#itsmuranswers

[mursduckproblems]

Would you be willing to make a gif of the finale scene where Gos and Lena start blowing things up?

Hi anon! It took me a bit to get a clean copy of the Finale, but here we go! I can do more later, but here’s some of my favorite bits!

(Gif Flash + Flashing warning!)

[mursduckproblems]

I'm sorry the guy going everywhere with smoke bombs was not a theater kid?

Okay so here's the thing, I just can't really get behind DT17 Darkwing being a theater kid. I know this is like, the popular fan-headcanon that everyone has accepted as canon, but it just doesn't work for me. Like, at all. It feels forced? I've got several reasons, actually!

- So if we're going by the show saying that LP's birthday is 1987 per the original show airing (on his license) we can say that DT17 Drake's birthday is probably in 1991. Which meant that he'd be in high school in the early to mid 2000s. The mid 2000s were pre-nerd culture being cool, including superheroes and anime. And even if they weren't pre-nerd culture being cool, Drake openly says he was SUPER bullied growing up.

He's the SUPER NERD comic book kid, and if original Darkwing was supposed to be a crappy niche live action show, we can say he's the kung fu kid. The Kung Fu kid in the early-to-mid 2000s is probably what you'd consider the equivalent of the Naruto Kid. He's acting stuff out, he's making up his own routines, he's doing parkour up and down the stairs, he's dressing up like Darkwing, he's copying lines from the show, and everybody hates him. Not to mention that one of his main gags from the new show is being forgettable and nobody remembers him.

- Nobody is going to pick the kid everybody hates for a school play, let alone even let him be tech. That implies that he's liked enough by both the theater teacher, that people are willing to listen to him, AND the other kids to be considered for a role in the theater program. And even if he did get picked, everybody knows he'd be trying to make things more dramatic, or be the kid who knew everybody else's lines that the teacher hated, or want to add fog machines and revise the script to add more danger, and... yeah it would just be a disaster. Also like, theater has its own cliques too? And I can't see him fitting into any clique haha.

- Furthermore, I don't think Drake had the privilege that would make him able to be a theater kid. He was totally a start-working-as-soon-as-you-turn-16 kid. If he's got an after school job, he's totally not doing theater. He can't be taking the late bus if he's getting out of school at 5PM when he could be punching a clock at 3PM and working til 9 or 10 for some extra cash for all that sweet Darkwing merch. Plus, he'd probably think every job is training for Darkwing stuff. (This goes doubly so for if he has a crappy home life or if he is a foster kid. No way his parents would pay for him to do theater stuff, and he would want to save money for moving out. Extracurriculars are EXPENSIVE yo.)

- Also he seems like he's trained for Darkwing for a very long time. Now I've worked in [entertainment park redacted] with performers who did a role that was basically a stunt role for several years. It was a super cool role imo, but definitely less demanding than Darkwing. To get that role, they had to do multiple fitness tests, and a "boot camp." All of them were athletes. Some of them would legit just go to the gym between their sets. Sure, they loved acting, and a lot of them adored the characters they were playing, they gave them personality and made awesome stuff happen! But I think most of them were more focused on raising the number they could bench than remembering lines from Hamlet. Not because they wouldn't want to, but because they wouldn't have time. A lot of them were get-up-at-5am-to-go-running type guys.

- I bet if Drake was trying to model his life after Jim Starling, he was trying to train himself to do all kinds of stunts, to withstand any amount of pain, and to be able to never cut, since "Jim Starling Never Cuts." Maybe he even developed a strict training regimen for himself where he did get up early and go running before school, and he'd practice Darkwing moves after school. He's gotta learn pyrotechnics, gymnastics, martial arts, and to use all sorts of spy gear, after all! (And probably memorized lots of Goose Lee movies too~)

I swear I'm missing more stuff. But yeah, that's a few of the reasons I just think Drake in 2017-verse is more of a Naruto Kid (but with Darkwing instead of Naruto) than a theater kid. I'm also a big fan of the Drake-had-lots-of-part-time-jobs headcanon.

Obviously everybody is free to enjoy their theater kid headcanon, but this is my alternative!

