#i like to think hes never even come close to winning. he insists on retrying anyways

[ikilledamanforthisurl]

Minami anon x4 but you bring up a lot of really interesting points abt like subcultures / attitudes and also more personal life stuff I never thought about b4! In my head the kinda headcanon justification I made for myself was like the idea Minami used to be formerly realllyyyyy low on the yakuza ladder and as thus kinda just acted like a robot / as dully competent as possible (he wouldn’t drink because What If that affects his ability to Do Anything etc) and so on and Internally Really Wanting To Live A Much different life / be more important then just Another Guy In this Organisation. Which is why he clings so hardcore onto emulating Majima who IS someone eye catching and attention grabbing and to him Important. I think my main basis for this is all of the times Minami in like fight scenes acts really dramatically and even when he loses tries to insist on Keeping On Fighting UNTIL Majima walks in and Minami completely shuts down and just lets him Do As He Does. Sorry if this is a rly big deviation I didnt have a lot to respond to your previous answer outside of I think it’s all really interesting especially the stuff in tags regarding his tattoos (who is she fr!) and if this were a situation where we were having a more private one on one conversation i'd nod very enthusiastically

HAHAHA i know this feeling. thank u for indulging me either way anon and idm the deviation it's like waving a new set of keys in front of my adhd ass. passionate conversations with me derail all over the place i'm very used to it ^_^

and i really like your point about him not wanting to blend in, wanting to Stick Out as a Somebody. it would not phase that kind of Minami if drinking + whatever else was the norm amongst his peers. perhaps it was influence from Majima that convinced him to drink after all........ its certainly what i like to think....... makes their stupid toxic dynamic hurt a little more

and i am so glad u also noticed the way he refuses defeat every chance he gets it literally plagues my thoughts the most.... i think about it sooooo much so so soo much. it's definitely an ego thing + just another nod to Minami's utter reverence of Majima. he goes from being pretty emotional and throwing a tantrum when you Throw Off His Groove™ but forgoes doing what he wants the second the bossman gives the order. Boss' word takes all priority, regardless if you're stupid, or emotional, or whatever else.

I love picking this apart trying to discern their dynamic but it also reflects on how Majima is with his men in general..... I've yet to see any of his boys defy him. And for good fucking reason (insert montage of him smacking around his own men)........ Minami also kindof reflects this in how he strings along a bunch of his fellow Family men to watch him fuck around on the karaoke machine, who CLEARLY don't want to be there but tolerate him regardless! I'd like to think he doesn't randomly assault them though. Not over small shit anyways, he seems pretty lenient and understanding (see: "shit happens"). He's probably just very obnoxious when ribbed, as he is in many other aspects. Or hell, maybe he shuts down and gets so bummed out that its obnoxious in a really cringefail pitiful way

Ideally Majima's garnered respect not strictly through violence.... We have all seen how personable he can be and how he got himself roped into helping random folks all over in y0. Ideally Minami even less so, if he is as lenient as he seems. Which leads me to asking what's up with his title, "junior leader"? What the fuck even is that? Surely it doesn't bring all that tolerating respect with it yknow. I dont think anyone else in the series is a JL. We're not particularly clued in to how Yakuza life actually works in the game about Yakuza, but you can bet I can pull ideas out of thin air to tie stuff together if given scraps

Least likely in my opinion: JL is literally a next-of-kin for a leader position in the Family, possibly for patriarch itself, which implies a much closer relationship between Minami & Majima than we're ever clued into. i'm also not so sure it suits him (though i can pull arguments for it out of thin air as well if you want) since he really seems like the kinda guy happy doing his regular grunt work. brother is not patriarch material imo...... not for what i personally believe a patriarch's duties are, anyways.

