And then there is Three. THREE. THREE. I liked Three almost immediately, because I was pretty sure he was the jackass-with-a-heart-of-gold archetype, and sure enough, he was. I love jackass-with-a-heart-of-gold. That character who pretends to hate everybody and is rude and mean and never takes anything seriously and everybody wants to smack them—and then when the chips are down, when it really counts, you can depend on them 200%? I LOVE THAT BEYOND ALL REASON. /o\ 1.07 was just SOLID GOLD to me, in so incredibly many different ways. (Aside from Sarah dying, that was bullshit. :( ) Three clearly doesn't want to care about people, or at least doesn't want people to think he cares about people, but he so obviously does—and, as noted, I actually see a fair amount of Two in the way he looks after Sarah, in the way he assumes responsibility for helping her when she needs it. He seems to me to have a tendency to frame his connections with people in terms of debt to help him avoid making it sound like it's about feelings: either he owes a debt, and he just wants to stick around until he can pay it back, or else he's owed a debt and wants to stick around until he gets paid. No muss, no fuss. (YEAH RIGHT, THREE. YOU ARE TRANSPARENT LIKE VERY THIN GLASS, BUCKO. VERY THIN, VERY CLEAN GLASS.) And it's no big that his debts tend to involve saving lives—Sarah saving his, him promising to save hers back; the count he's keeping with One of how many times each of them has saved the other. That still doesn't have anything to do with feelings or caring about people. IT'S MATH, THAT'S ALL. SHUT UP. :D I also love his sense of humor—I always, always appreciate somebody who's willing to point out the ludicrous or ridiculous aspects of a situation everybody else is taking very seriously. And I'm just so easy for his POV, the way he frames things to himself. He doesn't like the android—hah! He just doesn't want to have to get used to a new one. YOU ARE FOOLING NO ONE, THREE, EXCEPT PERHAPS YOURSELF. I love his giant guns, I love that he names them, and yes, he sort of is Jayne Cobb, but I'm okay with that. And I also really love that as the finale winds down, he's the one Two ends up really leaning on. It's like that line from Pirates of the Caribbean: a dishonest man, you can trust to be dishonest! Two knows what to expect from him. (Whereas One—the honest man—could at any moment do something incredibly stupid. It is just like Pirates of the Caribbean.) I also love that his backstory includes being left for dead, or at least left behind because he was wounded, by a different mercenary team—it lends extra weight to the way he reacts when Two comes back for people ("And then I thought, 'I really like this girl!'"), even though he doesn't actually remember that happening. More weight than it might if he did remember, even, because instead of being a reaction against the memory of being left, that's just his honest gut response: he values coming back for people. The team he was working with on Sarah's planet didn't value it—but the crew of the Raza does. (How had he ended up working with that team that didn't come back for him? Had he taught himself not to care about whether people came back for him, by that point, and then joining the crew of the Raza let him secretly believe in it again, even if he still kept up the front? OH THREE.) LOYALTY. LOYALTY ISSUES EVERYWHERE.
I would absolutely love some One/Three, they have a hilarious dynamic and they probably interact more often than any two other characters on the show (which I'm judging the writers for just a smidge—the two white guys have the most lines and screentime! WHAT A COINCIDENCE—but it does give us a lot to work with). I LOVE the tied-to-a-chair together, the banter, the lifesaving tally; One letting his own safer grip go to get close enough to reach Three gave me so many feelings, and Three shooting those zombies was inexpressibly hot. THEY FELL ASLEEP ON EACH OTHER. And they touch each other an awful lot, too—the scene when Three finds Sarah dead and then One comes in, how close they stand to each other, and all the shirt-pulling and staring when they're hypoxic, and One thinking about shooting Three but saving his life instead, I just. I CAN'T. /o\ YOU DWEEBS. And Two! I already talked a bunch about Two/Three, but yes, the loyalty thing plus expecting not to develop any feelings and then discovering OOPS, the other person is actually smart and hot and dependable and a little sad, oh, my heart. The show doesn't give nearly as much of a jumping-off point for Four/Three or Four&Three, but it's adorable to me how impressed Three is with Four's badassery, that Four is the person he approaches about the vault door and when he wants to try to take over the ship, that he mentions Four's sense of honor but doesn't seem to think Four's stupid for it (even though he normally makes a show of his disdain for that kind of stuff). And I would love some Five&Three, for sure, though not so much Five/Three—I LOVED Five stealing Three's bullets and Three sealing his vent shut so she couldn't do it again. I adore their gentle antagonism: they make a lot of faces at each other and disagree with each other a lot, but stuff like Three trying to pour Five a cup of booze when nobody else wants to let her drink and the way he defends her to the other mercenary crew ("Still think she's not up to it?") makes me think he'd be horrified by his past self throwing her in the airlock. (Even if Marcus Boone was only kidding, he seems a little crueler than Three is, if I can draw that line.) I know I've mentioned this like three times, but I'd love them bonding over Charlotte's Web, or Three defending Five either verbally or physically (and then perhaps Five defending Three, though that's likely to be verbally unless she's got a shock stick). Basically I just really enjoy Three as Five's annoying older brother. ♥ I don't think Three and Six actually interact much, but I wouldn't mind in the least if you wanted to change that—I imagine Six as typically calm, thoughtful, knowing, and vaguely amused by Three, which I'm sure Three finds extremely annoying. :D There's also not much to jump off for Three/Six, but I wouldn't mind in the least getting to see them have a conversation about doing bad things, whether doing good things afterward can ever be enough to make up for it—Three perhaps not wanting to know the specifics of what his past self did, and Six unable to forget what he learned while he was trying to find Five in their memories. And the android! I am ALL OVER Three's grudging affection for the android, his attitude that robots are creepy but she's their robot. /o\ YES. GIVE ME ALL THE BELONGING TO THIS FOUND FAMILY, PLEASE. I would love anything where Three is his Threeiest (slinging around dirty slang, making jokes, saying unkind things he doesn't mean) and the android is her androidiest (politely not getting it at ALL ♥).
