Elyvern wrote...
I'm very curious, and this has been raised in another thread regarding Miranda's dossiers. How many of you find it hard to accept the ipartner thing and the fact that she indulges in casual sex? There was a lot of argument about the timeline, aliases, and details to the point that I felt some people were very adverse to it, and I wonder why.
To me, it's entirely within character, and it seems that people's disapproval stems from the possibility that she could be unfaithful to Shepard (there is absolutely no evidence), or that in having casual sex, she spoils their image of her as a/their LI. But then this ends up becoming an issue about Miranda's compatibility with Shepard, or even with the player, and not about her at all.
@Ieldra - I'm with you. I definitely want Miranda to have kids. Although I do find it quite a slap in the face that LotSB has Shep talk to Liara about blue babies and in the same DLC, take away Miranda's ability to have children.
My issue is not the idea that Miranda has casual sex. I've actually always thought she would have a fairly laissez faire attitude towards sex. As you say, casual sex is very much in-character for Miranda, who is likely experienced enough and mature enough to differentiate sex from romance. My issue is with the strange way LotSB suggests Miranda goes about it, just randomly chatting up strangers on an extranet site, getting their medical records, then meeting the lucky guy (or gal) for a clandestine rendezvous.
The idea that she would be doing it during the ME2 mission also seems strange to me. Considering the seriousness of the mission and its haphazard, unplanned nature, I find it curious that Miranda would randomly disappear from the Normandy for random hookups. Not only would she be unable to deal with any sudden contingencies, it also poses a risk to operational security, something she should be keenly aware of after her first project was infiltrated by a Shadow Broker operative (Wilson).
Finally, I've always thought Miranda was purely business-first, pleasure-later, with any one-night-stands taking place between assignments in her downtime. The ME2 mission seems like it wouldn't have very much downtime for Miranda since it's portrayed as being a kind of race with the Collectors, with Cerberus never sure where or how the Collectors might strike next. Shepard and his crew have to be on their toes, ready for when TIM presents them with new intel. For Miranda, the XO, she should never be "off the clock" for very long.
@Jebel, fongiel, Arijharn:
Thanks for the feedback. That
excerpt is basically just one flashback out of many in the main story.
I strongly believe that in many fanfics, the character that has the
least character development is actually Shepard. It's fine to play him
whatever way you want in-game, but when writing a story, you can't
expect to throw in your version of Shepard, and gloss over him and
expect that every reader knows how you interpret his character. And it
wouldn't be much of a fic if Shep is poorly written. The Shep I'm
writing is nothing like the ones I play, I basically look through
options and events in the game, and choose the ones that personify the
characterisation I want best, make him default (looks & name) so
more people can identify with him.
The other thing I was pretty
tired of how women fall down at Shep's feet like he's a gift from god.
Some things like Tali's infatuation are too obvious to be brushed away,
but in my fic, Shep will really have to work to win over Miranda. ../../../images/forum/emoticons/happy.png
Ah, the exerpt was a flashback. That makes sense. I didn't think it read like it was post-suicide mission. I do the same thing with the default name, but the appearance of my written Shep is very different from the default or the custom Shep I play. I'm actually considering completely ignoring Tali's infatuation in my fic, but you're right that it might be a little bit too obvious. The problem for me is that as you say, every remotely attractive female crew member Shepard serves with seems to fall for him. I understand it as a gaming choice, but from a story perspective it's a little Stu-ish.
Retour en haut
It takes her away from the Normandy and possibly out of touch for an unacceptable amount of time (she's trying to be discrete so the apartments she rents probably aren't going to be in the most readily accessible locations). 
