gamzee:

It’s bad form of me to pin meta on other folks’ meta so i went and made a new post, but I love the subject of Kanaya Maryam and motherhood, so when I saw this I had to write something. (In a good way.)

My personal theory is that Alternian maternity and Earth maternity are more different than they are alike; it’s not just that Kanaya is more complex or flawed than a nurturing figure, but actually that she isn’t nurturing at all.

Everthing we know about trolls implies to me that Jadebloods’ motherhood is swift, visceral, utilitarian practicality and not personal tenderness. In broods of thousands, you’re dealing with a very different sort of problem; one of probability and mass and inertia, not individual sentiment. Think SimAnt in nightmare mode. She has very little feelings skills whatsoever because that’s not her niche! Those aren’t what she relies on to make her judgement calls, to the point of playing down her own feelings and needs up until that approach fails her.

I extrapolate this backwards from canon; When she solves problems it’s with practical and immediate action, often wordless, often clinical– the consentless surgical removal of tavros’ legs, her chilly, emotionless navigation of both the moiraillegance and the breakup with Vriska, her specific words to Rose about the problems with the alcoholism– “I needed you.” I expected you to do the rational thing because the consequences are bigger than you. I suspect that’s how she talks to herself.

To Kanaya, to fail to do your job is a terrifying prospect! To fail to do what you need to do has serious consequences on others, especially with a job as elite as hers. The place where Alternian and human motherhood overlap is in the field of personal resolve and donation of labor. She struggles to meet the expectations of that labor and comes alarmingly close for a girl her age. Those breakdowns are because she is literally trying to be an immovable object at 13 and holy shit, she’s actually very very good at it, it’s just that she’s trying to move mountains with a teaspoon and still gets 90% of the way there before the utensil hits a rock it can’t break.

But she’s such an introverted feeler, an emotional island off the coast of “No Really Its Fine"sville from which nary a ship has sailed, that she would be terrible at being a “Mom Friend.” She’s excellent at being something entirely different than that.