#and maybe Minkowski & Lovelace

[hephaestuscrew]

I think one of the things that I find so compelling about Minkowski & Eiffel is that I believe that who they each are as people means they have the inherent potential to have immensely positive impacts on each other, but I do not believe they would have even been friends in most possible scenarios in which they could have met. I believe they are uniquely attuned to help each other grow and develop and become better versions of themselves, but for the first year and a half of them living and working together, the prevailing emotion between them was irritation. I believe that they are able to support each other through hardship in a way no one else could, but without the specific kind of hardship they went through, they might never have known this.

And even as I acknowledge that they might never have bonded without the trauma, it's important to me that it's not that they are bonded purely by trauma, in a way that might imply Minkowski or Eiffel could have built the same bond with anyone who'd been up there with them.

They are bonded by the ways in which they care for each other, by the ways in which their contrasting personalities make them uniquely well suited to support each other, by the way Eiffel makes Minkowski laugh when she really needs to, by the way Minkowski would do anything to keep Eiffel safe, by the way Eiffel reminds Minkowski of her moral compass in her darkest moments, by the way Minkowski helps Eiffel understand that some things are worth taking seriously.

But without what they went through together, they might never have seen beyond their surface-level understandings of each other in order to form this incredibly valuable friendship. It's not that their traumatic experiences are all that bond them. It's that the traumatic experiences forced them to break past the initial barriers that prevented them from connecting with each other properly and from trying to understand each other, in order to realise the potential for connection that had always been there.

[commsroom]

ok here are my eiffel questions

-do you think he ever played sports (and enjoyed it)

-had ever watched the show 'community' he kinda reminds me of a mix between abed and jeff and idk if you've seen it but it's interesting

-what kind of pet did he have a a a kid? he's giving me cat or lizard vibes idk

anyway love your blog tyy

aw, thank you! okay, in order:

oh, god, no. definitely not. eiffel is from a generation of nerd guys who made a point of defining themselves opposite to jocks, and he does not exercise on purpose. i doubt eiffel even watches sports that aren't like, motorsports. to get eiffel to enjoy exercise you've gotta trick him into it by giving it a counterculture image. i'm so sure he wanted to learn to do sick skateboard tricks as a teenager. he still wants to do sick skateboard tricks. but his coordination is terrible.

he has almost definitely seen community, but i have not, so i can't give any further opinion on that. but he's the right demographic.

i don't think he had a pet as a kid, but not for a lack of trying. eiffel is absolutely a dog person; he was a lonely kid, and i know he begged for a dog. and maybe his parents even promised him one, but it just never happened. i actually think eiffel is allergic to cats, just based on his general misfortune. guy with ailments. he just seems like the kind of guy cats would love to climb on while he sneezes horribly.

[stopitlight]

thinking about how lovelace was placed in charge of keeping minkowski in solitary at the end of fire and brimstone. i always wonder how that worked out for them.

[nobodysdaydreams]

Another Wolf359 Theory (don’t read if you don’t want major spoilers):

Bob said they intend to observe the Earth for 14,000 years, and Lovelace was the only alien copy they sent back, which means either:

A) the aliens are going to eventually send new copies (likely Rachel and Cutter since their bodies fell into the Star)

or B) Lovelace has a lifespan of 14,000 years

Furthermore: We know Lovelace’s alien blood has special properties that helped wake up Eiffel, Jacobi, and Minkowski from Pryce’s mind control.

So… does that mean Lovelace’s alien blood has also increased their lifespans? And if so, by how much?

[one-sad-pancake]

Hephaestus Crew!! This is a part 2 of my Wolf 359 side profiles (Part one being the SI 5 ones I did)! *These r just my head cannons btw *

!!Also if ur into Wolf 359 ur sooo cool and please be my mutual!!!!

[officerdougeiffel]

when eiffel is talking to bob in ep 54, bob says that the captain of the previous ship that encountered them valued music more than anything else. in change of mind its shown that music is also special to lovelace, she only ever relaxes when listening to music. minkowski loves musicals and musical theatre

all the ships that encountered the aliens had people who hold music dear to their hearts. but from what I gathered they were the only ones on their crews to be like this. except minkowskis crew, because eiffel also loves music

(image IDs under cut)

[image ID] 1st picture. a screenshot of the transcript for episode 54 of wolf 359.

BOB : THIS.

