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[jtav]

That's nothing. I've invented a friendship with Samara for Miranda out of a few lines. And you should see the mental patch job I did on the romance before I finally gave up and started shipping Miranda elsewhere. Fans obsessively picking over detail is part of the job.

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...
Oh, agreed. The two subscriptions are not necessarily connected, and I don't think they are. The juxtaposition makes my nose twitch though. I think they're trying to portray Miranda as someone who really longs for an ordinary life (a family, a normal romance) but can't have them due to her father's abuse. It's not that she loves being an operative. It's the only way she can justify her existence. She wants to be normal, but she doesn't know how.

As opposed to that, I think she likes what she does for a job, and she's convinced she's doing something good for humanity, doubts about Cerberus' methods notwithstanding. She does long for a "normal" relationship (whatever that is, I tend to be wary of the term, because it all too often carries stereotypes), but not instead of her job. I could never imagine a Miranda who doesn't appreciate her own competence and doesn't try to use it in the service of something like a good cause. If Bioware goes that way, they'll have lost me.

[Ieldra]

Elyvern wrote...
I'm actually not actively writing a paragon shepard. Playing a full paragon shepard is so ridiculously unconvincing, and it becomes worse in fiction, something akin to say, captain cardboard.

I didn't think you were. It was plain when you referred to Shepard throwing mercs out of windows. When I said it wasn't my Shepard I meant your Shepard is very specific in his motivations, which my Shepard doesn't share in the same way.

Nonetheless, there must be enough differences between Shepard and Miranda for conflicts and reconciliations, for them to complement each other as foils, and to be able to effect changes in each other's personalities. Being the public face of heroism in the galaxy, it seems better that Shepard plays the part of light, while Miranda plays the opposite, or at least a darker role.

Appropriate perhaps. But when playing, I always have the difficulty that either my Shepard is closer to Miranda in outlook, or I identify with her instead of him. For that reason, I try to imagine differences and conflicts along other fault lines, difficult as that is.

[jtav]

Ieldra2 wrote...

jtav wrote...
Oh, agreed. The two subscriptions are not necessarily connected, and I don't think they are. The juxtaposition makes my nose twitch though. I think they're trying to portray Miranda as someone who really longs for an ordinary life (a family, a normal romance) but can't have them due to her father's abuse. It's not that she loves being an operative. It's the only way she can justify her existence. She wants to be normal, but she doesn't know how.

As opposed to that, I think she likes what she does for a job, and she's convinced she's doing something good for humanity, doubts about Cerberus' methods notwithstanding. She does long for a "normal" relationship (whatever that is, I tend to be wary of the term, because it all too often carries stereotypes), but not instead of her job. I could never imagine a Miranda who doesn't appreciate her own competence and doesn't try to use it in the service of something like a good cause. If Bioware goes that way, they'll have lost me.

Me too, depending on how severe is. I dpn't want her tp start baking cookies. I think she needs that goood cause, but I think there's a part of her that wishes to serve that cause in a way that doesn't hamstring her ability to form lasting connections (platonic, familial, and romantic). She's mostly dealt with it, but she is lonely. At the same time, if she doesn't look out for humanity, she isn't being as useful as she could be. She's still figuring out that she can have both and "selfishly" desiring a little happiness and intimacy alongside doing her duty isn't wrong.

[fongiel24]

Does anybody else think it's possible Miranda didn't even realize she was lonely until she saw what Oriana had? You can't miss what you never had and Miranda's never had family, close friends (other than Niket), or a really serious romantic relationship (the last two are speculation on my part).

Gratitude for his part in saving her sister may have helped open the door to romance, but maybe seeing Oriana and realizing how much she was missing was the true catalyst for Miranda to let Shepard in.

Modifié par fongiel24, 12 septembre 2010 - 09:25 .

[jtav]

That's certainly possible fongiel. I have her becoming aware of it during Redemption, when she realizes no one will ever do for her what Liara does for Shep, but your theory is equally plausible.

[HK-90210]

Since the letters are sent from different places, it follows that Miranda was traveling during the time that she used iPartner. When she was rebuilding Shepard, the chances were remote that she would travel much.
I think that the iPartner letters took place during ME2. Because Miranda is the official XO on the ship, she has the authority to give herself leave time. And you notice that she doesn't accept just any partner, and she doesn't actually talk with that many. So she only contacted people that would be:
1. Close by.
2. Meeting her standards in both physical looks and fitness and mental/physical background(In her acceptance letter from iPartner, it says she had the "diamond" membership, so the men she's talking with are already rich and succesful. The best of the best.)
and 3. Up for a quickie.
Only contestant 4 fit all of those requirements.

