Emily M’s Reviews > The Fallen > Status Update

"It took all parts of Yasira, working in concert, to do this. It took the full will and determination of the Strike Force...the voracious curiosity of the Scientist...It took the deep-down parts...There were parts of Yasira...who still mostly wanted to die...they took the brunt of that pain, shielding the others...This was better than death; this was pain with a purpose. Even their brokenness fit here."

"'And when you've done this sort of work, your supervisors have been satisfied?' 'I don't know, sir. Mostly they don't say anything one way or the other'... Akavi's head tilted. 'I see why you failed basic training...You're not only a bad liar, you're PAINFULLY honest...You're not thinking even a little bit of how to spin the facts...It's refreshing.'"

Oooh. Yeah, Enga being normal-autistic before her angel transformation makes a lot of sense. And I already feel bad for her about how we seem to be getting to that!

“Yasira could barely think…She wanted to do six things at once…But Tiv was in danger. Tiv was afraid. That was unacceptable…Yasira reached out, gathered the full force of Outside from deep inside her, and shoved.”

“A very small, very reasonable part of Yasira pointed out that the team had never told her she couldn’t look at something…The team had never controlled Yadira’s movements…Yasira knew who had done those things to her, and it wasn’t her team. It was possible to know very well where a fear came from, and for that knowledge not to help even a little bit.”

“But the Gods tortured people too…It was just that everyone believed it was different…and these screams were necessary for the greater good…Tiv had really once believed that there was a difference between what the Gods did and what humans used to do to each other. She couldn’t remember, anymore, just what the difference was.”

“But Tiv no longer believed in Gods. Obviously They existed, but she no longer believed They would help her at all. She sometimes caught herself reaching back for those beliefs, on instinct…But nothing was there. No one was going to decide what Tiv should do anymore, but Tiv.”

“Tiv understood neurodiversity. Yasira would never have dated a woman who didn’t…But Yasira hadn’t been like this when Tiv fell in love with her. And she feared what Tiv might think, what Tiv might say, if she understood how deep the change really went.” 😢

“Akiujal chuckled darkly. ‘What, then, is the virtuous thing to do when we don’t have enough?…Starve? Sustain ourselves through heresy, which will be punished just as viciously as violence? Or we could try to collaborate with the gone people…But that wouldn’t be your style either…The gone people might fight.’”

“Angels who’d shot mortals for trying to cross the border…Angels who’d injured mortals, under the guise of crowd control…Angels who’d captured mortals and made them disappear, to be interrogated or punished…Not long ago, most mortals in the Chaos Zone had trusted angels completely.”