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getosboobies · 4 years ago

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reasons i think matchablossom is or has been canon!

once again, i have become overly obsessive and have throughly analysed each and every kaoru & kojiro scene that we currently have. i indulged and created my own list of “ are they besties or are they banging or both “ but i have decided to share it all with you :))

( keep in mind, i’m a reacher and these are just my interpretations. i will go to any extent to prove myself correct - no matter how unlikely )

so first of all, we have the fact cherry is the only one we have yet to see at joe’s restaurant after hours. this immediately shows that they are extremely comfortable with each other and spend a lot of time together even when they’re not skating. it also potentially suggests cherry is waiting for joe to go home, maybe a habit they’ve developed over time. before these scenes, the producers always show an image of the restaurants front door which states closed. by showing this frame, it obviously gives the impression it’s important for us to know that it is closed and therefore showings us that joe and cherry’s relationship is more than just some rivalry banta and that they have an established friendship built on trust and time. the creators could have just not shown that it was closed and had us assume that’s they were just good friends who spent time together but they went a whole step further and showed us these two men’s personal lives are somewhat intertwined with one another, showing us that they don’t have large boundaries for each other which would be considered strange in contrast to the “ arguing “ we had previously seen between them. if this isn’t enough for you, in these scenes we also see joes uniform unbuttoned so i take this as even more evidence of how comfortable they are around each other. also ! restaurants tend to close quite late ( avg. 8pm-12pm ) and on all the shots of the closed door, it has been dark outside. why wouldn’t cherry be home at this time settling down or something??? or maybe cherry has a lot of love for joe if he’s willing to wait that long for him to finish work... just sayin’. more on this, i analysed the restaurants design and noticed that the plug in the wall is really low down to the ground. maybe this is just one of joes odd design techniques or maybe it was specifically placed for cherry to charge carla, the concept of which, makes me very happy

keeping on the point of joe’s restaurant, whenever we have seen cherry inside he always sits right in front of the kitchen, this is pretty normal unless you think about 1) how much time he spends there 2) how busy restaurants get 3) he came there while he was with a colleague. we’ve already seen that cherry doesn’t mind coming after hours so why did he come during the day if he knew joe would be busy? this is similar to the fact he came in with his colleague in episode 2 - he obviously wasn’t expecting to be able to talk with joe while he was out for a work meal, so why on earth would he sit right in front of where joe would be, which is situated in a considerably inconvenient table for work meal? what i’ve interpreted from this is that cherry’s must enjoy being in joes presence. cherry canonically having anxiety would explain why he likes being close to someone who he knows well, and that cares for him. being able to see and hear joe so close is perhaps very relaxing for cherry.

now when i watched sk8 for the first time, i gather the impression that joe was a forgive and forget kinda guy when it came to someone who did him wrong. when we’re introduced to adam it’s evident there is some hostility within joe but this does not nearly compare to the anger cherry showed. when suggesting a beef their intentions seem to be completely different. cherry outrightly admitting to his grudge and anger for adam whereas joe seems to just want to prove a point to adam by winning against him ( i mean look at the image above, their facial expressions show it all ). but i noticed that as cherry would speak about adam, joe’s intentions slowly shifted and became far more serious and full of anger. “ there’s someone i’d like to punch “ is a sentence said by joe in episode 8. this is quite different to what we had seen in earlier episodes of him just wanting to make a point. i think this shift was predominantly when joe found cherry at the ocean view. joe knew how cherry was feeling towards adam BEFORE this scene because he knew where to find him, but the realisation that cherry was standing there, alone, and reliving some of his saddest memories probably hit joe that cherry couldn’t do this alone. therefore stepped up his game and met cherry’s loathing so they could do it together. as far as things go, this is one of the most important things they have done for each other because it shows clearly how devoted they are to each other.

this is one of the most confusing lines in this show thus far. i’m sure it’ll make sense in the oncoming episodes but i have come to two conclusions. so either adam has created this false reality of what happened and has told himself his evil ways stemmed from joe and cherry or, the more likely in my opinion, adam always felt like he was in need of a partner, a rival but also someone to love. this is displayed in the show in his predatory ways, aka, he wants his own ‘eve’. now there’s no ruling whatsoever that a skater needs any sort of dedicated rival, or skate partner, so i believe adam probably got this want from his peers, for example, joe and cherry. adam seems to believe you need to love your ‘eve’ and it gives me the idea that maybe he saw joe and cherry -in love- and decided that was what he wanted, but then as we know he went about it in an extremely toxic way. the “was it so“ was really hard to interpret, he’s clearly quite smug by the way he shrugs and smiles and shows that he’s very confident about what he’s saying but the question is short and leaves a lot unknown, which suggests why cherry and joe don’t respond. either they are as confused as i am, or they have a slight idea what adam could be suggesting and they feel guilty. we all know cherry and joe aren’t bad hearted people but as adam is insinuating ‘no, you guys parted ways from me first’ it could suggest that joe and cherry had perhaps become closer in high school and had developed a stronger bond than they had with adam and this left adam feeling lost and alone. this is more of a canon compliant headcanon that would make sense rather than a fact but it’s certainly something to think about.

one of the most obvious factors in their relationship is how they always know what the other is thinking or planning. we’ve seen in recent episodes that when cherry was racing, joe knew exactly what his motive was even without discussing it, thats enough information to show how well they truly know each other and how connected they really are. it’s also shown with cherry. when joe is racing, and is going extremely fast towards the corner, we see a frame of miya and shadow being worried for him, but then it shifts to cherry watching and there’s not a spec of worry on his face because he KNOWS what joe is planning and knows he will be fine. they know each other’s techniques better than anyone and it shows they don’t doubt each other’s choices one bit.

we learn right from the beginning that cherry and joe like to argue and fight, at first we think this is because they dislike each other but we learn that they are best friends. so when watching back you notice that none of the insults are ever actually insulting. let’s think about it, the most common insults they use are gorilla, dimwit and four-eyes. now to me, none of these actually seem insulting whatsoever and even if they do like to argue a lot it’s obvious they never ever mean any harm to one another.

from analysing the scenes one of the things i’ve noticed the most is how cherry and joe turn up and leave together. when the cops came during the langa x adam skate they both started to run off together leaving everyone else behind. as we know, they spend a lot of their personal lives together but leaving and turning up together every single time we’ve see them there seems like they’re a bit more attached than i originally thought. there’s a chance they meet before hand but why always that late at night? why aren’t they ever at home alone? unless...they live together. i mean it’s a perfectly valid suspicion right now as we’ve never seen either of their homes and we’ve never seen either of them turn up anywhere alone but either way it confirms they spend an awful lot of time together in general life. going back to my original point of them not only turning up and leaving together but they also never leave each other’s sides. there’s a heap of frames that you can see them standing together watching a beef or even just them talking. they’re literally attached at the hip and nothing makes me happier.

the creators of the show have made countless points to show that joe and cherry have a lot of history. from the school references to the fact they have TRAVELLED THE WORLD TOGETHER. they could have just shown one or two so we know that as a general fact they’ve known each other a long time but they bring it up an awful lot for it to be just a general fact. this being shown so much let’s us know that this is important information and that they’ve obviously wanting to lay down a foundation to bring something crucial up. so far they have mentioned their social studies trip, a school excursion, joes love for haunted houses, holiday to La and the Paris bar they went to. now you might be thinking, oh they were in the same school they probably just went on a trip together nothing confirms they were close, well i am here to prove that statement false. joe said he found cherry’s wallet, this not only shows that joe was close to cherry when he lost it but also that he knew where to find it, showing how well he knew cherry. another point is that legal age to drink in Paris is 18 so unless they had fake ID it’s safe to say this is a trip they’ve done since becoming adults and leaving school. it’s also canon that have gone together, so the fact they’ve been travelling as adults together is quite interesting. same with the restaurant in LA, sounds kinda like a date.

over the course of the episodes we’ve seen so far there has been a few comments they have made to each other that suggest a little bit of jealousy. for cherry, these comments are made in episode 6 in the hot spring. cherry brings up joes love for haunted houses and then joe agrees and says it’s because “chicks get scared and grab onto me” * with a smirk *. now what’s interesting about this is cherry’s response. “you really are a scumbag” this insult feels a lot more insulting than usual and the response itself surprised me. at this moment cherry looks away from joe which is an action people tend to do when they’re hurt or pissed off. either works in this scenario but neither make much sense as we know cherry’s already aware of joes status with girls. so why was he mad? well this was obviously a fond memory of cherry’s and joe replying with a statement about girls probably made him a bit angry because that was supposed to be their memory. but joes smirk with the comment makes me rethink, did he state that on purpose to make cherry jealous? obviously we can’t be sure but the entire encounter left me a bit confused. now onto joes jealousy, in episode 2 dub joe says “dude, you’re talking to a machine?” now in context this seems like joe is partially bewildered by the fact cherry is casually talking to his AI skateboard but he also seems slightly jealous that cherry is talking to carla instead of talking to him. this is one of the only scenes where joes facial expressions actually seem insulted rather than just having a bit of fun. he follows this up with “figured you’d give your board a girls name seeing as you can’t get a real one!” why can’t he get a real one? we hear tonnes of girls screaming compliments at cherry when he turns up so he definitely could get a girlfriend if he wanted, and joe no doubt knows this too, so why would he use it as an insult? i’m not sure what to make of this but it’s got to be a factor somewhere.

more on the haunted mansion chit chat, the line about chicks grabbing onto joe is quite funny when you look at the entire scene, because as soon as they get jumped they grabbed onto each other in fear. seems a little ironic if i do say so myself.

they both seem very secluded about their personal lives. cherry more specifically does not like the use of his skate name in his personal life or vice versa. joe is the only one we have seen to be aware or use cherry’s real name. the way joe slips up and calls cherry ‘kaoru’ at “S” shows how close they are and how much time they spend together to be able to accidentally mix up the two parts of their lives. this is just an extra point on how conjoined their lives must really be. in the photo above we see how cherry easily calms joe down when he starts to get annoyed. joe is the only one who knows fully about cherry’s life as emotions and cherry is the same for joe.

now one of the most heart wrenching matcha blossom scenes is when joe finds cherry at the ocean view. i have a lot to say about this so let’s start at the beginning. first of all, joe noticed cherry was missing. it’s not like cherry was there for a massive amount of time, so joe noticing that cherry was gone for even as much as an hour or two really says a lot about the placement they have in each other’s lives. there was really no reason for joe to worry about where cherry was considering they’re grown adults but he continued to go out and find him anyways. this is also set in the late afternoon judging by the sky, whereas the previous scene had been set at night at “s”, so this is suggesting the ocean view scene is on a completely different normal day for them (another factor showing how much time they spend together). next, the fact joe knew exactly where to find cherry. this truly shows how much they know and how connected they are to each other but also how well they understand the others coping mechanisms. cherry was dwelling on memories from 7 years ago and yet joe still knew exactly what he was doing and what he was thinking about. plus cherry didn’t even seem surprised when joe turns up. but one thing i noticed is that in this scene is the way they (in this case, didn’t) hold eye contact. while cherry is faced away, joe is staring at him but as soon as cherry meets joes eyes, joe turns away. either joe didn’t want to be caught staring or joe realised something crucial in that moment. i’ll let your mind decide what that is.

obviously, miyas comment about joe and cherry being his parents is a light hearted joke just to ruin joes chances of flirting with girls but it also implies that the group can tell that joe and cherry are respectively closer than anyone originally thought and they perhaps have caught on that the tension between them is a little bit too gay to be just a bit of banta. obviously in this scene we then see joe looking at cherry’s legs while a blush clearly intensifies on his face. yeah no, this is self explanatory.

one of the things i like about joe and cherry’s relationship is the fact that within that joe also has a somewhat dynamic with carla. although carla is non-living, there has been several interactions between them. for example the beginning of episode 6 on the boat joe recognises carlas voice immediately. i mean straight off i think it’s suspicious as hell that they all happened to be going there at the same time but the fact joe realised cherry must be there because of the sound of an AI skateboard? that’s impressive. also, at the beginning of the series carla is aware of who joe is when calling joe an imbecile, this shows that cherry has obviously had this modified to specifically refer to joe as joe rather than just refer to him as a general person.

there was a popular tiktok i saw the other day (if anyone has the username of the person please tell me so i can credit them!!) and it showed the two images above. in these photos it shows joes skateboard and his odd looking wheels. the creator of this video further analysed that these reflect the general outlook of a cherry blossom flower. though the actual wheels in real life don’t look as similar to a flower as they do in the show. but now if this is what they’re meant to look like, this is a really sentimental fact and shows how highly joe thinks of cherry in his skating career. but what about his personal life? well that’s where my analysing comes in. i noticed in the dessert joe makes in episode 5 he had a range of fruits displayed on the top as well as a single flower. this flower looks identical to a cherry blossom. once again the reflection of cherry within joes life makes an appearance. we’ve seen that flowers actually mean something in this show (toxic example but adam’s red roses for langa) so it would make sense for this to actually mean something about their relationship. i studied a range of Japanese desserts and, although every chef works differently, most of the dishes tend to only have a display of fruits and no flowers. so i have come to the conclusion that this dish certainly had some symbolism to cherry in joes life, some way or another.

so overall, their dynamic already shows that they have a very thin and mistakable line between very close best friends and potential lovers. although some of this was based off personal interpretation the majority is cinematic displays and general facts. so take this and use it however you like. let me know your opinions and other factors you have! for all i know i could be completely disproven with the next few episodes but surely if this many people see a bit more than just a friendship there’s got to be a reason for it.

if we can have one lgbt+ character... why not two more?

#written pre ep 9 #matcha blossom #matchablossom #sk8 cherry blossom #sk8 #sk8 the infinity #cherry blossom #joecherry #kaoru sakurayashiki #cherry #cherry blossom x joe #these bitches gay #call me obsessed i don’t care

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minetteskvareninova · 2 years ago

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Minette watches Medici, part 9 (Old Scores)

- Yes, my friends, the triumphant return of Minette watches Medici is here! The series that noone liked, Minette least of all... Like, you thought reading it was painful?! Try writing this shit!

- Okay, first off, the theme song - FUCK the theme song. Either reuse Renessaince, or don’t. Do NOT fucking cheat by using its inferior knockoff. Understood?!

- The characters aren’t good enough for me to fall in love with, but I still Vibe with them in general. Except for Lorenzo, who is hot, smart and in general a veritable boyfriend material - well, except for the whole “banging a married woman” thing, but it’s renessaince Italy, people are having extramarital shags left and right, we can’t go all Savanarola on their asses, not when real Savanarola is just around the corner...

- Speaking of clergy! My stupid ass mistook Piero for some kind of family priest. Would the Medici even have a family priest at this point? Like, maybe, they were of course loaded and their household might’ve been big enough to warrant it...

- The evil Pazzi brother has a strong “if villain evil why hot” energy. What can I say? Minette loves herself some good cheekbones, and I strongly suspect this guy is going to be the old Albizzi of this season. Helps that his most evil act so far was beating the shit out of Giuliano, and I personally don’t care about Giuliano.

- The most thrilling subplot of this season is “did Sean Bean keep true to his vow to stop feeding the meme machine and never ever take another role where he dies?”. Also, Ned Stark did NOT age well. Which, okay, he’s not there to be hot, and his show son is hot enough to cover the raging unsexyness of not only his father, but also his stupid brother.

- Speaking of! Lucrezia’s boyfriend is apparently played by Halbrand from The Rings of Power. Yes, the man meant to be Sexy Sauron that doesn’t end up being all that sexy. Honestly, I cannot fathom how the producers over there at Amazon looked at this show and were like “why, yes, wouldn’t EVERYONE be tempted to join the dark side by this hot piece of ass?”. Like, no, I personally wouldn’t be tempted into a game of spin the bottle. Baby Pazzi’s personality doesn’t help any, like him and Lucrezia are just Mehmet Giray and Fahriye hardboiled without salt. I mean, it is just the first episode, so maybe they get better later, but still.

- “We raised Sandro as our own” - NO. Show, I am willing to swallow anything, but do not try to convince me the Medici family has taken in Sandro Boticelli of all people as their ward. From now on, I am just pretending this is some kind of Lorenzo’s artist buddy, who just happens to be named Alessandro, and very much not the author of The Birth Of Venus and Primavera.

- Political stuff is still the best part of this show bar none. Just... A+++ out of the gate, no notes. “Did the Pazzi family orchestrate the attack?” may not be as exciting a premise as “Who killed old Giovanni?” (or “is Sean Bean going to die again?”), and probably doesn’t have an answer that interesting, but it still gives some juicy, juicy drama. Though if the whole thing was orchestrated by the guy who wanted to marry his son to Lucrezia, I will get pretty mad at the blatant ripoff of the last season, where a third party also turns out to be the real villain.

- One annoying thing that persists (and if anything seems to have only gotten worse) is the attempt to whitewash the Medici family. Like, I get that we want to add layers(tm) and likeability(tm), but the show’s attempts to pretend they are anything but ruthless protocapitalists trying to make their way in an oligarchical political system do sometimes go way too far. Lorenzo is already hot and smart, I won’t get mad if he isn’t also perfectly good and saintly and shit.

- Contessina had a cameo in this episode! Yay! Also, I wonder if Piero’s second daughter appears in the show; I mean, she doesn’t have to, considering she was already married at this point, but you know. It would be nice.

- Overall a nice return to form, no big complaints from me so far...

#medici: the magnificent #minette watches medici

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ihassheepquake · 3 years ago

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DC's Batwoman 3.10 "Toxic" has aired on the CW and I'm here to talk about it

Talking about Batwoman is truly one of my favourite parts of the week. And this is truly the best season of the show so far, which makes it all the better.

Starting off strong with Pam teaching Mary have to be one of the poison sisters. Mary is immediately torturing a guy (who lowkey deserves it, I'm with her) which we love. Pam is feeding off of Mary like some kind of energy vampire, also love that. And finally Alice comes to team up with the Bats!

I like that Alice seems offended at the implication that she has a plan.

Ooooh, Pam has a baby brother?? Her mum got her into plants because they couldn't afford treatment for said brother's asthma? And they were poisoned which killed said brother? Love this lore.

Ryan has officially learned the best trick, the creepy just appearing in the back of somebody's car trick! Now she just has to master the vanishing whenever somebody looks away regardless of for how long thing and she's officially a Bat! Alice I'm not surprised can already do it.

Mary discovering that Pam's plan absolutely involves a lot of murder and seems like she might be having second thoughts. She's definitely freaked.

"The owners of this place will find it great for business" Renee says, to the owners of the bar. Isn't that a fact Renee should know considering she's been blackmailing Ryan this whole time with the whole Batwoman thing? Like, why did she not look into Ryan enough to figure out she (technically) owns a bar?? It might not be the most useful information but it sounds like something you should know bestie.

I fucking hate Jada Jet.

Glad that Mary still has morals. Maybe Poison Mary isn't the worst thing. But Pam is definitely going to kill her by this energy vampire shit one of these days.

Alice and Ryan listening to Sophie and Renee talk about the night they fucked? Fucking top tier. And Alice having come to actually care about Mary is pretty cute.

After this really dramatic conversation with the Bat Team, I really think that Poison Mary might be one of the best Arrowverse antagonists. She's at least one of the most relatable for me, which is a good sign of a well-written antagonist. None of the other major antagonists except maybe Oliver's half-sister whose name I don't remember and Cindy & her new ISA in Stargirl really did that for me. Though I'll admit that I haven't watched the last two or three seasons of Legends and don't remember like half of Arrow so there may be some I don't remember or haven't met.

Not to say that Mary is becoming a hero by helping the Bats stop Ivy, but it does put her in an interesting role. If all of the "Poison" in Poison Mary isn't removed by the end of the season then she's gonna be in a really fun place for future seasons.

The return of Batwing!! Luke taking the first steps to recovery, I'm so proud of him!

No more Poison in the Mary! She's free!! I really, really hope that going forward in this show, they don't forget the lessons they learned about Mary and the team dynamic in the future. And I also hope that somehow what's happened with Mary is going to put Alice on the path to recovery. She doesn't have to ever be Beth Kane again, she can be Alice. But she can still take steps to be better. She can still work through her trauma and be Alice, a version of Alice, if that's what she really wants.

It looks like this is the end of Ivy's story. At least for now. Which I kind of love because it is a pretty good end for her, but that also makes shitty Joker 2.0 wannabe the main antagonist and I don't even like normal Joker. I'd much rather Ivy be the real Big Bad.

Sophie and Ryan are gay and in love.

You see this is why I fucking hate Jada Jet so much. Fuck her.

That's it! That's the episode. We have three episodes left and it looks like we're barreling to quite the explosive ending. Whatever that ending is, I hope it gets rid of Jada Jet. But we'll find out next week with DC's Batwoman 3.11 "Broken Toys"

#batwoman cw #batwoman (2019)#batwoman (dctv)#hbo max batwoman #ryan wilder #luke fox #mary hamilton #sophie moore #beth kane #renee montoya #pamela isley #batwoman #batwing #poison mary #alice #poison ivy #jada jet #batwoman spoilers #sheep talks superheroes

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sam-t-a · 4 years ago

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I'm praying really hard for a plot twist next episode that redeems Han Seo.

