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vinnystarman · 16 days

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EDDSWORLD LORE ANALYSIS BUT I'M ABSOLUTELY DERANGED!!!!

"Wait this thing has LORE????" Yes!!! IT HAS LORE

I just rewatched eddsworld for the 2334idfk443th time in a row and realized I haven't seen (not that there isn't I just haven't seen) people talking about the fact that the series seems to have a really weird (and quite frankly fragile) canon, this goes to some minor details like differences between the stages of the series (retro, classical, legacy and beyond) and other stuff like how I think we actually kind of know what in the actuall hell was Tord even doing in those 8 years between his original departure and the end in eddsworld legacy BUT I'M GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF before we start I want to make some points clear for the sake of clarity:

☆ I will be talking about the series and it's characters specifically in the context of the series, for example: I know why Tord the irl person left the series but I would be speaking only about Tord's (the character) departure, the same goes to any other irl event that had an impact on the series

☆ keep in mind this is only what I think (even though I think i'm absolutely right about everything) so if you disagree in any of my points that's absolutely fine!

☆ I will be speculating about future stuff so take all of those bits with a grain of salt because i'm a great observer but (unfortunatelly) not god so I can't acurrately see the future lolz

so…. how do we start?

well… we could start strong by one of the most interesting points I thought about!

as ridiculous as it sounds, i'm pretty convinced that Tom always knew about Tord's laboratory! and I have proof of it actually

one of the most solid proof I have appears in the episode "The Snogre" to be fair, that episode is gonna come up A LOT in this so you might want to re watch it first :3

in the minute 1:57 Tom apears with a "snow tank" that he uses to defeat the snogre, later, him and Edd have this exchange:

How'd you build that snow tank so fast?

Snow tank? (the snow falls off the ACTUALL TANK TOM CASUALLY IS OPERATING???)

this tank has the (i don't know how to call it so let's just say) serial number "CDT-01" which at the time was a nice little nudge to "moving targets" since it's the same tank the guys use in that episode but in this post "The end" world it should be noted that the "CDT-01" tank also appears in the minute 3:25 meaning up to that point the only way to access the tank was getting into Tord's laboratory and figure out what to press to get it (This tank might also be the one portrayed in movie makers but it's most likely that they are the same tank since they have the same serial number and in moving targets, this tank is stolen from Paul in that same episode AND THIS IS RELATED TO SOMETHING ELSE THAT I'M GONNA SAY HERE SO IT'S NOT A PLOT HOLE OK? BARE WITH ME)

the second one is that the lab was in Tom's room aka Tord's old room, this is the primary reason why Tord came back anyways, to get back to his laboratory (OR IS IT)

This is what I think happened:

Tom found a really suspicious button behind two frames (or one) maybe when he was moving his stuff into it and painting the walls (I highly doubt Tord had blue walls on his room), made a little mess trying to figure out what the actual fuck was going on, realized what it was and decided not to tell the guys because well… as we can see they LOVE pressing buttons and Tom knew it was gonna end up in catastrophe and shut his mouth because of that

that aside of ourselves, my second point:

The real reason why Tord was so hostile to Tom in the end wasn't (or at least not exclusively) because of his rivarly with him but more so because Tord wanted to capture monster Tom!

what do I mean by this? well to understand my point we need to understand how (i think) Tord and his army were operating at that time:

The red army as a whole has only been described once at this point in time and it was in the episode "Fun Dead" in the second 0:08 by the news lady as "Armed vigilantes" that were controlling the Zombie situation (that they [even though accidentally] caused) this meaning that as for now they aren't seen as a threat, on the contrary! They were helping the population! and maybe i'm giving Tord too much credit for this but I bet THAT (beeing seen as vigilantes and not some terrorist group) was intentional, you see, Tord is smart and a little manipulative, the most "evil" thing to do was letting the zombie infection run free and then take control of the post apocaliptic, in shambles world but he didn't, Why? you may ask; because he is more treacherous than Judas, that's why, maybe i'm looking a little too much into this but if this is the route he is going he would need more than one threat right? this is where monster Tom comes into play, I DON'T KNOW WHY ANY OF YOU HAVE EVER ASKED IT BUT WHY DID TOM BECAME A MONSTER RANDOMLY IN POWEREDD? I know it was hinted before that maybe he is half demon somehow??? BUT LIKE… MAYBE I'M DUMB BUT THAT'S WEIRD. And as the scientist he is (why don't I see more scientist Tord fanart?) Tord asked himself the same question, we know that because when we took a look into his laboratory we saw that he was studying monster Tom as it's shown in the end part 2 in the minute 2:42 (THIS GUY'S LAB IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK) this indicates that it isn't crazy to assume he was trying to take Tom out of his senses to get to monster Tom, because as we can see in that same episode he is wanted by the authorities for a large amount of money, probably because they got caught doing some sketchy stuff so, in an attempt to hype up his organization's reputation once more he tried to cause another problem for them to solve