[mursduckproblems]

In a recent ask you answered you mentioned Drake's mom being a cannon character did you mean in your fic, dt17, or dwd? If you mean in dt17 whered you see it because thats really interesting :)

Hi Anon! I did mean just for the fic, however it is one of my favorite headcanons for the show actually. (We won't have anywhere to include it in the fic anyways, and it actually makes a little more sense in context for DWD91 than for DT17 so here goes.) I like to think that Drake could be a lost Scrooge and Goldie kid. In our version of the story, Goldie never told Scrooge she had an egg with him, and kept it with her on her adventures. (She wouldn't stay home to keep an egg warm, of course she's out looking for treasure! So she just... brings it with her. She's competent, she can protect it.) However, on a particularly dangerous adventure, it toppled out of her bag without her realizing it.

By the time she realized it was missing and went looking for it, it was picked up and long gone. Also I love this idea of Goldie keeping the egg a secret from Scrooge in hopes that she could raise an adventure buddy to totally one-up Scrooge. Also so we could have a line like "Drake Mallard? You were supposed to be Danger O' Gilt!"

Sure, in Ducktales he's supposed to be like, 30, Goldie and Scrooge have been adventuring for well over a century, so having a lost adult kid isn't weird. It just works for me. Drake's flair for alliteration, his theatrical melodramatic tendencies, even his greed and sly tendencies. It also makes sense for his adrenaline junkie nature and his burning determination. (Especially how DWD91 Drake is straight up money greedy in a few episodes. I also considered making him a lost Scrooge and Magica kid as a possibility as well, but it was harder to make work in the specific context we have for the fic.)

All that said, it doesn't really matter where he came from, because he's got his own new family in Gosalyn and Launchpad. Hope that's a fun little idea to think about though!

[mursduckproblems]

You know I've seen headcanons were Drake is the triplets father, but this is the first hc were he is Scrooge's son. I know you're not going to include it in the fic but is a really cool idea.

Thanks! I feel like it's fun to draw parallels between Drake and Scrooge - whether it means could theoretically be Goldie's son or Magica's son (though for each it would be a very different story). Adventure, danger, and wit are in their bones! Hehehe. It's a fun headcanon for me anyway.

[mursduckproblems]

When Gosalyn recognized Drake I thought she was going to comment on how punchable his face is; Louie and Jim saying that before was my favorite joke.

Hahaha oh man, we should have! Drake certainly is punchable. He's probably wearing some super stupid smug grin in his headshot for multiple people to say that.

It probably looks something like this. With the elementary school picture day type background and everything.

[mursduckproblems]

You wrote fendrake, oh boy I knew you'll be awesome at it. I loved the fic and the art, great work :)

Thank you so much, anon! There's hardly any FenDrake out there, so I'm glad to add to the tiny pile! All of us FenDrake enjoyers can share a pizza!

I just really adore their dynamic, and somehow despite them both being pretty clever- Drake being a bit of a detective, and Fenton being very book smart, together they have ZERO brain cells. They complement each other really well, it was a pleasure to write! I'm very happy you enjoyed it!

(Also Drake and Rat's arts for it blew my mind, ;o; they're incredible!!)

[mursduckproblems]

Hi latest chapter was a delight great work you two, I loved how sweet it was. I have a question, the pieces we've seen of Drake's family, well they don't look like nice people or particularly closet to him, what's your headcanon for them?

First of all AAAAAAaaaaAA gosh thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it! So for this particular fic, we mention a few times that he was a "lost egg" but I don't think we ever explained it? So basically I consider it like an orphan, either lost or abandoned as an egg.

I like to think this Drake went through the foster system, and for the most part, his experience wasn't particularly bad, but it wasn't particularly good. He was surrounded by "well meaning adults" as I think I had him say or refer to in the Blockbuster chapters, but for the most part, he probably got his first job at 16, and struggled and saved to move out as soon as he turned 18. His foster parents probably helped, because they supported him and were generally pretty nice, but it wasn't like he needed to stick around anyway - he was aging out of the system. So DT17 kind of thwarted this whole headcanon (since we originally planned a sequel that told more, however the actual show did the twist we were going to put IN the sequel IN the finale... and we were planning this back in January), but we were going to have a post-epilogue scene in this fic that started with him getting a postcard from his birth mother (yes, she's a canon character, not an OC) with a photo of his egg attached (but not her face or name). Drake throws it out because he's an adult now and she's 30 years too late, but Gosalyn finds it and arranges for him to meet her...