However, wishful thinking aside, I think the show set this episode up with Han Seo's arc so perfectly that it could go either way.

Han Seo is the perfect underdog, easily endearing and impossible not to sympathize with. We've also only seen it very briefly, but he has the capacity to be resourceful and generous, and he's a lot more resilient than he looks at first glance. All those things can make for a wonderful addition to an already colourful team that clearly benefits from growing and doesn't mind integrating reformed criminals into their newfound family. He has also pretty much cut all emotional ties with his brother and no longer struggles with the thought of betraying him.

His interactions with Jipuragi, especially in comparison with his interactions with the other side, are proof that working alongside them makes him feel good about himself and helps him in many ways. And while we've seen that he can be an astoundingly bad liar/actor at times ("You made a chess pun. It's so cool") he can also be a great one when necessary (the whole Babel Tower event), so just because he's convincing in the interpol scene, doesn't necessarily mean he isn't acting and making the best out of his new relationships.

In the hockey scene, for example, one nice thing that stuck out was that they were both dressed in the same type of clothes, as opposed to one of them wearing a suit and being in a position of weakness and the other wearing his gear and causing physical harm (which is the only way hockey has been portrayed so far in the show).

Him asking Vincenzo if he would kill him was also very different from how he asked his brother if he would kill him if he kept disappointing him. Neither one actually responded with anything resembling "no", and in both cases he had to guess the answer. With Han Seok, I would say it was "I think you will, but I'm still hopeful", whereas with Vincenzo, it was "I know you won't, but I'm still worried."

But on the other hand, much as I tried to focus on the "sweet" part of it (and I tried really hard), that scene still felt bittersweet. Han Seo has very traumatic experiences with hockey stuff and (most probably) with being punished for using banmal (I don't think we've ever heard him call his brother Hyung, it's always Hyungnim, which I think is telling, but that might just be me misunderstanding the culture). So, when Vincenzo hits the puck very hard and startles him and when Han Seo complains that he wasn't wearing the helmet or backs away from Vin, or says "thank you" and Vincenzo trips him in response, it stings a bit. Mainly because achieving that kind of rapport with someone (anyone) takes time, and achieving it with a torture survivor who has had little to no agency over his body since childhood is even harder.

Him being loud and brash isn't really an indicator that he's feeling comfortable or brave because we've seen him raise his voice multiple times with Han Seok and get punished for it and still do it later. Being cheery and smiley after the scene could mean a lot, because he's rarely ever seen happy, but it could also mean very little because he was equally cheery and smiley after his brother threw the lamp at his head just because he felt cool for dodging it.

A lifetime of handling abuse has not only taught him to bounce back really quickly, but also really raised the bar for what he would consider awful enough to pause at. Han Seo also definitely has major trust issues, regardless of the fact that Vincenzo hasn't really explicitly said he wouldn't hurt him, which would understandably be heightened by the fact that he just watched that one guy die after Vin promised him money and freedom.

He waves it off when Vincenzo doesn't answer his question, but the fact that their interaction could still be seen as brotherly when one party is literally afraid the other might kill him only works because "that is my brother" and "I'm not entirely sure he wouldn't kill me" aren't mutually exclusive in Han Seo's mind.

On Vincenzo's side, I think it's totally feasible that he would refuse to fully accept Han Seo. He's shown an appreciation for enemies joining his side, especially if they do it voluntarily (Bye Bye Balloon), but not when it's personal (the shadows responsible for lawyer Hong's death). The time Han Seo's resourcefulness shone was when he caused the deaths of the victims' families by helping his brother find them. Not only was this a very personal turning point for Vincenzo and Chayoung, but it was also completely his initiative. Han Seok didn't ask him to do this and might even have said no if Han Seo had asked him before doing it since he thought his way was "the hard way", but Han Seo did it anyway, and he did it purely to get his brother's validation and has shown no remorse or empathy throughout the whole ordeal.

There were times like this and like the time he basically begged his brother to assassinate Chayoung and Vincenzo where the only thing stopping him from being as ruthless as Han Seok was that he couldn't, not that he didn't want to, but perhaps the fear keeping him in check is now gone.

We've seen his personality completely change from the beginning of the show to this episode. Where once he would have pounced wholeheartedly and gratefully at what Han Seok is offering, he now hesitates and even turns it down at first. Han Seok comes saying "You're my brother" after Han Seo had already made peace with being a puppet and cut the strings off. He couldn't go back to being his brother if he tried. In fact, in none of the situations where Han Seok was at risk did he seem remotely worried about him. And the distance goes both ways - no more "stand with me while I do bla bla bla" from Han Seok. It's always "leave, get out, stay away".

Another reason might be the fact that Han Seok's olive branch (aside from being so obviously fake, even before you google Elizabeth Holmes), comes in the wake of weeks of escalation. First, we went from mark-less physical violence to wound-leaving violence and then to slapping on the face. I'm not sure if this is universal, but in so many cultures, a slap in the face is so much worse than most ways of hitting because it might mean less pain, but infinitely more degradation. It could also be the ludicrousness of Han Seok's phrasing, (I mean, "be nice to you and take care of you"? get outta here!) and he takes it with a lot more self-control than he originally would have.

Han Seo has learned how to emotionally distance himself from a lot of things, but he still doesn't have a real support system of people who care for and respect him. He has as much potential as he does baggage, and the transition phase he's going through guarantees that his feelings about everything and everyone, especially his brother and Vincenzo, are bound to be mixed and messy, so whichever way this swings, narratively speaking, I would totally buy it.

But I'm really really hoping this works out for him, because I'm going to be totally heartbroken if it doesn't.

#I have no idea how this got so long I'm so sorry #jang han seo #jang han seok #ok taecyeon #kwak dong yeon #vincenzo meta #vincenzo #what to do with all the feels

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renegadewangs · 4 years ago

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Van Zieks - the Examination, part 7

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I’m outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I’ve missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I’m using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what’s said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn’t matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Back to the second game we go for The Return of the Great Departed Soul! (Part one, this is another two-parter case)

Episode 2-3: The Return of the Great Departed Soul

So now, chronologically, six months have passed since The Unspeakable Story. Susato returned to Japan at the end of the first game and hasn't returned yet. Ryu was reprimanded for all the perjury and the questionable McGilded defense, so he had his right to stand in court revoked for now and instead had to focus on studying English law some more. He's done so quite patiently and now he feels he's ready to return. He just needs to get Stronghart's permission first. Meanwhile, the Great Exhibition is happening in Hyde Park, pulling in visitors and scientists from all over the world. Exciting! (S)Holmes hands Ryu a newspaper with an article on the exhibition, talking about how the brighter things shine, the darker the shadows cast behind them. By now, Ryu is fluent enough in (S)Holmes speak to know this means he should flip over the newspaper. There, we find an article of an entirely different sort.

So not only was Van Zieks apparently attacked, Ryu shows horror and concern at the notion. No hard feelings from our wholesome boy! (S)Holmes explains that London's finest criminals often find ways to get acquittals from trials through bribery, threats, sham witnesses... We saw this in McGilded, of course, so we know all too well how dangerous that can get. But since the Reaper and his curse are immune to such tactics, when a ringleader or fellow ends up being 'taken' by the curse, retaliation can occur. So it's established that this isn't the first time Van Zieks has been attacked by a group of thugs. Fortunately, Van Zieks is an “accomplished combatant” who doesn't take these attacks lying down. Unfortunately, the thugs were carrying guns this time. Uhoh.

This warms my heart, it really does. Van Zieks has been a terrible scumbag, but Ryu doesn't think he's gotten his comeuppance at all. He's genuinely concerned for this man and intends to find out more about his condition. So since he was planning to meet with Stronghart and ask for attorney permission anyway, it's the perfect opportunity to also ask about Van Zieks! Iris decides to tag along because she wants to visit the Great Exhibition. Let's shove the newspaper in Stronghart's face as soon as the game allows it.

The phrasing of “number one prosecutor” is interesting, but then... We never learn of any other (living) veteran prosecutors in this country, so of course Van Zieks would be number one. Stronghart says there's no need for concern; Van Zieks would not be so easily dispatched. Street ruffians are no match for him, since he's a very capable fighter. Seems like that sword he carries around isn't just for show after all. As for why he was attacked this time... Well, a month ago Van Zieks prosecuted a leader of a criminal organization. Nice to know he didn't just return to retirement and instead got back to work like a normal person without cherrypicking his cases based on what Ryu's doing. The defendant was acquitted, no doubt thanks to large sums of money being shifted around behind the scenes, but he still met a dramatic end just yesterday during an accident at the Great Exhibition. The man in question was Odie Asman, and the one now being detained on suspicion of murder without a defense attorney is Professor Albert Harebrayne. Albert's case has just been assigned to Ryu, so we're sure to find out more about Asman as we go. As as final touch, Ryu asks Stronghart why he continues to use Van Zieks as a prosecutor. Since the criminals are becoming fearful of the curse and attacking him, it's dangerous to Van Zieks himself. Stronghart explains that he has two reasons: Firstly, Van Zieks is the best prosecutor in the capital, bar none. And secondly, any deaths that have occurred outside the courtrooms after his trials have nothing to do with him. (S)Holmes alluded to the same thing, saying that Van Zieks had a rock-hard alibi for each and every mysterious death.

“So he will continue to prosecute on behalf of the Crown. ...Unless he wishes otherwise, of course.” With that, Stronghart admits he needs to get going since he's already 11 hours late to his next appointment (fsdkjfls). Ryu asks where he might be able to find Van Zieks and is told to head to his office. So even after being told that Van Zieks is just fine, Ryu is still concerned and wants to discuss the matter with the man himself. Let's gooo! Naturally, the first thing out of Van Zieks's mouth when he catches Ryu and Iris in his office is to wonder what the heck they're doing here.

So there's several things of interest in the office, with the game automatically addressing the biggest one: Van Zieks has an apprentice now! It's a mysterious, rigid dude wearing a hood and a mask who is absolutely not familiar to us, nope. We don't know him. Gosh, what a mystery. Van Zieks doesn't seem to know who he is either, instead just referring to him as his apprentice and nothing more.

Ryu sees this as an opening to ask about the attack on the Reaper that was in the newspaper. Van Zieks admits that he too is very interested in the true identity of the Reaper. “Assuming, that is, such a fabled fiend genuinely inhabits our great courtrooms.” The conversation halts for a moment so we can examine the office and this is the best opportunity for humanizing traits we've gotten so far, so LET'S DO IT! The enormous portrait in the back is the first thing to peek at.

Iris says whoever painted it exaggerated the subject's handsomeness, which in turn is reminiscent of Napoleon ordering the painter to make him look more attractive. That's super vain and not an attractive quality in a person at all. I laughed the whole way through that bit of dialogue and Van Zieks, who was in earshot the entire time, gets his feathers ruffled.

When Ryu asks who it is then, Van Zieks doesn't reply. BACKSTORY ALERT! Examining the chalices and bottles on the left leads to Van Zieks explaining the hallowed bottles are filled with the finest grapes from the finest vineyards he visits (so it is grape juice!!!) and he personally oversees the chalices being made by the finest crystal craftsmen in the world. Right, so not only is he filthy stinkin' rich, he's a perfectionist. Iris points out that Van Zieks throws the chalices and bottles around like they're worthless, to which Van Zieks says:

“Before you open your mouth next time, you should consider the poor artisans whose work you defile.”

As it turns out, passive aggression is contagious now. Ryu replies with a “So it's my fault? Silly me! How could I ever have thought otherwise?” and honestly I love that he's got enough guts to say this out loud. Our boy is growing a spine. Examining the wine casks has Ryu and Iris theorize about how there might be dead bodies in there, which once again ruffles Van Zieks's feathers.

Snrk. Examining the big diorama in the middle of the room has Ryu and Iris wonder whether Van Zieks can't go to the Exhibition in person and this is his way of dealing with that, which has Van Zieks snap that it's obviously an investigative aid. He even has pets of sorts in his office, in the form of a couple of bats hanging from the curtains. Alright, so the game's definitely humanizing this poor man now. No matter how many crazy stories Iris and Ryu come up with about him, there's usually a very innocent explanation to debunk the eerie myths. Something particularly interesting happens when Ryu shows Van Zieks his defense attorney armband. Van Zieks asks what the reason is for showing it to a British prosecutor, to which Ryu admits that he doesn't quite know. Van Zieks is silent for a bit, then says that he understands. “There's merit in reminding yourself of who helped you become what you are today.”

As he says it, he reaches for his prosecutor's badge and if you're aware of the backstory, you'll know he's thinking of Klint. More importantly, this conversation puts Ryu and Van Zieks on the same level. Ryu is always thinking of Kazuma, who 'helped him become who he is today' and the armband signifies this, along with the sword. Similarly, Van Zieks lost someone very close to him and he's walking the path of prosecutor in his brother's memory. Ryu thanks Van Zieks for understanding and it's very significant that Van Zieks understands in the first place. Remember, in the first game he was under the impression that a Japanese person could never understand a British person and vice versa.

Showing Van Zieks the newspaper article has him looking a bit embarrassed, pointing out that a reporter must've been nearby and he'd been careless to let himself get photographed. Either way, all the thugs responsible have already been apprehended. The investigation into Odie Asman's activities meant that their arrests were already imminent anyway, and some hoped to kill Van Zieks before that happened. Much like McGilded, Asman used his wealth to buy his way towards an acquittal in court, but “he got his comeuppance in the end.” Which is strange, right? Very suspicious. Van Zieks asks whether Ryu believes he has some sort of divine ability to make an accident like that happen. Ryu admits that would be far-fetched, and thinks to himself that even if Van Zieks were the Reaper, he'd have to be innocent of this particular death. We also learn that Van Zieks is familiar with Professor Harebrayne, the suspect in the Asman incident. When told that Ryu will be taking on the defense, Van Zieks is shocked.

Van Zieks goes on to explain that he knows Albert quite well. They were at university together. While he's lived in Germany for quite a few years, Albert is actually from a respectable British family. And despite Albert being in the science faculty and Van Zieks in law, they got along quite well. Now he's in pretty hot water for that Asman accident.

Hm. I don't quite know what to make of this reaction. I think what's going on here isn't that Van Zieks is rattled because Albert is being defended by a Japanese person, but because he's being defended by a rookie attorney who was just disbarred for six months for accidentally encouraging perjury, false witness and crime scene tampering in a court of law. Yes, Ryu has won his trials every single time, but it came at a price. Aside from this, there's one other thing Van Zieks knows about Ryu: he'll pursue the truth, no matter what. This means that if Albert indeed didn't succeed at inventing teleportation, it'll be revealed in court because exposing shams is Ryu's whole deal.

We learn that Van Zieks will be the one to prosecute Albert tomorrow, which is curious to say the least. Ryu wants to know why he'd do something like that, with Iris pointing out that so long as the Reaper is the prosecutor, Albert is doomed. Van Zieks replies that he's a Crown prosecutor and a mortal like any other; he's no demigod. In other words, he doesn't believe the curse to be a real curse. Iris points out that everyone who's been prosecuted by Van Zieks has died (which is already objectively wrong), to which Van Zieks replies that he usually prosecutes the vilest wretches of society.

… Harsh. Ryu points out that Soseki wasn't a vile wretch though, with Iris chiming in that Gina's also turned her life around and she's working very hard now. Van Zieks admits that things have changed ever since meeting Ryu- which of course has to do with Van Zieks's need to face Ryu in court even in mediocre trials rather than pursue his usual corrupted targets- but the point is that if any of those vile wretches died in mysterious circumstances, it was “at the hand of their own kind”, not Van Zieks's. So basically, he believes that they were killed because they were dubious people engaged with dubious activities, not because of the Reaper's curse. Not only that, but ever since the rumors of the Reaper began, the number of serious crimes in London has decreased significantly. Even the most hardened criminals can be made fearful of their lives. Therefore, if his pseudonym of the Reaper can serve a useful purpose, he'll “adopt it gladly and with honour”. Ryu repeats that which he already told Stronghart; that it's putting Van Zieks in danger.

He really is a prosecutor on the edge with nothing to lose, huh. So what Van Zieks is basically saying is that he doesn't care if he dies, so long as he spends the rest of his life serving the 'useful purpose' of carrying the Reaper moniker to intimidate the vilest of society. But is that really all there is to it? (Spoilers: It's not)

There's a bit more talk about the mysterious apprentice here, with Van Zieks explaining the man was placed in his care under Stronghart's orders. He's wearing a mask on Stronghart's orders and also doesn't speak to anyone from outside the office on Stronghart's orders. HM. Van Zieks claims that Stronghart isn't one for “meaningless follies”, therefore he must have a good reason. This implies that Van Zieks believes in Stronghart's judgment almost blindly. To round up the conversation, Van Zieks asks about “that Nipponese man. The one arrested twice in succession six months ago. With the stoop. And the moustache. And the jitters.” Looks super offensive at first glance, but I gotta admit, after six months I wouldn't remember Soseki's name either. Better to describe him than to guess the name and get it wrong. Still though, just because it's not super offensive doesn't mean it's not offensive. Just saying “the one you defended six months ago” would've done the trick. Either way, Ryu says he's doing just fine and a letter from him arrived by post just the other day.

So this is interesting. Earlier, Van Zieks claimed in his own words that he doesn't believe in the curse and those who died had it coming to them, but he's still inquiring after Soseki. Perhaps not so much because he's worried about Soseki himself, but because he's curious whether this man has successfully escaped the curse so far. He would know that for a fact about Gina, but the only way to verify Soseki's status is to ask Ryu about it.

Time to leave this glass cage of exposition and meet the defendant in person! Albert spouts a whole lot of dialogue about how his machine is treated differently depending on whether the case is treated as an accident or as murder. If it's murder, it can be examined up close and that's what Albert doesn't want. It has to be treated as an accident so that it'll be protected from prying eyes through The Special Dispensation for Scientific Equipment Act (wow that's a mouthful). Of course, that's not entirely what we're interested in. Let's ask about his friendship with Van Zieks! Ryu asks what he was like back in his university days and the answer surprises him.

HAH, wonderfully written exchange, this one. Albert goes to describe him as “the little darling of the Van Zieks family, with all its great aristocratic origins”. So Van Zieks has some very noble blood in him. We could've already guessed this from his title of Lord, but apparently it's a bit more serious. I could derail here with wild theories about his family originating from the Netherlands and having migrated to the UK around the time the first king of the Netherlands, Willem I van Oranje Nassau, rose to power in 1813. Willem changed the way nobility works to some degree in the country and not all noble families would've agreed with his way of doing things. But anyway, point is, Van Zieks is a big shot. Albert says that it was kind of a shock to him when he came back to Britain and discovered 'what Van Zieks had become'. He heard that there was 'a very big event' that completely changed Van Zieks after his graduation, but doesn't know what it was because he was already in Germany at the time. So here we have some more traces of that backstory and we have enough pieces to start sticking some things together. We know Van Zieks was once betrayed by a friend and we now know he was a very modest, pleasant gentleman when he was young. Whatever happened must've been very harsh indeed to turn him into such a sour lemon. Either way, Albert doesn't seem to know yet that Van Zieks will be the prosecutor and Ryu doesn't have the heart to tell him.

So let's investigate the crime scene! Here, it's confirmed that Gina Lestrade is indeed just fine and now in training to become a detective with Gregson. Cute! So eventually we get to talk to Gregson about Van Zieks and how he's acquainted with Albert. Gregson is overdramatically shocked to find out that the two of them are old buddies.

Remember when Van Zieks took a five year hiatus and nobody had to mysteriously die from the Reaper's curse? Those were the days, eh Gregson? Now he's even prosecuting his own friends willy-nilly. Gregson states he has no idea what goes on in Van Zieks's head (a sentiment we've heard before in 1-4) and goes on to bring up the newspaper article about Van Zieks being attacked. When told that our good old pal the Reaper is just fine, Gregson utters a very uncomfortable “glad to hear it” which honestly had me wondering whether he'd preferred Van Zieks to die.

Up until a certain someone gets killed and stuffed into a suitcase, I'd reckon. Gregson says that Van Zieks is a top class prosecutor, but not even he can always push the right verdict through. “Sometimes justice can't win.” Gregson explains that naturally, Scotland Yard suspected Van Zieks at first and assumed he was taking matters into his own hands. There was a very thorough investigation and the outcome was that Van Zieks was in no way related to the mysterious deaths. So that's three people now who all insist Van Zieks couldn't possibly have committed the murders. Gregson says he's willing to stake his reputation on it, even. Of course, Gregson would know for sure, wouldn't he? But the narrative is telling us over and over that Van Zieks himself isn't the Reaper, with even Van Zieks himself implying he'd like to know just who the Reaper is. There's a conspiracy happening that Van Zieks is the centerpiece of, with the narrative really pushing the mystery aspect of it. The writers want us to care about the truth of the Reaper for sure.

OOOH that's meta! Ryu, being nosy and overly invested in Van Zieks's life, asks Gregson whether he knows about the 'incident' which changed Van Zieks after graduation.

