#supa strikas mac

[irlnorthshaw]

ARE YALL SEEING THIS???? HWAT.

[emodonnie]

okay, okay, I know we all love the deadly duo but what about them

the besties forever ><

they kinda give of sibling energy ngl or is that just me

[bonimaniac]

this episode was so fun

I will never get over the shortest players climbing onto the other player's back

THEYRE SO WHOLESOME <///3

Cant forget these two. I feel like they're father diaghter but also not.. what other dynamic could they be

One of my favourite episodes of season 5. Matter of fact, season 5 is just top tier.

[lexygabe]

lena needs a raise and a vacation with brenda. and both of them deserve to have gossip sessions with ben and mac

(i just know all of them have the wildest opinions about every sl player)

[1v31182m5]

Kinda trying to squeeze information out of this but the fact that there was even Dingaan and CJ's childhood recordings but not Skarra's bothers me so much (absolutely not saying those were unnecessary I seriously love childhood memories so much and I need more) especially the biggest chance of it being wasted in the rookie season with housemates for some reason? I'm gonna use JH and Ricky as a representation of how his parents are like if you don't mind.

Like they're neglectful and living in their own world and doesn't care if he wins or loses the soccer thing not mainly because we love you regardless baby but because they just don't really gaf.

Don't even say they weren't neglectful lmao they didn't even care about his "big deal match" and only came because he used their food so he would pay them back. They needed dinner and weren't there for support or any interest. The other matches they watched together was because someone they literally knew made it to supa strikas and they didn't even care anything about soccer as a real life thing nor had a team to support until this time, clearly showing they've never done this before.

So far the only canon information there is about Skarra's family is:

•He has a mom

•He likes jam sandwiches

•His mom doesn't makes or didn't make jam sandwich

I already headcanon he grew up poor and his childhood most significant memory of a food he likes being just jam adds up to it. I mean jam isn't known to be a low income family food like how canned food, frozen pizza or something but this being like his favorite food is so odd kids usually like idk other types of food to their appetite. Strudels for example lol. Jam is such a generic food idk I've never seen someone liking it that much I am just thinking that this was the best he could find.

And the fact he was just remembering the memory of when he wasn't even receiving the jam sandwich?? That's like one of the easiest to find breakfast food ever. Assuming that he's not sulking about his Big Mac with 2 mini cheeseburgers lunch with "ouhh but I wanted jam :(" he probably just got handed a butter on bread.

Like do you see where I'm getting with this he likes something so simple as jam so much and is not even receiving that. Now ik that might be a moment of him just being a spoiled brat who wrinkles his nose to what his mom's giving to him and then maybe his mom then makes another sandwich, it could be interrupted like that too if you wish, but I don't know man asgdgfad his tone was so gentle "buwt mommy (⁠･ั⁠ω⁠･ั⁠ u)" that did not sound angry spoiled brat to me at all. I'm just headcanonning he grew up poor.

[abyss-strikas]

Thoughts on Game Over??

Asking the hard hitting questions here, haha. I'll put my thoughts under a Read More because I feel this is going to get long. I have a lot of thoughts on the episodes, as much as anyone else does in the fandom.

But, in my honest opinion, the episode itself was okay. Not bad, but not great either.

TL;DR: I don't think "Game Over" is the worst episode of the series, but how it was executed is quite mixed. Especially considering the information from Rookie Season, I am not surprised at Shakes having this kind of dream to explain his burnout, but the decisions made in that dream needed to be explained more as most of it was definitely out of character for him, but I have my own assumptions as to why he did do it in the dream. 7/10 for me.

I like the concept of the episode, and I like it tried to explore the topic of burnout. Everyone hits that at some point, and everyone gets over it at some point. I, myself, believe that there doesn't seem to be a lot of media that focuses on burnout in sports teams, whether it be the players themselves or the coaches. I will say I am a bit biased towards the idea of Shakes getting burned out as I myself feel like I am in a strange burn out ever since I got a different job during the pandemic.

Be it the comics or Rookie Season, Shakes has always been put on some sort of pedestal. Graduated highschool at the age of 16 (RS), expected to wear his father's number when he first joined Supa Strikas because his dad was an amazing player for the team (The old comics, which of course got retconned in the TV series). He is the best striker on the team, the most helpful, very kind and caring, the fans always want to see him, is on par with El Matador for goals, gets lots of awards, so on and so forth.

To me, Shakes definitely has tones of gifted kid syndrome. Screw it, he is one, especially when it comes to sports and athleticism. Aside from his love of history and always wanting to learn about, it's no surprise when everything sports comes naturally to him. Most of the time anyways (Sepak Attack; definitely knew some of the moves but not the ones exclusive to the sport). No one can deny he's got that spirit, the soul of football inside him and in his blood.

But putting that to the side first, especially the lore we learned from Rookie Season, I will agree that the execution of the burnout is still a mixed bag. While the positive of this is that it explores a topic that is related to mental health and in a sports environment of all things, the build up to the burnout and the dream itself is pretty nonexistent. We just see Shakes play terribly against Technicali and we hear Mac and Brenda comment on his poor performance of the season. But the episodes before this shows Shakes excelling as he usually does.

