makes me so fucking HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Spoilers for S2 E8 "Signs and Signals" ahead, I just need to get some of these out omg.

I just fucking love how they brainstorm options when something needs to be done. It's just ideas, obstacles, how to overcome those obstacles, when to change the idea because it isn't realistic to overcome that obstacle, people volunteering or accepting that it makes sense for them to do it, it's just so fuckin wonderful.

If McCabe ever actually casts a vote some day I'm gonna lose my shit. In a good way. My interpretation of the first time was that they didn't totally feel part of the team before, I think they were probably even still on the fence about being there? This time it felt like 'uh that one big decision I just made last episode was enough for awhile, you all decide' but idk for sure.

McCabe and Arcady... The FEELS. "I think... Sana would say it's allowed to hurt" "it doesn't seem to need permission" "yeah" 😭😭😭😭😭😭

PIPER TANAKA ALWAYS A PLEASURE

Krejjhg and Brian calling RIFT!!!?!!!! 😍😍😍 FINALLY!!!!!!! None of the rumor/iris 2 crew have actually talked to them yet right?!?! So delicious.

"Krejjhg? THEE Krejjhg??" "I've been waiting my whole life for someone to call me a 'THEE'!!!!!! 🥰"

It FELT like the end in both story and time but when arcady said "Drive!" I said, "oh NO don't be the end that's the end isn't it please don't--" and then the credits music started 😭😭

Brittony LeFever is one of those actors that completely make the character. This is a fantastic show and Krejjgh would be wonderful and amazing regardless of who played them but holy SHIT Brittony is just so next level. Out of this world!!! Top notch!!!!!!!!! That's their only notch!!!!!!!!!

[tunedtostatic]

I turned my meandering tags from my “Arkady is the baby of the Rumor crew” post into a longer meta thing like the navel-gazer I am because I’m still thinking about this

OP was “Arkady technically being the baby of the original Rumor crew is both funny (because she, not to mention the others, absolutely does not act like it), and heartbreaking (because she, not to mention the others, absolutely does not act like it)” with disclaimer “I haven't listened to the new episode yet apologies if anything in it makes this post tasteless and/or incorrect somehow #I mean incorrect probably no since the only avenue to that would be Krejjh being the Dwarnian-maturity equivalent of < 27 which I doubt” that I edited that if Episode 7 doesn't underline part two of point two, idk what does

#but seriously the 'technically' here is only because of Violet coming next at ~28 #next is Brian at 34 and like there are fandom jokes predicated on the dynamic of Arkady as Brian's big sister #and they're funny because they're not wrong but when you look at the ages Brian is closer to a decade older than her than he is to her age

#of course with the advent of RJ Arkady is not the baby of the Iris 2 #there's probably something to be said about Arkady's animosity toward them in light of all this #to the others RJ is more easily a Poor Misguided Kid while to Arkady (and Violet) they're closer to just being a peer

#anyway I think Arkady's characterization really hits the nail on the head for a character #who had to be competent during trauma during‚ as Violet put it‚ developmentally important years #hypercompetent in professional/social contexts but with large gaps in her personal emotional skills #(*Not* saying this to be nasty about her orientation. Ace adults are adults and being grey-ace is not some kind of adulthood deficit. #but rather the like. hiding in the air vents)

I think one way Arkady is such a delightful character concept is as a dramatization of spending the “becoming an adult” years under stress with no consistent older adult presence. She’s given a gun in desperate circumstances on Cresswin, then goes to the front lines of a war where the adult presence is the terrible leadership, teaching herself skills (“I hack, I lie, I fight”) and becoming superfluously good at them along the way. At twenty-seven, she’s been “doing adulthood” for well over a decade, and in many ways the result is hypercompetence. She’s an experienced deputy leader of the crew who can improvise, collaborate, or take the lead on any challenge. But she skipped a lot of emotional development steps and never had the chance to learn “how to do adulthood” from adults under okay circumstances.

The result is...like, not to project (second-hand project?) onto fictional characters, but when listening to the podcast it feels like part of Arkady’s ridiculousness is that she’s dealing with the same contrast me/friends who took on some adult responsibilities as teenagers are dealing with. She grew up presenting as “more adult than the adults” and would have been the last person to notice (or be told) she still had growing up to do, but in reality she does have these areas of emotional maturity that never had a chance to develop. (And PTSD she isn’t dealing with, which is kind of a separate but connected issue.) It’s a contrast that seems dramatized by the difference between Kay Grisham/Sister Theresa Margaret/Duchess Calpurnia Higginsworth-Cob interacting with people on the job during a con and Arkady interacting with people in her personal life.

Back to Arkady being the baby of the crew, Arkady’s competence and authority makes her dynamic with the crew interesting. Obviously it’s good she has a home with people who respect her competence instead of treating her like a kid sister because she isn’t in her thirties (can you imagine). But the way Sana, Brian and Krejjh lean on her as a hypercompetent First Mate makes it seem important for Violet to be around to poke at the edges of her issues. Arkady might have a point about Violet’s “huge panicky eyes” making it hard to talk to about her about her past, but Violet having that alarmed outsider POV on the shit Arkady has been through and the ways it has affected her matters too.