Okay he clearly knows. Even a first time player can tell from this single reaction that Gregson's lying. The mystery thickens! At the end of the conversation, when Gregson's gone off, Iris recommends asking (S)Holmes about it instead. Safe bet, since (S)Holmes continuously knows more than he's letting on. To the house of wax we go! When asked about it, it's clear that he does know something (and is described as suddenly clamming up), but before he can explain there's a distraction in the form of Madam Tusspells and we have to sit through a mostly-unrelated Joint Reasoning segment. It leads into a conversation about a mass murderer known as the Professor. Ten years ago, there was a series of murders which rocked the capital right around the time Van Zieks graduated from university. Five people were killed before the man was caught and executed. This fifth victim was Klint van Zieks, Barok's older brother.

I really, really dislike this phrasing because Van Zieks was already studying law to begin with. He'd just graduated as a prosecutor; his brother's death had nothing to do with him pursuing that path. Anyway...

OOOH that's meta! So remember way back in the first essay when I said the backstory is optional? Well, here it is. The Great Ace Attorney is going all in for it. It's being tied to the ongoing plot, just as pretty much all the main prosecutor backstories are. Edgeworth's backstory is tied to Von Karma being the final boss, Godot's backstory is tied to the Fey lineage, Klavier's backstory (I say this lightly) is tied to Phoenix's disgrace... Now Van Zieks's story is tied to the serial killer who ruined so many lives a decade ago. And technically, we already have all the puzzle pieces we need for the next twist; we know Van Zieks was betrayed by a Japanese person who was his friend. So really, we can now say with absolutely certainty that the man arrested and executed back then was a Japanese buddy of Van Zieks.

The investigation segment is pretty much over, but the game has one more scene for us. This is something Ryunosuke won't witness, but the scriptwriters deemed it so important that we're ignoring Ryu to focus solely on the two characters involved. And cutting away from our main character is something that usually doesn't happen in Ace Attorney. Even when characters like Phoenix or Ryu are out of commission for whatever reason, a new 'main character' takes over for a second and we see everything from their point of view. I can think of only one other scene viewed without Ryu there, which happened in 1-5 just before Susato had to leave London. So what we have here is a very private moment between Van Zieks and Albert.

AWWW... The scenes in the office were great and all, but this right here is perhaps the most humanizing exchange we'll ever see with Barok. The reason for that, I think, is precisely because Ryu isn't there. He's alone with an old friend now, which means he can let his guard down more than he usually would. Even so, it's worth noting here that he doesn't look directly at Albert. He stands with his back to him the entire time and I'm certain this is intentional, because they could just as easily have rotated him into that sideways view that's often used in dialogue and courtroom scenes. He made his way down to the gaol to speak with his friend after ten long years, but is reluctant to look right at him. The conversation itself feels rather distant as well. Albert is delighted to see Van Zieks, but the sentiment isn't returned vocally. Van Zieks points out that they're meeting again “in prison of all places” and that the court will decide Albert's fate tomorrow. When Van Zieks raises a warning, Albert says he already knows his friend will be prosecuting and doesn't appear bothered at all at first. He does try to raise a question in the form of “Are you really...?”, but ultimately drops it and says that he knows Van Zieks has his best interests at heart. Van Zieks says he wouldn't entrust the trial of his friend to anyone else, and Albert thanks him for that. So my first guess upon taking in that dialogue is that Albert wonders for a brief moment whether Van Zieks really is the Reaper/really is cursed, only to shake it off because he considers the man his friend. Van Zieks seems to know it's risky to prosecute Albert, but deems it more important to handle the case himself than to let someone else do it. This, as we learn later, has to do with the Special Dispensation for Scientific Equipment Act and the protection of Albert's scientific secrets.

Next day, we're at the Old Bailey! In the defendant lobby, Ryu is once again told by Albert that the true goal to aim for in this trial is to protect his scientific hypothesis. So hypothetically speaking, the ideal outcome here would be to prove the death was accidental and that the kinesis was a success at the same time. (S)Holmes and Iris don't believe Albert's theory to be sound though, instead saying it couldn't possibly be done. In the courtroom, Ryu faces off against Van Zieks once more for the first time in six months! The judge is quick to point out that Odie Asman is a name familiar to him; a man who was prosecuted only a month ago by Van Zieks. When he asks whether this death is the work of the Reaper, Van Zieks instead describes it as “divine retribution”, but also “a direct result of the actions of the accused, Professor Albert Harebrayne”. The prosecution asserts that the instantaneous kinesis demonstration was a success. He himself can't say for certain whether it's a sound theory, but it's being investigated by the British government since it was deemed to have potential and the prosecution's case aligns with the notion that there was indeed instantaneous- You know what? Let's just call it teleportation. That's easier to type.

Unfortunately, Van Zieks doesn't want to follow the accident angle. Instead, he outright accuses his old friend of murdering Asman using the totally-functional-teleportation-machine-which-totally-worked to be the sole benefactor of a scientific grant. Harsh. Very harsh. I don't entirely understand why he didn't pursue the accident angle instead, but then, I don't quite know enough about law. My guess is that as the prosecution, he's not allowed to. Scotland Yard found enough evidence at the scene to substantiate a murder plot, especially that damning screwdriver that Ryu so graciously handed to Gregson, so that's what the prosecution has to go with, maybe? It's up to the defense attorney to debunk that down to an accident, then, so in essence Van Zieks is counting on Ryu to 'defeat him' and prove the murder aspect wrong. It would align with the conversation Albert had with Van Zieks in prison, where he said that 'it was a terrible accident and the young Eastern man acting as his defence assured him that he can prove it'.

So speaking of that screwdriver, Albert tries to discredit it himself by saying that if he had stabbed Asman on the stage, there would've been a whole lot of blood. Van Zieks pours himself a glass of wine and 'congratulates' his friend on a good rebuttal.

“Here's to you, Albert!”

Albert laughs it off sheepishly, saying he's nothing compared to “Barok” (awww, first name basis), but a chalice is immediately flung. Van Zieks says Albert neglected to mention one crucial possibility, which is that the lack of blood is explained by the notion that the screwdriver remained in the victim's chest to plug the wound. Therefore, since the demonstration was totally a success, the screwdriver was teleported along with the victim. Ryu thinks to himself that he had no idea the victim had been stabbed and wonders whether Van Zieks kept that information to himself to keep the upper hand on purpose. This whole thing jars me a little, because the screwdriver is brought up relatively early in the trial during the very first cross-examination. Is not mentioning it during the opening statement and waiting for Gregson to bring it up three minutes later really the same as 'keeping it to himself to gain the upper hand'?

Either way, Ryu counters, saying that the screwdriver was found at the stage and therefore didn't teleport at all, with Gregson serving as an official witness to this location. It's pretty clear from the next dialogue that Gregson never told Van Zieks where that screwdriver was found.

“That you contravened the Special Dispensation for Scientific Equipment Act?”

Gregson is immediately up in arms, but it's fine. There was no investigation needed to find a screwdriver lying in plain sight. So now Ryu decides to tighten the screws. He claims that if the prosecution can't explain the inconsistency (the screwdriver being found on the stage but no blood being there so clearly it must've plugged the wound), the testimony is unreliable. Van Zieks doesn't reply and Ryu thinks to himself that he looks stumped, but uh...

He just looks annoyed to me. The person to object next is not Van Zieks, it's Albert. He says that metal can't be teleported with the machine, so it only makes sense the screwdriver stayed behind and there's no inconsistency at all. Van Zieks suggests: “Clearly we should hear the accused's explanation. … Or should I say, this brilliant scientist's explanation?” And I think here in these two sentences we have the crux of the issue. Albert wants to be treated as a legitimate scientist above all else. Even if that means he's branded a murderer, so long as his hypothesis is protected and the confidentiality stands, it makes no difference to him. This was likely discussed with Van Zieks the night before as well. Albert is apparently willing to die for the sake of his scientific principles and... Well. I'm sure Van Zieks can understand. He's willing to die for the sake of serving the Reaper purpose. In a way, this means the defendant and the prosecution are in cahoots together, which is another first in Ace Attorney history. The two of them are fighting to keep the hypothesis of teleportation intact and if Ryu manages to prove that it was an accidental death, then great! Unfortunately, the second that screwdriver was discovered, the chances of that became slim to none. It was murder, plain and simple. On a sidenote, I found this little gem:

I'm counting this as humanization, because the underlying sentiment here is that despite his haughty better-than-thou attitude, Van Zieks is still friends with someone so very scatterbrained, his name is forgotten sometimes. Even Ryu is taken aback by the purity of the friendship.

Heh heh... Time to cause some more havoc by informing the court that Asman's metal-rimmed glasses were still on his face and since Albert already said metal can't be teleported, his hypothesis is a load of tosh. The jurors go up in arms about it, saying the machine should be stripped down and examined. The game gives Ryu the option to either raise an objection or 'wait and see', but this is another one of those fake choices. Waiting and seeing just leads to a bit more dialogue between the jurors before Ryu steps in of his own accord. He says Albert would have no reason to build such an elaborate fake machine and put on a public display for murder, but Van Zieks counters with the very good reason: Money. The jurors are even more outraged, calling him a fake scientist who's only in it for the guineas, and Albert begs them to believe that his science is built upon a sound hypothesis. Van Zieks comes in to 'save the day' (sort of).

“The fact remains that the victim was transported instantly to the Crystal Tower. Which means that the experiment... was a success.”

And I gotta say, this next bit is just very enjoyable to me. The way it's written is so great.

HEH HEH.... Van Zieks has some more witnesses to summon who saw the incident from some 'very special seats', but let's end the essay here for now and pick it back up next time!

#dgs #dgs spoilers #tgaa #tgaa spoilers #barok van zieks

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anxiouspotatorants · 3 years ago

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2.04 Raw thoughts:

So that was the best episode of the season so far. Possibly on par with the specials (which are my absolute favourites of the show). Just. Yeah. I think it’s that the episode toned down a lot of that impulse shock factor and actually let itself slow down again?

By now I’m 90% sure that the show is intentionally coming apart at the seams. Like the cold opens have changed completely from backstory time to just these weird imaginary spaces and I’m kind of living for it (the lovers montage for Rue and Jules was really sweet, even with the layer of which roles Rue was casting herself and Jules in). Then there was that very quiet cutting between Lexi’s auditions and her conversation with Cassie? Like usually there would be a joke to that kind of scene but this time it was played dead straight and it felt serious. And that end scene? Like the full on art house shots with zero connection to anything? Ending on Jules’ voice the love monologue? Like something has fundamentally changed in the show.

I just realized that specials aside this is the first episode without any narration from Rue past the cold open. Like the last monologue wasn’t actually adressing anything happening, and once the cold open was over we didn’t hear her mention anything about the others. Not Cal’s spiral, not the birthday party, not how she felt in the car. What is going on.

I really don’t know how I feel about Elliot at this point. On one hand he puts a serious wrench in Rue and Jules’ relationship that I’m not sure is necessary (substance abuse is kind of more than enough), but on the other I get his whole ‘mirroring-Rue-shtick’ (I mean his artsy shot is in the same church as Rue’s hallucination and he admits to doing the same drugs as Rue). But then again he does all this reckless stuff that makes him really unlikeable but he also came clean about him and Rue to Jules. I’m not sure if I’ll know how I feel about him until the season is over, and I don’t know how I feel about that in itself.

Cal and Cassie’s parallel spirals was a surprise highlight though. Like both of them really got to shine in a way I haven’t seen from them before.

When Cassie finaly fought with Nate I was so happy. I mean she clearly still cares about him (I really wish she wouldn’t but here we are) but her callout? Telling him to fear her? Cut him out!

Maddy is really starting to grow as a friend, it honestly made me wish that all the girls would just have a full episode of bonding together. And I’m glad she supported Kat without telling her she deserves somebody ‘f**ked up’ or something.

Cal’s confession. I have all of the words and none of them. Like- I want a Marsha episode now. The bar sequence almost made me root for Cal but then his confession at home revealed just how insidious he really is. I mean he made me genuinely empathise with Nate. For the first time ever. Nate. (Don’t worry I still think he’s the closest the show has to a human villain and the hottub callout scene was 1000% deserved but Cal really is the man who made the monster) Like for the first time in ages Nate seemed like a human boy? Like a fragile person? Which really ends up saying more about Cal than Nate, but also makes Nate that much more f**ked up because that is a person doing all the horrible stuff he’s done. Not just a cartoon villain but a person.

On the topic of Cal, is it sad that I’m happy that we got minimal nudity this episode and zero-ish sex scenes? This season has really pushed the sex aspect so far that I didn’t think it was possible to have a no-sex-episode.

Lexi looks to be set up to be such a power player this season and I’m more here for it than I thought.

Before this season - nay, before this episode I didn’t think there was any chance in Rue dying. Overdosing sure, but not dying. But while I mostly think she’s going to survive whatever the hell is happening between this episode and the next, this is the first time that faith has been tested. Like clearly something massive is happening. Something that will change the course of the show because everything in the visuals and editing is screaming that it will. But will they really kill Rue? What does the show even look like without her? What does that mean for what this show is supposed to be? Once again what is happening??

#so yeah this episode floored me #I have genuinely never felt so blind about what is going to happen between two episodes in the same season of a show before #euphoria spoilers #hbo euphoria #euphoria #the potato live reacts #the potato rants

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mst3kproject · 4 years ago

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The Giant of Marathon

For some reason, probably because I've seen them all so many times, I thought I'd already done all four Film Crew episodes. Evidently this is not true. Here's one, and if you haven't seen it... wow, Mr. Honcho was not exaggerating about the thousands of sweaty men.

Philippides of Athens is the greatest athlete there is, having won the entire Olympics. With the games over, he returns to his day job as commander of the Athenian city guard. Followers of Hippias the exiled tyrant are plotting to take control of the city with help from the invading Persians, and they try to seduce Philippides to their cause by offering him wine, women, and homoerotic wrestling (it was ancient Greece, after all). Philippides refuses to be seduced, and sets off to secure the help of Athens' old enemy Sparta in opposing the Persians. His mission is a success, but upon his return a spy tells him that the Persians are planning a sneak attack on the harbour of Piraeus. Can even Philippides get there in time to deliver the warning?

I don't actually know if it were possible to win the entire Olympics in ancient Greece. I know there were several events and at least one of them involved reciting poetry. The Battle of Marathon was in 490 BC and a table on Wikipedia suggests that there could have been up to twelve different sports, but some of them were only for children.

The Giant of Marathon touts itself as a tale of epic battles, daring deeds, and political machinations. I'll get back to the epic battles and daring deeds, but what stands in for the political machinations is mostly a bunch of people pining. Unimpressive villain Theocritus is pining for the beautiful Andromeda, whose father has promised her to him but she thinks he's a dick. She's pining for Philippides, who is also pining for her but thinks she's one of Hippias' followers, so refuses to speak to her. Meanwhile Theocritus' concubine Charis is also pining for Philippides because he's the only man who ever refused to fuck her, I think.

These relationships are important to the plot, too. Andromeda's love for Philippides is one of the reasons her father refuses to join the traitors, and when Theocritus realizes he cannot have her, he ties her to the prow of his ship to force Philippides to watch her die. Charis' crush on Philippides leads her to her death, as she is executed for spying. Yet none of it is ever developed beyond 'these two pretty people saw each other and now they want to bone'. Philippides declares his love for Andromeda after a single five-minute interaction. Charis has seen Philippides twice, and both times it went badly, when she decides to betray Theocritus.

Why do the writers hang such important plot points on the 'love' between people who have barely spoken to each other? I can't decide if it's because they're lazy, or because they're hacks, and I lean towards a combination of the two. There is absolutely no subtlety to the writing in The Giant of Marathon at all. Everything is told, not shown. We know that Theocritus and Creusus are traitors because they talk about it, in dialogue that's clearly written for the audience, not as anything that sounds like a natural conversation. We know that Charis and Andromeda are both in love with Philippides because they say so. The only thing we're really shown is that Andromeda hates Theocritus, which comes through in her body language (though we are also very much told), so props to actress Mylène Demongeot for that much.

The movie doesn't care about any of this character stuff, anyway. It just wants to get straight to those epic battle scenes, and it's very obvious how much work and time went into those as opposed to everything else. The battles are lengthy and elaborate, full of impressive stunts and props and miniatures being destroyed all over the place. We get to see Persian chariots run down Greek infantry, and while I'm pretty sure this would have been orchestrated so the stuntmen didn't get hurt, I'm not nearly so confident about the unfortunate horses (and neither was Bill). There are ships in flames and injured men screaming as they fall overboard. There are even some pretty good deaths, like the guy who was hit in the eye with an arrow. The desperate last stand of the city guard against the entire Persian fleet, with the Spartans arriving just in time to save the day, is very tense indeed.

I get the impression that this is what somebody really wanted to put on screen, and they did a decent job of it, but pretty much the entire rest of what ought to be the story is just an accessory to the fighting stuff. It's as if the film-makers wanted so badly for their fight sequences to be epic that they forgot what makes epic-ness – which is the characters and their stake in the events. We don't know any of these people, none of them have anything we might call a personality trait, and so we don't care.

The focus on how epic it all is makes I seem a little strange that the battle ends on a shot of dead Persian guys floating in the water. You'd think they'd want to end with something that more decisively shows the Athenian victory, maybe the men cheering as the Persian ships turn around and flee. Or perhaps some kind of victory celebration, which could mirror the celebration of Philippides winning the Olympics in the opening and call back to the scene where Philippides asks the goddess Athena to protect her city.

Instead, we cut to a shot of Philippides and Andromeda walking across the farmland together. This feels a little too sudden, and is also a poor fit with the rest of the movie. The only time we've seen Philippides on his farm is when he's gotten disgusted with the politics of Athens and returned to the countryside to sulk. If the farm is supposed to be a place where he's happy and at peace, the movie never establishes it.

So that's political machinations and epic battle sequences, let's talk about some daring deeds.

Unlike the Hercules and Maciste movies we've seen in the past, The Giant of Marathon wants to be grounded in real-life history. This means that while the script does reference gods and mythical heroes, none of them ever appear and there is no hint of them working behind the scenes to bring events about. Likewise, Philippides is not a demigod, so we avoid several of the tropes associated with the genre. Nothing important ever happens (or fails to happen) because the hero was asleep, and he never bends prison bars or drinks a love potion – although a love potion is mentioned, as if to draw attention to this.

This doesn't leave Philippides a whole lot of scope for daring deeds, and when they try the results are a little lackluster. His main feat is, of course, running all the way from Marathon to Athens (the proverbial forty-two kilometres) to let them know of the impending attack, but while this ought to be the highlight of the movie it's shot in terrible day-for-night and we have nothing to suggest how far this is... I think the writers just assumed everybody knows the length of a marathon. If we'd seen the army tired from making the march earlier, we would have a better sense of it being a long and tiring journey even at a walk or with horses, and it would seem that much more formidable as a distance for one man to cover before sunrise. Of course, showing us these things is apparently beyond the scope of The Giant of Marathon's writers, but you'd think they could at least have a character say something like, “it's twenty-six miles! He'll never make it!”

His other major daring deed is when he pushes giant boulders down a hill onto the attacking Persians. This is kind of weird because Philippides is not Hercules or Maciste. He's good at track and field, but we haven't seen any evidence of him having godlike strength, and this is a universe where gods don't seem to do much anyway, so it comes out of nowhere. The rocks are huge – there are similarly-sized ones at the park near my house and I know one guy couldn't move them no matter how buff he might be. Did somebody just forget that they weren't making a Hercules movie?

Between the battles and the various plot twists, The Giant of Marathon could have been a pretty fun sword-and-sandal movie, but it's like a tower without a foundation. The fights have nothing to hold them up, so we just can't get into it. Also, what the Underworld happened to Hippias? We see him once, chatting with the king of Persia, and then he vanishes and the movie decides weaselly little Theocritus is the big bad instead. I'm sorry, but if you've got a character with a name as cool as 'Hippias the Tyrant', you really can't just drop him like that.

The Best Brains liked to complain about the tinyness of the costumes in these movies but honestly, nothing here is as off-putting as actual ancient Greek sports would have been to the modern viewer. When I was in university I TA'd for a course called Introduction to Greco-Roman Civilization. It was an adventure in several ways – the students were mostly dumb freshmen who spent the lectures playing Farmville, and the professor didn't give a shit because she'd just been denied tenure. I don't know how much anybody learned in that class, but I'm sure they all recall how, after the professor told us that Greek athletes stripped naked and covered themselves in olive oil before wrestling, somebody raised a hand and asked if they removed their body hair. The professor cheerfully told him that they did not, so next time we see a Greek vase we ought to remember that these guys were much sweatier, oilier, and hairier than terra cotta can possibly convey.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the battle of marathon #the film crew #50s #my cheese steak

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the-ghost-of-jason-todd · 4 years ago

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aight SO

i finished ep 12 and i've talked about it with a friend, and now i've also taken a look into the tarlos tag to get a sense of what people are saying. i think i'm ready to break this down.

so there are a few big questions about That Scene and the following tarlos interactions. i'll just work through them one at a time. buckle in, this is gonna get long. now without further ado...

1) Was TK lashing out at Carlos at the firehouse in character?

