Shalikova continues to be adorable in her nervous affection for Cuttlefish Lady. "Purple marshmallow"!!!!

It's a cool scene when she walks in to Maryam travelling in the aether, it really feels like her understanding of Maryam has increased considerably.

Whatever it was that she was doing, Shalikova wanted to support her.

I love Sonya Shalikova so much. She could overtake Murati in my favourites. This scene is fucking adorable ugh I could keysmash about it. Nowt but love in my heart for them, the way Madiha writes their awkward new love makes me feel. Oh my god they're so cute help????? Like their bit is that Maryam is the overly enthusiastic sunshiney one and Shalikova is the overly serious stiff and awkward one, but they're so cute at eachother that the dynamic feels perfectly balanced between them.

I'm your idiot now, Maryam.

Shalikova's narration of psionics also feels deeply textural in a way that says "the tism!" very loudly to me. Feels like more of a sensory thing for her, which is rad. Her stream of consciousness is full of flavour like that. I also like that Maryam observes that she feels "dominant and strong, like a Warlord", that's 'strong personality' right? My read is that Sonya's neurotype informs her entire experience of love and affection, and I adore that. There are dedicated romance novels with autistic leads that don't hit the mark as precisely as this.

HAHA, oh man de la Rosa talking about how she always strikes gold with freely available independent fiction, it might seem self-congratulatory if it weren't 100% true. I think I've said what she narrates about it 100% verbatim before.

de la Rosa feels like a self insert for my stupid ass, like Hello ma'am I am also hopelessly obsessed with gay women in my books. I am being reached out to by the author. I really like this, her little summary of Blind Princess and the Kind Retainer reads sort of like what I'm writing right now... There are multiple levels of meta at play, lol.

"Why- why are you freaking out so much. We're both girls, you can stop hiding."

Even Alex realised immediately what a stupid thing to say that was.

Lol, lmao! It's fun to see Handsome Gamer Genivov being nervous and awkward when she's usually so boisterous and loud. I like how when reading Unjust Depths, it pays not to judge a gay by their cover - characters will make weird or even bad impressions at first, and then unfurl amazingly, become fascinating and multi-faceted. Video games are reactionary and cringe, but it's nice to see de la Rosa tolerate Genivov's hobby :)

Handily contrasting how Shalikova sees psionics as an absolute win, meanwhile, Murati is all freaked out about the inequality of being able to read Karuniya's feelings when Karu cannot do the same. Dw Murati it's okay, Karu is a fucking weirdo so it all evens out. At this point "evil ingenuity" is rubbing me really wrongly coming from Karuniya, a fucking weirdo, should not be mischevious. "Hubby" is a straggot term, Karuniya, shut the fuck up.

For what it's worth, it is a decentish scene for the pair of them, and I don't intend to constantly belabour the fact of my boundless disdain for Karuniya. It is at least cool to see Murati show some sexual initiative, I realise now that one of the reasons their relationship can feel so creepy and unbalanced--especially in that 8.13 flashback--is that it's been Karuniya doing almost all of the horny perving, with Murati being mostly passive, which makes her feel weirdly objectified to me. This is at least a slight improvement to the status quo.

The way Zachikova and Arbitrator I are described as cuddling does not, as the narration says, seem out of character for me. It's a very casual, parallel-play type of physical affection, I know it and I like it. Autism. To be honest, Abritrator wrapping her body around Zachikova and sniffing at her hair while she's using a terminal, it reminds me of cuddling my wife sometimes. I adore that Zachikova feels comfortable enough around Madame Fishy, and that this level of comfort is new to her. Affection in general is new to Braya Zachikova, and she seems to have poor emotional regulation about it but isn't distressed by it, which is very cute.

...and then Zachikova says she's all-ready to kill Arbitrator I in a multitude of ways! Countermeasures because she's unfamiliar with cohabiting!! This is weird even to me, but it's funny and befitting of our favourite former spec-ops robotic lady. She is so blunt, they have a curious but deeply pleasant dynamic. This is the best fucking autism rep this side of The Outside by Ada Hoffmann, and the single best chapter of Unjust Depths thus far.

Relatedly, Arbitrator revealing herself to be a sexy(??) yet meek vampire fish is weirdly intimate. I feel weirdly sympathetic to Arbitrator's struggle not to harm humans despite her bloodlust, which is probably me and my murder-gays-affection speaking again. Arbitrator is all fucked up and borderline ashamed about it though, and I think extremely highly of Zachikova for calmly considering Arbitrator's problem without freaking out, she's so good to her fishy gf. I'm uh glad Zachikova can get off to it, there's so much going on in this one scene. Great stuff.

There are some scraps, too:

Ulyana in fact IS on her way to un-fumbling; she and Aaliyah are having more than one shot, in their night clothes, toasting to the proletarian revolution! Progress!! Mostly they talk about the progress of the Brigand's mission and its truly wonderful crew, but I liked Aaliyah drunkenly nuzzling Ulyana's hand, very cute.

ELENA IS READING THEORY NO FUCKING WAY, on her way to becoming a bonafide Mordecist!!! And telling Marina about it!!!!! It's great seeing Marina acknowledge that she hadn't been considering Elena's feelings, and Elena apologising for trying to hurt Marina. They'll get better together, as friends!

Euphrates and Tigris mostly bicker about current events and get a little inspired to resolve the Sunlight Foundation's internal contradictions, thanks to Murati. They are cute together at least, and it's nice to know Tigris took in Euphrates' blood to become immortal.

Haaaaaaaaaaha oh man, Sonya being so awkward asking Murati for advice is noooot stemming my nascent filthy rotten shipping instincts! They WILL kiss!!! Read eachothers', auras, homos, and play coy!!!! Avoid eachothers' clear affections

Is it kind of a pacing mishap to have ALL OF THESE relationship updates piled into one chapter? Maybe, but it's a good come-down after Goryk's Gorge, the ascent and all of the interrogations, plus it pulled my heartstrings a bunch of times. I was reading Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (a messy but enjoyable shlock-horror novel) when I theorised: if you add queers, transes, autists, and other identities I have to your genre fiction's protagonists, it will greatly improve my investment in everything else, right up to action sequences. Unjust Depths is the absolute poster child for this though, the quality relationships are the bedrock for everything else, the political maneuvering and mecha action and deep-sea esoterics.

Addendum: In plot movement terms, at the end we finally get Carthus, once again, Erich's pet evil twink. My excitement knows no bounds, his dramatic expressions of being the mercury to Erich's sun, is this what yaoi is usually like? If you keep me on a steady dose of lesbians alongside it, I could get used to this too. Sing to your prince, racist pretty boy~!

I adore what an irredeemable little fuck Carthus is, ooh he's SUCH an evil murder twink. Nice to see that Erich has access to Sunlight's EDEN database too, and his bag is that the Sunlight Foundation basically allowed Emperor Nocht I to erase history and build this shitty empire with all its troubles. He wants to rewrite history and the empire in his own image. A united One World Government, beginning with the destruction of the summer palace. He is playing an EXCEEDINGLY long game.