#fs nightfall

[picklepie888]

How Final Space Handled the Love Triangle Trope Better Than Any Other TV Show

Love triangles- we've all seen them. They're the go-to for many writers when they want to add some romantic tension to a story. It's a trope that provides a quick and easy way to invoke drama in the plotline. And throughout the history of fiction, the love triangle trope has been executed in varying degrees of quality. And I mean a BIG variety of quality. If you ask me personally, I do not care for this trope. It's often been used cheaply, its scarcely executed the way it should be, it almost always calls for some kind of character assassination, and as of late, its just a widely overused (and misused) trope. However in recent years, there has been one (1) show that has done the love triangle trope in such a way that didn't make me want to gouge out my ear drums. And that would be a little adult animated sci-fi epic called Final Space.

Now to you readers who don't know anything about Final Space, it is a cancelled adult animated sci-fi dramedy show created by Olan Rogers for TBS and Adult Swim. The show is serialized with an ongoing story stretching three seasons, and follows the adventures of protagonist Gary Goodspeed and his crew of loveable misfits who venture across the galaxy in an attempt to save the universe from an evil cosmic horror known as Invictus. This show has all the good stuff that comes with an epic space opera: space travel, time travel, dimension hopping, planet exploration, alien encounters, and absurdly advanced fictional technology. But the heart of this show lies in the relationships amongst the main cast of characters. Throughout the series, Gary gains many new friends and allies whom he shares a deep mutual bond with and are willing to help him in his life threatening and seemingly impossible goal. Naturally, one of these characters is his love interest, Quinn Ergon, a former space captain who had a rocky start but gradually fell in love with Gary.

Now Gary and Quinn's relationship was at first one-sided. Gary fell for Quinn instantly, and decided from the moment he first met her that he would always dedicate himself to her. Quinn, who is a hardened soldier trained to always focus on the bigger picture, does not desire starting close relationships with many people due to the trauma of losing her sister during a battle. She was also put off by Gary's clinginess and apparent incompetence as a leader. However, by the end of season 1, she learns to open up to him more, and he learns to be a more reliable person to her. By the end of the season, they officially enter a romantic relationship.

Throughout the entire series run, Gary shows extreme devotion and loyalty to Quinn. Seeing as how hopelessly in love with her he is, it's pretty hard to imagine anyone else could cause their relationship to waiver. However, in the middle of the show's first season, Nightfall entered the picture. Nightfall is Quinn from an alternate timeline where her Gary had sacrificed himself for the greater good. Without her true love, Nightfall had fallen into a deep depression, until a cosmic entity named Bolo had granted her the ability to travel to other timelines. She then spends twenty years traveling to hundreds of different timelines in the hope of finding one where Gary survives, and lo and behold, that happened to be the timeline the main story is set. Although Nightfall is a variant of Quinn, the show's narrative treats them as two seperate characters. The two of them have distinctly different personalities, and differing relationships with Gary.

When Nightfall reveals herself to Gary, he is instantly attracted to her, and makes little attempt to hide it. In turn, she regularly expresses her own attraction to him. However, whenever these expressions start to get a little too physical, Gary will deny her. Telling her that he's only interested in Quinn. Although Nightfall points out that she is also Quinn, Gary rebukes that he only has eyes for his Quinn. This complication in Gary and Nightfall's relationship is brought to a head in the show's second season.

During the second season of Final Space, Quinn is trapped in another dimension, and Gary and the remaining members of his crew have to venture all across the galaxy in search of Dimensional Keys in order to make their way across dimensions and rescue her. In the episode "The First Times They Met", Nightfall once again attempts to make advances with Gary, only to be denied. Crestfallen by Gary's rejection of her, Nightfall retreats to the spaceship's 'Virtualasium', a full-scale virtual reality room that can download her memories so she can relive them in real time and replicate a digital version of the Gary she had lost.

Although the virtualasium requires all the ship's power to register Nightfall's memories, trapping her and Gary within the room and putting the whole crew at risk, Nightfall is still unwilling to let go of the love she had lost twenty years prior. It takes the pleas of the real and current Gary to disable the virtualasium, and delete the digital replica of the man she loved.

The episode concludes with Gary comforting the heartbroken Nightfall. Although Gary apologizes for hurting her, she assures him that there is no reason for him to apologize for loving someone else.

Now this. THIS RIGHT HERE. Is where so many love triangle subplots go wrong. Typically, the endgame for a love triangle is that the character recieving the romantic affection from two or more suitors has to eventually pick one, and reject the other(s), and enter a steady monogomous relationship with whomever they end up choosing. Then the character and their chosen suitor can then focus on their romantic relationship...but that still leaves the character's relationship with their rejected suitor(s) up in the air. Many different shows had tried to resolve this in a variety of ways. Sometimes the rejected suitor will remain friends with the character they loved, but the writers will often cut corners by not addressing or acknowledging the suitor's complex feelings of heartbreak while attempting to continue a friendship with the person who rejected them. Even worse, is that some stories tend to put the rejected suitors to the sidelines, having them sparingly be a part of the main character's life while they continue their relationship with the suitor they chose. Realistically, maintaining a friendship with a person you were romantically interested in that rejected you is extremely difficult, because those romantic feelings don't disappear overnight.