Short answer: yes and no.

Long answer: we've seen TK get physical and even violent before. He literally sought out a bar fight in s1. He nearly got into a fist fight with Judd, too. And did you see the way he was hurling darts after that, when he and Carlos were on their date? This boy is not a stranger to getting physical. There are, however, a few major differences between those scenes and this one with Carlos.

One. The bar fight was premeditated, while his fight with Carlos was not. Why is this important? Because it means that TK has shown some measure of restraint in the past. He managed to stay present during what I would call the 'trigger' of the bar fight episode, and saved his physical response for a later time.

Two. His altercation with Judd, on the other hand, was not premeditated. The difference, then, is that Judd was also ready to get physical at the time. With the scene with Carlos, Carlos was trying to remain calm and impartial for most of it, and attempted to de-escalate when TK got violent. The whole thing was driven by TK.

Three. In none of the scenes we've seen before of TK getting violent has his dad's health or safety been threatened. TK's dad is a HUGE part of his life, and he has a LOT of emotional trauma surrounding his relationship with his dad. He's TERRIFIED of losing Owen, because he's nearly lost him so many times before. TK has some MAJOR anxiety about losing people, to the point where he refused to let Carlos into his heart at the beginning of s1. There's also the fact that TK has gone through a lot of trauma in not a lot of time. Even if the show wants us to believe the kidnapping is over, I'm willing to bet that the after-effects are still hitting. For both TK AND Carlos, honestly.

There are also two other lines to consider when we're talking TK's characterization: first, in the episode when Gwyn moves out, and we see her and TK talking, she then calls Owen who asks if TK 'flew off the handle' (i believe that was the wording, correct me if I'm wrong). This is important because we have two people who are VERY close to TK talking about how he reacts to things, the crux of which is that TK gets reactionary. He has high emotional responses and says (or does) things that he doesn't necessarily mean.

Then there's another line that I think is important. This is the one in the crossover episode, when TK tells Buck that he's 'done a lot worse than steal a fire truck'. This one is important because it's TK talking about HIMSELF. We don't have any context for this or what it means, necessarily, but I'm willing to bet from context that he wasn't just talking about ODing.

So with all this in mind... do I think TK was in character? Do I really think TK would do this? Well... it makes sense in the context of TK's story and his arcs and all the scenes we've seen him in so far. But, at the same time, I would definitely have done it differently. It's a thing like... it's not a WRONG answer, but then again, was it really right, either?

2) Was Carlos's reaction to TK lashing out in character?

Short answer: yeah, I think so*.

*though if they don't expand on it I'm gonna have a problem.

Long answer: Carlos, at this point in the story, is dealing with two things that I think impact his emotional landscape a HELL of a lot.

One. His past and his family. He grew up with a man who seems emotionally distant, and it has only VERY RECENTLY started to get better. He felt INCREDIBLY alienated after he came out, and then when he became a cop and he was dealing with his father's silent disapproval. He is always searching for approval and, most likely, affection as well. What this means is that he feels like he constantly needs to prove himself, and bases his self worth on how OTHER people react. If someone reacts badly, that's a mark against himself.

"But Kay," you say, "What about the scene where he made dinner for TK and TK walked out? Carlos didn't blame himself then!"

Which is an interesting point! Carlos didn't put the onus on himself in that scene, he turned it back on TK, calling him 'crazy'. I think that was a secondary coping mechanism, to be honest. He knew he couldn't deal with feeling like he was the one who was wrong AGAIN so he twisted the situation around in his head until it was TK who was 'being crazy'. I've talked about that scene in depth before so I won't do it again, but Carlos's reaction is, I think, indicative of having felt rejection before and trying to protect himself.

Which brings me to number two. The fact that he's nearly lost TK several times already. This plays a HUGE role in how Carlos acts, especially with TK. Carlos has wanted TK LITERALLY from day 1, and since then he's nearly lost him how many times??? Enough, at least, that I'm fairly certain he's now holding on too tight, even when it comes back and hurts him. He just... he seems to have this mentality that if he's in he's ALL in, and he's not allowed to back away or put any distance between them, or else he'll lose TK for real.

Because we've seen TK pull back and get some distance before. We saw TK take a night away after their fight about the farmer's market. Maybe not with the best communication, but TK was angry and he needed space, so he left. When he did that, however, Carlos was convinced that they were breaking up. Like, CONVINCED. You cannot tell me that Carlos didn't think the worst in that moment.

Now why is THIS important? Easy. Because Carlos and TK may be moving forward in their relationship, but they are at a point right now where they react to things in fundamentally different ways. TK kind of bounces between becoming reactionary and going distant (again, we saw this in s2ep8 very clearly), while Carlos has reached a point where he kind of doubles down on holding tightly to TK even when he maybe shouldn't.

Basically, when you boil all this down, Carlos is DESPERATELY trying not to rock the boat, with his parents OR with TK, because he's scared of everything coming apart. And I think that makes sense with this episode.

The problem, then, is that this is a coping mechanism. The narrative has set it up as such. Which means that he's going to have to address it at some point. If he doesn't, I will be FUCKING PISSED, believe you me.

3) Did the narrative address that scene with respect, dignity, and nuance?

Short answer: I DON'T THINK SO.

Long answer: TK is human. He's a recovering addict. He's had problems with feeling numb in the past (that line about how everything is gray), which, I think, makes his feelings just THAT MUCH BIGGER when he does have them. So clearly, he's going to make mistakes. The question then is, was this particular mistake something he's learned from, or was it just used for the drama?

I have two reasons to believe it was the latter rather than the former.

One. Judd's reaction. Judd telling Carlos to get out of the firehouse after TK hit him, as if Carlos was the bad guy in that situation, was dramatic as hell. TK and Carlos are pitted against each other in that moment, and instead of mediating, Judd picked a side. Which is, ironically enough, the first thing that I think was NOT in character in that scene.

Judd, we know, is a bit of a hot-head, but he's also very empathetic. Judd was shown trying to mediate between Billy and Owen the last time the two of them had an episode together, because he understood both sides of the story and he cared for both of them. Why do I think it should have been the same this time? Well, because he loves TK and Carlos BOTH. They were both in the group hug at the hospital after the Ryder's car crash. It wasn't like Carlos stayed back, okay--JUDD CARES FOR BOTH OF THEM. And I think, at that point, that Judd would have seen the fact that TK was spinning out and Carlos was trying to stay objective and known that he needed to de-escalate. It would have been SO EASY to have that line be "Okay, okay, both of you step back and take a breather." He could EASILY have mediated. But he didn't. And that was a specific choice that leans more toward drama than anything else.

Which brings me to number two. The fact that they don't talk about it on screen. We had a hand-wavey 'we agreed no apologies' and a hot and heavy make-out scene instead. The writers wanted the drama of the two of them being in bed together while the fire started, and in order to do that they sacrificed the screen time it would have taken to actually have them have a conversation. Because, again, it would have been SO EASY to write them actually talking about it. They've done it before! After their fight about the farmer's market and Carlos's parents, the two of them have a WONDERFUL conversation. Why then and not now? Well, to make the fire more dramatic, to up the stakes one more time.

So no. I don't think there was any respect. I don't think there was any nuance. TK made a mistake, because he's human and he has some problems with emotional regulation, but there were little to no repercussions for it where there really should have been. There was no respect coming from the firefam for Carlos, either. There were no apologies, or further comments, or anything. And honestly... this season has done a lot toward making me feel like they don't give a shit about violence. Judd hitting that kid in the bear trap in the wild fire episode, Judd hitting the drunk driver who drove him off the road, Judd punching Billy when he thought he was framing Owen, and now TK hitting Carlos... all with no repercussions or apologies or even discussions about them... it's not a good look.

And there you have it. The writing makes sense. It does. But it's also really clear that the writers' priorities have changed. I really, honestly feel like the show has lost something since season 1. There's been a massive tonal shift, and I don't like it. The fact that we keep having Event after Event with no reprieve, have sacrificed conversations and interpersonal relationships for Drama, and have started killing and maiming characters with wild abandon, sometimes with seemingly no reason... it's all just a Lot. I have enjoyed watching season 2, but it's not sticking the same way as season 1 did. I'm not letting myself get attached to characters at this point because clearly we're not in a found family show anymore. I don't care about them the same way I did before. I can’t bring myself to do it when it’s becoming clear that we’re not going to slow down and actually process anything anytime soon.

#liveblogging 911 lone star #911 lone star #tarlos #meta #i'm salty give me a minute #my tab crashed and i lost the last of the edits i did on this post plus all the formatting rip #if you think something should be italisized just do it in your head

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Ducktales Finale Review: The Last Adventure! or So Long and Thanks for All The Ducks

Hello all you happy people. The day we’ve all simultaneously waited for and dreaded is here. The grand finale to a five year journey.. and for me an almost one year journey of covering season 3 as it came out. It was thanks to this show i’ve been able to make money doing what I love. Without it I never would’ve found my patreon Kev, and I never woul’dve had the solid focus to keep going as long as I have. And I never would’ve had all you lovely people reading my work. Thank you for that. I hope you’ll stick around even though the series is gone, I love you all. But as the sun sets on this series I have one last episode of the season, and the series to cover. I won’t be doing it in my usual recap style due to it’s sheer length and scope, but I promise you if you join me under the cut I will break down eveyrthing I can about this final adventure, it’s huge, awe inspiring twists.. and it’s heartwarming conclusion. It’s everything you could want from a finale short of a Grandma Duck Cameo, and i’ts under the cut with full spoilers. Seriously if you do not want any spoilers TURN BACK NOW. I’m opening with probably the biggest spoiler of the finale.

I Think She’s A Clone Now You were warned. So.. Webby is Scrooge’s Clone, made by FOWL as part of a decades long scheme to find the papyrus of binding, and raised by Beakly to keep this precious child out of their sinister clutches. I have hundreds of reaction images, several for what the fuck.. none of them seem sufficient.. ALL OF THEM together like some megazord of what the fuck are not sufficient for how much this reveal caught me off guard. It caught ALL of us off guard. I’m sure even those who called it still were suprised that’s the direction it took. I think we all expected her parents died by FOWL, or her parents were FOWl with Pepper being one of them, or anything else. So naturally it took around 14 drafts, and me going the fuck to sleep as I had stayed up to watch the finale and thought I could just smoothly transition into writing the review despite there being a LOTTTTT to unpack.

Even after the recharge though this took a bit of doing... so now i’ve done it... what’d I think? Whelp....

I liked it. I like it the more I think about it. Even the problems I had with it just kinda melted away as I thought about it. I understand if you do not. This twist will not be for everyone, it changes Webby’s character and story entirely, ruins tons of fan theories, and in general is batshit even for a series that in the same finale, turned Manny into a shout out to Gargoyles, complete with Keith “My Body is Ready” David. This series is genuinely batshit and loves it, but this is a LOT to ask dramatically, a lot to rewrite expectation wise and a lot to thinka bout. There’s a reason besides sleep deprevation it took me a whlie to fully grasp how I felt. So if you don’t like it fine, but i’m going to make my best case.

Starting with something that made me realize I fully like it: It dosen’t invalidate Webby’s charcter. The one little problem I had left was “Well dosen’t Webby having the McDuck bloodline mean she couldn’t be specail if she wasn’t a McDuck? That sure the rest of the cast are specail but you can’t be really important without it?” Honestly.. no. Webby is who she is not because she’s a McDuck.. but because she’s Webby. She got her martial arts and mystery solving skills through Beakly and being raised. She had intate talent sure.. but as we’ve seen with the boys through the whole series, talent has to be honed. Skill has to be earned and learned. Webby worked hard to research other civilizations, worked hard to hone herself into a deadly fighting machine with her mother’s help, worked hard to be every bit as cool as her idol who turned out to be her biological dad. She earned her badassery, her wisdom and her courage SQUARE.

And more than that she’s her own person. Her adoptive parent and biological parent are both paranoiacs afraid of betryal, unwilling to trust, and slow to let anyone in. By all accounts Webby should be the same.. but she’s not. Oh sure she has some paranoia and is willing to slit some throats, she was raised by the world’s best spy and is the daughter of the world’s greatest hero, that was never going to be gone entirely. But at her core she just wants to trust people. She just wants to love them and be loved. And.. that’s why her family loves her. Because she’s the kindest, the warmest and the best of them. They love her because she’s Webby and that’s she’s family, they could care less who she’s related to. All it really changes is how Scrooge acts around her and that gives us fans tons to work with.

It’s also expertly revealed, which helped ease us into it. Webby is just as shocked and confused as we are and is seriously hurt, which makes her vulnerable to the villains. Kate Miccui deserves a goddamn award for voice acting and if their isn’t an award show for that their should be. While she’s been fantastic with Webby all series long this is her finest performance, going from Webby’s usual self, to all the hurt she goes through.. to her quitter moments at the end, calling Scrooge dad and giving out a little noise that makes it clear as Beakly tries to leave, that no.. she’ still her family.. she’s still her mom and she’s not going anywhere.

As for the concept being a bit ridiculous yes it is.. but so is this universe. This universe is entirely insane in the best fucking way possible: I mean.. look at this final group shot.

We have an old man whose somehow still alive simply because he was too busy to die, an inventor whose cloned himself multiple times so clones are fesable and is probably a clone himself given how the last finale went, an awkward armored superhero and his biotech filled girlfriend, a small boy robot weapon of discretion who put his head on his brother’s body, a no longer headless manhorse former harbinger of the apocalypse with the silky voice of keith david as one big homage to gargoyles, a lesbian living shadow and her sister, a superhero who based himself on a fictional character and his boyfriend/sidekick who by all accounts should be dead by now, a lesbian military superheroine from the moon, STORKULES COCKBLOCKER OUT OF MYTH, his moong goddes sister, two adopted family stunt pilots, a bunch of super intelligent mice, an odd duck whose kinda sorta dating a giant shrimp, his cousin with super luck powers, my globetrotting boys, an immortal treasure hunter and in the family proper: a former spy turned adopted mom of a clone, a woman who lived on the moon for a good decade, a man who once trapped everyone in what would essentially be the plot of the mcu’s second best work by pure accident, a blue boy whose piloted a plain, captained pirates, and has his own talk show, a green boy whose ran a multi-trillion dollar company, nearly destroyed all of time and space and is under investigation for fraud, and a red boy who has a hulk-esque rage filled embodiment of all his suppressed emotions, whose fondest wish was tall legs, and who can easily take out a giant magica supermachine with some fancy wiring. So the richest duck in the world having a clone daughter, while divisvie and what not.. is far more plausable than we give it credit for. As are her new sisters who Id in’t forget but are part of the whole twist.

So yeah, I like the twist and my nitpick is more that despite having a full season to set it up.. they saved it for the last episode. Instead of BUILDING on Webby’s desire to know more about her family and having the twins show up earlier.. it’s all shove into the finale. It’s a well done shoving but there’s so much that could be explored with Webby being Scrooge’s daughter, so much that futzes with the regular family dynamics and we don't’ get any of it. Sure it was probably saved for a possible season 4 but they treated this season as the last. Manny being an apocalyptic man horse voiced by the uber sexy keith david, and no I will not stop bringing that up even outside of it’s own section and why yes it is getting it’s own section, is the kind of revelation you can leave for one last episode. “One of the main cast is a clone” really isn’t and that’s disapointing.

Especially since thinking back to life and times.. Webby IS a lot like Scrooge was before circumstance hardened him. She’s tough, resourceful.. but also has a peppy spirit to her. It adds interesting shades to her character, where she zigs where Scrooge zags, how much of it is her upbringing with Granny versus his with his parents, how much did Beakley play into it. There’s A lot to dig into and given I have most of the series left to review, I will get to dig into it, and there’s a lot to be explored in fanfic so if I wasn’t already planning a massive one before I sure as fuck am now. So it’s not a bad twist nor bad we get to write the future.. but I do wish the crew THEMSELVES had done more with it. Still my bar for “not fucking up the entire show” is pretty low after Star Vs ended with her committing implied genocide to stop a genocide and How I Met Your Mother ended “But the real journey was in how much I want to bang, bang bangity bang I said a bang bang bangity bang your aunt robin now your mother conveniently died”. I can handle “This twist is kind of weird but also really intresting.” If the twist isn’t for you, as I said i get it. This is my opinion. Now for the thing I won’t shut up about.

I LIVE AGAIN:

Look i’ve made no secret how thirsty I am for Keith David nor how much of a national treasure I rightly believe him to be. He’s one of my faviorite voice actors, with a mind boggling number of awesome rolls, mostly recently as a fowl mouthed coffe cup encouraging a teacher to sabotage his rival teachers breaks on close enough. Even if I didn’t like Gargoyles, which I do, i’d have an entire section talking about that Manny reveal.

Manny was already objectively one of the best parts of the show, a hilariously weird addition that was also relatable as he just wanted to fit in. I did not know you could make him better. Then they gave him Keith David’s voice and revealed he’s one of the four horseman of the apocalypse, but doesn’t want to end the world he just wants to be a normal dude, AND turned him into a shout out to the last part of the disney afternoon they hadn’t touched, my favorite part of it and a show i’ve been sitting on watching in full for far too long. Motherfucking Gargoyles.

But given how unique it was for the Disney Afternoon and how much Disney had no desire to ever reference or use the franchise, still no fucking clue as to why they are sitting on money here, I expected it to be sadly but understandably left out. Instead they made Manny into an expy for them, gave him the voice of their leader Goliath, the voice of an angel, and had him say “I LIVE AGAIN” complete with the utterly transcendent theme song. Seriously give it a listen.

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So yeah I couldn’t not mark out at this. Amazing fucking stuff and almost as unexpected as the clone thing and easily my second faviorite part of the fiinale only NARROWLY topped by the curtain call. Which we’ll get to. Keith David took his time getting to this series but they saved the best guest voice for last. Utter tremendous.

Huey Season?: I”ll save more of this for my breakdown as the season as a whole but yeah while the finale as a whole was good.. I do feel Huey got short changed. He got PLENTY of development this season, and some REALLY good scenes with Bradford.. but ultimately he got overshadowed by the Webby thing. it just never quite felt like Huey got a real resolution to his character arc the way his brothers did. He still got some REALLY good moments, his “Just cough up the information Bentina!” was one of his finest and Danny Pudi did his best. The BUILDUP was good but hte payoff was non existant and easily the weakest part of an otherwise triumphant finale. I feel the final plot was ultimately just a bit too jam packed to really have Huey feel vital to it the way Dewey was to the Della arc and Louie was to his own arc. Both tgot big emotional payoffs in his finale but the most I could gather here was he accepted adventure? I guess. It just really feels off, like I missed the payoff to everything when it’s probably just nonexistent and that bothers me a lot. In a finale that was almost all hit.. this was easily the biggest misstep. I don’t have as much to say here on it.. but that’s because it’s really that simple: they gave Huey’s arc a ton of build up in this last episode and some of his others, really made him into Bradford’s good counterpart.. then just sorta.. forgot it because “oh shit Webby’s scrooge’s daughter kinda need to pull focus here”. Had they given this arc at least one more episode, we might of had time for it. Granted i’m not sure how much they could get away with but we clearly needed at least one more episode and what they chose to jettision, the climax to Huey’s story.. was way more important than they clearly thought and i’m heavily disappointed.

Bradford’s Big Hole Speaking of payoffs the missing mysteries payoff.. is a mixed bag. I expected all of them to combine some how into some elaborate plan I just wasn’t seeing. In hindsight it does make sense that wasn’t it: Bradford hates overcomplicated schemes, so his would be incredibly simple and require as few moving parts as possible. It still dosen’t stop the fact that the big plan to cap off the entire series built over a season... was to build a giant stygian hole of non existence to throw people into.

Yes really. Instead of using the Payprus to write them out of existance, if carefully worded or try doing it all at once or anything practical.. Bradford just plans to shove everything he dosen’t want in the world anymore into a hole. Look i’ts not like it ruins the episode, there’s still tons of tension from him holding Scrooge’s loved ones over his hole and threating to throw them into it’s gaping void. And it’s foiled by a 12 year old just.. shutting it off. Like I get him leaving an off switch on, that’s just common sense.. but why wouldn’t he have a remote or something to turn it back on? one with a password or something to lock it. There’s something inherently underwhelming about as series ending plan that can be summed up “hope no one shuts my unguarded hole. “

The finale does make for it by using the missing mysteries all in VERY clever ways. In fact every episode in the season had some sort of payoff here. It’s what makes up for how baffling the main plan is: every other thing, from the missing mysteries to the guest stars has lead up to this one moment, this one final adventure. Which leads me too

An Hurricane of Payoffs:

So from the top Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks!: Isabella Finch herself ends up being VITAL to the story and to Bradford’s backstory, as does Junior Woodchucking as a whole. Quack Pack!: Gene is the fuel for Blot’s glove.. though he also fucks off right afterwords.. never to be seen again or help out at any point...

Double-O-Duck in You Only Crash Twice!: This was the most unexpected and elevated the episode in hindsight for me as what seemed like a waste of time.. wound up setting up the first part of the finale, and the final battle with Steelbeak, and in clever ways with Steelbeak using the intelliray on himself, Launchpad muttering the map in his sleep via his smart self and Dewey remembering the base layout.

