#jacob week

[punkshep]

a tiny friend for #JacobWeek!! my favorite thing about jacob is that he’s just... normal. he’s a genuinely sweet guy doing his best on a ship full of (loveable) weirdos

[punkshep]

it’s jacob meta time because i remembered this week is his week and i just WISH people would give his character more credit instead of ignoring him

i’ve talked about this before but people joke about how he doesn’t change like the other squadmates under shepard’s influence, he’s boring, whatever. but he has a great, really subtle character arc that comes together in me3 (in admittedly the worst possible way if you romanced him). he matures and mellows out a lot from the start of me2. when you meet him he’s a disillusioned ex-soldier who thinks joining an extremist group is the best course of action for humanity. he’s not like the other squadmates where he joins just for shepard or even like miranda who’s dependent on cerberus to basically survive. he’s an otherwise normal guy who is so frustrated with the system that he genuinely thinks that these terrorists have the right idea. he’s the exact kind of person cerberus looks for and deliberately recruits. he’s got a history as basically a privateer, so they know he’s a bit of a loose cannon and not good with authority, but they also know the military training and respect will kick in as soon as he meets shepard. he wasn’t just picked at random; he was singled out because his situation made him the perfect person to manipulate. and he’s got no idea. he’s vulnerable, he’s naive, and he’s uninformed when he first meets shepard. he’s a sucker.

but the more shepard gains his loyalty, the more he realizes what’s going on. part of it is because that’s what shepard does, the same way they separate miranda from cerberus when she’s even more embedded. part of it is seeing his father again and having a contrast to look at and want to be different from. he had the childish dream of his father dying as a far off hero, and instead he found a despicable man corrupted by power - and he realized exactly who he didn’t want to be. he had always wanted to be an honorable man and he finally saw that he wanted to be a good father too, and that he had to let go of those old dreams and face reality. that disillusionment feeds his disillusionment with cerberus and his realization that he‘s reached a dangerous extreme just like his father did.

me3 should have been completely different if shep romanced him because we see in jacob that he’s extremely loyal, that he’s honest and open to a fault, and that he admires shepard a LOT. it doesn’t add up at least for me that he would develop another relationship when he was already committed to shepard, especially in secret.

if shep didn’t romance him, it’s perfectly in character. he’s a passionate person who needs a purpose, he needs to feel like he belongs and he’s heading in the right direction. it makes perfect sense that he would throw himself into rescue operations and into fighting the organization he feels awful about being complicit in. it makes sense that he would fall in love so easily and completely. the baby was probably an accident but he would be so happy at the thought of being a father, and so earnest about naming the baby after shepard. the decisions he made were rash but coming out of a huge life upheaval and then getting separated from the crew he’d been living with for months makes it no surprise that he wanted close relationships again not just with brynn but with the other scientists as well. finding someone he actually knew after being pulled away from everyone was probably a huge relief and they would have clung to each other happily in the middle of the crisis.

basically jacob matures into a father and a rescuer and a loving partner and someone who has found his place in a healthy environment, but he’s still passionate and a little reckless and loyal to the people he claims as his. people don’t give him enough credit for how he grows and they don’t give him enough credit for his complexity as a character. anyway that’s my two credits ✌🏼

[punkshep]

oh also the MOST important jacob taylor meta is that jacob is bi