#and back at it again drawing the crimmlet and Trent

[bespokegarbage]

[itsclydebitches]

Am excited that boat guy's daughter can now join phoebe and crimlet as friends

Idk if you're the same anon or not but these are getting paired up <3

In all honesty I'm kinda on the fence about it? I loved the boat guy, thought he had fantastic chemistry with Rebecca, and I adored that the writers let an older woman have a sexy, romantic adventure to contrast the fit footballers deciding to have a pillow fight instead of going to a sex show.

But a large part of my enjoyment stems from the ethereal nature of the meeting, with the temporary-ness adding to the allure. Having boat guy return changes the situation from "Cool and mysterious meeting that's romantic precisely because they never learned each other's names and their relationship is forever confined to the realm of fantasy and possibility, making it inherently perfect" into "Another show is ending which means we need to quickly pair everyone up in heteronormative relationships, so here's the handsome guy again, this time with a cute little girl for Rebecca to raise." Plus, I think the rest of the finale exacerbated that feeling for me. Dani has the poly relationship with two women (which, to me anyway, comes across as very player-esque since we don't know either of them) instead of Keeley getting that with Roy and Jamie, Trent never even has an inkling of a canonical romance, Ted goes back home to his ex-wife and child, Beard marries his abuser and it's implied they're having a kid too, Higgins remains happily married to his wife and 4+ kids... now Rebecca's man shows up with a child despite the finale arguing that she's already symbolically a mother to the team/Richmond fans. Can't leave it at that, gotta give her a nuclear family too! Other than Colin getting to kiss his guy, the finale felt so traditionally romance focused -- in a show that spent three seasons hyping up a number of queer alternatives -- that it soured the Rebecca/boat guy relationship for me in a way I wasn't expecting.

I mean hell yeah, I love the idea of there being more cute kids to cause shenanigans -- I just wrote a fic about it!! -- but, canonically, it feels kinda... barren? Henry, the kid we arguably know best, is off in Kansas with the montage implying that he and Ted remain distant from the community for several years at least. The Crimmlet doesn't have a name, let alone a personality. Boat guy's daughter is similarly a total blank slate, existing purely to draw mother/daughter imagery by having the same blonde hair as Rebecca. That just leaves Phoebe as the one kid who's around and has any personality to work with. As someone who prefers writing fic over original work, I find it hard to connect to blanks slates like that. The two youngest girls aren't characters yet, just visual dolls you can choose to play with if that's your preferred method of play. Except Trent's daughter doesn't even have a canonical appearance :/

I totally get where you're coming from though. The boat guy's daughter is a very sweet addition to the story on the surface, I just wish she'd arrived in a different finale and had been treated as a character, not a means of introducing Rebecca's True Love at the last possible second.