the formatting’s a little wonky ‘cause i had to paste it from discord messages, but i tried my best, the analysis is under the read more
He asked me how to write Texas, I think I wrote like a full fucking paragraph in response.
& I was like. “Well, depends. Is it her pov or Church’s or someone else?” ’Cause firstly, it depends. Church’s pov? The easiest for me to write because you have to kinda put her in the center of that world because that’s their dynamic, they don’t have to be in love, or really on speaking terms, but they’re both gravitated to each other & that’s important to portraying the dynamic. If it is something where they do love each other, again, she’s the center of the universe & time & time again Church does stupid shit to keep her around.
Some people choose to write her as the villain in some fics, like "she BROKE church's heart. What a heartless, cold bitch" which isn't exactly right imo & it's kinda eh to read imo because I think it can be written better- giving her some sort of motivation in that rather than being quick to be like "fuck Texas. hate that bitch."
But then again, some people just don't like Tex & write her like that because they don't like her, which is what I do with characters that I don't fucking like. If you're writing her from someone else's pov that isn't Church. it's important to include the intimidated part, because like, she's scary. She deadass tries to kill like everyone I think. She is super strong, who would not be at least kinda scared of that?
If you're writing from her pov, it depends if it's Beta or Epsilon-Tex.
Beta is a bit more oriented to her own goals, saying "fuck you" to Freelancer, & killing/tracking down Omega in the beginning. She also knows she's an AI but has to pretend because no one else knows.
Epsilon-Tex is more angry at the fact she was brought back, & is a bit more open with that kind of thing with Church. & this is clear in canon because of:
Tex: I didn't ask to be paired with you. I didn't wanna come back. But I'm here now, so I'm gonna put an end to this.
Tex: You can't even help yourself. That's why you made me, Church. You made me to take on all the things you can't handle. Just like you always have. Well guess what, I'm gonna handle it. Wash and Meta will be coming now. I have some things to get ready.
She's quick to call Church on his bullshit & set it straight
It’s clear she hates the fact that Church is quick to the "we're made for each other." She hates it. She doesn't like being tied against her will, so she fights against it. She's programmed to care about him but that doesn't mean she can't be angry. In a way, she kinda hates him, for what the Director did, for bringing her back, etc. She hates being a "shadow" because she isn't just a caricature of what the Director saw in Allison- she's become her own person but time & time again she's dragged back to where people think Tex = Allison.
So yeah, it's important to highlight these kinds of things in writing, instead of simply brushing it off as "maybe Allison was a bitch. Texas is just aggressive & mean." She's guarded, & you can't necessarily just simplify her entire character because you're removing the depth that separated Texas from Allison & you're conflating them into one
I also think she likes the Reds & Blues more than anyone else because they don't really know Allison, which means they only know Tex & they're not holding up the burden of Allison.
The Freelancers were focused on the rankings, but they also couldn't really be friends with her through that because she was at the top of the leaderboard, too. Like, look at how Carolina acts, Carolina freaks.
Tex considered Carolina a friend at once, but Carolina couldn't see Tex as anything more than competition, something wedged between her & her father, & the favoritism tore Carolina to pieces, which is part of why I think when Carolina survives the fall, she doesn't go back to the MOI. There's nothing left there for her, especially not York, because she knows he's gone.
It kind of severs her & her father completely. I like to think she waited a little to see if anyone was coming. They had to know what happened to her. No one came. He (the Director) gave up on her, & she gave up on trying to salvage the once close relationship they had.
Okay, I headcanon like, after Allison. they got closer, because if he got distant, what would've kept her? She wouldn't have been as competitive in Freelancer. She would've hated her father. They had to have been close, & then the project started, so naturally, he offers her a place. She takes it because she loves her father. They're close.
Then, Alpha creates Beta, & he withdraws. He realizes he has Allison now. so he focuses on that & nothing else matters. Carolina is left in the dark because he doesn't tell her shit, so she gets to the top of the leaderboard- he has to notice her then. Instead, he uses it as a way to pit Tex & Carolina against each other, & that's why she stays. & she sees Tex steal her place, & takes York too.
Carolina doesn't consider York "her man" but they were exclusive. She takes it hard because he was there during the fallout with her father, so it fuels her. fuck Texas. Texas took everything from her. That's why she's so motivated to fight Tex. if she doesn't win, then what does that mean?
When the Director tells her that Texas attacked Wyoming for his AI & his equipment, she accepts it, because that makes sense. She sees a demonized version of Texas. Sigma inherently knows her, & sets her up for his meta thing. He convinces her to take both AIs. He knows she's going to go for it, & he knows that she's distracted with Tex.
I'd like to think he & Gamma & Omega conspired together, too. Sigma acts, in a way, that they're gonna be whole if they get the Alpha & the other fragments, but he wants to be the main personality or fragment or whatever. He doesn't care about becoming part of Alpha again, it's for him.