this is what I think happened: Tord somehow knew about monster Tom and realized he could use him not only as another way to make his organization look like heroes to the public eye but also for studying (and maybe experimentation but not really sure since at that point Tord already had that weird chemical that gave life to stuff and converted people to zombies) he assumed the way to get to the monster was making Tom furious so that's what he tried, that's why he was specially hostile to Tom, that's why he was so surprised when Tom left the house (because i've seen people assume that was his objective but if it was then why did he looked so taken aback?)

continuing with Tord my next point is: We kind of know what Tord was up to all along and i'm not so sure he created the red army

WHAAAT???? VINCENT YOU ARE CRAZY FOR THAT ONE!!! WHAT MADE YOU THINK THAT TORD DIDN'T CREATED THE RED ARMY? THAT'S LITERALLY HIS TRADE MARK!!! HE IS THE RED LEADER, EVERYWHERE HE GOES THE RED ARMY SYMBOL APPEARS!!!

well yes, that is true but just because he later on becomes the red leader it doesn't mean he created the red army as it is.

let me explain: in the episode "moving targets" not only do we are shown Tord's fondness of militaristic activities but also in the minute 6:12 we see Paul and some unnamed enemy base guard (that i'm pretty sure had a fanon name but I completely forgot oh well) and you may ask "ok so what?" ... Sir that's Paul, this openly states that before he joined the red army, Paul was with this other random army which if you look closely has a suspiciously similar design to the red army's uniform, not only that but again, in Tord's lab we can see a picture of 4 people (minute 2:42) and these people are: Tord, the enemy base guard marked with a big X (maybe he's dead or simply left the army), Paul and Patryck, this meaning that Tord knew them from before, now, as always, here is what I think happened: After his departure in the episode 25ft under the seat, Tord at some point found the enemy army from the episode moving targets and considering how the gang messed them up they weren't in the best conditions, so at some point between the episodes movie makers and space face Tord takes control of this army and makes it HIS red army, this could've been by force or (what I see more plausible but who knows) joined the army as it is and began working his way up until he ended up leader of it CONTINUING WITH TORD BECAUSE HE IS A SNEAKY BASTARD (i love him i hate him so much) WHAT IS GOING ON WITH HIS LAB??? Tord's laboratory even though solves some questions it opens up even MORE questions like these: HOW DID HE KNEW ABOUT MONSTER TOM IF HE ONLY APPEARED IN POWEREDD AND THAT EPISODE AIRED LONG AFTER HE LEFT?? WHY DOES HE HAVE BARRELS OF THE WEIRD LIFE-GIVING CHEMICAL FROM "THE SNOGRE" AND "FUN DEAD" IF THAT ALSO HAPPENED LONG AFTER HIS DEPARTURE??? WHY DID HE INSTALLED A SECURITY SYSTEM IN THE HOUSE???

WHAT DOES THE MAP WITH THE NOTE MEAN???

well I have answers for 3 of those 4 questions, so, hear me out on this one: Tord kept using his laboratory even after he left. THIS SOUNDS CRAZY AND IT IS BUT HEAR ME OUT.

in the end part one, even though he was let in by edd Tord tried to sneak into Tom's room anyway, and he did it in a way that showed that maybe, just maybe it wasn't his first time doing it and if we look at it from a strategic perspective it's basically the perfect place to hide something like that.

it's a place that no one would search him in because well... at that point it had been years since he left, it's just a normal house where three friends live, nothing suspicious going on with that so if he had his laboratory right there it would be convenient... Really convenient, this is the reason he has stuff from stuff he couldn't have possibly had from before, that's why he had time to build his giant robot, he had all the time he was living there and also when he wasn't, that's what he knew about monster tom. that's why he had pictures of his army friends, that's why he had the chemical, because he never truly left.

this would also make my first idea even more possible because Tom wasn't even surprised to see Tord's laboratory in his room and Tord wasn't surprised either to see Tom there, this meaning that maybe somehow they had seen eachother before, maybe while Tord was sneaking in or out and Tom in an act of friendship decided to not get Edd or Matt involved for their own good

AND NOW, LET'S STOP SPEAKING ABOUT TORD FOR A MOMENT BECAUSE I NEED TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT EDD.