And I am interested—unsurprisingly—in all kinds of things about Three! I'm repeating myself, but I would love to know more about the other teams he worked with before coming to the Raza, how his interactions with them shaped him into a harder version of himself and then Sarah warmed him into a (slightly) softer one. Three taking care of a sick person would be both sweet and HILARIOUS, because I feel EXTREMELY SURE that his bedside manner is nothing to write home about, and I imagine him trying hard but not always succeeding (he probably had to cook for them both! /o\) and then sometimes succeeding REALLY WELL (when he let himself, at the moments Sarah was the most tired and in pain, weary and unhappy—I think Three could unexpectedly be excellent. Like, I'm expecting it, but he wouldn't be expecting it of himself, I think). And Five's best guess is that the farm memory with the gooseberry pie belongs to One, but what if it were Three's? Is that why he knows how to chop wood and take care of Sarah's house and land while she's ill? AND THEN did he join up with the Raza and have to convince them to let him bring Sarah's stasis pod aboard? (It doesn't seem to have its own power supply, so maybe it couldn't have gone that way, unless a portable supply could be temporarily attached to it at times?) How did he do that? Or was he the one who started it all, bought or stole the Raza, installed a stasis pod in the middle of the ship's vault for Sarah, planned to build up a team and take jobs nobody else could or would do so he could make enough money to try to help Sarah? EITHER WAY I'M ON BOARD. Did he tell the truth to the rest of the crew, pre-stasis? Lie to them? ("She owes me money.") Did they believe him or not? If Two was in charge, how did he convince her to let him plop a stasis pod in the middle of her vault—are his shooting skills so good that he could say "I won't join up unless—" and she'd go along, his usefulness enough to outweigh it? Back when he remembered both the code to the vault and that Sarah was in there, did he go visit her regularly? Or did he stay away, to help himself be the meaner version of himself that he needed to be? (Did pre-stasis Five ever find out she was in there, and start visiting her herself even without knowing the whole story?) He doesn't seem to have his whole enormous passel of guns on him when Sarah finds him, so he must have acquired some of them during his time on the Raza—which ones, and where did he get them? Did he have the habit of naming them pre-stasis? Does he have favorites, an older one he's had longest and loves particularly? (And I sort of love the idea that he's so impressed with the size and function of that huge pulse-gun that he stubbornly hangs onto it even though it only seems to be able to fire about twice per charge. /o\ THREE. THREE, IT'S JUST NOT THAT USEFUL.) And then post-stasis—I would LOVE to see Three first discovering all his guns ("Oh, yeah. These are definitely my quarters."), naming or re-naming them (or did he find a list his past self kept, matching gun makes up with names?), discovering he's got the muscle memory to clean them as long as he doesn't focus too hard on what he's doing, that he doesn't know the words for the parts but can take them apart and put them back together in under thirty seconds. And then basically anything with Three yelling about how he doesn't care about anyone while shooting other people for them/letting himself get beat up for them/etc. would just be BLISS. :D
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I would absolutely love some One/Three, they have a hilarious dynamic and they probably interact more often than any two other characters on the show (which I'm judging the writers for just a smidge—the two white guys have the most lines and screentime! WHAT A COINCIDENCE—but it does give us a lot to work with). I LOVE the tied-to-a-chair together, the banter, the lifesaving tally; One letting his own safer grip go to get close enough to reach Three gave me so many feelings, and Three shooting those zombies was inexpressibly hot. THEY FELL ASLEEP ON EACH OTHER. And they touch each other an awful lot, too—the scene when Three finds Sarah dead and then One comes in, how close they stand to each other, and all the shirt-pulling and staring when they're hypoxic, and One thinking about shooting Three but saving his life instead, I just. I CAN'T. /o\ YOU DWEEBS. And Two! I already talked a bunch about Two/Three, but yes, the loyalty thing plus expecting not to develop any feelings and then discovering OOPS, the other person is actually smart and hot and dependable and a little sad, oh, my heart. The show doesn't give nearly as much of a jumping-off point for Four/Three or Four&Three, but it's adorable to me how impressed Three is with Four's badassery, that Four is the person he approaches about the vault door and when he wants to try to take over the ship, that he mentions Four's sense of honor but doesn't seem to think Four's stupid for it (even though he normally makes a show of his disdain for that kind of stuff). And I would love some Five&Three, for sure, though not so much Five/Three—I LOVED Five stealing Three's bullets and Three sealing his vent shut so she couldn't do it again. I adore their gentle antagonism: they