I think Carolina never exactly "knows" Texas is her supposed to be her mother, in a way? I’d like to think Church & the Director didn't exactly tell her, 'cause she's once like "Did I ever tell you about my mother?" & Church kinda knows because he's the memory of Alpha & the Director, but that's not the most important thing. What's the key here is that in my headcanons, Allison technically chose her work over her family.
Or, to the Director, that's what it seemed like, because you don't see Tex ever really stick around, in a way. She's gone a lot, which makes sense because Allison was in & out on deployments, but she doesn't seem sorry about ever going. So I'd like to think the Director was mad, because she was his everything but it seemed like the reverse wasn't the same. & then he lost her. He never tells Carolina, he's kinda like "Your mother loved you so much," because what the fuck is he supposed to say- "Oh your mother didn't really like us so she kept away until she died in duty," which isn't true but he sees everything in his own way.
They had different habits, & where he showed love one way, Allison showed it another, & he didn't quite understand it, so he & Carolina grow closer when Allison dies- Carolina is all he has left of Allison, & he loves her.
She keeps him grounded where he otherwise would've faded away, & he nurtures her so she can be her best.
It's Project Freelancer's fault. He thinks he can help turn the war with the use of AIs & super soldiers- lovingly taken from one of his colleagues. It's like the SPARTAN-IV program except butchered because that's not his thing. I'd like to think all of the Freelancers had augmentations in a way, like they're less human more something else but nothing like the SPARTANs. & like I've said before, Beta is what fucks everything up.
I'd like to think when he first comes across Beta, it's like Alpha & Beta chatting together. They're having some conversation about philosophy or something, & he has a fucking heart attack
probably drops his cup of coffee. He separates them immediately, has the Counselor rate Beta- Texas for active duty. She gets cleared, & there's something they do so she doesn't really understand she's an AI. However, they do put her in a robot body. They tell her she's a cyborg, which kinda makes sense. They tell her she lost certain things in the war, & it makes sense. It's not entirely right, & she knows it, but she thinks the Counselor is creepy & assumes that's what the bad feeling is. So she integrates successfully into the program, & she quickly rises through the ranks, which pisses off certain people- Carolina & South.
She's sent on solo missions usually before that, to judge how she works out on the field, but it's clear the Director would do pretty much anything she asked. She could ask him for all the AIs & he'd probably (with a bit of hesitation) give them to her. He falls in love with her. He thinks its Allison.
When she finds out she's an AI, that she's Beta, after CT dies, it severs anything that the Director had for her, in a way. He's more bitter, because she's just like Allison. She withdraws. She goes rogue. She takes Agent York with her. Both the Director & Carolina hurt from it, like father like daughter. Except at this point, the Director is kinda fucked up.
He's been torturing a version of himself, committing a bunch of crimes, he's kind of lost any sense of like... shame I think? Anything that's necessarily good.
He wants Agent Texas back, but he also, on the side, keeps trying to "fix" her. He wants his wife back, he wants her to stay this time, like he begged.
But that's never how Texas comes out.
She comes out angry, all fists & bitterness & he doesn't fucking understand. He gets really frustrated about it, & when Carolina "dies", he's more preoccupied. Maybe, in a way, he thinks that if he could make Tex, he could fix her & just as easily bring back a Carolina.
Or, her armor sends out a recovery beacon, but it eventually stops, when he doesn't send anyone for it 'cause the ship crashed & they need to get their shit together, & then they have to deal with the meta. They say Carolina's KIA, but somewhere, deep down, he knows she's not.
Carolina returns home from then, hides away on a little planet & recovers. She hates her father. She decides she's gonna take down Project Freelancer. She's not the only one. Washington knows everything, as much as he fucking wants to forget it. He buries any positive feelings he had for Project Freelancer, friends & everything gone. York looks for Carolina, but gives it up quickly.
York's not like the Director in many ways, & he moves on where the Director never could
& the Director never could because he never got to settle it. He was angry at Allison for leaving, he was angry that she didn't put him & Carolina first. He could never move on.
It's hard to get over something when you don't get closure, & that's exactly what he didn’t get. He got into an argument with Allison, a quick conversation before she had to go fight, limited because they're not allowed to have anything more than a few minutes since the Covenant can track human comms. She was angry at him. He didn't apologize. He thought he had more time., his last words were something like "I'll talk to you later. Someone has to take care of our daughter."
Allison hates when he does that kind of thing. She's a good parent, she can't help that she's a fucking soldier, can't he lay off? Their relationship is stressed in a way it wasn't before. The deployment was only good because it kept them apart, but it was also the main stressor.
Leonard tries to convince her to take a position closer to him & Lina. She denies it (in my hcs she's an ODST & there's nothing like being an ODST, so she'd have issues adjusting) & that's another thing they fight about. This dynamic also pops up in Beta & Alpha, because they argue quite a bit, but it's usually alpha instigating it.
It also comes up in Epsilon & his Tex, because she's honest with him. She's tired of being brought back, can't he let her rest? But epsilon takes it (at first) as an attack on him.
Why can't she do something for him, for once?
It’s only within the unit that he works through it. It's always been his fault.