IS FUTURE EDD GONNA PROTAGONIZE THE COMICS MATT SPOKE ABOUT IN HIS UPDATES VIDEO?????

I HAVE PLENTY OF REASONS TO THINK THAT WE ARE GOING TO SEE MORE ABOUT THE FUTURE BRIEFLY POSTRAYED IN WTFUTURE BECAUSE IF WE TAKE AN ACTUALL LOOK AT THE TEASERS MATT SHOWED THEY SHOW A FUTURISTIC CITY WITH DRONES AND SOMEONE WITH EDD'S DISTINCT HAIR AND FUTURE EDD'S COAT ENTERING A BUILDING THROUGH THE WINDOW SO IN MY OPINION WE ARE GOING TO GET EVEN MORE INSIGHT ON HOW'S THE WORLD DOING UNDER THE RED LEADER'S LEADERSHIP WHOHOOOOO long live cola

that aside because I got overly happy when I remembered that

WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE LOBSTERS.

in the episodes "the surf and turf wars pt 1 and 2" we are presented with a new problem, for the ones that haven't seen it or don't remember, in the episodes, Matt gets turned into a lobster monster by a chemical with dubious origin, we actually have a name for this chemical! it's named "NM-8" and ok, this is maybe a far FAR stretch BUT I CAN'T POSSIBLY BE THE ONLY ONE WITH THE THEORIE THAT MAYBE, JUST MAYBE THIS CHEMICAL IS AN ADVANCED FORMULA OF THAT LIFE-GIVING CHEMICAL OF TORD'S I say this since both substances have similar effects, and according to this, in the same episode, the barrel of nm-8 ends up there anyways because while transporting the chemical THAT IS WIDELY STATED THE ORIGIN OF IT IS HIGLY CONFIDENTIAL NO QUESTIONS ASKED the ship hits a bump and when the captain asked "what happened" is sent to the brig because he broke the rule of not asking questions, this leading to the barrel falling overboard and ending up in the beach where it's found by Matt and the episode continues

who would need such level of secretism? who would need that much confidentiality? well I have certain people in mind, if we think about it from a narrative perspective it would make sense for the chemical to be property of the same guy (or guys) that made the other chemical to be responsible for it, maybe in some elaborate scheme to finally get back at the world after the giant robot fiasco and hey, maybe it was impossible before but now with the Tord Youtooz? WITH TORD APPEARING IN MATT'S VIDEO AS AN INTERRUPTION WITH THE STYLE OF A STOLEN TV SIGNAL???? IT'S PLAUSIBLE AND IT WOULD MAKE A LOT OF SENSE! but as always that is only speculation, I can't see the future, just theorize and communicate what I think and let's be honest, the next episode will probably be about the guys cleaning up the lobster mess (WHICH IS AMAZING AND I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE) but always remember, Tord ends up taking the world in the future anyways so stopping him right now, whatever he is up to is not really an option unless someone comes back from the future to help

AND THAT'S ALL SORRY IF IT'S MESSY, I STARTED WRITING THIS AT 3 AM AND HAD TO WRITE IT IN SEPARATED MOMENTS SO YEAH THE CONTINUITY IS NOT GREAT AND ALSO ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LENGUAJE SO YEAHHHHHH

#eddsworld #ew tord #eddsworld tord #ew tom #ew edd #ew matt #tom eddsworld #THIS IS LONG #please bare with me #im going insane #i spent way too long on this #I'm absolutely deranged

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lanawinterscigarettes · 2 years

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Study Date (poly! Veronica Sawyer x reader x Jason Dean)

Description: you have a study date with your partners Veronica and JD

A/N: I rewatched Heathers again and got this idea for a fic, and although I'm pretty convinced this is super crappy I figured I might as well put out some sort of content

Warnings: smoking, dark humor

"Ugh, this is so boring," you complained as you watched Veronica review over her notes in preparation for an upcoming test.