One other thing that love triangle plots tend to get wrong is having a character commit a detestable act that takes away any likeability for the audience. For instance, the MC may enter a romantic relationship with Suitor A, but cheat on them with Suitor B behind their back. Or Suitor A may attempt to say or do something to make Suitor B seem less desirable compared to them, be it lying or invading Suitor B's privacy to expose some secret. Or whenever MC rejects one suitor in favor of another, the rejected suitor may lash out, blame MC for their heartbreak, or try to guilt/emotionally manipulate MC into going out with them. Final Space manages to avoid all these mistakes.

After the events of "The First Times They Met", Nightfall sticks around with Gary and the main cast. The narrative makes it clear that she still has feelings for Gary, but from now on she respects his boundaries, no longer makes advances towards him, and comes to value him as a trusted friend. From here on, Nightfall has found a new motivation for staying with Gary: to reunite him with the woman he loves, so that he may not have to suffer the heartbreak she had faced when she had lost her love all those years ago. With this newfound selfless outlook that Nightfall had developed, this shows that the writers had actually found a way to use the love triangle trope to strengthen Gary's relationship with both Nightfall and Quinn, rather then hindering either relationship. It is through this romantic arc that Gary realizes that he truly does love Quinn, and his loyalty to her can never be wavered. And Nightfall learns to move on from the love she had lost and had desperately clung to for twenty years, deteriorating her mental health in the process.

In conclusion, the relationship between Gary and the suitor he rejected became stronger after they had confronted their complex feelings for one another. And the writers managed to do this without making any of the characters involved play dirty in order to invoke pointless drama. There was no lying. No cheating. No backstabbing. Just three characters ecperiencing complicated feelings that needed to be addressed in order for the air to be cleared. Other animated shows like Star vs the Forces of Evil, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal, or even *shudders* Miraculous Ladybug could learn a thing or two from Final Space. And I have yet to see any other show execute this trope in a better way.

[accidentalspaceexplorer]

January Monthly Recap:

My new year is going well (if also very, very busily) and that also means my reading year started off well! I read 23 books, which I gave an average of 4.13/5 stars - I read so many kickass books this month! I loved Ocean’s Echo, caught back up on Saga, absolutely devoured Silver Under Nightfall, and had very surprising feelings about The Stars Undying! I also had a few duds, but isn’t that always life.

Saga, Vol. 4 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples [hereafter referred to as BKV/FS]: 4.25/5, re-read

Saga, Vol. 5 by BKV/FS: 4.75/5, re-read

Kiss Her Once For Me by Alison Cochrun: 2/5

Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell: 5/5

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson: 4.5/5

Sunshine by Robin McKinley: 5/5, re-read

One Dark Window by Rachel Gilig: 4/5

Saga, Vol. 6 by BKV/FS: 4/5, re-read

Saga, Vol. 7 by BKV/FS: 5/5, re-read

Saga, Vol. 8 by BKV/FS: 4/5, re-read

Saga, Vol. 9 by BKV/FS: 4.5/5, re-read

Saga, Vol. 10 by BKV/FS: 4.25/5

Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk: 4.75/5

Baker Thief by Claudie Arseneault: 4/5

Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco: 5/5

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden: 4.25/5

Haben by Haben Girma: 3/5

Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by Ashley Herring Blake: 4.5/5

Never Judge a Lady By Her Cover by Sarah MacLean: 4/5

The Stars Undying by Emery Robin: 5/5

The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin: 4.25/5

Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory: 2.75/5

Velvet Was The Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: 2/5, dnf

My goal tracking is under the cut, as always.

23 in 2023: 3

Read 100 books: 23

Translated works: 0

Physical TBR: 0

Top of TBR: 1

Books in Spanish: 0

Read 40% AOC: 26.1%

Discworld books: 0

Series: 3 started vs. 8 caught up on/finished

Storygraph recs: 0

Indigenous authors: 0

[d4rk-x-w0lf-17]

can we get a small portion of your au? like rick and morty's reunion 🥺👉👈

HELL YEA BOIIIIIIIII

Gary glared at the elderly man at sat handcuffed to the chair in front of him, crossing his arms in a huff.

Sheryl walked into the room, her stare ice cold.

"Surprised to see you still alive, Sanchez." She scoffed, relaxing on the wall.

The man simply rolled his eyes with a shrug of his shoulders, "Yea, whatever. Good to see your fat ass still kicking."

Gary blinked, looking between his mom and the stranger.

