#kepwell

before anything else - before looking at how any sort of romantic relationship between the two would work, considering the dynamic between kepler and maxwell as it is in the canon given to us by the show is the more important thing.

kepler and maxwell are presented to listeners as the leader and almost “baby” of si5 (despite the fact she is in her late 20s, largely because she is younger than the other two members of her team), respectively, and are therefore introduced as antagonist figures. while there is plenty to consider between the two during the events of the podcast itself, most of my focus here will be on the exchanges we see between the two in the mini-episodes set before the events of the podcast, language mapping, kansas and happy holidays most of all, as well as things that break other things and the script from the kickstarter for unseen, courtesy of @shinraco

si5 are introduced and, from the off, it’s clear that there is a strong connection between the three of them that, for the most part, goes unspoken and unaddressed. all three of them have been working together for a good amount of time before the events of the podcast - jacobi having been on the team since 2011 (four years) and maxwell since 2013 (two) - and as such have that trust squarely in place, as well as a strong sense of respect for each other.

this trust is demonstrated several times: when kepler has an unquestioned faith in jacobi that he will be able to do the job he has been told to do (overture).

and when he is more than happy to acquiesce to maxwell’s authority as an expert on a subject compared to his relative lack of knowledge on a topic (limbo, regarding working on hera).

the kickstarter script also brings this point up (as well as maxwell referring to her position as an “expert” further on):

this on its own goes against many of the expectations fans seem to have regarding a figure like kepler in that he gets angry when he isn’t the absolute authority on a subject, and that he will snap when things don’t go his way. in fact, the only times he really seems to “snap” in the podcast is when he’s lied to and has his personal belongings lost in space (a matter of perspective) or during the mutiny, which is an understandable reaction (desperate times/desperate measures).

so - there is an implicit trust between the members of si5 that, here, goes unquestioned. of course the events of the season 3 finale and season 4 go on to challenge this, but the focus of this block of text is to be on the relationship between kepler and maxwell, not on si5 as a whole, no matter how much i like them.

as a character, maxwell is often subject to almost a sort of sidelining, where she is brushed aside or her existence largely ignored in order for the focus of a piece to be on kepler and jacobi. other times, when she is included, it is to serve as a kind of “token” female character, or purely to further the plot of kepler and jacobi’s relationship. this comes as no surprise to anyone who has been involved in any fandom for any period of time - the tendency of fans seems to be focusing on the most obvious pairing between two men, at the expense of female characters - and for the most part fans of wolf 359 is no different, but nonetheless is disappointing.

when maxwell does get a focus in fanworks it tends to only be when she's alongside either jacobi or hera (and largely only to further the storylines for the two of them) and rarely if ever with kepler - which is ignoring one of her most important connections with another character in the entire show.

i’ve seen people say maxwell is underdeveloped as a character and that she has no real backstory or depth, when in fact the reverse is true. maxwell’s backstory is laid out to a listener in language mapping, by kepler, a fact she is unimpressed by.

what bothers me a lot about fandom portrayals of maxwell - a topic i didn’t entirely mean to get onto during the writing of this but, hey, here we are, i’m going to roll with it - is that they seem to relegate her just to the role of “smart girl” or “nerd”, rather than paying any attention to how she is actually developed as a character. language mapping shows her as someone willing to get into conflict with others regarding what she cares about and believes in. alana maxwell is someone willing to fight for the things that she wants. alana maxwell is willing to push, bully, and fight her way forward for progress.

this, here, is where the biggest parallel between her and kepler can be seen.

what maxwell works for, what she wants, the reason she still works where she does before goddard - is explicitly stated to be because she is the one willing to push them for progress. she brings up how ai being developed to the level of full-minded intelligence is an inevitability in the universe of wolf 359, and how there’s no point avoiding it out of fear.

there are similarities in how they speak here, with how they refer to the people they work with as “scared” and as a “coward”, as well as later in each respective mini-episode, when both are faced with something that completely changes their perspective on what they are doing. the main similarity here, and the one i want to focus on as it says the most about their characters (not just how they react to situations) focus they both have on working towards something more. in maxwell’s case she explicitly refers to the goal she strives towards whereas kepler’s is something vaguer, about working to always be improving.

of course, kansas has a much darker tone to it over all than language mapping, by merit of the characters involved (i’m sure the inclusion of cutter in maxwell’s recruitment would have made everything that bit more sinister and uncomfortable), but the similarities between the actions of the two characters are striking.

kepler and maxwell are both logical characters. they both value the logical answer above others - compared specifically to jacobi, whose primary concern skews more towards “what will get me and the people i care about out of this situation” - which has them stand out against the majority of the other characters. out of the two maxwell is more emotionally driven (kepler makes a point of having to remind her they are on the hephaestus for their job above all else) but, when it comes down to it, her core is logical.

the similarities between the two make the relationship between them fascinating to look at and recontextualise, to peer at through a different lens and wonder how that would change their interactions with one another. i think that there are various avenues worth considering with the two of them, mainly two branching paths of something platonic or more romantically driven, which are both relatively unexplored in wolf 359 fanworks.

as i mentioned earlier on, maxwell is frequently pushed aside in fics for the purpose of working on kepler and jacobi’s relationship. occasionally this is not the case and she is part of it but cast in a meeker role fulfilling many stereotypes of the “nerd” role often seen in fiction when in reality all that does is flatten her character. while she very much is a nerd - i’m not going to deny that, she’s a prodigy, she went to MIT at 16 - she is also driven and working towards her goal, something kepler respects in her.

i think that maxwell and kepler should kiss, is what i’m saying, and it’s hard to think of how to word why exactly without just sort of shrugging it off as them being two of my favourite characters in the show. probably one of the main draws of their relationship being romantic, to me personally, is the similarities i already mentioned and how they compliment each other, how each of them have their own goals and drive to reach them. i think that their mutual respect for one another, and the unspoken trust forged by merit of working in si5 also turns into this aspect of a relationship much easier than might be expected. i think that kepler values competency and people who are good at what they do, which maxwell is a perfect example of.