I'd love to hear what you think about Mia and Diego's relationship 😊
Thank you my anonymous enabler
I should probably preface this by saying I’m not even an active miego shipper. But I hate seeing people mischaracterizing characters to fit their narrative, especially when ignoring canon elements. I also should add that I’m sorry if the pics are blurry/small, I had to find a work around because I struggled to upload them.
The big thing I’ve seen around is the idea that Mia’s and Diego’s relationship was somehow abusive, that Mia didn’t actually like Diego, and/or that Diego/Godot only liked the idea of her. The thing is that we have no canon basis for this. I’ll try to keep it short (mostly because I need to replay the game for more things, and that the Diego/Godot part would be too long). Basically I’m going to focus on Mia.
We have no canon basis to pretend she didn’t like him. I mean, she did decided to face her trauma from her first trial to get a chance to avenge what happened to Diego and frame the person who poisoned him. Even Grossberg says it, “Oh, now I understand why you asked to take this case.”
Remember how she punches Grossberg each time Feenie mentions how much he loves Dahlia ? We fandom often jokes about it, saying she just finds him embarrassing and sickenly sweet, but she didn’t react that way when Larry would do the same in 1-1. No, the reason she does it is probably out of rage and grief. I mean, Diego’s poisoning was only 8 months old. She was robbed of what Feenie (thought he) had with Dahlia, and couldn’t bear seeing him brag about how much in love he is and how happy he is with her (and on top of that, with the very person who took Diego away from her).
Mia was mad, and hurt by what happened to Diego, and being able to get Dahlia convicted was a huge step into helping her moving on.
This is a first step to explain why she “barely acknowledged him in T&T” (the main argument of the anti-miego), because she already moved on. The other explanation might just be that of storage room. T&T is one of the longest game (originally planned for GBA), and they had already used a lot of tricks to take less space, taking this occasion to enter a new judge, and a very intricate plot running through the whole game. They most likely didn’t have time to give to their past relationship, based on all the hints we have. Just see how the anime is adding little bits about their relationship, and how many official art feature them happily together
Speaking of which, let’s review Mia’s attitude toward Diego/Godot in official art:
Mia’s attitude is relaxed, she’s often smiling, looking at him, standing/sitting close to him and being in interaction with him (drinking coffee, talking, etc.) Does she really give off vibes of being unhappy with him or wanting to fly the interaction ? not really.
And even less on that one art
Where she looks playful, takes his arm and is here without having even been channeled.
These last pics bring me to talk about Diego’s attitude toward Mia (outside the cute coffee sharing). A big argument I see against Diego is that he supposedly belittles her and doesn’t think she can do things on her own/is overprotective to a unhealthy/sexist extend. I say this is bullshit, and all my following argument is going to be summarized in this collage (original post courtesy of @draincyanide , hope you don’t mind me tagging you here)
Wow, really belittling (especially from a senior attorney to a rookie on her first trial). I know this impression also comes from the “kitten” nickname, but really, Diego/Godot calls “kitten” anyone he finds is a position of being more weak/young/in need of protection, whatever the gender (see, Ron DeLite, and Miles in the Official Casebook Volume 2 when Miles ends up trapped in a kid’s body). Does it mean he thinks she can’t do it ? no. It’s just how she is, at the beginning of her first trial. She’s in need of a little kick to assert herself, and it’s exactly what he does by often teasing/roasting her. He does such things as to make an objection and let her explain it, or underline her situation to push her to find a way to turn things around. He’s not trying to roast her for the likes of it, or to maintain her under his “protection”. On the contrary, he’s assisting her in her first trial, and pushing her to assert herself, be confident and eventually fly on her own. He’s acting as a mentor. And he doesn’t bat an eye either when she calls him out on his coffee addiction and talk back (I get the feeling their relation would have a lot of mutual roasting). He’s actually pushing her out of her comfort zone so she can be more independent and fend for herself.
Also, her famous sentence of “It’s in the harder times that a lawyer must put on their bigger smile” is directly inspired by Diego’s “The only time a lawyer can cry is when it’s all over”. Diego positively influenced her and her career.
To finish, I’d like to put some words on what is, to me, the chore of the issue: before T&T, many people headcannoned Mia as a lesbian and shipped her with Lana. No issue with it. But for some reasons, people couldn’t get behind the idea that she could be *gasp* bi, and that she could have been in a happy relationship with Diego. But I will tell you: you can ship this while acknowledging that Mia could be bi in canon, without making her past relationship abusive.
Just because a relationship ended doesn’t mean it was abusive. There’s plenty other reasons for a relationship to end, and in this case, a coma with very little chance of waking up from it is a pretty good reason. You even have the basis for a hurt/comfort scenario with Lana supporting Mia through this hardship, without changing one bit from the canon. Why try to frame Diego as an abuser to justify your ship ? you don’t need to.
Trying to vilify this relationship in that type narrative is not as progressive as it might sound. It actually participates into a scheme of shaming bi women’s m/w relationships. But I’ll tell you a secret: if you don’t support bi women no matter the gender of their partner, you’re not supporting bi women at all. Supporting them only when they’re with girls means you only accept half of their identity, and it shows in your vain attempt to vilify Mia’s past m/w relationship when you have no need for it to ship her with a girl.
Secondly, it also participates into the narrative of the “chosen” sexuality. As much appealing as it sounds, making women “turn lesbians” because of disappointing or hurtful past relationships with men perpetuates the idea that sexual orientation is a choice, and that if gay people are being bullied, in a way, they chose it (and that gives ground to the straight people’s idea that this can be “fixed back” by meeting the proper person who will turn them back straight).
You know what could be truly progressive, if you really can’t fathom the idea of Mia being bi ? Mia realizing she’s actually not attracted to men and breaking up with Diego after this. And I’ll tell you one more secret: you don’t even have to make Diego be an asshole in this situation. Try it, it’ll save you a lot of energy.
tl;dr There is actually more grounds to defend the idea that Mia and Diego were a happy couple than to assert that they were abusive/didn’t really like each other. I believe that shipping bias and character preferences play a big role in this negative, but you can totally ship your wIw ship while following canon (and even in canon-divergent AUs) without having to make this relationship abusive. Also, support bi girls.
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