Funnier option: he got the role to be appeased. you mentioned that you think he wants to Be Somebody and i completely headcanon-same..... this scrappy little shitkicker kid waltzed in one day, hounded someone until they let him join, and has been gunning for respect ever since. not necessarily power, i'd like to think he wants to be well-liked, but also, it's totally an approval-from-the-father thing. he wants to do good enough for Majima to Notice. since Minami wouldn't know subtlety if it socked him in the face, it's not difficult in the slightest to see this and he gets thrown a Special Role because he's just the most Specialest Boy Ever.... in this case Junior Leader probably just reflects stuff he was already good at while working. Couldve been a socialite amongst the new kids on the block, could even be a trainer. Higashiyama and Nojiri (Dead Souls Majimagumi) seem to imply that recruiters and their recruitees generally work one-on-one and get to know one another pretty well, but that could easily just be a Them thing. I'm sure there's plenty of newbies who get recruited by already-busy blokes.... fuck it, have Minami show them the ropes, get em ready ASAP and keep it going......... yknow that type of thing

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Proven Innocent Season 1 Episode 12

As you might imagine, following the end of the previous episode, Bellows goes in front of the press to crow about this arrest.

Meanwhile, Madeline is being harassed in prison by the guards who are denying her any basic rights beyond clothes, food, and a bed. And there's little that she can do about it.

Violet goes on her podcast to thank everybody for their support of Madeline. As you might have noticed, but she's got a lot of people who support her, and not just because she helped them or their loved ones get out of jail. (Like the trans/drag queen community.)

However, this then segues into their actual case du jour... because yeah. We're not just going to wrap up the Madeline Scott case in a single episode. Le sigh.

Their client: he was brought into the country from south America when he was three years old by his mother after local gangs brutally murdered his father. He was arrested for having killed his teacher.

The main evidence against him was the teacher's laptop that was found in his possession. However, a witness says that the laptop had been a gift as a reward for all of his hard work. The police “accidentally” erased the hard drive, but the witness insists that the laptop had been set up to send and receive text messages, which corresponds to the family's cell phone bill.

As this witness is testifying, the victim's husband stands up and screams about how they're making a mockery of his dead wife. The judge gets angry and almost kicks him out.

Easy later goes to see Madeline in jail. As you might imagine, everybody feels bad. Easy feels guilty for not having seen this coming, even though Madeline assures him that how could they have known what Bellows was plotting? Madeline just feels defeated, because she's back in prison, even after all these years. She clearly wants to think about Easy's current case (which is the only one that they couldn't postpone) in order to take her mind off from her own awful situation, but Easy tells her to focus on her own situation.

She asks if Levi was arrested, too, but Easy checked and there's no record of this. This leads Bodie to break into Levi's apartment. Literally all of his things are there... including a wallet with a driver's license. (Although it's not exactly that much of an indication, as he could have another wallet and license... Slim but it's possible.)

Bodie then goes to see Sarah, the chick that Levi had spoken to about the cult, since she was the last person who actually saw him. She doesn't want to talk while at her work, but promises to meet them at Sparrow Ridge tomorrow, her day off.

Meanwhile, Easy gets a witness to the crime to testify. He was a neighbor, who had seen the client going into the teacher's house that morning. However, the timeline doesn't match up. See, the teacher was murdered around 4 AM, and who gets up to do yard work at 4 AM? Like a normal person, the witness was asleep, and saw the client going into the house around 7 AM. The judge agrees to release the client on bail, but as they're leaving the courtroom, ICE agents come and arrest him.

Easy goes to the immigration courts, where he's appalled to see a four year old being questioned by the judge. As you might imagine, this four year old literally has no clue what's going on, only that his parents aren't there. (It's never stated if the little boy even speaks English, but you have to admit that it is a possibility.) Easy is disgusted by this, and steps in to offer “council” on the little boy's behalf. The judge is quick to jump onto the “WTF am I even doing?” train as soon as Easy questions him about this, and asks that the prosecutor look to find the boy's parents.