Now I know the episodes in any Supa Strikas season don't need to be watched in any order, except having the Super League final game always be the last episode, but I really think they could have sown those seeds of doubts in Shakes before the episode finale. Either show him be annoyed that The Sheikh is up to his no good tricks again (Weather Or Not), or have him verbally tell Rasta that he feels like he's hitting some sort of mental block (Training Daze), or literally have him roll his eyes and go "Here we go again..." in any episode that features a repeat team doing some sort of shenanigan to halt Supa Strikas's plans.

(Picture break so it's not a whole paragraph of words, but also to show what Shakes could probably be feeling every time something happens)

He literally is also the guy on the team to do most of the investigating when he thinks something is up, and most of the time no one else thinks to join him or even offer up some help. The team alludes to this in "Food For Thought" when they're using the voice app to say the most common phrases Shakes would say if he was there. Now, it's not all the time he does everything on his own. "Cheese, Lies, and Videotape" have him, El Matador, and Klaus working together to escape the sewers, Shakes and North escape Iron Tank after finding out what they were investigating in "Icy Grip", and the team themselves have backed up Shakes numerous times ("Bringing Down The House", "Total Replay", "Broken Record").

The paragraph above is mostly what I think and what I assume, but since Shakes is technically the main character of the series, I just find that when all options come down to him finding out what's going on, it does get stale. Why not have another character do the investigation or choose to do it? I'm just thinking of this now but–when the other guys get in trouble, it's always Shakes bailing them out. Not all the time, but it's always him bailing them out of trouble.

All of this to say, if we don't include what we got from Rookie Season and only focused on the main seasons, everything that happens to Shakes, or what he chooses to do, can really take a heavy toll on someone. Especially on Shakes since he seems to be the youngest one on the team. Even before it was confirmed in Rookie Season, he really did act as the newest and youngest member of the team; a lot of this pressure on one person to be the "best of the best" can't be dealt with alone.

We have seen before how the pressure from his team or the fans affects him. "Broken Record" is a peak example of that, but I would also argue that "End of Dreams" showed this as well. Even though I don't think Coach eventually told Shakes that the results he got from being in that test machine was a result of a malfunction, Shakes basically felt left out that he wasn't doing a training program at the same intensity of his other teammates. So I believe he put that pressure on himself to find out his results, and basically ignored the warnings from Coach.

Side tangent in regards to the paragraph above, but I do like it does show a bit of Shakes's ego basically telling him to go find out what's in the briefcase. Same thing happened in "Your Latest Trick" where the pressure from the others at Rasta's house, Skarra's trick video, and essentially everyone in the whole wide world seeing the video, made him make the decisions to join the competition when he previously didn't want to. And then as it progressed into the match, his ego got the better of him until his team reeled him back in. Don't always get to see that a lot from him.

But getting back to the topic, Shakes having a burnout from the thing he loves doing, the one thing he's revolved his whole life around, that was probably heartbreaking for him to come to that realization. While it does happen in the dream, I will agree with the majority that the whole dream itself trying to describe the burnout was done poorly. But I also can kind of understand the end of the dream itself.

I am definitely not commending Shakes for blocking his whole team and his friends, especially one from his childhood. When you come to the realization that you are burnt out, you NEED a support system or you will never get out of it. But I can understand the thought process of him doing this, especially if he is in a vulnerable and emotional state. We KNOW the dream was just a dream, but if Shakes was dealing with trying to find a reason to keep playing, then he was probably thinking that his teammates wouldn't understand because they were so enthusiastic about why they play football. He was already trying to find someone else to blame in his dream, somehow coming up with a genderbent version of Toni Vern of all things, but he already knew that the problem originated with him. His brain literally created Special Agent John Hack-it to tell him that "No, you are burnt out. Stop blaming others and start looking to why you're in this state."

Except I believe a selfish part of him tells his brain, "Just take a break and go do something else related to football. Better yet, just give up and start over, just like what you would do in your video games :)" When I really think it should have been, "Maybe take a break from football and do a little bit of soul searching. Stay connected with your peers and family, they could give a different perspective on the situation you are going through. Your team really did want to look out for you, but you should tell them why you felt that you didn't think they did." Instead of him walking down the sandy beach and blocking everyone close to him to start over.

I MEAN, seeing Shakes NOT doing football is weird since that is essentially who he is and what his character is basically based on, but it would also be interesting to see Shakes in an environment that isn't football. Just not in this way at all. He shouldn't just be giving up on the one thing he's done for his whole life in one day, that stuff takes a lot of time to process and decide on what to do because it's THE FUTURE and you have to be prepared for whatever could happen.

So overall, I think "Game Over" was an interesting episode to try and explore the topic of burn out, but the way it's executed leaves a lot to be desired. Especially since the topic of burn out is so closely related with mental health, I do think that topic should have been explored more in the episode too. The episode was missing the build up to the main conflict itself (the dream) where we could have seen Shakes start losing his touch in every game he plays, and prior episodes of the season, and the seasons before season seven, could have had elements of Shakes showing he was getting tired of the "same old, same old" in his life. If we had the information that was showed in Rookie Season before we even had Rookie Season, I think it would have made the episode much better.