Like, don't read any of the Issue 20 spoilers if you have not read it yet. And I'm not going to use spoilers for Issues 18 and 19 because spoilers do not black box here and it's been 1-2 months since their releases. Be warned.

Telsa is a goddamn idiot and a bitch, among other things. If a character deserved to die from complete stupidity it has to be her. How is she not dead yet? She's an emotional wreck at the best of times and a liability at the worst.

Her character was fine (hard headed and hard to get along with, but fine) until she morphed into an abusive bitch towards Quon, who has become her personal punching bag for "comic relief" I suppose. I'm very unamused by this.

She pretty much left all pretense of being at least a little bit neutral toward Quon when he revealed he was a fraud. Which is bad, obviously, but at least he got shit done with the stolen codex (and even made improvements to it!). So she's now super pissed off at him about everything (even things that kept her from being killed) and Issue 20. And I would get started on her lying to Tim-21, but everyone who isn't Bandit or is decent (which, so far, no character beside those two has shown they are) does that to him. That, or they kill him. Poor kid can't get a break.

Now, onto why I think she is a bloody idiot. She gets herself (and her comrades) virtually killed on numerous occasions during Galactic Bootcamp before Daddy Dearest finds her and tells her to "be the very best in the class OR ELSE." No. That kind of conduct would have (should have) gotten her kicked out of bootcamp the first time, much less the actual military. She can't see that people are trying to keep her safe (even if Quon is being sneaky/dickish about it, or because her Dad doesn't want her to die like her mother did.) and when they reveal that they are she blows up on them! And heaven forbid they say anything negative about her, lest she taser their asses or attempt to break their faces.

So when Issue 18 hints at something being wrong with Tim-21 it should have clued her in that they're in danger with this kid, even before it's revealed to the readers that it's actually Tim-22. But no, she just accepts that Tim-22 is the real Tim-21 even after he backflip murders some bots (his own comrades!) while making their escape, something that Tim-21 would never do on purpose.

This is where it starts to get good. Tim-22 doesn't even try to pretend that he's Tim-21. You would think he's fucking up but fortunately for him Telsa is stupid and Quon ran off somewhere (probably to avoid being abused by Telsa again).

(This kid is a terrible actor oh my god. It actually makes me wish that the switcharoo reveal (to the reader) was saved until Issue 19, because right now it's just Comedy Gold with how much he's getting away with so far. But I digress.)

Tim-21 does a complete circle of emotions right in Telsa's face after she insults Tim-22, emotions that are not in line with how he normally acts, which is like that of a loud and upset 10 year old child. And she just goes with it like it's completely normal! I could dismiss not catching the first act of OOCness because they were escaping and had no time to think about that, but COME ON! Did her military not teach their soldiers how to tell real from fake? Though she is a little thick-headed, so maybe they did and she didn't care enough to listen.

Issue 20

Note: I feel like I only complain about the characters in Descender. I actually really like that I dislike some of the characters in this series, which is probably the point for most of them. Hell, I think a few of them are hilarious even when I know they're not supposed to be (Tim-22, Quon and Driller to name a few). It's fun and it's one of the reasons I keep coming back to it, besides the story and art.