little Joker’s beard appreciation post
Mass Effect – ficlet, “A taste of things to come”
Characters: Joker, Anderson
Words: 900Summary: How Joker became Normandy’s pilot. It didn’t feature grand theft spaceship. It was actually kind of normal.
*
“What, you don’t want to know my shoe size? I’m a size 10, wide.”
Jarheads. No sense of humour. And Joker’s shoe size was pretty much the only thing they hadn’t asked for. The two sour-faced marines guarding Arcturus R&D had stopped just short of taking his ID apart after running it through multiple tests that all checked out. And then they’d started to run him through the tests. They’d taken all his biomeasures, poked his palm prints, his retinas, his blood, and his brain.
Well, mostly they’d asked him loads of random questions that someone who’d lived his life could easily answer (there’d been one about his favourite cartoon as a kid, good stuff, but he worried how the Alliance knew about that) but that would’ve probably stumped an imposter. And then just to prove they were paranoid they’d taken his crutches away (after providing him with a chair, thankfully) and scanned those even more thoroughly than they’d scanned him.
Granted, he could have fit a lot of recording devices or mass accelerator guns in them, but it was the principle of the thing.
Until, finally, they cleared him, and he was met in the door by a command-level officer in dress blues.
“I’m Captain Anderson. Sorry about that, can’t be too careful in this stage of development. Come with me.”
“No problems, sir.” Development?
His curiosity piqued, he followed the captain, who led them past another security door into the heart of the R&D section’s simulator rooms. This time without shoesize-interrogation, but still under a lot of scrutiny. This part of Arcturus you were either invited to, or dead.
No gawking, Moreau.
GUYS, GUYS, MUSANOCTURNIS WRITED A THING!
And it is SO MUCH BETTER than the comic, in the same span of time. A delicious palette cleanser with a more believable military and bonus details about starship design!
I was rather flustered with thinking about the recent Joker comic (I read a few justifications/explanations, and am left with ‘yes, I understand what they were going for, it’s bloody obvious. It’s just shitty and stupid) so I’m cleansing the mental pallet by writing a scene from his PoV.
I should probably avoid discussions of his character. I have such a full, three dimensional Joker built up in my head that it’s pretty even money whether I’m arguing from canon or headcanon at any given moment, and I won’t always remember the difference.
“It always bugged me that after Thessia, everyone expects you to go comfort Liara when Shepard isn’t ok either. And the only one who tries to help Shep is Joker, not the LI.”
Well. That was definitely a comic.
The art wasn’t bad. Invectus actually looked like a turian and the game characters actually looked like themselves, or at least recognizable. But…
The plot seems forced as hell, for one thing. Like the last page came first and everything else was written around it with no regard for common sense or pacing. And I’m not buying any of it - not Joker being that reckless, not the convenient lack of people between him and the pilot’s seat -
Wait, the SR-1 didn’t even have a closed-off cockpit, did it? Joker would’ve had to seal off the whole CIC to seal himself in, right?
And I’m definitely not buying Invectus suddenly being impressed and casually keeping Joker out of prison with no resistance from the Alliance and absolutely no consequences for Joker.
But most of all I can’t get over how the entire plot is basically “he’s a cripple, so of course he couldn’t get a good post without cheating.” It’s not as bad as it could’ve been, I guess, but… it doesn’t sit well with me at all.
At least they remembered that he uses crutches. That’s more than the games can say.
Yeah, just read the scans, and it doesn’t sit well with me at all.
On your last point, I think it’s basically trying to point out ableism, but doing it in a super ham-handed manner (and in a way that requires magical levels of competence to transcend the perception of disability). That’s not great, but it’s not quite “cripples can’t get anything without cheating” either. Or at least, it’s putting the blame on other people.
What gets me is characterization and plausibility.
If they’d done basically the same plot with a much less important ship, many years earlier? It would still have been very Hollywood, but it could’ve worked. Have him hack a duty roster, get himself on the flight schedule of a ship that’s doing some kind of re certification course after repairs. Something lower key.