And I think that the letter from the doctor proves that it wasn't sex she was looking for. She wanted a child, and her hopes become dashed. I figure that because she was examined on Illium, it was probably shortly before or after her loyalty mission that she recieved this devastating news.

As much as I hated this new development for Miranda when I first read it, I think it really fleshes out her character. It makes her seem more real. It gives a glimpse into her mind, and shows a little bit about her own desires and what she wants as she heads into almost certain death. The problem is not(cannot be, in my opinion) a permanent ban on her having children. It is fixable in most cases now, much less in the ME universe. But that doesn't make her any less devastated. She already feels different enough from other women, and in this case, she wants to be more normal.

Luckily my Shepard that romances Miranda, as much as he wants kids, would refuse to be anything but 100% supportive of her. There is no other woman that could keep up with him, and he hasn't cared for any woman the way he cares for Miranda. Sappy, I know.

[fongiel24]

CastonFolarus wrote...

Since the letters are sent from different places, it follows that Miranda was traveling during the time that she used iPartner. When she was rebuilding Shepard, the chances were remote that she would travel much.
I think that the iPartner letters took place during ME2. Because Miranda is the official XO on the ship, she has the authority to give herself leave time. And you notice that she doesn't accept just any partner, and she doesn't actually talk with that many. So she only contacted people that would be:
1. Close by.
2. Meeting her standards in both physical looks and fitness and mental/physical background(In her acceptance letter from iPartner, it says she had the "diamond" membership, so the men she's talking with are already rich and succesful. The best of the best.)
and 3. Up for a quickie.
Only contestant 4 fit all of those requirements.

And I think that the letter from the doctor proves that it wasn't sex she was looking for. She wanted a child, and her hopes become dashed. I figure that because she was examined on Illium, it was probably shortly before or after her loyalty mission that she recieved this devastating news.

The letter from the doctor proves nothing other than the fact that Miranda has a condition that makes her infertile, a condition that may or may not be curable. There's no concrete link between the letter and the iPartner transcripts other than the conclusions we draw from Miranda's screening of health records.

Even if they are linked and Miranda was indeed looking for a sperm donor via iPartner (this idea itself also being somewhat implausible considering she could just go to an actual sperm bank), the notion that "rich and successful" automatically equals "best of the best" is flawed.

Becoming rich and successful could mean the candidate was intelligent and capable, but it could also mean they were conscientous, knew the right people, were born into wealth, or were just plain lucky. More ominously, they might be more ruthless, cutthroat, and willing to bend (or break) the law than their competition. None of these traits (other than intelligence) can be passed through DNA. Finding the "ideal" sperm donor on a dating site is as much a case of finding a needle in the proverbial haystack as bringing a DNA scanner into a bar and grabbing the first eligible male.

If Miranda was seeking to conceive, there are far more efficient and less risky ways of doing so. The aforementioned sperm banks would be the most ideal. Even sperm banks in our time screen donors and can often provide very detailed medical records to their customers. As a bonus, it can all be done discretely without Miranda ever having to meet face-to-face with the "father", thus avoiding any awkward questions about her line of work or future visitation rights. The "prowling dating sites because she wants to conceive" idea just makes very little sense. "Prowling dating sites because she was looking for a one-nighter to blow off stress" is far more likely, IMO.

[t3HPrO]

CastonFolarus wrote...

Since the letters are sent from different places, it follows that Miranda was traveling during the time that she used iPartner. When she was rebuilding Shepard, the chances were remote that she would travel much.
I think that the iPartner letters took place during ME2. Because Miranda is the official XO on the ship, she has the authority to give herself leave time. And you notice that she doesn't accept just any partner, and she doesn't actually talk with that many. So she only contacted people that would be:
1. Close by.
2. Meeting her standards in both physical looks and fitness and mental/physical background(In her acceptance letter from iPartner, it says she had the "diamond" membership, so the men she's talking with are already rich and succesful. The best of the best.)
and 3. Up for a quickie.
Only contestant 4 fit all of those requirements.