He SNAPS HIS FINGERS AND-

In a corner of the room, a RECORD PLAYER COMES TO LIFE. It begins to play Beethoven's SONATA PATHETIQUE. Eiffel FROWNS, confused.

BOB (CONT'D) : THE FIRST TIME WE ENCOUNTERED YOUR SPECIES. THE MISSION LEADER, COMMANDER ZHANG, SHE VALUED THIS TECHNOLOGY MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE.

2nd picture. a screenshot of the transcript for wolf 359 change of mind.

LOVELACE : All right. See you in a few.

She floats upwards, looks down... sees the tiny figure of Lambert growing smaller and smaller... And then she looks up. The song she listened to last time begins to play. She's at peace.

3rd picture. a screenshot of the character bio for minkowski.

An immigrant of Eastern European origins, Lieutenant Commander Renée Minkowski is an accomplished pilot, expert tactician, and closeted lover of musical theatre.

4th picture. a screenshot of the transcript for episode 54 of wolf 359.

EIFFEL (CONT'D) : Well, Bob my man... you gotta check out some of the latest advancements. Otis Redding. Zeppelin. Taylor.

(snaps his fingers)

Sir Mix-A-Lot. I think he's been doing some ot the best scientific work of the last fifty years.

[ID end]

[cosmicrhetoric]

still really impressed with how good the lack of romance in w359 was. not that i really would've minded if there was any but it's just that there's such a plethora of interesting and complex and devoted character dynamics that sure you can think eiffel n hera had something going on <3 but you don't have to, it doesn't change that hers was the last voice he ever wanted to hallucinate before he died. sure you can think there was something with hera and maxwell but it doesn't change the three straight days maxwell had to stay up for memoria.....or anything that happened after 😬. i make no such excuses for the kepcobi fireworks mini ep tho lmao what was that. fruit

[dandyshucks]

every now and then i think about hera from w.olf 359 and ... my wife .....

[clonerightsagenda]

Since I'm w359posting this week apparently, I wanted to share something neat I learned from the AMAs about how the writers designed the characters.

Apparently, the original four crewmembers were plotted on two axes - human vs inhuman and order vs chaos. Eiffel and Minkowski were the chaos human and order human, and Hera and Hilbert were the chaos inhuman and order (metaphorical) inhuman. Lovelace upon her introduction was plotted at the dead center of both axes.

To really amp up everyone reflecting each other, when they started designing the SI5 characters, they took the original three humans' personalities and job titles and rotated them. So, they set up a commander, scientist, and technician, but gave the commander Hilbert's traits, the scientist Eiffel's traits, and the technician Minkowski's traits.

Obviously that was only a starting point, and all three characters grew into their own people very different from where they began. However, you can see traces of these influences. Least so with Jacobi, imo, but in the Rashomon episode where each person's account reflects their priorities and anxieties, he's striving to portray himself as a dedicated, safety-conscious professional frustrated that no one else takes his work seriously, which is something Minkowski can relate to. He's also Kepler's administrative officer, even if we don't see him doing paperwork very often.

Maxwell is clearer. She's the most friendly and social of her team and strikes up the closest connection with Hera. Also, as soon as she's gone, the rest of her team implodes, much as in "Pan Pan" the remaining crew is at each other's throats.

Finally, Kepler's alignment with Hilbert is obvious to me at least - they both are people with theoretically noble goals who are willing to do terrible things to achieve them, and Goddard takes advantage of that to get them to do terrible things full stop. Hilbert is just further along on the Goddard employee lifecycle of getting chewed up and discarded (he's had more of his legs eaten, to use the pig story's metaphor). They hate each other so much because they recognize each other.

... I am only thinking this now as I type it out, but I always wondered why Eiffel disliked Maxwell after only knowing her for a couple days, most of which he'd spent convalescing. I figured she was probably asking invasive questions about Hera, but if I'm suggesting Hilbert and Kepler hate each other because they recognize each other as card carrying members of the face-eating leopards party.... maybe Eiffel dislikes Maxwell because he sees something of himself in her.

[scooterscoob]

if you're still taking w359 requests!! maybe a minkowski and lovelace interaction? they're so funny sometimes i just cant

does this count?

[annabelle--cane]

I think lovelace WOULD have got bisexual in the time loop were it not for the fact that minkowski's sexuality is "contact me on earth after the mission's over and maybe I'll tell you" and hera is categorically not a one-day casual fling kind of woman. I truly believe these are the only facts standing between isabel lovelace and bisexuality.