(Episode 7 spoilers) Yes I’m annoyed with Krejjh for making impulsive choices that led to Arkady getting shot and then continuing to lean on her emotionally as a shoulder to cry on at the end of the episode, though speaking of projecting onto fictional characters I’ve definitely screwed up in the same kind of ways Krejjh did, so no hate. But I am wondering if them treating Arkady as an invulnerable protector will come up at some point in addition to wherever the thing with Arkady’s PTSD is going.

[sneakerdoodle]

KREJJH USING BRIAN’S FULL NAME TO PROPOSE BC THEY WANT TO DO IT THE WAY HUMANS DO IT............. PROPOSING THAT WAY READILY ON THE SPOT, MEANING THEY’D MEMORIZED IT BEFORE, DREAMT OF PROPOSING OFFICIALLY MANY MANY TIMES...........

😭

[cindereleanor]

Honestly The Strange Case of Starship Iris balances that line between escapism with the characters all unquestioningly accepting each others’ identities, but still providing representation of how these characters have all struggled being part of oppressed groups better than any other piece of media I can think of

(Aka yep I’m getting emotional over how the detail of Violet’s anxiety medication was handled)

(Someone with much better media criticism skills that me could probably write a fascinating piece going more in-depth into this, or more broadly into the role of sci-fi in telling hopeful stories for marginalised people...)

[happyendingmp3]

It's 3am and the former government agent who has been spying on you for months knocks at your door asking that you download them new episodes of an alien pirates soap opera what do you do

[suncrayon]

iris finale I am going to SOB

[jaggedwolf]

tscosi 2x08

gotta do some rough expected value calculations under time pressure, no big

where'd those seconds go

Well, shit, guess it indeed wasn’t a simple startle response to getting shot that Arkady was having last episode

What a good little talk with McCabe, and what a sneaky little choice of hers to reveal that vulnerability to solicit McCabe’s, oldest trick in the book

I’m laughing cause after last ep I was like shit, I don’t think Park or Arkady have advice on the “shooting your best friend” experience and this episode Arkady pops up to go “jaggedwolf, you fool, of course this terrible experience has also happened to me, this is the kind of character I am, did you not get the memo”

She’s right I am a fool. Also laughing at Arkady halfway panicking and going wait don’t copy my coping mechanisms

Liked Violet’s comment on letting McCabe watch the cremation. It...feels like the returning of a favour, of when McCabe didn’t hide those worrying Juniper details they’d dug up, a sort of shared “fuck it, I’ve been lied to/blinded myself long enough, I’m not looking away now”, only flavoured by their different demeanors

McCabe joining the crew is important because they provide backup to Arkady and Violet’s instinctive morbidness, in this essay I will-

The return of McCabe’s “can I abstain?” :( :(

no time for sandwiches (ok, some time for sandwiches)

Don’t think I fully got what made Sana’s half of the crew later than Arkady’s half, when they were a day away, unless the two halves of last ep were far more staggered from each other than I assumed...but no, the Martineau half definitely didn’t know anything about San Ramos at the time

While I was easily amused at Campbell and Arkady respectively going “Captain!” and “Sana!” at Sana’s arrival, the award for cutest Sana greeting goes to Krejjh and their very excited hug

Will the ongoing theme of the show be that at the end of every season, Sana has to sacrifice her ship for the greater good? (yes yes they all voted but y’all know what I mean)

dwarnian fae

This joke while elcor hamlet is on my mind! Which shakespeare play should have an all-dwarnian cast and why is there in-universe discourse about this

Glad uni students are still dragging each other to weird experimental shows even in this IGR  dystopia. Would not envy the IGR agent assigned to figure out if there’s any subversive messaging going on

Probably gotta re-listen to figure out the tone of “So we’re flying back to San Ramos?” / “Weren’t we always, bud?” What were you considering, Mr Jeeter...

100% expect something to happen to Brian’s oxygen machine. It’s right there! Making his lungs better! Can’t have that kinda peace here, no way

san ramos minutiae 

“The largest remaining human city in the galaxy. “ First, ouch at remaining. Second, a fitting full circle from the earlier discussion of the IGR preferring New Jupiter to Telemachus - if they want the popular feeling for a real war, they know its the de facto center of human civilization that matters, not the de jure one. Convenient bonus of no important government buildings getting hit by a misaimed bomb

As with S1E1, English/Spanish appear to dominate the IGR’s languages. I would say that I won’t contemplate what this means for the past two centuries of human geopolitics given my complete lack of knowledge in this domain, but I am also the person who got haunted by all of the ID cards in Tacoma having Tamil but no Spanish or Chinese :P (The answer is probably that everything is appropriately local for New Jupiter/Telemachus/Tacoma station)

Minor Character MVP: David Parker won the phone tree, for simultaneously being reluctant to leave his job in the face of bombings while having an immediate hookup on spaceship theft. (Piper and Kestrel, while delightful as always, lost points for not quite correctly combining their knowledge of the footage with the ~official~ bulletin)

[a-grayscale-galaxy]

All the Campbell and Sana moments this ep were literally so good what