And I think that the letter from the doctor proves that it wasn't sex she was looking for. She wanted a child, and her hopes become dashed. I figure that because she was examined on Illium, it was probably shortly before or after her loyalty mission that she recieved this devastating news.

As much as I hated this new development for Miranda when I first read it, I think it really fleshes out her character. It makes her seem more real. It gives a glimpse into her mind, and shows a little bit about her own desires and what she wants as she heads into almost certain death. The problem is not(cannot be, in my opinion) a permanent ban on her having children. It is fixable in most cases now, much less in the ME universe. But that doesn't make her any less devastated. She already feels different enough from other women, and in this case, she wants to be more normal.

Luckily my Shepard that romances Miranda, as much as he wants kids, would refuse to be anything but 100% supportive of her. There is no other woman that could keep up with him, and he hasn't cared for any woman the way he cares for Miranda. Sappy, I know.

It doesn't make sense that Miranda would go for one nighters to conceive. As fongiel24 said before, it would be more logical to go to a sperm bank and get sperm inseminated into her than use iPartners, and Miranda is a very logical woman. Besides, eveyone can lie on today's internet, so what more the extranet 200 years down the road. And also, it's obvious she's going for one-nighters just for the sex because she constantly thinks that everyone's going to die on the suicide mission, and thus it won't make sense that she wants to get pregnant because it takes 9 months for a baby to go full term, and she doesn't have 9 months. At best, she has about 5/6 months.

And yes, fret not my fellow hardcore Mirimancers, Miri's condition IS curable. I spent 5 minutes on wikipedia reading up on her condition yesterday, and after ONE minute, I realised the idiot writer who gave Miranda her condition didn't even bother to wiki or even remotely research on the subject it was writing on. Even with today's tech, Miri's condition is easily curable, and let med tech improve for another 200 years, and we have a lazy, idiotic writer who didn't bother researching the topic it was writing on. Last week, I was ranting at the dossier. Now, I laugh at bioware for not doing their research.

[jtav]

I've been working my way through Miranda's romance. Maybe I'm just feeling charitably disposed toward the girl, or maybe it's that's the infamous grin doesn't look quite so ridiculous on my Shep, but it's really growing on me. The strange thing is that you're last opportunity to dump her ("damn it--you're right") is way more romantic than either option that progresses the romance. They hold hands and you can tell by their body language that both still want this. Forgetting that this is an RPG and treating it like a regular story, I would have predicted one of two things:

a) They start pursuing a relationship after the suicide mission without  certain death hanging over their heads.
 Miranda decides she can't wait after all. Replace the elevator scene with the promise scene.

The first appeals to the part of me that thinks suicide missions really aren't the time to start a relationship and that the freedom to date like normal people is part of their reward. The second appeals to my taste for melodrama.

[t3HPrO]

[/quote]

Me too, depending on how severe is. I dpn't want her tp start baking cookies. I think she needs that goood cause, but I think there's a part of her that wishes to serve that cause in a way that doesn't hamstring her ability to form lasting connections (platonic, familial, and romantic). She's mostly dealt with it, but she is lonely. At the same time, if she doesn't look out for humanity, she isn't being as useful as she could be. She's still figuring out that she can have both and "selfishly" desiring a little happiness and intimacy alongside doing her duty isn't wrong.

[/quote]

Heh sorry, but I'll have to disagree with you on one point. I DO want Miri to start baking cookies. And besides, with her constant desire to want to feel normal, she'll probably want to do some of the activities that other, supposedly more average women do. Well, if my next door neighbor's 16 year old daughter is any indication of what women do... And besides, she won't throw away her job as Shep's right hand woman, but she'd actually add 'more feminine' activities to that. Imagine Miranda Lawson 10 years down the road...Mother of three, head over (high) heels in love with Shepard, likes baking, but can still kick your ass faster than you can say 'sexy mommy'. Yeeeeeaaahh.

And like I said a few times before, Miranda's infertility is a farce. According to wikipedia, it's easily curable with today's med tech, so imagine how easy it'll be 200 years down the road. So yes my fellow Mirimaniacs, Miranda CAN still have Shep's kids.

[t3HPrO]

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.