[mursduckproblems]

On Drake preening Fenton: this duck just discovered affection and wants to share it with all his friends. I loved the latest chapter btw.

RIGHT? We thought it would be super silly and cute! Apparently that’s a thing real ducks to too! Male ducks who are bonded will help preen each other’s feathers, which I thought was super cute. It’s called allopreening, and it’s amongst families and friends within a flock, not just romantic partners. (Also Fenton’s picking at his feathers all the time is over-preening, which is apparently a sign of stress or anxiety in ducks, and I felt like that was relatable to me as a person with trichotillomania.)

I just LOVED the idea of it being this like, super normal family/friendship pasttime (like doing a friend’s hair or nails) that Drake missed out on and just wants to give to ALL HIS FRIENDS now! (Donald and Beakley totally preen their entire households imo.)

Thank you so much anon! I gotta just shove my love of Fenton and Drake friendship EVERYWHERE, it’s a wonder @rai-is-crispy puts up with all of it. Thank you SO MUCH, I cannot stress enough how happy I am that you’re enjoying our story!!!

[mursduckproblems]

I just wanted to say that I LOVE I'll be near, it's written so well! It's by far one of my favorite Drakepad fics. :D

OH GOSH thank you so much!!! @rai-is-crispy and I work on it every day, so I hope you enjoy the rest of it as well! At any given moment you can assume I’m thinking about Drake Mallard and his amazing wonderful himbo boyfriend!!

[mursduckproblems]

Drake, four chapters later while watching a movie with Launchpad; "wait, Gyro and Ma Cabrera know I'm Darkwing?"

sdgkhsghfhsgd INDEED that's kinda the vibe! /Pos Gyro found out back in chapter like, 7 or so when BOYD asked Drake about it point blank - he was in the room. And, well, nothing gets past Detective Cabrera! But you're so right haha, Drake definitely THINKS he's better at keeping a secret identity than he is. (At least Fenton knows and keeps track of people who figure Gizmoduck out!)

[mursduckproblems]

Give a theater kid magic, he will use it to be dramatic!

I actually don't see DT17 Drake as a theater kid at all, especially since he's a stunt guy, but that's a big explanation for another day oops ^^;;

DWD91 Drake, maybe. He had the sparkly outfit and everything.

But would he use magic to enhance his Darkwing entrances if he had it? 100%

[mursduckproblems]

Drake being Magica’s son would be very funny if he meets Morgana lol

Yes, totally! Though if we're going by DWD91 rules for magic, magic requires a lot of study and practice, (in Hot Spells they equate it to science, you have to do calculations and preparation and lots of research. Morgana even is doing a presentation based on a bunch of research she did in that ep), so it's not like Drake would be great at magic or anything.

I think with being Magica's lost son, it's a situation more similar to the comics (she and Scrooge have more of a rivalry and are on better terms than in DT17 where it's a life-revenge-pledge thing). I also think it would be a situation where she never meant to lose him, but in Scrooge defeating her and sealing her in the dime, of course she lost all her riches, and her egg, safely alone at home, would be taken away. Having already lost Poe by the time she has him, losing the egg would be the final straw as well, and she gives up on family because they're always taken away from her.

So of course Drake would grow up and have no knowledge of the fact that his mother is a sorceress and his father is the richest duck in the world -- in a way they're not really his parents anyway because he never considers them to be his parents. Which is probably for the better, because I think Magica lost a bit of her sanity and became consumed by revenge with all that time spent trapped in the dime. (As we see that she is Not Great to Lena at all, and Lena goes and gets her own family with the Sabrewings anyway.) However, being a lost Magica and Scrooge kid would explain his affinity for slinking through the shadows, using smoke bombs and theatrics, his long winded speeches, building a grand secret lair, and working under the cover of night! And we know Darkwing also has an affinity for getting mixed up in magical mishaps. I don’t see why a modern Drake would be any different.

I would LOVE TO SEE A NEW MORGANA THOUGH. If she's a duck I guess she'd be green since we have this magical-ducks-are-green thing going in DT17, but she could also be a raven or an Ibis bird, definitely some sort of bird closely linked to magic. I do like the idea if she's not green of her being red, dark grey, or black.