The Lost Harp of Mervana: Used as a lie detector for that heartbreaking interrogation scene.

Louie’s Eleven: Introduced Daisy setting up Donald’s plot which i’ll get to.

Astro BOYD: My baby boy comes back for this episode! He also gets one of the best lines of it “I’m a Head!”. That is the most ralph wiggum the boy has ever been. I’m so proud.

Rumble For Ragnarok: Okay I was wrong nothing from this one comes back. Still a great episode. Same with the trickening. Both are VERY stellar episodes though, so I give it a pass. You can’t give a nod to EVERYTHING.

The Phantom and the Sorceress: The Blot and Super Sayian God Super Sayian Lena, as well as Lena’s character development from said episode. They Put a Moonlander on the Earth!: Launchpad helping Penny realize her purpose. Forbidden Fountain: Jeeves is un-babied as a trap Let’s Get Dangerous!: Drake and Gosalyn Return, and Solageo’s Circut ends up being vital to the climax.. in the strangest and funnest way to say possible but still. It counts. Escape from the Impossibin: Beakley’s near breakdown at the idea FOWL has come back. It was already heartbreaking and the first adventure had made it even more so.. but now it’s out and out DEVISTATING. The one thing after her daughter is not only back.. but SHE’S the reason he’s in Scrooge’s life and home and her giving up SHUSH has now left her wide open.

The Split Sword: Probably the best out of all of these as it ends up directly playing into the climax in an awesome way i’m saving for Bradfords New Gods: Storkules shows up. Okay so that every episode claim bit me on the ass. Also when did these two meet? I mean probably at end of spear of selene but the more important question is WHY DID YOU ROB ME OF THESE TWO MEETING AT ANY POINT IN THE SERIES.

The First Adventure: Naturally the Payprus comes back as Does herons needling bradford to stop denying what he is.

Fight For Castle McDuck: Suprisingly the blessed bagpipes ended up being VITALLY important. And giving us sexiest man alive infinity years running Keith David for an episode. Last Christmas; Santa Cameo

Beaks in the Shell: Gandra being taken and the Lost Library being setup for this episode.

Lost Cargo: The Stone of What Was. And Credit where its due what FELT like simply a filler episode with a tantengal connectoin.. ended up probably being one of the most important episodes. Fair play.

Life and Crimes: Magica turning Bradford into a non sentient bird, like what happened to her brother.... proving once again this episode really REALLY needed as subplot attached to lead into the finale or something.

Bonus Round: Pilot payoffs by the pound. Seriously Scrooge and Donald’s last lines to each other, the badass return of “I’m a Pilot”, more on that in a minute, and even other smaller call backs like “Keep Getting Up” and webby sucessfully getting some juice to Louie’s pride. All top notch stuff and it really makes the finale FEEL like one with all this coming back full circle. So i’ve hinted at it enough, let’s bring on the bad guy.

The First Woodchuck

We’ve had some mixed payoffs so let’s get to one that’s just out and out excellent. Bradford Buzzard.. is the best villian the show ever had. Now I will give the caveat that my favorite forever and always will be

You know it, I know it. But Bradford is the best genuine threat of the series, with Marc Evan Jackson perfectly balancing his menace and genuine evil.. with his steadfast believe that he isn’t evil, and his calm, controlled business demeanor. It’s one of the best performances of the show and he deserves all the credit for it and after seeing him in supporting roles for his career, even if his role as Kevin on Brooklyn Nine-Nine is fucking awesome and I’m sad that show is ending, it’s nice to see him step into a big meaty role as the big bad and utterly nail it.

And the finale.. pays eveyrthing off with him, apart from the plan itself perfectly. Starting off him being revealed as Isabella Finch’s grandson... was a stroke of genius. I didn’t expect her to come back in play but it gives perfect reason both why he knew about the mysteries.. and why he’s like this.

Like Scrooge did with his nephews, niece and daughter, Isabella dragged Bradford all around the world seeing the unseen, thinking it was fun. The problem was... Bradford HATED it. He hated every minute of it, like as one post pointed out Rusty Venture from the Venture bros, and felt he should be in school. He wanted a normal life and a normal world and not.. this waking nightmare. So to him, fixing the world, stopping this sort of thing is the only way and that doing so is a good thing. His problem is how he adapted to it.

We see that best in his mirror images, the people he’s in direct contrast with and the show knows it. Starting off with the one he’s not like at all is Scrooge. Part of what makes Bradford perfect is he’s Scrooge’s evil opposiite. The Luthor to His Superman, The Joker to his Batman, the Green Goblin to his Spider-Man, the Iron Monger to his Iron Man, the Sinestro to his Green Lantern. Both come from a long line of adventure but while Scrooge embraces that and loves it, Bradford hates it and wants to destroy it. One is energetic and always ready, the other’s calm, calculated. And one sees what he is.. and the other dosen’t. Simple as that.

But his other mirror’s are more like him, moving onto Huey. Their both woodchucks, both prefer caution and planning, and both want to make some sense of a nonsensical world. Both want to feel safe when they constnatly don’t. One’s prone to panic attack the other’s calm. But what makes Huey the better man... is that he accepts the world is the way he is. It goes all the way back to terror of the terrafirmains. While he was all for adventure he started his doubting things, not beliving things were real.. because the reality that there are some things you just can’t prepare for, just can’t know, and you can’t be always ready.. it shattered him. He nearly let himself die rather than live knowing what’s out there. Webby pulled him out of that, literally and figuratively.. and he never went back. Sure he still tries to have an order to things, still breaks when his structure’s broken.. but it’s gone from a paranoid fear of the unknown and weird to embracing it. To relishing in finding unsolved mysteries and new clues to unlock, to finding new things to explore. He went from seeing this chaotic world as something to run from, to embracing and studying it. To loving it the way it is the way his family loves him for who he is. Bradford.. denies reality belongs the way it is and wants to force it into what HIS idea of it is Superboy Prime Style. The world isn’t waht he thought it should be so he’ll MAKE it that way. Huey grew as a person.. while his arc didn’t have a full payoff.. it still pays off here by showing what he COULD’VE been. had he let his earlier fear and his always present neurosis drive him like Bradford has. Let his big brain make him think he knows what’s better for EVERYONE instead of using it to genuinely help people. Bradford lacks the boys heart and empathy and that’s why he fell. Huey had his family backing him, his best friends coming to get him, and his brothers ultimately rescue him. Bradford.. threw his only true ally down a styigan murder hole.

Finally.. we have the one that’s not brought up directly.. but is very much there. Donald. While the two don’t interact hardly at all... it’s VERY fitting that Donald is the one Bradford picks to threaten Scrooge with. Like Bradford... Donald grew to hate adventure, he wanted to get as far away from it as possible and took it from his boys for as long as he could. Granted that was in part Bradford’s fault, and that was an INCREDIBLY clever twist: it dosen’t make him entirley responsible or anything that robs the moment of it’s imapct, Della still chose to take it out by herself, she still lied to Donald and she still got lost all by her own decision and impuslviness. But it fits perfectly into it: Bradford’s horrifying smile when Scrooge gets taken away from saving her is even WORSE now with full context, and it still fits that knowing about the project.. he’d want to set it up to screw up Scrooge’s life. I don’t think he sabotaged the rocket or anything, too obvious and something Della would’ve mentioned by now.. but he knew it was unfinished.

Back to the parallel the diffrence is once again.. change. Donald let go of his hate of scrooge and his past and realized it wasn’t all bad. He let himself grow as a person after a decade of bitterness and anger. But most tellingly and poignantly is Quack Pack... both had a chance to make a world that was safe, normal and what they always wanted. Both out of terror of the danger of this world. Thing is.. Donald’s was noble. He feared for his kids, his sister, his uncle.. loosing one again and any of them at all. He wanted a normal life to be safe, to hide from that.. but it’s not what THEY wanted or who they are. He accepted that’s not how the world works and how it does.. is still pretty great. And his growth shows: he’s ending the series planning to go off with his girlfriend globetrotting, KNOWING things might not be safe, but diving into adventure, having accepted it as part of him. He even finds some new family and takes in two girls who badly needed a home. He learned to accept things how they are... and Bradford refuses, not beliving in this world as it is and vowing to force it into the way he wants it to be.

And it’s that inherent selfishness.. that makes Bradford the Cartoon Supervillian he desperatley claims he isn’t. Bradford dosen’t care how many lives it takes, how much worse it makes the world, or how many people he has to stab in the back... the world WILL be “normal”. Bradford cares for no one and nothing except his own ambition. He kills Heron despite her loyality, and his own clones who loyally served him.. simply because their chaos too. No one or nothing else matters, not how they feel, not their right to exist.. only HIS vision. If he wanted to keep the world safe he’d be more of a hero, if still throughly a bastard... but he dosen’t. He wants to make it “normal”. He wants the world the way he thinks it shoudl be and damn anyone else and perfectly represents all the old assholes like him today who refuse to accept something diffrent or against the norm because “that’s how it’s always been”. Like those real world assholes.. Bradford is wrong. The Duckverse is beauitful how it is in it’s chaos and risk and love. And he just can’t see it because it’s not what he WANTS to see.

And that’s why I also love the Sword giving him big, black and red classic villianous monster, slowly mutating him as he fights the duck family. Because that’s his inner strength: he may deny he’s a villian but he’s forcing his will on others, refuses to see the world as it is for selfish reasons, and is willing to kill his own friends and allies if it means getting it. He’s the bad guy. And while he denies it to those around him... it’s clear from the fact the sword is working for him that he KNOWS IT, he knows he’s a villian and this is just what he wants but is so up his own ass he can’t SAY it or admit it. And in the end he’s fully beaten by the fact that his forcing his will on everything’s what’s unnatural: While his plan was ingenious, have scrooge sign a contract agreeing never to adventure again, since he’s right Scrooge would solve nonexistance it’s the same reason “launch hulk into space” only resulted in a smarter, more skilled hulk coming back with a space army to get revenge. He just didn’t bank on the inherent rediclousness of the unvierse: family really is the greatest adventure of all.. and the papyrus accepted it. It was the one thing he coudln’t palnf or because he can’t see the woirld how it is.. and that’s why he lost. He was so confident how he saw the world and how he worked was the only way... another way beat him.

His fate.. was also awesome and endleslly apporirate. Being mocked by the other villians who while less capable aside from Magica, at least admit what they are and what their doing.. and turned into a Vulture for Magica, left to be a mindless lackey in tons of chaotic schemes for the rest of his life. It couldn’t of happened to a nicer jackass. Okay three more sections to go. Let’s go.

Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away With Daissssyyyy

Donald’s leaving for a long, romantic adventure with Daisy is the perfect capper to Doanld’s character. Donald started the series hating adventure: blaming it for della being gone, his rough times during it, and wanted to escape it in the boat and keep from loosing his kids to it. He felt like a looser for not having reached his dreams or properly provided for his nephews, when really he did his best and still raised three wonderful kids. A bit overproective, god yes.. but despite his grief and anger he still got through ten years with them on his own merits, hard work and determination.

As the series went he reconclied with his past, realized Scrooge lost something too and that blaming him soley when it was Della’s choice was just taking his anger out on the one person he had left to take it out on instead of embracing his only family left, accepted Storkules as his friend (JUST his friend), accepted adventure through quack pack realizing that while it may be weird, dangerous and sometimes stressful for him... it’s what his family love doing and they should be who they are instead of who he wants them to be, and finally.. accepted himself by finding Daisy, someone who loves him for who he is, and literally and metaphorically understands him and turned right back around from dumping him to save him from a giant monster she roared at. He’s finally at peace.

And that’s why leaving. Not forever, He , Daisy, and his girls will be back in a few months or even a month. It’s very clear this is a vacation.. but it’s one he’s earned. He’ll always love his boys, his surrogate daughter/cousin, his sister, and his best buddy launchpad. But it’s okay for him to want to form his OWN family, to spend time with his future wife and show her the world. To make his own story for once instead of sharing it. To find his voice.

I also find it very poetic that a story that started with Donald raising his nephews like their dad.. ends with him adopting two more children. Two kids whose lives had been misrable: rapidly aged in tubes, deemed failures, constantly bellittled by the closest things they have for parents, so desperate for answers they’d kidnap their own sister and betray her trust and do things they know are wrong, And all this.. for nothing as their Dad kills their mom, bad as she was, and plans to kill them. And Donald’s first thought when given the chance to have a kid free time to himself, with no guilt having earned it? To take these girls in, start his own family, if Daisy’s cool with it mind he thankfully clearly called to talk this over first, and give them their own. Because that’s who Donald is, a good man whose finally earned his happy ending and the life he always wanted.. and accepted who he always was. An adventuerer, a loving fiance.. and dad.

The Real Hero: One last one before the bonus round and a quick one. The Launchpad Scene.. was one of the shows best. His arc in this episode of thinking he’s not a hero.. made sense. He’s been plenty heroic.. but his boyfriend is a martial arts and gymnastics savant and one of his three best friends has a giant suit of armor and is a genius. But the payoff made even more: He may not be the strongest, the most skilled or the smartest.. but he has the heart of a hero. He’s always been the kindest, most trusting, most friendly one of the main family, a guy who never gives up, even when he should, never surrenders and loves everybody. And that’s why he’s inspired so many people: Fenton to not give up after his firing and keep going, leading to his path as Gizmoduck. When Drake was lost, his fllm gone and his mentor seemingly dead (In fact skulking around the sewers like an evil ninja turtle), and his future unclear... TOLD HIM he could be Darkwing, that he could become the hero they both ihdolized and the inspiration to kids he wanted to be by his own bootstraps, and he gave Gosalyn faith in darkwing and hope at at time she had none. He also gave those mice their freedom. Not as poignant but you try creating the rescue rangers and see how far you get. I’ve lost a lot of chipmunks and mice that way.

Launchpad’s last stand makes up for his lack of being in the season during the final half. Launchpad realizing that despite his quirks he’s just as noble, valuable and wonderful as his families, both of them. And that he is a pilot. Sure he gets the gizmoduck armor.. but the armor isn’t what makes hi ma hero... i’ts being launchpad that makes him a hero. Loving adopted dad, wonderful partner, best friend... and a pilot

Bonus Round:

Okay this is just stray stuff from throughout the episode I didn’t have several paragraphs worth of material on before we get to the final thoughts. But it had so much good I can’t not talk about it. So...

Gyro calling Little Bulb BOYD’s brother. My heart wept. So sweet. As was him fixing his son at the end. BOYD has the two loving families he deserves.. and the brother he deserves.. and the brother he dosen’t deserve who will probably also is skulking around the sewers like an nafarious ninja turtle as the series ends.

Gosalyn fixing up Darkwing’s outfit for him. Awwww. Adopt that child you coward. Also if they don’t base the reboot on frank’s work here, I will riot.

“Just cough up the information Bentina!” that was just pure comedy gold especially the sheer fear radiating off him. Also right.

Manny’s “I can explain” and , once he has silky smooth keith david voice going “Come on man I just want to live my life.” That man is a legend.

Dewey and Louie just not talking the “you kids stay behind shit” pointing out both their stake in this and how they’ll just go anyway and him proudly accepting it. Given the kids turned the tied of things a lot, good call.

Dewey and Don Karnage singing their own background music as they air joust. Hell yes.

Pepper got a promotion! Goodf or her... it’s meaningless now but hey she has a partner in both senses.

Speaking of pepper she had the best line of the episode “He’s a grown man who has the strength of a baby!”. Only Amy Sedaris could’ve given that delivery just the perfect way she did.

The Funzo’s opening sequence was dynamite, from how well set up it was as an infilfration, to Webby having learned how to scam free drinks (Louie was so proud), to Lena cheating for her sister at DDR, to Scrooge paying full price.. it was wonderful> The payoff was also great as rather than be mad her special day was used as part of an elabroate spy operation.. she’s giddy. Because of course she is. Two specitic bits that get their own items

The Cabs came back one last time! It dosen’t effect my now finished retrospective, but after spending all that time with them it was nice to see them for what will probably be the last time for some time.

The whole scene where Della finds out about the trip. Just all of it. Her casually and accidentally choking daisy TWICE, Fethry, who sadly did not get an episode this season, being the one to blab about it and only realizing it .. after repeating that they told him not to, and Gladstone who not only was casually winning at Skeeball while his cousins both got pissed at it, relateable as hell, but then awkwardly escorting his baby cousin out of the situation.

“Satstically with Hubert gone one of us should be pancking but WHO I ASK YOU WHO?” As if I needed more evidence they were perfect for each other.

Lena just.. slumping over after Dewey finally has her drop the cloak. Comedy gold. BOYD scanning her later likewise so.

The second best line and line read of the episode goes to Louie/Bobby Monihan. “That is not comforting, I do not want to die”. He couldn’t of summed up Louie in one line any better.

Ludvwig was a national treasure. Not only did I squeel internally when it turned out he was alive but the explination for it was hilarious as it was batshit, and him just causally revealing Webby’s origin was fucking amazing “Ill give you all a moment ot process” The acomplanying “bless me bagpipes” was also amazing.

I do wish we found out where FOWL went but it was probably to leave the remains all free to come back as villians of the week. Frank outright said they had a tailspin sequel episode ready to go.

The Webby and June fight was a masterpiece and I REALLY need to do a top 12 fights list someday.

Lena connecting with the new twins , having pretty much the same background of being created by a villian for shitty reasons.

“one is silver and the other is “ “Flintheart glomgold!” they should consider a teamup. What’s a little brainwashing between friends?

“We’re sisters’. No you and violet are sisters, Webby is your girlfriend your both just in denial. I only say this because Webby also thinks Della and Penny are just friends and I feel she simply dosen’t know what being gay is or again is in denial. They’ll get there. Plus it feels like Lena just didn’t want to loose her and would say anything which is valid.

Curtain Call and Final Thoughts:

The Curtain Call was the perfect way to end a spectacular finale. Each bit of it’s a masterpiece, and every character gets one last awesome, heartfelt and hilarous goodbye with the camera and ending how it should: on our five most important characters, in a circle, together, smiling, freefaling into the next adventure. I”d have it no other way and any other series finale credits and last moments will now pale in comparison.

So the finale as a whole is messy, some bits aren’t resolved as good as they could’ve been, Huey go the shaft, and it REALLY needed another episode leading into it to help take the pressure off. While it needed 90 minutes for the plot it had to tell, it needed more to build up to that and while the season was tight with episodes they BADLY needed one more they didn’t get or even a subplto to help take the load off this episode.

But even with that... it was an utterly awesome finale on par with other recent standouts like “Let’s Fight to the End”/ “Thank you For Watching the Show” (Both feel like finales to me but in diffrent ways), “The Future” and the whole arc leading up to it, both parts of “Heart” and “Nice While It Lasted” . It was heartstopping, heartrending and heartfelt and ended the show as it should be: with over the top insanity, big reveals, a hell of a final battle.. and a focus on family. It’s not the perfect finale, and I defintely need more ducktales.. but it’s still a classic one and one of the series finest hours.. literally in this case.

I.. am going to miss this series. I went into it before but it’s thanks to this series I make a living. If you’d like to contribute to that, I have a patreon, patreon.com/popculturebuffet, my next stretch goal is a darkwing duck epsiode a month so kick in a buck won’t you? and take comissions so if theres an episode from the first two seasons that’s not part of the season 1 arc (I’m almost done there) or Lena’s story (already being paid for that) feel free to shoot me a line to comissoin it for five bucks an episode.

But more than that it was an excellent well crafted show that took a franchise I love and updated it for a new generation. My nieces love it, I love it, and I will always love it for that. Young or old, this show as phenominal, it was stupdendous.. it was a duckblur. It will remain in my heart for probaly the rest of my life among such shows as Steven Universe, Parks and Recreation, The Venture Bros, Letterkenny, DBZ Abriged, and so many more that have touched my life. It was simply the best. And i’m going to miss it. Thank you for reading this, i’ll see you at another rainbow, if not one quite like this.

Next on this Blog: Duck week continues after this review took two days to complete. Sorry about that. Our heroes head to castle McDuck and Dewey is forced to face the consequences of his actions, while Scrooge yells at his dad , his dad yells at him and his mom is the most precious thing tha’ts ever lived. Also Launchpad in Donald Cosplay. And it won’t stop there as till saturday the rest of the week is all dedicated to Ducktales as I finish up the Della and Lena arcs for season 1 and get started on Lena’s last three episodes. So if you liked some ducktales, stick around. And once again.. thank you.

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brelione · 5 years ago

Text

Rivers (The Best Boys)

Warnings:Car crashes,mentions of sex,blood.

Im sorry in advance.This shit might hurt.

Series Masterlist

Rafe glanced over to you, obviously knowing what this was about.He gulped and nodded, agreeing to go outside to speak to Topper.You tapped your fingers on the table anxiously as they walked outside of the house and slammed the slider door behind them.

“What do you think thats about?”Kelce asked, setting down his burger.Shit.This was it, Topper was gonna find out what you and Rafe did.It was bad enough that they knew about the kiss but this was even worse.