I'm not flinching at the fact that Miranda has a casual one-nighter every 2 years or so, but it's how Bioware put her down at going about the whole thing. It just reeks of some Talinutter writer working at bioware who, like all other Talinutters, decided to troll Miri and he went about writing the dossier like she's a cheap **** (which she's obviously not). Also, it doesn't make sense. Miranda, being, well, Miranda, she needs to know EVERYTHING, and not just medical records. Thus, it's more likely that she would use iPartners, and THEN meet the guy face to face BEFORE she bent over or laid on her back.  However, we saw in #4 that she gave the guy and address and told him to f*ck her in 27 minutes, which has not a lick of sense. After all, it's easy to fabricate stories online. That's my one buck worth anyways.

[fongiel24]

jtav wrote...

I've been working my way through Miranda's romance. Maybe I'm just feeling charitably disposed toward the girl, or maybe it's that's the infamous grin doesn't look quite so ridiculous on my Shep, but it's really growing on me. The strange thing is that you're last opportunity to dump her ("damn it--you're right") is way more romantic than either option that progresses the romance. They hold hands and you can tell by their body language that both still want this. Forgetting that this is an RPG and treating it like a regular story, I would have predicted one of two things:

a) They start pursuing a relationship after the suicide mission without  certain death hanging over their heads.
 Miranda decides she can't wait after all. Replace the elevator scene with the promise scene.

The first appeals to the part of me that thinks suicide missions really aren't the time to start a relationship and that the freedom to date like normal people is part of their reward. The second appeals to my taste for melodrama.

Point a) was something I wondered about for all the LIs. The suicide mission can be a buzzkill but might also be a turn-on - one last chance to be with the person you love without having to worry about tomorrow. What got me was that Shepard's entire crew has been abducted and he doesn't know whether they're dead or worse. How he could even think about sex when the Collectors might be performing horrific experiments on his crewmates is beyond me.

Now that I've played through the romance a few times (*cough*a few dozen*cough*), I think I would have taken the "damn it, you're right" option if I could play through some sort of post-suicide-mission epilogue. If I were writing the romance, I would have placed the sex scene either before the abduction or after the suicide mission (or both).

[t3HPrO]

fongiel24 wrote...

Does anybody else think it's possible Miranda didn't even realize she was lonely until she saw what Oriana had? You can't miss what you never had and Miranda's never had family, close friends (other than Niket), or a really serious romantic relationship (the last two are speculation on my part).

Gratitude for his part in saving her sister may have helped open the door to romance, but maybe seeing Oriana and realizing how much she was missing was the true catalyst for Miranda to let Shepard in.

Possible. Or maybe Shepard just came along and started getting her to open up to everyone else and herself, and she realised she was lonely as hell.

[jtav]

fongiel, you are a man after my own heart. The flirting and sex is strange bordering on the sociopathic if you take it at face value. Which is why I choose to believe that Miranda's coyness is a mask she's wearing to keep from having a breakdown. The anxious look before she steps out of the elevator is enormously helpful.



I'm beginning to believe the tumor is something that would have ordinarily been treatable but she waited too long to seek treatment. The letter does specify progressive damage. What if she put off the consultation (once she knew it wasn't malignant) because she had important work to do?

[t3HPrO]

jtav wrote...

I'm beginning to believe the tumor is something that would have ordinarily been treatable but she waited too long to seek treatment. The letter does specify progressive damage. What if she put off the consultation (once she knew it wasn't malignant) because she had important work to do?

Not possible, given that benign tumors don't do that much damage even though you leave them untreated for a decade or so. Hell, my 29 year old cousin recently got a benign tumor that'd been there since she was 5, and the doc said: "Okay have a good time with your husband. Yes, now that the tumor is gone, you can have babies." And the reason why she waited 24 years was because it was diagnosed 19 years ago, and she lived with it till she found out she couldn't have babies till it was gone.

[fongiel24]

I'm no doctor, but the terms "benign neoplasm" and "progressive damage" would seem to be completely contradictory to me. Tumours are benign if they show exhibit no growth or development. A benign tumour literally just sits there. If it wasn't causing problems to start off with, it shouldn't cause problems later on unless some other variable changes. If the tumour itself is causing "progressive damage", that means it's growing and developing. But if it's developing and growing, it's not a "benign neoplasm" - it's a "malignant tumour" requiring immediate attention. The whole situation was very poorly handled by the writers.

[snfonseka]

Ieldra2 wrote...

As I've said, I interpret this dating to have taken place before the SR2
mission, and the SR2 in the online name a f*uckup on Bioware's part.
Problem circumvented - for those for whom this is an issue. It's not,
for me.