[mursduckproblems]

Hi!

This may be a spoiler, but I was a little unclear as to what happened in Chapter 25 with the mental breakdown? Was the prospect of being also cause the snap?

Otherwise, love the story. Your take and development into the characters is phenomenal and accurate to the canon! You and Rai are awesome!

To be as unspoilery as possible, I’ll try to keep it vague.

Drake couldn’t handle the crushing guilt of believing Jim, his hero, becoming Negaduck is his fault (it’s not, but he feels responsible, it took 2 encounters for him to really realize Jim was a bad guy before they even met him, he still had faith in him and wanted him to change until after the warehouse scene) and that separating him from LP (being tricked/manipulated by Negaduck into believing -something bad happened-), so he thought, by association, that whatever happened must have been his fault. Well, that and the crushing fear of loneliness because he and LP are supposed to be Darkwing Duck together. All of that piled up sort of just... breaks him.

So, he retreated into his mind to deal with the immediate danger he was in in the moment, playing pretend.

I always have our version of Drake playing pretend to cope with the situations he’s in, but also just because it cheers him up. Playing hero while they scale the stairs and giving those hero speeches while they’re picking up trash by the bay is supposed to call back to his introduction in The Duck Knight Returns, when he’s “saving” Launchpad, and then fighting him in his trailer.

THIS may be a slight spoiler for the fic: We do have a rule for writing Negaduck battles, which is that LP must be the hero of every single time they encounter Negaduck in a solo setting. Negaduck will always underestimate or write off Launchpad, and that’s why Launchpad always saves the day in those situations. This last encounter was transitional too, because Negaduck is also subtly changing, his mindset and motivations changing slightly from encounter to encounter - I bet you can tell where we are headed! :D

Anyhoot, sorry this was such a rambly reply. I hope that helps! I’m so happy you enjoy the story! We love these two very much.  @rai-is-crispy and I just want Disney to give the DT17 version of Drake and Launchpad their own story (with Gosalyn too!!!)!!!

[mursduckproblems]

Ngl Danger O’ Gilt is a pretty cool name.

RIGHT?! Maybe Scrooge owes Drake 30 years of Danger. And Danger is a gender-neutral enough name, Goldie was probably going to name her kid that regardless of their gender. Goldie and Danger, adventuring duo!

Drake Mallard is probably the duck equivalent of "John Doe." Poor guy.

Though maybe he picked it. Maybe he thought Drake was a super cool name. Who knows?

[mursduckproblems]

Is that your fic? Man I love that fic. Last chapter at Blockbuster was intense and you throw me a curveball I thought Drake was the one getting shanked. Great work I get really happy everytime you guys update. Btw for some reason I always read your username as surferbuddies :)

Yes! If you’re talking about (I’ll Be Near) To Chase Away Fear, I co-write that together with @rai-is-crispy ! All we do is think about Drakepad.

THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH! We never thought so many people would read it, just thinking about that people are enjoying it brings me SO MUCH JOY!!!

We’ve been writing this story together since the beginning of October, we are... I’ll say 3/4ths of the way done writing it, but I basically spend hours every day editing, in hopes that we can update roughly once a week!

Surferbuddies hehe I love that! I would love to surf! (Or carry me away in the surf like a pair of sunglasses lost by a tourist, never to be seen again~) Though I do promise we aren’t called sufferbuddies because we write about angst! We bonded over both having chronic pain, so we suffer, and are buddies who write together.

[mursduckproblems]

The funny thing is Detective Cabrera knows, but Fenton doesn't altough he thinks Drake is good enough to be the new Gizmoduck, which it's kinda sweet. It seems Fenton talked to his mom about Drake like he said he would a few chapters back, because she was happy to finally know him, but she doesnt wants Darkwing anywhere near her son.

Yep yep yep, pretty much!

She's glad Fenton is making friends, but she's not a fan of Darkwing's methods. She did meet Darkwing during moonvasion, but she doesn't want him getting Fenton into trouble. Still, he's an adult so she's not going to "police" his friends. Instead she'll just judge them harshly. OOPS.