Her life is full of hardships: she is kidnapped by Kovarian before she is even born; her parents don’t know that they are her parents; when they finally realise who she is, they leave her alone in a hospital (albeit, reluctantly); she finally finishes her degree but gets kidnapped again by Kovarian to kill the love of her life and so on.

the way she subtle ways mentally separates "people" and "prisoners", only ever referring to them as "convict". they never even record their names. they're criminals. they're bad people who've done bad things so whatever happens is their own fault. COI tells their story of what happened to the station and that the Convict was at fault for it, so she believes it without questioning his side (something to be said here about the bias perspective told by governments to further their own goals, to have more prisoners to "rehabilitate" by risking their lives for their future, but thats a whole other thing). he's proving himself to be a person, that he deserves to live by being willing to die for the sake of the COI humanity. how the idea of the potential and a better future outweighs a human life.

And she’s so deep in denial about it. She sounds genuinely confused when Simon makes her say that they won’t kill/abandon him repeatedly. She’s insisting it's not a death sentence or a punishment but they’ve left people down there to die when they became “unrecoverable”. The constant lying to Simon about the situation even when there isn’t any reason to do so. Burying herself so deep in the idea that everything they do is for the betterment of humanity that the convicts stop being people and become unfortunate but necessary casualties. whats a criminal's life when humanity is at sake?

She wants so badly to believe she’s just a captain doing what’s best for everyone but there's conditions on who counts in "everyone." she’s an executioner. A guillotine or a sub – it’s all the same outcome in the end. And as the movie goes on she starts to understand that too.

the guilt in her voice when she tells Simon they aren't coming for him, because it just proves every time he questioned her promises about his survival was right. He was right not to trust them, they’re no more reliable or noble than Eden because they still abandoned those that placed their faith in them. She sent them to die and she never even learned their names. They weren't even on record. They're nameless disposable bodies to these people and now when directly confronted with it she can't ignore it anymore.

at the end she's finally willing to push back against the COI (even then it's only with the promise of the other ship's data, but it is something). promising Simon his freedom instead of just his return. finally willing to challenge her own rigid ideas of personhood and put herself at risk for the greater good, the great discovery, the thing that could save them all.

especially in the scene where river saves amy from the angels in the forest and amy is playing with rivers sleeve like a scared kid, rubbing the camo fabric between her fingers to make sure its real, and river looks a little broken, like she doesn't quite know what to do with herself and like shes scared out of her mind for amy. she knows amy is her mum and this is probably the most unsure and scared shes ever seen her, because in later episodes, even in fear, amy is cocky and snarky and very much the girl who bit therapists again (like she was as a kid) because shes found her footing and knows what travelling with the doctor is like at its worst, so ofc river looks at her like that. ofc she is treating amy with such gentleness. ofc she is.

River + The Doctor + text posts pt. 40/?

Aroace

In CotBP, his crew hesitates to take him on in the cave, despite all of them being undead and him being alone.

In AWE, Sao Feng, a Pirate Lord, surrounds him and Elizabeth in his bathhouse, outnumbering them by a long shot, but the second Barbossa suddenly gains a weapon out of nowhere, he resorts to taking a hostage.

SONG: wizard by Oliver hinkle