But we can't have our own imaginations about this... We can have our own imaginations/ fictions for the areas that have not described in the game. Whether BW f*ckup or not, ones any detail is given in the game about any character then that detail automaticaly becomes part of that characters story. We may don't like this idea, but BW writers have authority to do what ever things they want to do (That I don't like myself, given what they have done to Miri), but that is the bitter truth.

[Nightwriter]

fongiel24 wrote...

Regarding the idea of Oriana bringing up Shepard in her exchange with Miranda, I agree it would have been a neat thing to see but the problem is that Ashley's sister did the exact same thing in ME1. Doing the exact same thing with Miranda would just be blantantly plagiarizing the first game and the Ashley fans would be out for blood.

There are no words to describe how little this matters to me.

It would've been awesome. I could care less whether it's been done before or who it would upset. Everything upsets someone. I don't care. I want some romance-specific dossier content. Everyone should get that.

Dave of Canada wrote...

One thing about the Miranda romance that always bothers me... Why the engineering deck?

You realize we ignored this because it has been brought up to us so often it is now mildly traumatizing.

It's either ignore it or spend five hours in the fetal position. How we loathe going back to the fetal position.

[Dave of Canada]

Nightwriter wrote...

You realize we ignored this because it has been brought up to us so often it is now mildly traumatizing.

Oh. I know it's been mentioned a thousand times, I was doing my part in mentioning it before somebody else did because it came around the time to mention it again.

And you're not ignoring it! Fetal position, now!

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 13 septembre 2010 - 04:14 .

[t3HPrO]

fongiel24 wrote...

I'm no doctor, but the terms "benign neoplasm" and "progressive damage" would seem to be completely contradictory to me. Tumours are benign if they show exhibit no growth or development. A benign tumour literally just sits there. If it wasn't causing problems to start off with, it shouldn't cause problems later on unless some other variable changes. If the tumour itself is causing "progressive damage", that means it's growing and developing. But if it's developing and growing, it's not a "benign neoplasm" - it's a "malignant tumour" requiring immediate attention. The whole situation was very poorly handled by the writers.

True, true. WAZZZAAAAAAAAAAAPP!!! Okay, bad Budweiser ad imitations aside, you're dead right. Benign tumors don't grow, so 'progressive damage' isn't making any sense here. If bioware has any sense in those thick skulls of theirs, they'd cure Miranda in ME3. Because Miranda's condition just needs day surgery to cure even today, which goes to show that bioware doesn't even bother to research on the medical stuff they put ingame. I just hope that idiot writer who gave poor Miri this problem is getting royally f*cked over by higher management in bioware right now.

[Nightwriter]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Oh. I know it's been mentioned a thousand times, I was doing my part in mentioning it before somebody else did because it came around the time to mention it again.

And you're not ignoring it! Fetal position, now!

But I can't! Not again! The last relapse almost turned me into a Han Olar!

Well, if you really want to know, here's the rundown of our given theories:

1. There are no bugs in the engine room, and Miranda knew that, and took Shepard there.

2. Miranda wanted it to happen on equal ground, not in either of their quarters.

3. Vibrations from the engine core. Great for sex.

The fourth theory is the one that is not supported by Mirimancers: namely, that she was marking her territory and shoving it in everyone's faces, including Tali's.

[snfonseka]

Nightwriter wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Oh. I know it's been mentioned a thousand times, I was doing my part in mentioning it before somebody else did because it came around the time to mention it again.

And you're not ignoring it! Fetal position, now!

But I can't! Not again! The last relapse almost turned me into a Han Olar!

Well, if you really want to know, here's the rundown of our given theories:

1. There are no bugs in the engine room, and Miranda knew that, and took Shepard there.

2. Miranda wanted it to happen on equal ground, not in either of their quarters.

3. Vibrations from the engine core. Great for sex.

The fourth theory is the one that is not supported by Mirimancers: namely, that she was marking her territory and shoving it in everyone's faces, including Tali's.

^ I don't know about others, but I support this!

[Nightwriter]

I am so tired of this "Miranda is a territorial exhibitionist b*tch" stuff. I just hate that explanation.

[ADLegend21]

I agree with all of nightwriters theories. She'd make sure everyone on the ship knew that She and Shepard were together so ther there were no mistakes or slip ups by anyone.