[hephaestuscrew]

Thinking about what it means to be part of a crew in Wolf 359... 

Ep15 What’s Up Doc?

Ep18 Let’s Kill Hilbert

Ep25 Lame-o Superhero Origin Story

Ep31 Sécurité

Ep36 Fire and Brimstone

Ep52 Constructive Criticism

[commsroom]

one of the funniest things about eiffel/hera to me is that hera only has two, maybe three, friends, and one of those people is eiffel. if she wanted to talk about her relationship with eiffel to someone who isn't eiffel, well. she wouldn't ask lovelace, and that basically just leaves minkowski. who wants so much to be a good and supportive friend, but also there are so few things in this world she wants to hear about less than doug eiffel's love life. and i think that's beautiful.

[trinitea-fics]

Fuck it, what instruments I think the Wolf 359 characters play with little to no justification:

Eiffel: Drums (loud. Also more important than people care to admit)

Minkowski: Flute (but was never first chair)

Hera: Voice (which DOES count as an instrument. I just like to imagine my girl singing)

Hilbert: Piano (classically trained)

Lovelace: Clarinet (proficient at the classical repertoire, but prefers jazz. I like to think she learned from a relative)

Kepler: Tenor saxophone (had to walk away from his ~funk band~)

Jacobi: Cello (in his offical playlist it ends with the 2Cellos cover of Thunderstruck. Which is. TOO PERFECT. I think he was really good at cello through his childhood, but would complain nonstop about it. But maybe secretly like it???)

Maxwell: Synthesizer (cool machines. Probably also owns a theremin)

[crossguild]

things about lovelace that are canon:

went to west point

played basketball in high school and college

basketball career cut short because of a car accident that shattered her knee

deployed in iraq

born & raised in brooklyn, NY

broke her wrist trying (unsuccessfully) rescue mason fisher in an asteroid shower

brilliant tactician, has problems with authority

described as 'both a workaholic and a prankster'

dad is a district judge, her mom was a marine

both a career military woman and a staunch liberal

the only thing about lovelace the fandom seems to talk about:

lesbian

also she's very hot

... like listen. my point here isn't that no one should headcanon her as a lesbian (i do most of the time as well!) or find her hot (i also do this), it's that it's just very obviously something primarily white fandoms do to characters of color, to project their own non-canon experience onto them rather than relating to the character on the things that are explicitly canon about them. it's also highkey fetishistic when all people can talk about with her is how she's a lesbian and they find her hot.

like, non-polish fans can relate to minkowski's desire to be taken seriously and fit in, which are things she actually has. people who aren't white men from texas are capable of relating to eiffel's self esteem and impulse control issues, which he actually has. people who aren't AIs are capable of sympathizing with hera's struggles with anxiety and disability, and extrapolate on her experiences on her terms, without projecting their own. what is it like to be a disembodied voice whose best option for 'friend' still doesn't hold you in high enough regard to not call you derogatory nicknames?

why are white fans so deeply incapable of taking isabel sofia lovelace as a character in her own right and analyzing her as she is without projecting their own experiences onto her?? why do i never hear anyone talk about how her relationship with her dad and her mom might have influenced both her decision to join the military and her political views? or about like. fucking literally anything about her that isn't predicated on their attraction to her? can we get maybe a mention of the all-but-diagnosed ptsd? that's a rhetorical question. we know why.

[tunedtostatic]

Thinking about Lovelace and Minkowski and the contrast between their closeness and the distance between them. Tough women who led the same station, condemned and hunted by the same villains, who grew to trust each other as colleagues and maybe something like family. Women who can predict each other's choices and know each other's voices as well as they know their own. But there are parts of each other they just can't see. Lovelace will never quite put her finger on the shape of how Minkowski fits herself into the command structure. Why does Minkowski blame herself for not having things under control? The people above her never intended her to have control. Minkowski will always see Lovelace as someone fallen to a place she cannot understand, and in doing so doom herself not to understand her. You were so far gone, Minkowski says, I wanted to know you could come home, but from the moment she stepped onto Minkowski's station, Lovelace was never anything other than a woman, hunted and grieving, right there in front of her. Gone where? And to what home? The orbit of a distant star and the monsters who sent them there shaped both of them into such similar conflagrations, but Lovelace will never understand the ouroboros of shame Minkowski is fighting to rise away from and Minkowski will never understand that Lovelace was never anything further from her than a traumatized, and grieving, person.