And it didnt help that you told Topper that you didnt like Rafe like that.Now all you felt was guilt.Guilt for hooking up with Rafe,guilt from even talking to Topper about your problems when you knew that it would probably put stress on him.Now you were screwed,head in your hands.

“You guys did things while we were gone?You kissed her last week, you gave her a hickey tonight.Whats gonna happen next week?Are you gonna get her pregnant?Do you even care about what’s happening in her life?Do you even fucking care about her at all or is she just another one of your toys that you use for sex and then just ditch?Do you not care that we all made a deal?Do you even realize what youve done?”Topper had tried his best not to yell.

Rafe stared at the blonde, eyes wide. “Dont even say that I dont fucking care about her!You’re the one that went along and dated Sarah and wouldnt shut up about it to (Y/N)!I would never-I would fucking never.You dont even know what we did!We didnt even do anything-she was freaking the hell out earlier, punching herself and hitting thins.She probably smacked herself on something before I showed up but no.You didnt even think of that possibility your mind just went straight to me fucking her.Do you know why?Its because you’re jealous.You’ve always been jealous of Kelce and I and we’re fucking tired of it.”Rafe glared, waiting for Topper to throw a punch.

He didn't though,simply staring at Rafe. “You guys didn't do anything?”Topper asked.Rafe nodded, the action barely visible in the dark.This is exactly what Kelce had feared.He was always right about most things.You even accused him of being a prophet once.

“What time is it?”Topper yawned,sitting up on the couch.You shrugged,reaching for your phone and looking between the tired boys. “What time do you guys think it is?”You asked,turning on your phone and checking for yourself. “Umm....I dunno....like 9.”Rafe shrugged.You looked over to Topper,waiting for his answer. “I think its eight.”He answered,still half asleep. “Im gonna bet its 11:47.”Kelce replied,waiting for you to confirm.You glared at him. “Fuck you,propet.”You grumbled.

“But you still kissed her.You knew what you were doing and you did it right after we all made that deal.Do you just not care anymore?”Topper asked, still angry.Rafe stood there, not knowing what the correct response would be. “Right, alright.Im gonna go home, you guys have fun.”Topper went back in the house,slamming the slider door shut behind him.

Rafe opened the door, following him inside and praying to whatever god that would listen that his friend wouldnt throw a fit.Topper simply grabbed his phone, taking another sip of his soda. “Im going home.I’ll see you tomorrow.”He went to rush past you, making your heart drop.

No hug,no forehead kiss and no explanation.Something was seriously wrong. Even when he was in a bad mood he would still give you a hug and peck your forehead before he left.

“Topper-you didnt finish your food!We didnt finish the movie either!”You exclaimed,making him stop near the door and turn around. “I know, I know.I just think I should go home now, i’ll see you tomorrow.”He opened the door, about to leave when you stopped him again.

“Text me when you get home!”You shouted to him, seeing him nod quickly before closing the door behind him, getting into his car and driving off.You looked up at Rafe, the boy still standing by the slider door in a silent shock.

“What happened?”Kelce asked, looking between you and Rafe hoping for an explanation for Topper’s sudden exit.You couldn't say anything, too afraid of what would come out,instead just resting your head in your hands.

Rafe gulped, trying to figure out what to say.He didn't understand why he should have to hold his feelings back because of Topper’s feelings.It wasn't fair to you or him. “Did I miss something?”Kelce asked, still not understanding.

Rafe shrugged,sitting back down next to you at the table,looking at the empty chair that Topper had been sitting in a couple moments ago. “I don't know.Were you guys arguing about something?”You asked Rafe,turning to face him in the chair.He shifted nervously, looking away from you.That little nervous action gave you the exact answer you needed.

“Alright, lets just sleep it off and enjoy our night.It doesn't have to be ruined because Topper decided to go home,okay?”Kelce asked,eating a chicken nugget.You nodded, feeling uneasy.Topper never did this.He always hugged you before he left, he wouldnt just walk out like that.You created a new note in your phone, typing something and showing it to Rafe.

Does he know what we did?

He read the message,quickly shaking his head. “Hey,what are you guys doing?”Kelce asked,leaning across the table in attempts of seeing the phone screen.You quickly placed your phone down,looking up at your confused friend. “Nothing,Kelce.Don't worry about it.”You told him,bouncing your leg up and down.

Something was very wrong.You didnt know why you felt so sick all of a sudden or why you were shaking,snapping out of your thoughts when Rafe reached his hand across,his hand on your leg to get it to stop bouncing. “Lets take our food and finish it in the living room while we watch the movie.”Kelce suggested, already standing up.

Topper drove down the street,approaching the bridge that made him so nervous.There were two bridges on the island,the one that separated Figure Eight from The Cut and the one that was built right over a quickly flowing river that lead from one mainroad to another.

It was the quickest way for Topper to get home from your house, it wasnt his favorite way because it always cause him to be anxious but it was quicker than the twenty minute alternative path.The bridge was old and was a popular spot for drug deals and couples that were looking to write their initials somewhere.

It had been built sometime back in the sixties before the river started to rise and the current became strong.He drove slowly,his heart pounding quick.He wished that he had taken the other way but it was far too late to leave now,already half way down the bridge.

He must’ve been shaking more than he realized,everything happening quick as he lost control of the steering wheel,sending himself right through the rusting metal bars of the bridge.

Time slowed down as the car fell from the structure,hitting the cold,quick moving water.He was forced forward as the front of the car hit a large rock,smacking his head off the steering wheel,the seatbelt locking a moment after.The cold water was filling the car quick,the whole vehicle submerged,Topper trapped by his seatbelt,unconscious.

“Topper hasnt texted me.”You frowned,checking you phone for the upteenth time within that half hour.Kelce’s eyebrows furrowed,leaning his head against your shoulder. “Im sure he’s fine,maybe he’s just tired and fell asleep when he got home or something.”That was probably a very logical explanation to a normal person but to you it seemed absolutely ridiculous.

Topper would always text you when he got home.Rafe nodded,agreeing with Kelce. “I wouldnt worry to much,its Topper.What’s the worst thing that could’ve happened?”Rafe asked,none of you paying attention to the movie.

Pennywise killing and manipulating people definitely was not helping with the situation. “Im serious.I think I should call him.”You mumbled,pressing the call icon,holding the phone to your ear.No answer. “He didnt answer, something has to be wrong.”You insisted.

Kelce took out his own phone, deciding that maybe Topper was just ignoring you and Rafe for now.His thoughts were proved wrong when Topper ignored him too. “Yeah, hes probably just asleep.”Kelce put his phone away, pulling you close to him in attempts to calm you down. “Should we go to his house?”You asked,looking over at Rafe.

He decided to just pause the movie, figuring this would be a long conversation. “He’s asleep, (Y/N).If we go there we’ll have to throw rocks at his window so he’ll wake up, its not like any of us can drive there.”He reminded you.You shrugged, feeling Kelce’s hand grip yours,his thumb rubbing circles. “Do you think he’s mad at me?”You asked, hoping that that wasnt the case.

Rafe shook his head, throwing the thought of that out the window. “He has no reason to be.He might be mad at me-he’s definitely mad at me but he’ll be over it by tomorrow.He’ll probably call in the morning, it’ll be fine.”Rafe forced a smile on his face.

You just had to hope he was right, leaning into Kelce,your arms around his torso.You noticed a look of jealousy on Rafe’s face, understanding why but choosing to ignore it.The way Kelce was shaped made him very easy to hug and cuddle with,his sweatshirt smelling like McDonalds and cologne.

“Lets watch something that’s not scary.”Kelce grabbed the tv remote,exiting out of the movie before either you or Rafe could fight him. “I vote that we watch Victorious.”You looked up at Kelce as he flipped through different options.He looked over to Rafe, silently asking for his opinion.

Rafe gave him a nod,watching as Kelce’s fingers twirled your hair,grazing over your temple and cheek as he pushed it past your shoulder,beginning to braid it.The first episode of Victorious was playing.You were sure by now that you had seen the entirety of the show at least twenty times.

You had listened to the soundtrack even more than that, Kelce being the one who insisted that you listen to it. “What time are you guys leaving tomorrow?”You asked,eyes glued to the tv.Kelce sighed, not wanting to think about the fact that he had to spend the whole day with three of his cousins.

“Maybe like….10.”Kelce answered, knowing that you probably wouldnt be awake at that time.You looked over to Rafe,waiting for his answer. “I dunno….I should probably be there early so Ward isnt waiting for me at the door.He’s gonna be up my ass all day.”He had seen all the texts from both Ward and Rose on his phone.

They were furious.It didnt really matter though, the worst they would do is yell at him.They couldnt really ground him, he was an adult anyways. “Sorry.”You muttered.Rafe grinned,shaking his head. “Dont worry about it,that party was stupid anyways.I swear to god I thought there was gonna be a fight between Mavis and Eleanor.”He chuckled,earning a smile from Kelce.

“Imagine that, the two of them just hitting each other with their canes.What would they fight about?Like,how dare you take my pie recipe and claim it as yours you old rat!”Kelce tried to sound old,his voice squeaky like he had a bad cold.

You laughed,messing up the braids Kelce was trying to do in your hair. “Or like, my grandson is prettier than yours and they have the same father!”He continued,glad he could make you laugh when you had been so stressed.Your eyes widened,sitting up.

“Wait,do their grandsons actually have the same dad or are you fucking with me?”You asked, unable to tell if he was joking or not.Kelce shrugged. “I mean, Im just saying that they look similar.Rafe,stop laughing and listen.Im just saying ive never seen Owen’s dad in the same room with Joshua’s dad.Have you?”He asked, his tone becoming serious.

You thought back to all the parties and events you had been forced to go to,trying to think if you had ever noticed either of the boys.They were two years younger than you and your boys meaning that you had never really had to pay attention to them at all, always caught up trying to beat Topper in virtual cup pong.It was one of the few virtual games that he was actually good at.

“You know,I dont think I have.”You admitted, giving into his theory.Rafe rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “There’s no way, doesnt Joshua’s dad live with him?”He asked, trying his best to remember.Kelce bit the inside of his cheek, about to answer when you spoke up. “He could be living a double life!People do that sometimes.”You reminded him.Kelce shrugged, trying to think of more ways to prove his theory.

Topper’s eyes opened again when the water was up to his knees.All he could see was black,his legs feeling numb from the cold,his left arm hurting like it had never hurt before.He cursed,trying to unbuckle his seatbelt but to no avail,the material digging into his neck and the car swaying from the tough current.

He reached for his phone that had ended up in the cupholder, only then noticing the blood coming from his sore arm.He chose to ignore it,dialing 911 as fast as he could,tears streaming down his face.If only he had taken the other way home.

“911,whats the emergency?”A feminine voice asked,hearing his shallow breaths from the other end of the phone. “My car- I drove into Crescent River-The water is in my car.”His voice sounded like he was drunk,probably because he had bit through the tip of his tongue when he crashed. “What’s your name?”The woman asked, sending everyone to the river to search for the car.

“Topper-please tell Rafe that im sorry!Tell (Y/N) that I love her!Please-fuck im gonna die.”He began sobbing, knowing that he’d never see you or Rafe or Kelce ever again.He wouldnt be able to apologize for all the dumb shit he had done over the years.

He was going to die because he and Rafe got into an argument about you.He couldve laughed.It was funny how the universe worked. “Topper, you’re gonna be just fine.Help is on the way.Can you break the window?”The dispatch asked.Topper tried to move,everything blurry.The rush of water filling the car was loud,the cold liquid now up to his chest.

“Somethings wrong with the seatbelt!Im stuck-I cant move.I cant fucking move and the water is so cold and I cant move….god please just tell my friends that im sorry.”He cried, lifting his head up so he was staring at the ceiling of the car,getting as much air as he could before the car would be completely full.

“Topper, you can tell them yourself.Help is on the way, please stay on the call.”She waited for Topper to say something else, for any sign that he hadnt drowned only to hear the sound of static before the call cut out.

“Are you guys tired yet?”You asked the boys,pulling a blanket up to your chest,still in Kelce’s lap. “No, im not going to bed until this dumbass admits that he’s wrong.”Kelce insisted, annoyed by Rafe. “Im just saying the I never saw JFK’s son when he was younger and Matt Dillon in the same room.”Rafe repeated it for the third time,still not being helpful.

“Because they werent friends!”You shouted at him, Rafe flicking your forehead. “You cant be friends with yourself!Now listen.13 bloodlines of the illuminati,right?Right.So they discover time travel so JFK’s son assassinates his dad because he couldnt support his passion for acting,right?So then he goes back in time in a different time line to become an actor and change his name to Matt Dillon.Its just like Spiderverse!”Rafe exclaimed, trying to get you guys to believe him.

You shook your head,looking back up to the tv. “Rafe, did you even pay attention to Spiderverse?”You asked, making him finally shut up. “Wait, I want to watch conspiracy theories now.”Kelce mumbled,his fingertips now tapping against your hip.You handed him the remote, letting him put on top ten craziest conspiracy theories.

When the ambulances,cop cars, fire trucks and rescue trucks showed up Topper had been without air for nearly two minutes.The lights of his car were dim but they were luckily able to spot it,sending the divers down.They were in full gear,helmet and radio included.

There were two divers,seeing that the glass had given out and smashed,some of the glass causing small cuts over Toppers body.The were able to get the car door open,cutting off the seatbelt,telling Schoope through the radio that they had gotten him,fire fighters waiting for them to bring his body up,handing him into the arms of the fire captain who then got him onto a stretcher,letting the EMT’s take him.His arm was bent in all sorts of ways,a large cut at his hairline,blood still flowing from his mouth.

“You guys believe in the moon landing, right?”You asked,moving in Kelce’s lap so you could see both him and Rafe.Kelce was hesitant to answer, not knowing what to think after watching that last theory.Rafe bit the inside of his cheek, making you groan.

“Really?”You asked, checking the time to see that it was already two in the morning. “Hey, im gonna go upstairs to sleep.Will you guys stay in the guest rooms?”You asked,sitting up with the blanket around your shoulders, cold despite the fact that you were wearing Topper’s hoodie.

“Why?”Kelce asked, letting out a loud,dramatic yawn. “Because the door is right there and so is the window...at least in the other rooms it’ll take longer for them to kill us.”You explained, grabbing your phone off the table.

“Alright, im setting alarms for 8,8:30,9 and 9:30.”Kelce announced,setting them in his clock app.You sighed,knowing that his alarms would probably wake you up as well. “For why?”You asked,already at the end of the staircase. “So I can make you guys breakfast.”He answered in a tone that made you feel dumb, almost like the answer was so obvious.

“You dont have to.”You replied, knowing that that wouldnt change anything.He shrugged,not really caring.Rafe turned off the tv,standing up and stretching out his limbs,almost touching the ceiling.You laid down in your bed after saying goodnight to them, your eyes wandering to the closet,to the window,to under the bed.

The fact that somebody had probably been in your room without you even knowing freaked you out.You turned on the flashlight on your phone,keeping it on as you scrolled through tik tok.That was probably an even worse idea since your entire for you page consisted of serial killer facts because of you liking too many Criminal Minds videos.

Eventually you decided to just go and sit in the bathroom,just so you could be anywhere else but your bedroom.You sat on the toilet,checking if Topper had been active on Snapchat,Instagram or Tumblr.Nothing.That was very unlike him even if he had been tired and fallen asleep as soon as he got home.

After twenty minutes of sitting on your toilet you decided that you couldnt go back to your bedroom.It was too creepy.So here you were,tiptoeing across the floor of your own house to one of the guest rooms at the end of the hall,knowing that’s where Rafe was.

You let out a soft sigh,carefully opening the door. “Rafe.”You called out to him softly.You could barely make out his figure on the bed,arms and legs spread out like a starfish.You sighed,deciding not to bother him.

You used your flashlight as you made your way down the hall,opening Kelce’s door. “Hey,Kelce.”You whispered,seeing him move,eventually sitting up and squinting,trying to figure out what was going on.

“(Y/N)?”He asked,trying to make sure that you were you and not some imposter.You let out a quiet sigh of relief,entering the room and closing the door behind you. “Hi.”You answered,sitting at the end of the bed. “Are you okay?”He asked,turning on his own flashlight,flipping his phone so the screen was against the mattress,the small light making it so he could see you.

“Yeah,cant sleep in my room.Can I sleep in here?”You asked.He tried to hide how happy he was,nodding. “Yeah,yeah thats fine.”he patted the spot next to him,grinning as you slid under the covers,your arm falling over his torso,head against his back as you closed your eyes.He eventually turned on his side so he could face you and you could get more comfortable,holding him like a koala,your head resting on his shoulder.

You couldnt remember anything after that which meant that you had fallen asleep clinging to your friend.You woke up when Kelce got off the bed,leaving a frown on your face. “Go back to sleep.”He whispered to you.

When they got Topper ot the hospital they were still trying to find out how bad his injuries were.He was still knocked out,eyes twitching every few moments as he was rushed down the hall and into surgery to fix his mangled arm,removing the glass that had been lodged deep inside his leg.They were glad to find that none of his injuries were fatal despite him being technically dead for 15 seconds when they had first got him out of the river.

It was determined that he had a pretty nasty concussion that would take a good couple of months until it was completely healed.The surgeon had to stitch the long cut on his hairline shut,bringing it forward ever so slightly.They had noticed his medical records,calling his mother to tell her about the horrible accident.

“Is the car okay?”She had asked,making the nurse who had called frown and tell her no,the car was definitely not okay. “Unfortunately im in California so I cant be there.Maybe just give his little girlfriend a call.”She suggested carelessly,not even bothering to ask about the condition her son was in.

Something about the way she said it sounded like she was disgusted by the idea of you.Almost like a child talking about vegetables.The nurse had asked for the number of his girlfriend,his mother reading off yours that she had stashed in her phone just in case of emergency.

When you woke up you were warm and comfortable,seeing two texts.One was from Kelce to let you know that he had left and that eggs and bacon were on the stove.The other was from Rafe telling you that he had left and got home safely.

He probably only texted you that because he had seen how worried you were when Topper hadnt.You checked your snapchat notifications,seeing that you had lost your 785 day streak with him.That really made you upset,knowing that it would take two years to get it to that point again.

You sent out your streaks,getting up with a loud yawn,stumbling as you made your way downstairs and into the kitchen,a shiver running up your spine from the cold tile.A glass plate sat on the stove,a layer of tinfoil covering it.

You peeled off the foil,placing the plate in the microwave when your phone rang.Your heartbeat picked up,hoping that it was Topper calling to tell you that he was sorry for nto calling you last night and that he was perfectly fine,frowning when you saw that it was an unknown number.

“Hello?”You asked,hoping that it wasnt gonna be ghost face on the other end. “Um...is this Topper Thornton’s girlfriend?”the voice asked.You frowned,looking around your kitchen.You had no idea who it could be or why they would think your were Topper’s girlfriend but you decided to go with it anyways,saying yes.

There was a pause before the woman spoke again. “Im sorry to inform you but your boyfriend drove into Crescent River last night.He’s got an awful concussion and a severely broken arm as well as 12 stitches.He’s currently at Kildare Hospital if you’d like to come see him.”The woman explained.

And just then everything was over.You were always terrified of getting a call like this.That Rafe had overdosed at a party or that Kelce had been hit with a golf club to the head.But you never thought it would happen.

You felt like you couldnt breath,your hand gripping the phone so hard that you thought it might crack.You didnt know how you would get to the hospital.Rafe was at home and would take too long to get to your house,Kelce was at his cousin’s house on the complete opposite side of the island.

You knew what you had to do,grabbing your keys that had stayed in the junk drawer for the past two years,a layer of dust covering the metal.You rushed out of your house with nothing but your keys and phone,not bothering to slip on pants or even grab your bag,going into your garage in a rush.

You couldnt even remember turning on the car engine,speeding out of your driveway and leaving a trail of black marks,driving straight to the hospital.The car smelt like stale doritos for a reason that you couldnt understand.

The last time you had used this car or even drove was back when you were seventeen and nearly passed out while you were driving,too scared to try it again.It didnt matter now,your foot not leaving the gas pedal,hands gripping the steering wheel so hard that your fingers hurt,pulling into a random parking spot at the hospital,not even checking your parking job.

You held your phone and your keys in the same hand,sprinting and nearly getting hit by another car in the process,gasping for air when you reached the front desk. “I-I need to see Topper Thornton.”You spoke quickly,almost coughing.

The nurse’s eyes widened,realizing that you were the girl she had spoken to on the phone. “(Y/N)?”She asked,wanting to be sure before she told you what was important.You nodded,wanting this to be over so she’d tell you what room you needed to go to.

“He said on the 911 call that he wanted you to know that he loved you and that he wanted Rafe to know thay he was sorry,I thought you should know.He’s up in room 234,2nd floor just two doors down.”She told you,a sympathetic look in her eyes.

You didnt think too much about it,running up the staircases because taking the elevator would waste time.You glanced at the rooms,trying to remember if she had said if the room was on the left or on the right.You found the room after a few seconds,preparing yourself before opening the door.

The lights were dim,the tv off.And then there was Topper,looking like he was dead.His left arm was put in a cast from his mid bicep to his hand,bent so the it was at a ninety degree angle and wresting on his stomach.