As is, I’m not buying him being that reckless, either, or the state-of-the-art joint-species-prototype diplomatic-victory warship being that unguarded, or the Alliance being that forgiving of what is actually treason. ‘Cause when you steal said state-of-the-art diplomatic-victory top-of-the-line prototype ship? I’m pretty certain that’s a court martial at best. Anyway, as anyone in a leadership position should damn well know, a good team isn’t a group of excellent individuals who don’t follow instruction. Decently competent people who DO follow orders will work better as a whole. So that little stunt? Should NOT have gotten him anywhere!
And a turian — lovers of order and hierarchy! — being the one to support him? Nah.
Set it earlier — a year or two out of flight school — with a much more boring ship, and have him finesse his way into that? I’d be all over it.
Yeah, that was rather horrifying, now that I’ve seen it. Because treason is easy and fun for everyone? o_0;
I definitely think Joker is the type to have done something to finesse his way into a better flight routine of some sort on his first posting (as a baby LT encouraging another pilot to be an idiot so he can take his place when he gets in trouble? hacking the schedule so he’s higher up? both fine. STEALING A SHIP WHEN ESTABLISHED OFFICER = NOT FINE.)
There’s also the fact that, in your first proper conversation with Joker in ME1 he’s all about “those commendations in my file, I earned them” not “no one let me fly anything fun until I stole a ship and was a fucking idiot but it worked anyways.”
*sighs*
Thank you for pointing out the commendation line! I KNEW there was a canonic reason he obviously wasn’t a taxi-driver, but I couldn’t remember the line last night after working in the sun all day. That single sentence basically puts the canon kibosh on the whole comic.
They seem to have entirely forgotten that Joker is a snarker who takes his job totally seriously. Flying is the job. He doesn’t fuck that up.
“Encouraging someone else to be an idiot” would be sooo Joker, especially young Joker, I think.
Well. That was definitely a comic.
The art wasn’t bad. Invectus actually looked like a turian and the game characters actually looked like themselves, or at least recognizable. But…
The plot seems forced as hell, for one thing. Like the last page came first and everything else was written around it with no regard for common sense or pacing. And I’m not buying any of it - not Joker being that reckless, not the convenient lack of people between him and the pilot’s seat -
Wait, the SR-1 didn’t even have a closed-off cockpit, did it? Joker would’ve had to seal off the whole CIC to seal himself in, right?
And I’m definitely not buying Invectus suddenly being impressed and casually keeping Joker out of prison with no resistance from the Alliance and absolutely no consequences for Joker.
But most of all I can’t get over how the entire plot is basically “he’s a cripple, so of course he couldn’t get a good post without cheating.” It’s not as bad as it could’ve been, I guess, but… it doesn’t sit well with me at all.
At least they remembered that he uses crutches. That’s more than the games can say.
Yeah, just read the scans, and it doesn’t sit well with me at all.
On your last point, I think it’s basically trying to point out ableism, but doing it in a super ham-handed manner (and in a way that requires magical levels of competence to transcend the perception of disability). That’s not great, but it’s not quite “cripples can’t get anything without cheating” either. Or at least, it’s putting the blame on other people.
What gets me is characterization and plausibility.
If they’d done basically the same plot with a much less important ship, many years earlier? It would still have been very Hollywood, but it could’ve worked. Have him hack a duty roster, get himself on the flight schedule of a ship that’s doing some kind of re certification course after repairs. Something lower key.
As is, I’m not buying him being that reckless, either, or the state-of-the-art joint-species-prototype diplomatic-victory warship being that unguarded, or the Alliance being that forgiving of what is actually treason. ‘Cause when you steal said state-of-the-art diplomatic-victory top-of-the-line prototype ship? I’m pretty certain that’s a court martial at best. Anyway, as anyone in a leadership position should damn well know, a good team isn’t a group of excellent individuals who don’t follow instruction. Decently competent people who DO follow orders will work better as a whole. So that little stunt? Should NOT have gotten him anywhere!
And a turian — lovers of order and hierarchy! — being the one to support him? Nah.
Set it earlier — a year or two out of flight school — with a much more boring ship, and have him finesse his way into that? I’d be all over it.
Can we all please note that
Joker is getting a single-issue origin story AND IT’S FREE
And it’s FREE COMIC BOOK DAY so you can’t preorder it.
FIRST COME FIRST SERVE, LADIES~
(And most amazing gentlemen.)
Filled with equal parts hope and trepidation.
Also quite convinced that the dude on the cover is actually Evil!Joker.
oops, joker!daddy feels—