"Wha- Wait. You two? You two know each other?" He asked, incredulous.

Sheryl shrugged her shoulders, refusing to look either in the eyes. "We worked together."

Nightfall was the next to walk into the room. "Fox and Little Cato are attempting to fix the damages that our..." she paused before giving the man a look over, "stowaway caused."

"And the others?" Gary asked, shifting nervously. He didn't want Morty alone with Clarence or KVN.

"Clarence is doing who knows what and I frankly don't care." Nightfall rolls her eyes, "Ash and Morty are on their way here."

Sheryl watched the man perk up at one of the names that was spoken. She raised her eyebrow in interest.

"What's the matter, Rick? You know something?" She snorted, watching Rick sink into his seat.

The man said nothing, averting his eyes.

The door opened again as Ash and Morty stepped into the room.

"The engines are almost back up! We can get movin--" Morty exclaimed with a smile before his gaze caught on the person sitting across the room and he froze.

"Morty? You okay, bud?" Gary asked, concern in his voice.

Morty couldn't stop the tears in his eyes from falling and in a small voice, he whimpered.

"Grandpa Rick..?"

Everyone in the room froze in shock, eyes darting between the two.

Rick let out a deep sigh before looking Morty in the eyes. "Hey, Morty."

Morty couldn't stop himself and immediately ran over to the man and threw himself at him, latching onto Rick and crying into his chest.

[sleepy-starbits]

[cookiexrevoked]

do you and Quinn ever fight over Gary?

“She DOES NOT like me. Reminds me everyday she invented that override chip…”

{{Sorry about the lack of activity! My sister just got married so I was busy :D B back now!}}

[junkanimate]

Some Quinn sketches

[celebi9]

A bunch of Final Space drawings I did on Discord last year!

I patiently wait for the new season!

[a-l1ttl3-b0y]

FS S3 SPOILERS //

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I demand more interactions from Quinn and Biskit, maybe Airmom 0v0?

And I also want to see more about Kevin V. and Nightfall, I'm glad that she is still important to the history of the series

[alfairy]

It’s so upsetting knowing that all the alternate Gary’s always waited for Quinn to come and save them like how he went to save her, but she never came...

[randompicturesofash]

[metamorphicrocky]

final space the hidden light my beloved.....spoiler warning

OH MY GOD I LOVED THAT EPISODE???? gary and quinn talking about their relationship was SO WHOLESOME I LOVE MY EMOTIONAL SUPPORT STRAIGHT COUPLE. KEVIN IS GREAT, I WILL DIE FOR BISKIT, THE PACING AND WRITING WAS FANTASTIC AND EVERYTHING HIT PERFECTLY OH MY GOD. THE DIALOGUE WAS HILARIOUS AND HURT ME. WHEN THEY MENTIONED NIGHTFALL???? BROKEN. I NEED THE NEXT EP I AM SO WORRIED FOR LITTLE CATO BUT FUCK THE LORD COMMANDER IS BACK HELL YEAH THIS WAS SO GOOD. AND AI HUE!!!! GALAXY 02!!!!! YESSSSSSS

[halorvic]

“I’ve killed you one hundred different ways and one hundred different times and every time Invictus always takes you — and the cycle begins again. But this time feels different. And when it takes you, tell it we’re coming to kill it.”

[niyana-the-ambiguous-mobian]

QUINN IS LITERALLY NIGHTFALL NOW OH MY GOD I SCREAMED WHEN THEY SHOWED THE HEAD THING (I can't remember the name of it)

I KNOW! I WAS SHAKING WHEN HUE SHOWED THEM IT. Both from excitement and fear.

It's honestly become a full trapezoid now.

[elecktrum]

Chapters: 43/? Fandom: Final Space (Cartoon) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Avocato & Gary Goodspeed, Gary Goodspeed & Little Cato, Quinn Airgone & Gary Goodspeed, Avocato & Little Cato (Final Space), Avocato/Gary Goodspeed, Quinn Airgone/Gary Goodspeed Characters: Gary Goodspeed, Avocato (Final Space), Little Cato (Final Space), Fox (Final Space), Ash Graven, Nightfall (Final Space), Quinn Airgone, HUE (Final Space), AVA (Final Space), KVN (Final Space), Mooncake (Final Space), Lord Commander (Final Space), Chuckie, Nikos, bodek Additional Tags: AU Timeline, Canon-Typical Violence, Time Travel, almost canon, Friendship, Family, Assassination attempts, headcanons galore, lots of made-up alien species, Trauma, Healing, xenocide, gary/cato in an off-kilter sort of way, Original Character(s), Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, hurt gary, hurt avocato, Slavery, Angst, Whump, Whumping Summary:

To preserve the present, sometimes you have to save the past.

[awesomejustgotawesome]

[kasumingo]

“yOU LIED TO ME. YOU DIDN’T SAY THERE WAS A SIXTH KEY!”