A few pieces of hair had fallen over the dark blue stitches that kept his skull from being visible,his eyes closed.An oxygen tube settled at his nose,multiple IV’s in his right arm,the heart monitor keeping a steady beat.

You were grateful for that,watching the lines move up and down,memorizing the sound of the beeping.You sent Rafe and Kelce text messages,telling them what had happened,deciding to keep the words that Topper had said to the dispatch to yourself for now.

After a long twenty minutes of sitting there a nurse came in,surprised to see you. “He should be waking up soon.Are you his spouse?”She asked,writing down something on a clipboard.You nodded,still keeping up with the lie figuring that it was the only way you’d be allowed to stay in the room with him.

“Alright,he should wake up any moment,hun.”She smiled at you before leaving the room,closing the door quietly behind her.You rolled your eyes,figuring that she had spoken that sentence five other times today and that she didnt actually care about you or Topper.

You found yourself scooting your seat closer to the hospital bed,running your fingertips along the palm of his good arm.His eyes slowly opened,shutting again for a moment,slowly adjusting.

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mc-critical · 4 years ago

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What are your thoughts on Ibrahim? For me it went from indifference and dislike in season 1 to liking in season 2 and becoming my favorite male character in season 3 tbh. Actually the only good male character by season 3 (season 4 has many other options too). He is probably the most complex and well written character and I really sympathise with him. His arrogance was his downfall but if Suleyman wasn't such a bitch it wouldn't have been lol. He wasn't wrong in that imo. He was a slave, a fisherman's son but his intelligence and skill took him farther than anyone else and it's not wrong to be proud of such a feat. He deserved the pride more than just about anyone, even Suleyman. What I dislike the most about him is his treatment of Nigar after their relationship ended. She's my favorite character and although their relationship itself was my favorite in the whole show (other than Nurbanu and Selim) it ended really badly

Ibrahim is one of my most conflicting characters on the series: one time I feel like I don't get the appeal, especially not the stans in one Bulgarian forum, he doesn't elicit such a strong emotional reaction in me as he does in others, but then once he hits an incredibly strong arc and I begin to analyze his character and all its dimensions, I come to love him for what he is and realize how much effort has gone in conceiving and developing him. He's certainly the most well-written male character that isn't a sultan or a prince in the entire franchise. (the sultans aren't the brightest, but the bar is so high when it comes to their writing. There isn't any of them that is badly written. The princes are also well developed, but now that I think about it, Ibrahim surpasses some of them as well!) He's delightfully fleshed out with every detail; his actions, while morally ambiguous at times, are very understandable and you can clearly see the deeper, nuanced reasons why he does what he does. His arc was a sight to see from beginning to end and watching it reach its inevitable tragic conclusion was heartwrenching. At a point he became so important to the narrative, whether it was intentional or not, that the show (or actually, S03B in particular, because S04 was absolutely fantastic!) began to lowkey miss something without him. He had such a strong presence that couldn't be matched by anyone else after him.

[To be brutally honest though, I find his dynamic with Hürrem in terms of screentime to be kinda overrated. Not that it's bad or anything, quite the contrary - their chemistry was great, they were consistent and fun to watch, they had quite a few great scenes that were definetly more than Hürrem and Mahidevran's, I dare even say this is one of the most solid antagonistic dynamics of Hürrem's writing-wise, but I just find it sometimes gets way too much credit? It's weird, I know.]

The most interesting thing about him is, without a doubt, his fatal flaw that I... actually don't think is arrogance. It's not up for argument that Ibrahim can definetly come off as arrogant, but the arrogance is rather a manifestation of his fatal flaw, not his fatal flaw itself. I believe that it's precisely his inferiority complex that is the root of his vulnerabilities: as you said, he's been only a fisherman in Parga, and his background is both a source of memories where he can recall his more "innocent" days with his family and a tough spot for him where he is consistently reminded of something that is already in the past after all he has achieved. He did want to return to Parga, to see who he used to be one more time, but after that it's as if he never gets a chance to forget, to put it behind him. He pretends he has forgotten, but that consistent reminder of how he has started seems to be constantly haunting him to the point he begins to remind himself of it. It's not only people like Figani, Iskender Çelebi or the other members of the divan in early S01 that don't let him forget, it's as if he himself doesn't want to forget. It's undeniable that he had climbed up to heights he wouldn't dream of and the role of a grand vezier needed getting used to and to be dealt with with care. On one hand, we could argue that he reminds himself of Parga as a way to preserve his moral compass, in a way, to realize when and how he has screwed up or remind himself of the limitations of how far can he go, for Süleiman is his friend and companion who he wouldn't want to disappoint. But on the other hand, the more he rose in the hierarchy, the stronger became a wish for him to exceed these limitations placed upon him by everyone around. Süleiman is able to give him everything if he wishes, so why not let it happen? Then he's going to prove to everyone, prove to his inner demons, this sense of inferiority that he, in fact, can not only become the most politically adept grand vezier there is, but a person who has his own country within the country and can rule it with ease. The political arena ultimately becomes a target of his inner conflict where he projects more power than anyone else, is most influential and does the best in order to gain the goal, not only to gain SS's approval, but show that, yeah, he can do his best for the role he's put in, fixating on the Ottoman country he claims to be a ruler of and his apparently endless rights. It turns into a coping mechanism where he can escape his past and background and he gets so sucked in it that his self awareness becomes less and less. That's where his arrogance comes from and I feel that if he didn't possess that complex of his, he would've managed things way better and had more self control, as a result. He was a very good politician in the show, setting in motion many good strategies (his strategy gave them the Mohacs victory after all), having a strong, pragmatic mind and many innovative ideas and if he didn't try his hardest to convince himself he's worth something that isn't just the story of the fisherman in Parga, Hürrem wouldn't stand a chance against him.

This inferiority complex is the reason for his infidelity, too. He loves Hatice dearly and he never expected that she of all people would do the very thing he dreads the most. Her pulling rank on him came as such a shock for him that it seemed he would never forget or forgive. It put infinetly more salt to the wound, deeply hurting his ego and the self-esteem he was just beginning to gain. That's why he let himself in Nigar's hands for so long, for she would only want to please him, for that relationship would have no limitations whatsoever and wouldn't restrict Ibrahim in any way. It was something that was his, something the dynasty would never touch or learn about. I love Nigar and Ibrahim's relationship, too. Principally, I'm not a fan of love triangles at all, but that one is a notable exception for how wonderfully, but crushingly psychological it is. It wasn't added in only for the sake of the drama, it was set up for very long and it was like the characters actually got there through their own actions and they had to truly face that struggle to flesh out and evolve. But there wasn't genuine love there, not in Ibrahim's part. That was his biggest weakness speaking, causing the illusion of love, not the real feeling of it. He wanted to preserve this relationship as the fisherman in Parga, but to me, it felt like he showed something more similar to his own confident assertions of the power of a grand vezier than actual regard for Nigar's feelings. It all was a lie he wanted to believe, because of his ego's denial, and he believed it so much he told Nico that Nigar was the person he truly loved in E51. And when he did get out of the lie (the monologue in E57), see how he reacts differently in front of her now - he turns off every single try of hers to give him affection, he reacted very badly when he learned she was pregnant, it was as if he wanted her to wake up from the dream and move on, too? And due to his inner conflict that perpetuates his arrogance grew even more in S03, he got over Nigar, but not over her child. Esmanur's birth made him return to and enforced his old habits that made him consider that child as another piece of solace, something out of the dynasty, also only his, trying so desperately to have her live with him and Hatice. The infidelity and the way he treated Nigar after he realized the error of his ways are ones of the worst things Ibrahim did, along with Leo (now, I get he wanted to knock Hürrem down a peg, but that was admittedly much for me.) and while I understand why these events and interactions came to fruition, I can't justify him for them.

I agree that had Süleiman not given him as much power, his inferiority complex would be highly downplayed, at the very least. He underestimated the possible consequences of Ibrahim's rise and it really doesn't look like he knows him as much as he thinks he does. Whether he did it to test him (SS's lasting reminders that Ibrahim gets closer to death) or because he loves him dearly and wants to embrace his potential ("I want you to use that mind only for me!") or both, it's like he gave him both too much freedom and too many boundaries at once. I mean, I understand why SS executed Ibrahim: his affirmations, no matter their backstory and how metaphorical they are, pose a definite threat for a padişah and along with his growing paranoia of betrayal, he couldn't be sure how far he was going to go anymore. It's as if Ibrahim crossed every line, openly acting like he controls the padişah and his state in front of the fellow pashas, efendis and ambassadors and that couldn't be controlled anymore. It's as if he had done his best efforts to bring him down to earth, but since none of it was working, he decided to act accordingly. The many "failures" of Ibrahim have been piling up in the narrative in the span of 81 episodes and I get why SS would finally snap for what was the final straw. However, doing so much unprecedented stuff for a grand vezier was bound to bring disasters for the padişah due to the chance in his mind that he would try to question or prevail over him, hence Süleiman should've realized that it was only natural one would want more and more. And that happened with S03 Ibrahim - he fought more and more with his inner demons, hence wanting to have more and more to be validated by the others and by his own ego that perhaps wouldn't feel satisfied regardless.

While his fatal flaw underlines his complexity, it also gets complimented by his many positive qualities: his love for Hatice was very sweet in the beggining and after the Nigar plot, it turned out to be really genuine - their reconciliation was very telling in that aspect; his relationship and loyalty to Süleiman deserves respect, even though his inferiority complex came in the way, he still would never give him up and never once lost hope in his recovery when he was in his deathbed and while that may become up for debate in S03, he would never openly stand against him and would gladly try his best to please him; his bond with Mustafa is amazing, too - I love how he practically raised that kid and gave him sound advice as well as his mother; that said, his relationship with Mahidevran deserves more appreciation and it is one of the most reciprocal and understanding, soft and "carefee" dynamics of the show; I love his dedication to his family and how he loves them as much and remembers them with the same fondness as ever before. In short, when going in depth, this multifaceted character has so much to offer, like, wow!

Okay, when I first watched the show, there was that point where I felt Ibrahim overstayed his welcome and I even wanted for Hürrem to finish him already (heh, those were the days! 😅) but now when I've rewatched and reexamined MC many times, I see that despite of his few negative traits, everything about this character flows so well and so organically and it's one of the characters in the series that have aged really well with time in my eyes. And I respect him so much for that.

#magnificent century #ibrahim pasha #ask #illusorybeing

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hockeyboysiguess · 5 years ago

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Countdown

a/n: what’s up everyone? i’m new in town because i found one stupid hockey boy which led me to another and you know how it goes. let me know if you want me to continue writing!

warnings: some swearing, a little bit of drinking.

Your feet were killing you, and you’d definitely had a couple more than you set out to have when the night started, but it was New Year’s Eve, you told yourself. It was the kind of night you could have a little too much. You rocked a little forward on your heels, trying to relieve some of the pressure on the arches of your feet, but it threw you off balance. Luckily, Mat was there with a steady arm to keep you to your feet. You could’ve done without the chirping that immediately followed the incident.

“You know, you could just take the shoes off if they’re bothering you that much,” he said, with a laugh edging at each word as he spoke.

“I’ve definitely explained this to you before,” you sighed. “You look at the shoe, you look at your feet, you tell yourself that your shoes and your feet are married tonight and nothing in the world will separate you. You can’t get divorced after two hours, would look bad for my next husband.”

“You are more committed to those shoes than you were with your last boyfriend,” Mat retorts, never the one to stop the banter first.

“He couldn’t support me like these babies can.” You point your toes and jut one foot out for emphasis, “He didn’t make my legs look this killer either.”

Mat rolled his eyes at you and laughed, a constant combination in your friendship that had become one of the most crucial in your life this past year. You’d met him towards the beginning of the year, and you got along instantly due to your identical senses of humor. Your friendship solidified with his willingness to try practically every restaurant in New York City with you and the fact that you always let him be the DJ whenever you were together. You tried to go through the timeline of your friendship, trying to find the moment something shifted and he stopped being your friend Mat and started being the reason you said no to dates with other guys when they approached you and why you refused to let any of you other friends set you up with anyone. You glanced over at the clock to distract yourself from your thoughts, 11:50pm. Ten minutes to midnight.

“Hey, I was just thinking about the day we met,” Mat told you, a smile on his face carrying over to yours as you remembered the first time you met him.

Ten.

- Months ago, you were at a party pretty similar to this where everyone was a little less dressed up and the alcohol was a lot worse. You were standing with two of your friends, debating on if you wanted to stay longer or head out to the bars when a ping pong ball landed in your cup.

“Hey! My buddy needs a partner for pong. Can you play? Doesn’t matter if you’re shit; he’s probably worse.”

You shrugged, said, “Why not?” and stepped up to the table next to him. You set your cup down on the table and turned to your new partner for the evening, “If I have to carry this team, now’s the time to let me know that you’re dead weight.”

His face was a little taken aback for a second, but then a wide smile formed across his face. He nodded softly.

“I like you,” he said. “You’re right, I am totally about to be dead weight. My name’s Mat by the way.”

You introduced yourself to him and proceeded to win the next two rounds of beer pong with Mat making three cups the entire time. You made fun of his accent. He pretended to be upset that you got away with breaking the elbows rule because you had boobs and they distracted Tito, but the distraction was to his advantage so he said he’d let the rule breaking slide as long as you promised to be his pong partner for the night. You agreed to take him on as charity case for the night if he tried a Thai-Greek fusion brunch with you tomorrow morning that none of your other friends we’re willing to go it. He took the deal and your friendship began.

Nine.

“– seasons of How I Met Your Mother? Jesus, is this even going to be worth it?” Mat complained

“Get the popcorn, sit down, and shut up,” you told him. “I cannot believe you haven’t seen this before. It’s a classic.

“Friends is a classic,” he sighs as he sits down on the couch, dropping the popcorn bowl between you. “This is a cheap imitation. Besides, I thought you would hate this. Isn’t Barney like very anti your whole super feminist thing or something and doesn’t Ted just suck?”

“If you don’t realize you have to take everything in this world with a grain of salt yet, then you are beyond help, Barzy.”

You binged it in under three weeks. While you’d lived the last episode premiering live with your family, you didn’t think you’d ever seen anyone as pissed off at the ending of the show than Mat was. Your sides hurt from laughing so much at his insane ranting about how they could have possibly done that to him, with all of the time he invested in this show. He took it personally and swore he’d never watch another episode again. You still couldn’t bring it up without making him start a whole diatribe. It was your party trick together even though Mat wasn’t quite in on the joke.

Eight.

- Days in Spain in June. Mat insisted on you joining him on his post season tour of Europe. By tour he meant never leaving Spain but going on a lot of wine tours and pretending he knew a lot about wine even though he couldn’t tell the difference between a three-hundred-dollar bottle of age merlot and a bottle of Barefoot if his life depended on it.

“Oh, isn’t this a fabulous red vintage?” Mat said to you, doing an impossibly bad British accent in an attempt to sound fancy. “I can taste floral,” he sipped the wine again, smacking his tongue against his lips loudly, “and citrus notes in this one. You’ll quite like it, madam.”

“You’re gonna get us kicked out,” you sang softly to him as you noticed the daggers he was getting from your tour guide.

Mat slung his arm around your shoulders, pulling you in tight to him. You could feel his muscles tense under his thin t-shirt, and your breath caught in your throat. Some part of you had known he was attractive this whole time; you’d just never been forced to pay attention until this exact moment when you were pressed up against him. You pushed the thoughts to a far corner of your mind. This was your friend Mat and you didn’t need anything more than that from him. You didn’t want it, you told yourself.

Seven.

- Seconds left on the clock. You were pretty sure you hadn’t breathed for the last 5 minutes of the game and you were gripping your seat so hard that your knuckles were starting to go numb. The Islanders were down by one going into the last two minutes against Tampa Bay. Tito had scored to create a 3-3 game with just over a minute on the clock to play. You didn’t want this to go into overtime and neither did the guys. They wanted to complete the comeback win here and now.

You watched as Mat shifted the puck side to side on the ice. You saw him glance up at the clock for a brief second, then he looked back towards the net and he saw his shot. He took it without any hesitation. You were on your feet before the puck hit the back of the net. Mat was immediately engulfed by his teammates, swallowed up in a sea of blue and orange jerseys. His games practically gave you a heart attack, but you’d never turn him down if he asked you to come and he asked you to come a lot.

“Hey there, superstar,” you said, the smile in your voice obvious as you met Mat in the tunnel after he’d finished up his interviews and changed.

“Hey there,” he laughed, giving your shoulder a little shove

You looked around as you walked out with him. He was walking you through that final shot, second by second, but you couldn’t focus on his story. You saw the girlfriends, fiancées, and wives of the other players greeting their respective partners and for a split second you let yourself imagine that with Mat. You hadn’t really thought about it before, but as soon as let that wall down and the flood gates opened, and your feelings for Mat hit you square in the stomach. You wanted to be like them, have what they have, and for a split second, you let yourself want that with him. You wanted him to look at you like the other guys looked at their girlfriends and wives.

“Um, hello?” Mat’s large hang waving in front of your face pulled you out of your moment.

“Oh, sorry. Can you start over? I got a little sidetracked.”

“You okay?” he asked, concern coating the words and his brows furrowing.

“Super-duper, superstar. Try me again.”

Six.

“-Entrées is way too many. Look, I know you’re practically a championship level competitive eater for fun, but this feels like an exercise of your skills we don’t need to practice.”

“Two things. One, calling pancakes an entrée is a little much. It’s just pancakes,” you retorted, “and two, they serve six different kinds of pancakes here, so I’m getting six kinds of pancakes. Join me or get the hell out.”

Mat’s nose scrunched up as he laughed at your response. God, you loved his laugh. You loved it most when you were responsible for it, not the girl he met at the bar last night who was definitely responsible for the marks peeking out from under his shirt. Seeing those when he sat down made you felt like all the air had left the room. You shrugged off your thoughts as best as you could. Mat wasn’t yours to be possessive of, but that didn’t make the pit in your stomach settle either. You took a sip of your orange juice as Mat’s laughter slowed.

“God, how do I still think you’re cool even though that was super lame?” he asked you, stealing your water since his hungover self practically chugged his when he arrived

“Barzy, some things in the world are magical and they’re better left unexplored and unexplained.”

“Like all women,” he said proudly, like he’d discovered something profound.

You rolled your eyes at him. Even when he was an idiot, you still wished he was your idiot and not some girl at the bar’s idiot, but you wouldn’t risk this. This friendship was too important to you to jeopardize for your stupid middle school girl pinning. You put your feelings back in the box they’d let themselves out of just as the pancakes arrived.

Five.

“You think you’d had five drinks tonight?” Your eyebrow is arched as you look back at an incredibly hammered Barzy. You knew he had to be at least eight deep, more like ten, but instead you said, “Are you sure it’s five?”

Mat nodded profusely, looking more like his bobblehead then himself in that moment. You turned your palms up at him and shrugged a bit, giving him a look of complete disbelief. He proudly put down his beer and yanked his sleeve up to show you his wrist. On his wrist were five incredibly smudged tally marks of various lengths. He hadn’t even managed to realize you were supposed to cross the last one across the other four for every set of five, so there were just five incredibly crooked lines drawn on his wrist in Sharpie.

“See? Five tally marks, five drinks,” he told you, like you were the idiot in this situation.

You nodded in fake understanding as an incredible drunk Mat reached for you. He was significantly touchier with you when he was drunk, his large hands always finding your skin and making a series of thoughts you shouldn’t have run through your brain as your heartbeat picked up in your chest. His hands rested on your upper arms this time as he lined himself up with you, forcing you to make eye contact.

“I’m fine. Don’t you worry about ol’ Barzy here,” he slurred.

“You’re twenty-two,” you laughed. “Hardly makes you an old man, my friend. Come on, I called an Uber. Let’s go.”

You took on of his hands from your arm and held it, dragging him slowly out of the party. He had the attention span of a golden retriever puppy when he was drunk, so it was a good thing you had some practice with this and started your journey to the car ten minutes before your Uber was supposed to arrive. By the time you made it outside, it was already waiting for you. You gave him one small shove and he practically fell right into the car.

“You know,” Mat told you as the car started to roll away from the party, “you’re a really good friend, ya know.”

You smiled at him but turned your face away quickly as you felt the tears start to sting in your eyes. Maybe it’s the few drinks you’d had yourself, but Mat calling you a good friend was definitely supposed to feel good, but all it was make your heart clench inside your chest. It confirmed everything you were feeling. You and Mat were friends, good to great friends even, but that’s how he saw you, his friend. You never wanted to be the kind of person that complained about someone not liking them back, but you finally understood where everyone else was coming from. This feeling was awful in a way you couldn’t quite describe. It was like a hand had reached into you, found the place where your feelings for Mat where, and squeezed hard, except that hand wasn’t actually all too careful to target that one spot and instead squeezed everything inside your chest until you could barely catch your breath and the tears were rolling down your cheeks. Thank god that Mat had way more than five drinks and was already asleep against the opposite window because you couldn’t keep it together the entire ride home.

Four.

