Following the Reboot plot, Toshiko has been demoted essentially because her self-destructive tendencies have gotten to the point where they're being externalised. She's a giant mess.
A few notes about the Reboot: Tosh wasn't aware of her connection to the Barge until the endgame event started. Everything she did as the Admiral before then was done subconsciously, and some of the earlier announcements were the real Admiral covering for her, because he didn't know what was going on either and was trying to minimise panic. She didn't go out of her way to torture anyone; however, she didn't have enough control to prevent the worse case scenario playing out. The changes she made weren't exactly decided by her but were partly based on common complaints - for example, that Zero's not really a deterrent, and that it can sometimes take a while for perpetrators of violent crimes to be found and dealt with - while others came about because being directly plugged into the Barge was too much for a human mind to handle rationally.
Obviously none of this is an excuse. She knew people were being hurt and killed and couldn't/wouldn't stop it for three days. Only part of that was out of fear of making things worse. What she did was immeasurably selfish, thoughtless and demented. It came from a place of extreme frustration and despair rather than malice, but regardless of her motivations, she fucked up badly. And she knows it.
She hasn't hit rock bottom. She regrets what happened and she's not a sadistic monster who gets off on seeing people hurt. However, she did play to type because she wanted to be demoted, she wanted everyone to hate her as much as she hates herself, and she knows she did her job well enough that a lot of people will never believe she wasn't sitting in the engine room cackling with glee for seventy-two hours. She knows she isn't going to get, or deserve, anyone's sympathy - and may never be granted a real chance to make amends.
None of this is say her time and actions on the Barge are 100% responsible for her demotion. Her job at Torchwood was to reverse-engineer alien artifacts, cover up murders and commit a range of (mostly electronic) criminal acts for The Greater Good - she was pretty twisted at that point but Torchwood gave her a framework in which that was useful. A cynic might say that Jack Harkness hired people whose lives had been destroyed, explicitly because he knew he could ensure their loyalty by giving them something - anything - to cling to (Gwen being the exception because she all but recruited herself). This is Tosh's current belief. She is certain that Jack never cared about her as a person and hired her knowing that she had no real choice (her other option being to remain in UNIT detention indefinitely). She really kind of hates him, and resents the circumstances of her death, and STILL blames herself for failing to save [colleague and unrequited love interest] Owen Harper.
Furthermore, she's started to believe that the core belief Jack instilled in her - that almost any amount of personal suffering (and a certain amount of collateral damage) is worth it to protect the majority - is also invalid. Nothing has really emerged yet to replace it, but the longer it goes the more toxic it's likely to get. On some levels she actually envies her mirrorverse counterpart, an outright sociopath who felt nothing and didn't care who got hurt in the course of her research. Tosh sees that level of emotional invulnerability as both frightening and admirable.
She was abusing morphine for four months, starting in November and ending in mid-February. She's clean now, but that's something she's always going to be carrying around with her. The temptation to distance herself from her emotional issues, in whatever way she can, will always be there. Her Warden should keep in mind that while her addiction has made things worse, it is a symptom of her other problems, not the other way around.
What she needs to graduate is to build her almost nonexistent self-image, and find a solid sense of purpose and a healthy way to channel or communicate her frustrations. An ideal Warden is someone who will understand what she's done and be able to see why she did it without having to be convinced of it - while remaining aware that it was wrong. There should be an expectation that she will lie and claim more responsibility than she actually has for the things she's done or have happened around her; she wants to be hated and she needs a Warden who won't. Disapproval is expected but anger, bullying and 'pull yourself together'-ing will be insanely counterproductive. Unless things go direly downhill, she won't be violent or even particularly uncooperative towards her Warden - although at the moment she has a death wish and consequently the self-preservation instinct of a cartoon lemming, and will make no serious attempts to defend herself against anyone or anything. Which could probably also stand to be addressed.
Abilities/Powers:
The Admiral has reduced the scope of Toshiko's cerebral port to the point where it had no greater purpose than replacing manual input - i.e. she can't do anything more with it than she could do with a keyboard and mouse. There was a decision made to remove and destroy a necessary component, and it is currently completely defunct.
At the end of April, Toshiko was bitten by werewolf Derek Hale (smilederek) and at the time of writing is a Teen Wolf-style beta. This means her senses have been enhanced to the superhuman; her strength and agility have both been greatly increased, though not beyond human capacity for someone of her size. She now heals wounds much faster than a human, though nowhere near fast enough for the ability to be particularly useful in a single fight.