Meanwhile, Bellows is continuing to celebrate his win. Even though an arrest does not make him attorney general. But he's having celebratory drinks in his office anyway. Isabel then comes up to him and says that she can't be second chair without letting Levi know that he'd been set up. (It had been what Bellows had promised her if she did this for him.) However, it's then that Bellows shows his hand: he never intended for Isabel to be second chair on the case. In fact, he literally fires her on the spot. She's furious, and asks what's stopping her from telling Easy about all of this. He says that he'd have her law license for doing something like this, and implies that it might have been all her idea in the first place. He then tries to soothe her by asking her to wait until all of this is over, and then she'll have a fancy job working for the attorney general. (And damn, I really hope that this comes back to bite him in the ass.)

Back in immigration court, both Easy and the prosecutor for the case fight for the client du jour to remain in this country. The judge finds it odd that the prosecutor would be willing to fight for somebody that he believes is a murderer, but the prosecutor says that he's not going to just give up. He goes on to say that the gang who killed the client's father only formed because USA keeps shipping violent criminals back to south America, and doesn't want to feed into any more violence. (Although, if this is the case, then why didn't they ship the client back? He'd been convicted of a crime. I'm confused as to how that works.) The immigration prosecutor says that the client is convicted and violent, but since he's currently sitting in prison... He's not exactly much of a danger to society at large now, is he?

Wren goes to visit Madeline in prison. Madeline feels insanely defeated, and she lets her emotions get the better of her with Wren, since she knows exactly what it feels like to be in prison with little to no hope. Wren is quick to tell her not to go down that thought rabbit hole.

In court, Easy says that he has new evidence of other suspects. However, Bellows continues to show his bias towards Madeline to the point where I have no idea why anybody is letting him anywhere near this case in the first place. Like damn, this guy has a clear and obvious vendetta against Madeline. Easy calls Bellows out on his bullshit, stating that this is nothing more than a publicity stunt so that he can get elected... which it 100% is. Let's not lie about this. The judge eventually says that she'll hear Easy's evidence in closed court, and determine if it's enough to move forward with his defense. She gives him three days.

Later, Bellows calls Heather in both to ream her up for hiding about this cult... but also to prep her. She defends her actions as a teenager, and says all of this nonsense about spiritual enlightenment. Which sounds literally like somebody in a cult would say. However, Heather also insists that all they did was “hang out” and “take drugs”. Maybe they had sex with the guy, but he apparently vanished the day before Rosemary was killed. At least, according to Heather. Bellows is still insistent that Madeline is guilty as fuck-all, though, and refuses to even remotely consider literally any other possibility. Which makes him scary as a lawyer, because he refuses to be objective about anything. (And if he's this emotional about the Scott case, what else did he push forward with his gross agendas?)

Meanwhile, Sarah meets with the legal team at Sparrow Ridge. She tells them that when it was in use as their cult hang out, it was obviously filled with stuff and not just... gross mattresses and cobwebs. She repeats what she'd already told Levi, but with more detail: Robbie would give them all drugs, and then they'd have sex with him. Sometimes individually, but sometimes as a group/with other girls. Heather was the favorite until Rosemary came along. Sarah only joined late in the game. The legal team presses her for any information that she can give them about Robbie, like what his full or actual name might be. However, she doesn't know much. It's one of those things “looking back, there were so many red flags. But as a teenager, it was literally the best thing ever!” She does offer up one bit of important information: Heather is the one who “found” him, and she found him through such-and-such church.

Later, Easy goes back in court... with more trouble with ICE. The witness who said that the kid was seen entering the victim's house at 7 has been deported. Because of course he has. He'd testified earlier, but the judge won't allow that testimony to come into play. The prosecutor denies having turned the witness into ICE.

Easy later bitches about this to Bodie, when Bodie gets a call from his girlfriend; he forgot to pick the kid up from school. He rushes down there, and finds the kid talking with a woman who introduces herself as the druggie mother. She says that she's not supposed to see her son, and whines that she's been clean for 10 months. Bodie tells her that there's nothing that he can do and that she should take it up with the courts.

This leads to Bodie fighting with his girlfriend about this. She says that he's clearly taken with his sister's charms, but she's actually just a horrible person. She's insanely worried that if her sister gets anywhere near the kid... poof. He'll be kidnapped, and then that'll be the last anybody sees of him. Bodie is quick to assure her that he's going to help her fight to retain her custody of the kid, which calms her down immensely.