“You really want four dogs at once?” The disagreement coated Mat’s voice. “That’s a lot of dogs at once. I think you need to reconsider this part of your life plan.”

“Four is a very reasonable number,” you replied, not even bothering to look up from your phone. “And this is my twenty-year plan here, Mat, not yours. You don’t get a say.”

“I’m your best friend. I deserve a say here if I think you’re going to screw up part of your life,” he countered. “You’re going to be beholden to these creatures. And you’re gonna have four of them! They’re going to need you constantly. You’re not going to have time for anything else.”

“I do plan on like, having someone around at some point,” you reminded him. “Step nine of this plan was to find that man, finally, and one of the key criteria is that is likes dogs, so he’ll help share the workload.”

“And then you really only have two dogs,” Mat mumbles under his breath as he start to nod in understanding. “Okay, okay, I concede. You’re right, four is the correct number of dogs.”

You laughed in response to his agreement, “Now I’ve just got to find a man and convince him like I convinced you.”

“Took you all of a minute to get me on board with your plan here. I’d sign up to co-parent four dogs with you. You’re gonna be a killer pet parent. I’m sure you can get some other schmuck to agree with you. He’s not going to be as hot as me though, so that’s going to be a downgrade for you right there.” You didn’t let his words sink in. You let them flow right out of your head as soon as they came in. It was for the best, you told yourself.

Three.

- Hours into your co-worker’s engagement party and you were about ready to scream. If one more platter of engagement cookies with their initials and faces came past you, you were going to explode. The only reason you’d make it this long was Mat and the fact he tipped the bartender big time when you got your first drink, so he was making you doubles and triples when he was only supposed to pour singles at the open bar.

“This sucks,” you sighed to him, taking a swig of your drink.

“This party is fucking pathetic,” he said to you. “How are people this boring before they’re thirty? I just don’t understand. If I ever get engaged to someone who wants to have cookies with our faces on them at our engagement party, please shoot me.”

“I expect you to do the same if I ever think that’s a good idea,” you laughed as your spoke.

“You know what,” Mat paused only to down the remaining third of his drink in one go, “it’s time to blow this popsicle stand.”

“Jesus, Mat, they haven’t even made a toast yet or anything. We can’t leave yet,” you tried to remind him, even though it was completely half-assed since you might have been more miserable than him.

“Oh, come on, be irresponsible. Let’s go do something actually fun,” Mat said, leaning into you as he spoke. “You’re in a killer dress. You look incredible. There’s this cool bar down the road I’ve been wanting to try, and we’re dressed for the occasion.”

You scrunched up your nose as you thought. You wanted out, but you also really didn’t want to be rude since you’d have to show up to work on Monday regardless. Mat took your drink from you as you thought, taking care of the rest of your glass with ease even though the bottom quarter was definitely straight vodka due to how slow you’d been drinking. He looked at you, his eyes softly begging for you to get the hell out of here with him. You sighed and grabbed one of his hands, making your way towards the back exit. You couldn’t see the smile on his face, but you felt his fingers slide between yours as he gave your hand an appreciative squeeze.

Two.

- Times that you’ve almost told him how you feel in the last month. The holiday season had you feeling particularly emotional in general due to a combination of Hallmark movies and the holiday parties’ people were having were giving you a few too many opportunities to be drunk around Mat. Drunk you was a little looser lipped than sober you. Both times started and ended the same way.

“Hey, Mat, can I talk to you for a quick sec?”

You placed your hand on his shoulder as he spoke, pulling him slightly so he’d turn to face you. Each time he agreed and followed you away from the crowd, tucked away in a less traffic area of the party.

“What’s up? Are you too drunk? Do you need to head out? I can call an Uber. Or should I call a Lyft?” he asked in rapid succession.

“No, no,” you shook your head. “I, uh, I wanted to tell you something actually.”

“Okay, shoot,” he replied instantly. “You know you can tell me anything.”

Your mouth went dry as the desert and your carefully rehearsed speech dissolved in your mind. You looked at him, his eyes dark as his traced over your face, trying to figure out what could have been important enough for you to pull him away from the party. Your eyes danced across his face, his strong jawline, his kind eyes, his soft lips. You wanted him. You wanted him so badly it hurt, but the idea of losing him from your life kept your mouth shut both times.

“You know what. Actually, it’s nothing. I figured it out myself. Let’s go get another drink.”

One.

You snapped back to the current moment, pulling your head out of the past. You watched the clock turn to 11:59pm.

“Sorry, I zoned out there,” you told him.

“It’s alright. Tito dropped in when you faded off, so no hard feelings,” he laughed as he spoke, “Um, actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about and I guess, why not start the new year off with a bang?”

You took a deep breath in as you looked over Mat’s face curiously. He was nervous. His hands were fidgeting with his cup. He was shuffling from side to side, foot to foot, transferring his weight with each movement. He looked down at the ground, unable to meet your eyes and mumbled something you couldn’t hear. The countdown for the last twenty seconds had already started, so there was too much background noise to catch his words.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you?” You had to shout to make sure he heard you.

“I like you!” he screamed back. “Fuck that, I’m in love you with and I really, really fucking don’t want to see you kiss anyone else at ten seconds because I’m pretty sure it’ll break me at this point.”

Ten. Your mind was racing. Nine. Mat wanted to kiss you. Eight. Mat liked you like you liked him. Seven. No, Mat loved you. Six. He took a step closer to you. Five. He was so nervous, nervous he’d just ruined everything because you still hadn’t said anything. Four. Your feelings burst out from the box you’d put them in, running through your body, making your heart rate kick up in your chest. Three. Mat leaned his face closer to yours. Two. Your eyes locked with his. One. You rocked up on your toes and pressed your lips against his.

His hands found your hips, pulling you desperately closer to him, practically crushing you against his chest, but his lips were soft and gentle against yours. The room exploded into cheers around you, everyone celebrating the ball drop and the new year, but you barely noticed them, until you pulled back from Mat. His eyes scanned your face, trying to figure out exactly what you were feeling.

“I love you too, Mat.”

“Thank God,” he chuckled to himself as he leaned down to kiss you again, “and happy fucking New Year to me.”

#mat barzal #mat barzal imagine #mat barzal fic #nhl imagine #nhl fic #nhl fanfic #nhl fanfiction #hockey imagine

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rachelbethhines · 5 years ago

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TTS Songs Ranked Worst to Best

Someone asked me to rank my fav and least fav TTS songs a while back, but I’ve since then relistened to the soundtrack and there’s a whole bunch of songs that just forgot about, so here’s a more accurate ranking now that the songs are more fresh in my mind

32 . Life After Happily Ever After (Reprise)

This song is infuriating, because the finale is infuriating. Listening to this song just makes me angry all over again because it reminds me just how unsatisfying the ending to TTS was. I wanted to turn it off at several points. I barely can get through it despite it being so short. It doesn’t help that the soundtrack leaves all the dialogue in there and fails to actually end the song. It just cuts off before the final note.

31. Hook Foot’s Ballad

Does this even count as a song? Why is it here on the soundtrack but not the Hurt Incantation? Did Menken really waste his talent writing a joke and did the showrunners really waste money and limited resources on this?

30. Friendship Song

Bland, boring, and pointless. It was clearly written as a marketing stunt for the radio disney charts and not as anything to do with the plot of the series. They just throw it up on screen to fill out the running time and don't even let the whole song play through. It’s pitiful.

29. Waiting in the Wings (Reprise)

I didn’t think much of the original song one way or the other, but the reprise is soooo dumb. The plot twist it introduces winds up ruining the whole show and sabotaging both Cassandra’s and Rapunzel’s characters. It’s not even a nice sounding song on it’s own. The kid’s voice is irritating (who I’m sure is doing her best, but really little kids shouldn’t be made to sing professionally as a general rule) and the melody just as bland as the first time it was played. The only reason to like this song is if you’r a mega fan of Cassandra’s or her VA, which I am not. (Note: this is not a criticism of Eden Espinosa, I just don’t happen to follow any of the VAs in this show)

28. Through It All

I like the instrumentals in this song, and that’s about it. Everything about this song is wrong. It doesn’t fit the story, it’s a misuse of the cast and songwriters, it’s a waste of valuable screen time, the melody is dull, and the dang soundtrack had to throw in that lame dialogue about ‘greatest threat ever’ at the beginning. If you want a pump up song in your story then you got to earn it. You can’t just tell us things are bad, you got to show it. A joyful horseback ride and everyone sitting in a bar safe and sound isn’t threatening or depressing enough to warrant a cheering up session. Plus the song itself doesn’t add anything to the overall story.

27. The Girl Who Has Everything

Sometimes I think the writers were willing trying to sabotage themselves. It’s as if they were determined to make the only two main female characters in the show unlikeable bitches in season three. Don’t believe me? The creator Chris has said this song only exists to highlight how much easier Rapunzel has things than Cass and went onto say that Rapunzel was in the wrong during their conflict because ‘she held Cassandra back’. (Oh yeah she totally ‘held back’ the grown woman who left on her own accord, returned on her own accord, and then assaulted and tried to murder a bunch of people for no reason of her own accord.) But this song does succeed in furthering season’s three narrative that Rapunzel is a spoiled selfish brat. Shame the story fails to address this setup and never has Rapunzel learn to be a better person. Rather the narrative bends over backward to tell us how special Rapunzel is without any sense of self awareness and this song falls into that same trap; making it both irritating and pointless.

26. Listen Up

Yeah, I talked about this on my salt marathon, but I just don't like this song very much. The melody is fine but the lyrics are a real miss in my mind. It doesn’t help matters that the song is indeed pointless in the grand scheme of things.

25. Livin’ the Dream

This is much on the same level as Listen Up as it features the same problems. It doesn’t add to the narrative and the lyrics kind of let it down. I placed it higher just because I like the melody a little more.

24. More of Me

This song is a lot like the Friendship Song in that it was created to be an end credit song for the pop charts and you’d be forgiven in forgetting it even exists. However, it at least got to actually play all the way through. I think this song was a real missed opportunity. I honestly believe that it should have been the opening theme song of the show instead of Wind in My Hair. It’s more built to serve such a purpose and it’s a waste of resources not to actually use it. Alternatively, I would have accepted it being reworked into the actual series as a character song. Especially since we’re missing a song in season three due to budget cuts.

23. Wind In My Hair

Speaking of theme songs, I think I would like Wind In My Hair a lot better if i didn’t have to listen to it every episode. On its own it actually has a lot of things going for it; a nice melody, interesting instrumentals, good singing, ect. Unfortunately it’s just over exposed, and none of those elements lend themselves naturally to an intro song for a tv show. In fact the theme song feels really out of place and is edited oddly to fit the shorter intro.

22. Wind In My Hair (Reprise)

Honestly the theme song is mostly comprised of this reprise, but it has the opening instrumentals from the OG song frankensteined onto it. This means that the version that plays before every episode is on fullblast all the time to keep the energy up, but that’s not how the song is suppose to go. The actual reprise that plays in the pilot builds to a crescendo, starting soft and melancolony and getting louder and more hopeful and determined. It sounds a lot better in full because of that. It’s still too overexposed though. Both these songs would probably be higher on the list of not for the theme song version.

21. With You by My Side

This song is fine. It’s nothing special, but it’s not bad either. What knocks it down the list is the fact that Lance isn’t in it, despite Lance being right there. Like don't bother hiring a famous Broadway singer if you’re not going to have him sing! But that speaks more to the poor writing of season two than anything else. This song also doesn’t really add anything to the narrative as, contrary to what the writers intended, it doesn’t actually enhance the emotional impact of Cassandra’s betrayal later in the episode. The song itself is just tacked on and doesn’t take the opportunity to lay down any foreshadowing for that plot point.

20. Next Stop Anywhere

Another perfectly serviable song. It’s not bad but nothing outstanding. It gets the job done. It’s also really ho-hum and the soundtrack keeps all the unneeded dialogue, which is a pet peeve of mine.

19. Waiting In the Wings

Despite it’s hype, I never thought much of Waiting in the Wings. It’s got nice instrumentals and Eden Espinosa gives it her all in the singing department. The problem is it’s too generic. It’s a bare bones basic ass ‘I want song’. Cassandra's movations are weak and unsupported by the narrative, the melody is boring, and it honestly doesn’t add anything to her story. I mean it should, it’s her character solo, but because she’s written so poorly the song just winds up undermining the character in the end. All I’m saying is that, this is not the song from season two that I would have nominated for the Emmys. But it’s still Alan Menken, it’s still nicely performed, and given the rest of the competition for that year, it did deserve to win.

18. If I Could Take That Moment Back

This song is also pretty generic, but it’s less boring than I See the Light, (yeah, I said it, I See the Light is boring) so that’s a win in my book. Ergo this holds the title of the only New Dream duet that I enjoy. But there’s better stuff on this list.

17. Next Stop Anywhere (Reprise)

Well no, I take that back. The reprise of Next Stop Anywhere is also technically a New Dream duet. It’s still not anything amazing, but it works for what it is. Plus, Adria’s opening dialogue in the soundtrack version doesn’t bother me quite as much as some of the other dialogues choices that were kept in.

16. Stronger Than Ever Before

I really enjoyed this song in the moment. It’s catchy and fun, and it finally has Lance doing something rather than ignoring his existence. However it is borderline unnecessary in terms of story placement, and I’m slightly mad at it now that I know that we could have gotten a Rapunzel and Varian duet but it was scrapped for this instead.

15. Crossing the Line

Keeping with the theme of ‘songs I have conflicting emotions about’, we have Crossing the Line. This song is confused. It starts and stops, the melody isn’t clear, the orchestration is playing tug of war with the singers for dominance, and it’s basically Alan Menken and the show’s creators ripping off Frozen. (I guess he’s kicking himself for leaving that particular project?) But it’s interesting. I never heard anything quite like it. It’s memorable even if it doesn’t fully work. It’s got these interesting bits and pieces to it that just never quite comes together as a whole. Some of the lyrics are some of the best Glenn Slater has ever wrote and is far better than the story actually surrounding the song. Yet there’s other lines that are total cringe. Sometimes the song is bold and catchy and gets you all hyped up, and then other times its limp and staggering and feels so awkward to listen to. Yet it’s not boring or generic and so I have to place it higher than the rest of the songs that’s come before. (Also, there’s some amazing orchestral covers out there that really pulls together the various parts really well, just fyi)

14. Nothing Left to Lose

I really don't like this song. I’ve been one of its biggest critics ever since it was leaked by the marketing team earlier this year. And yet... I can’t in good conscience place any lower on this list. All of the problems I have with it are the exact same problems I have with Crossing the Line. It’s confused, the various pieces don't line up, the instrumentals are competing with the vocals, the song’s progression is weird with it’s constant key changes, some of the lyrics are good while others are absolute shit, ect and so forth. It also actively works against the story it's trying to tell. The song wants you to sympathize with Cassandra, but her lines are as shallow as a puddle and makes her look like a sociopath. Especially when she’s physically attacking Varian through out for no reason. Also neither character learns anything from the exchange and it fails to impact the story. By all accounts this is a bad song. But I’m Varian trash. There I said it. You happy? Varian’s parts in the songs are fine, good even, and the song is anything but bland. I would rather listen to a mess then be bored to tears by a competent yet standard four chord pop song.

13. I’d Give Anything

This song is nice to listen to. Story wise it absolutely sucks and shouldn’t have been in the finale at all. But it sounds pleasant. This is one of those songs that could pop up randomly on the radio and I would just think it it a nice sad break up song. I can’t say that about some of the other misplaced songs in the show. This one however, you can very much, absolutely divorce this song from the narrative and it would be fine. Now that’s not good writing, and it’s very much a waste of limited resources, but I’m rating the music here first and story second.

12. Buddy Song

The Buddy Song also absolutely did not need to exist but it also sounds nice. Plus, it makes use of Lance so I’m a little more lenient towards it. I can’t however place it higher since it really is just Alan Menken ripping off Alan Menken. Like, I would not be at all surprised to find out that this was originally a deleted song for Aladdin or something.

11. Bigger Than That

What can I say, Lance just gets good songs. When the show bothers to give them to him. Unfortunately, it’s not the best placed. It kind of interrupts the more important drama of Be Very Afraid, and probably should have been saved for a later episode. Especially since it hinges on a plot point that is contradictory to Lance’s character. We should have gotten a Varian and Rapunzel duet here and given Lance his own episode in the second half of season three. This song could have easily been refitted into being a bonding moment for him and the girls. That would also have filled out the season’s original songs to the usual eight instead of only seven.

10. Life After Happily Ever After

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. The top ten. The best of the best. This song makes the cut for three reasons. 1. It lyrically and musically interesting 2. It does the job of furthering the story and the characters and 3. Eugene’s part is so damn good. Like this song could have easily fell down into the ranks of ‘fine but generic’ if it wasn’t for the bridge with Eugene. That puts it over the top and to my mind makes it better than anything from the OG film. (well almost anything, Mother Knows Best is still great) This is the barometer by which I measure all of the music in the series. Is it better or worse than Life After Happily Ever After? Because this is the level that I equate good musicals with. What keeps on the tenth spot and not higher is the dialogue that still left on the soundtrack and the lack of a Cassandra introduction. That and also the rest of the songs are just flat better.

9. Hurt Incantation

Hurt, Decay, Reverse, whatever you want to call it, this was such a cool fucking concept. One that was utterly wasted by the show. I place this so high because it just sounds awesome! It looks good too, and it offered up so many possibilities from a story perspective. What lets it down is the lack of follow up for it and it’s too short. There’s needed to be another verse. It also should have been on the actual soundtrack instead of Hook Foot’s Ballad. (The Heal Incantation also was sung in What the Hair, but I’m not counting it since it was written for the film)

8. The Girl Who Has Everything (Reprise)

I hate the initial song and the set up that it took to get here, but I love this reprise. It’s perfect. This is what the story needed more of. Rapunzel taking her life into her hands, and her proposing to Eugene would have been the perfect capstone for her arc. In fact I’m angry we didn’t actually get that. There’s absolutely no reason why Rapunzel couldn’t have done so and we could have had her and Eugene engaged during the second half of season three. How much better would have it been if Cassandra threatened their wedding plans and that’s why they couldn’t go through with it until after the series ended? So much more tension that way.

7. I Got This

This is a really good song that actually futhers the characters and the narrative. Moreover it’s refreshing to see the heroine not be perfect and to fail sometimes due to her own inadequacies. It’s just a shame that the series didn’t follow through with this set up, but I appreciate the attempt all the same.

6. Set Yourself Free

This is the only song in the series that’s an actual satisfying pay off for anything. Music wise it’s nothing too special, but in terms of context it just works. We were sorely deprived of such resolutions and songs with actual meaning in the show.

5. View From Up Here

This song is too good for the episode it actually appears in. We needed something like this back in season one to introduce Cassandra with. It also sadly doesn’t fit with the wider narrative after season three. However I shall still appreciate it as a ‘what might have been’ type song.

4. Let Me Make You Proud

The only reason why this song isn’t higher is just overexposure and I’ve no one to blame but myself for that. I’ve listened to this song way too many times. As such it tends to alternate between this, View from Up Here, and the next song on the list. But make no mistake it is glorious. Fantastic instrumentals, set up, and of course amazing vocals.

3. Everything I Ever Thought I Knew

Yes, I know this plot point didn’t lead anywhere, but it works for this song at least. Also Eugene’s VA is a really underrated singer. He sounds nice and he emotes really well. Though I’ll be honest, this jumped up to third place because it was fresh in my mind after listening to the soundtrack before making this list. I’ve always liked the song and I do rate it highly, but it can change places with Let Me Make You Proud and View from Up Here at anytime depending on my mood.

2. Let Me Make You Proud (Reprise)

This song is heartbreaking! Story wise it probably shouldn’t exist because it gives away the twist too soon, but who cares, it’s awesome! Varian’s arc is the most compelling in the show and the only thing that saves TTS from falling into mediocre obscurity; and it’s songs like this that help make the arc stand out even more than it already does.

1. Ready As I’ll Ever Be

I said it before and I’ll say it again; Ready As I’ll Ever Be is the greatest thing Alan Menken has ever written in his entire career! If you know anything about the multiple award winning songwriter then you know that is no faint praise and I do not dole it out lightly. This song is the reason why this show even has a fanbase. People are still getting into the series because of this song. And no matter how many times you listen to it just rocks! It’s complex, layered, moody, and with a fantastic beat and energy. The performances are wonderful and the instrumentation glorious. It belongs in the hollows of Disney’s greatest hits and not regulated to a spin-off tv show that failed to make its money back. I weep for the lost potential that this song and this show had. It hurts to know that so many people will never see this flash of brilliance that has come out of the House of Mouse, will never know the wonderfulness that is Varian. Ah, ‘c'est la vie’, I suppose. Tangled the Series got what it deserved, but it's crew did not. While I can not in all honesty recommend the series in full; I do sincerely urge any Disney fan to check out the songs at the very least. Especially this one. And that’s it. There’s my official ranking of all the songs, and I hope those of you read my Tangled reviews appreciate the hours it took into making this.

#tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #varian #rapunzel #eugene #cassandra #lance #alan menken #Disney #disney music #disney songs

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