ETA: The above was undone by the Admiral approx. two weeks later, after Derek disappeared from the Barge.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
UPDATES
Date: 2013-05-02 09:41 pm (UTC)Following the Reboot plot, Toshiko has been demoted essentially because her self-destructive tendencies have gotten to the point where they're being externalised. She's a giant mess.
A few notes about the Reboot: Tosh wasn't aware of her connection to the Barge until the endgame event started. Everything she did as the Admiral before then was done subconsciously, and some of the earlier announcements were the real Admiral covering for her, because he didn't know what was going on either and was trying to minimise panic. She didn't go out of her way to torture anyone; however, she didn't have enough control to prevent the worse case scenario playing out. The changes she made weren't exactly decided by her but were partly based on common complaints - for example, that Zero's not really a deterrent, and that it can sometimes take a while for perpetrators of violent crimes to be found and dealt with - while others came about because being directly plugged into the Barge was too much for a human mind to handle rationally.
Obviously none of this is an excuse. She knew people were being hurt and killed and couldn't/wouldn't stop it for three days. Only part of that was out of fear of making things worse. What she did was immeasurably selfish, thoughtless and demented. It came from a place of extreme frustration and despair rather than malice, but regardless of her motivations, she fucked up badly. And she knows it.
She hasn't hit rock bottom. She regrets what happened and she's not a sadistic monster who gets off on seeing people hurt. However, she did play to type because she wanted to be demoted, she wanted everyone to hate her as much as she hates herself, and she knows she did her job well enough that a lot of people will never believe she wasn't sitting in the engine room cackling with glee for seventy-two hours. She knows she isn't going to get, or deserve, anyone's sympathy - and may never be granted a real chance to make amends.
None of this is say her time and actions on the Barge are 100% responsible for her demotion. Her job at Torchwood was to reverse-engineer alien artifacts, cover up murders and commit a range of (mostly electronic) criminal acts for The Greater Good - she was pretty twisted at that point but Torchwood gave her a framework in which that was useful. A cynic might say that Jack Harkness hired people whose lives had been destroyed, explicitly because he knew he could ensure their loyalty by giving them something - anything - to cling to (Gwen being the exception because she all but recruited herself). This is Tosh's current belief. She is certain that Jack never cared about her as a person and hired her knowing that she had no real choice (her other option being to remain in UNIT detention indefinitely). She really kind of hates him, and resents the circumstances of her death, and STILL blames herself for failing to save [colleague and unrequited love interest] Owen Harper.
Furthermore, she's started to believe that the core belief Jack instilled in her - that almost any amount of personal suffering (and a certain amount of collateral damage) is worth it to protect the majority - is also invalid. Nothing has really emerged yet to replace it, but the longer it goes the more toxic it's likely to get. On some levels she actually envies her mirrorverse counterpart, an outright sociopath who felt nothing and didn't care who got hurt in the course of her research. Tosh sees that level of emotional invulnerability as both frightening and admirable.
She was abusing morphine for four months, starting in November and ending in mid-February. She's clean now, but that's something she's always going to be carrying around with her. The temptation to distance herself from her emotional issues, in whatever way she can, will always be there. Her Warden should keep in mind that while her addiction has made things worse, it is a symptom of her other problems, not the other way around.
What she needs to graduate is to build her almost nonexistent self-image, and find a solid sense of purpose and a healthy way to channel or communicate her frustrations. An ideal Warden is someone who will understand what she's done and be able to see why she did it without having to be convinced of it - while remaining aware that it was wrong. There should be an expectation that she will lie and claim more responsibility than she actually has for the things she's done or have happened around her; she wants to be hated and she needs a Warden who won't. Disapproval is expected but anger, bullying and 'pull yourself together'-ing will be insanely counterproductive. Unless things go direly downhill, she won't be violent or even particularly uncooperative towards her Warden - although at the moment she has a death wish and consequently the self-preservation instinct of a cartoon lemming, and will make no serious attempts to defend herself against anyone or anything. Which could probably also stand to be addressed.
Abilities/Powers:
The Admiral has reduced the scope of Toshiko's cerebral port to the point where it had no greater purpose than replacing manual input - i.e. she can't do anything more with it than she could do with a keyboard and mouse. There was a decision made to remove and destroy a necessary component, and it is currently completely defunct.
At the end of April, Toshiko was bitten by werewolf Derek Hale (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smilederek) and at the time of writing is a Teen Wolf-style beta. This means her senses have been enhanced to the superhuman; her strength and agility have both been greatly increased, though not beyond human capacity for someone of her size. She now heals wounds much faster than a human, though nowhere near fast enough for the ability to be particularly useful in a single fight.ETA: The above was undone by the Admiral approx. two weeks later, after Derek disappeared from the Barge.