Back with Bellows, his political sugar daddy complains that reopening the Rosemary case and retrying Madeline makes everybody look not only bad, but also unhinged. And despite the fact that he's the one who pushed Bellows to do this... he's starting to have more than a few regrets about the entire thing.

Madeline and Easy track down the lady who once ran a ministry with this Robbie fellow. That “church” is gone now, which she blames on Robbie himself. She doesn't seem surprised at anything that they tell her, including that he might have murdered a teenage girl. However, she said she signed an NDA. Easy says that those are void if a member of the party dies. But she smiles and says “the devil never dies”. She goes on to say that Robbie almost ruined her life once, and she's not going to let him do it again. The only thing that she has to offer is the name “Robert Carter”. Which isn't exactly a unique name, but it's something.

They go back to the office, where they're quick to notice a few things about their case du jour. First off, the crime scene was ransacked, which led police to believe that it was a robbery. There were broken things everywhere. However, what happens when you knock a lot of things over? It's loud. And what do people not like at 4 AM? Hearing their neighbors being loud. No noise complains from any of them. They look at the crime scene photos, which... now it's painfully obvious that they're all staged to look awful, but to not make a lot of noise.

Bodie then offers up an alternate: the husband was away some 200 miles on a business trip at the time. However, it's probable that he drove back into town in about three hours, took two hours to murder his wife and stage the scene, and then drive back in another three hours in time to show up for the conference breakfast. He's about to go see if it's possible, when he suddenly remembers Madeline and her case. She insists that he go. This leads her into saying that she doesn't want for them to focus on her WHEN she's convicted, and to focus on getting other innocent people out from jail. The others are quick to point out that it's not going to happen!!

So Bodie sets off on his “road trip”, and tries to hit up the gas stations along the way and ask if the people working there have seen the victim's husband. He finally strikes payday at one gas station.

Meanwhile, Madeline goes to talk to Linda, the gothic chick. She's scared about everything, as previously mentioned by Levi. She confirms the story that Heather had previously told Bellows (but that they don't know about) that Robbie had vanished before Rosemary was murdered, and then that was the last they saw of him. She agrees to testify, if only because she feels like she needs to right some wrongs.

So Easy gets this gas station attendant on the stand, who easily is like “I know that guy”. The prosecution asks how he remembers that man, when the attendant admitted himself that he probably gets 100 customers a day. However, the attendant has a weird story to tell: the man got gas, and then drove off with the pump still in his car. It wrecked the pumping stations. Which... yeah. I think that I'd remember a fucknugget like that.

The husband tries to leave, but the judge is like “I don't think so.” She then releases the client. The prosecutor tells Easy that he'll work on the client's dreamer status being returned to him.

And finally, the part that we were all waiting for... Well, sort of. Easy's evidence hearing. Bellows objects to Easy's use of the word “cult”, however, Madeline is quick to point out that the former church Robbie ran (with that lady from earlier) is defined as a church. Easy also enters the sworn affidavits of Linda and Sarah into evidence. The judge doesn't quite buy it, especially because everybody is pretty damned sure that Robbie is currently no longer among the living. However, she's a little more willing to listen to what Easy has to say when he mentions that Robbie not only gave the girls drugs, but they were some intense drugs, and then he had sex with them. Which not only goes back into the cult thing, but also about the affidavits. The judge is satisfied with this, and allows Easy to present this theory at a new trial. Easy also brings up the fact that Linda admits that she lied on the stand at the original trial. Bellows starts to look more than a little panicked as he realizes that his entire case is quickly crumbling. The judge herself encourages Bellows to “quit while he's behind”, but Bellows is clearly going to go kicking and screaming until all charges against Madeline are completely and utterly put to bed once and for all.

Bellows later calls Madeline to his office to offer her a deal. But since she's innocent, she refuses. He then plays his trump card: he has Levi in protective custody, because he's a key witness.