make a lot of faces at each other and disagree with each other a lot, but stuff like Three trying to pour Five a cup of booze when nobody else wants to let her drink and the way he defends her to the other mercenary crew ("Still think she's not up to it?") makes me think he'd be horrified by his past self throwing her in the airlock. (Even if Marcus Boone was only kidding, he seems a little crueler than Three is, if I can draw that line.) I know I've mentioned this like three times, but I'd love them bonding over Charlotte's Web, or Three defending Five either verbally or physically (and then perhaps Five defending Three, though that's likely to be verbally unless she's got a shock stick). Basically I just really enjoy Three as Five's annoying older brother. ♥ I don't think Three and Six actually interact much, but I wouldn't mind in the least if you wanted to change that—I imagine Six as typically calm, thoughtful, knowing, and vaguely amused by Three, which I'm sure Three finds extremely annoying. :D There's also not much to jump off for Three/Six, but I wouldn't mind in the least getting to see them have a conversation about doing bad things, whether doing good things afterward can ever be enough to make up for it—Three perhaps not wanting to know the specifics of what his past self did, and Six unable to forget what he learned while he was trying to find Five in their memories. And the android! I am ALL OVER Three's grudging affection for the android, his attitude that robots are creepy but she's their robot. /o\ YES. GIVE ME ALL THE BELONGING TO THIS FOUND FAMILY, PLEASE. I would love anything where Three is his Threeiest (slinging around dirty slang, making jokes, saying unkind things he doesn't mean) and the android is her androidiest (politely not getting it at ALL ♥).
And I am interested—unsurprisingly—in all kinds of things about Three! I'm repeating myself, but I would love to know more about the other teams he worked with before coming to the Raza, how his interactions with them shaped him into a harder version of himself and then Sarah warmed him into a (slightly) softer one. Three taking care of a sick person would be both sweet and HILARIOUS, because I feel EXTREMELY SURE that his bedside manner is nothing to write home about, and I imagine him trying hard but not always succeeding (he probably had to cook for them both! /o\) and then sometimes succeeding REALLY WELL (when he let himself, at the moments Sarah was the most tired and in pain, weary and unhappy—I think Three could unexpectedly be excellent. Like, I'm expecting it, but he wouldn't be expecting it of himself, I think). And Five's best guess is that the farm memory with the gooseberry pie belongs to One, but what if it were Three's? Is that why he knows how to chop wood and take care of Sarah's house and land while she's ill? AND THEN did he join up with the Raza and have to convince them to let him bring Sarah's stasis pod aboard? (It doesn't seem to have its own power supply, so maybe it couldn't have gone that way, unless a portable supply could be temporarily attached to it at times?) How did he do that? Or was he the one who started it all, bought or stole the Raza, installed a stasis pod in the middle of the ship's vault for Sarah, planned to build up a team and take jobs nobody else could or would do so he could make enough money to try to help Sarah? EITHER WAY I'M ON BOARD. Did he tell the truth to the rest of the crew, pre-stasis? Lie to them? ("She owes me money.") Did they believe him or not? If Two was in charge, how did he convince her to let him plop a stasis pod in the middle of her vault—are his shooting skills so good that he could say "I won't join up unless—" and she'd go along, his usefulness enough to outweigh it? Back when he remembered both the code to the vault and that Sarah was in there, did he go visit her regularly? Or did he stay away, to help himself be the meaner version of himself that he needed to be? (Did pre-stasis Five ever find out she was in there, and start visiting her herself even without knowing the whole story?) He doesn't seem to have his whole enormous passel of guns on him when Sarah finds him, so he must have acquired some of them during his time on the Raza—which ones, and where did he get them? Did he have the habit of naming them pre-stasis? Does he have favorites, an older one he's had longest and loves particularly? (And I sort of love the idea that he's so impressed with the size and function of that huge pulse-gun that he stubbornly hangs onto it even though it only seems to be able to fire about twice per charge. /o\ THREE. THREE, IT'S JUST NOT THAT USEFUL.) And then post-stasis—I would LOVE to see Three first discovering all his guns ("Oh, yeah. These are definitely my quarters."), naming or re-naming them (or did he find a list his past self kept, matching gun makes up with names?), discovering he's got the muscle memory to clean them as long as he doesn't focus too hard on what he's doing, that he doesn't know the words for the parts but can take them apart and put them back together in under thirty seconds. And then basically anything with Three yelling about how he doesn't care about anyone while shooting other people for them/letting himself get beat up for them/etc. would just be BLISS. :D