"It's math, it's not supposed to be exciting," she responded before flipping to another page.

JD chuckled, observing the two of you before pulling a cigarette from his coat and going to light it.

"Jason, you can't smoke in here!" You scolded as you snatched the cigarette from his mouth.

He frowned before picking up another one. "Why not?"

"Because this is my house, and if my parents find out they're going to be pissed. Now give me your lighter so you won't be tempted." You held your hand out, gesturing towards the lighter he was holding.

He let out a small laugh, assuming you were joking before he realized you weren't. "Aw, come on, you can't be serious."

"I very much am, unless you want to explain to my parents why their house smells like cigarette smoke. Now hand it over."

Veronica held back a laugh as she watched JD reluctantly give you his beloved lighter.

"Thank you, very much," you said as you tucked it into your backpack.

"Well, now I'm bored," JD commented.

"Maybe if you pulled out your textbook and studied for tomorrow's test you wouldn't be," Veronica suggested as she held up her book.

"I don't need to study, I'm sure I'll do fine," he said as he tapped his fingers on the table. "Man, I could really use a smoke right about now."

"See? He's taking the same test we are, why doesn't he have to study?" You asked as Veronica took your copy of the textbook out of your bag.

"Because he's a delinquent who gets himself in trouble on purpose, that's why," she said while handing it to you. "Here's your book, now study."

"This is lame," you mumbled as you sunk down low in your seat.

"Tell me about it. If I had known things were going to be this boring I would have found somebody to piss me off so I'd have an excuse to fake a suicide. At least that would excite me," he joked.

You laughed loudly before seeing the look of judgment on your girlfriend's face. "Ahem, I mean, that's not funny JD, shame on you," you fake lectured while he snorted at your antics.

Veronica playfully rolled her eyes before tapping on the textbook in front of you. "Study."

You crossed your arms over you chest and huffed. "But I don't wanna. Can't I just study later?"

"Study later- the test is tomorrow! How much time do you think you're going to have between now and then to study if you wait?"

You shrugged your shoulders, your boyfriend letting out an amused chuckle as you did so.

"I mean, she's not wrong," he pointed out.

"Oh, shut up JD, you have no room to talk," Veronica huffed, JD holding his hands up in surrender as she did so.

"Why is this so important to you?" You ask as you watch her furiously scribble in the margins of her textbook. "You've never been that much of a stickler when it comes to grades before, so why start now?"

"Because-" she sighed, setting down her pencil, "-when we graduate high school I'm probably going to move somewhere else to go to college, and I don't want you guys to get left behind. That's all."

You and JD shared a look. You'd never thought of it that way before. I mean, sure, Sherwood wasn't the worst place in the world, but it certainly wasn't the best either. The thought of you and JD getting stuck there, barely scraping to get by while Veronica was off seeing the world sent a shiver down your spine.

"Alright, fair enough." If it really meant that much Veronica that you study, then that's what you'd do.

Her face softened into a grateful smile, watching as you opened up your textbook to the notes page. She reached her hand across the table and set it down on yours, giving it a soft squeeze.

"Thanks, honey. I really appreciate it."

"Just know, I'm only doing this for you, okay? There's literally no one else in the world that could convince me to do math homework for them."

Veronica let out a small chuckle before turning her gaze to JD, who had stolen back his lighter and was casually smoking a cigarette.

"Jason!" You exclaimed, reaching over to snatch it from his mouth while Veronica laughed.

{Divider by: @celcero}

Main masterlist | Heathers masterlist | wanna be added to my taglist?

🏷 taglist: @anxiously-sad @iloveentrapta @ghot-girl @gilmore-angel @alexxavicry

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buddiebeginz · 2 months

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Rewatching that Zach Sang interview with Oliver makes me more convinced than ever that Buddie is coming. The question about Buddie was at the end of the interview and it didn't really feel like an organic question more like something maybe they were requested to ask about.

I mean why not ask Oliver what the future of Buck and T*mmy is considering he's the one Buck is actually dating right now? And like I said in a previous post about this Oliver could have answered this many different ways in an effort to not get people’s hopes up. It just feels like they're trying to get the audience ready for Buddie by talking about them so much. They talk about Buddie in pretty much every 911 interview about the show lately. This wouldn’t be happening if the intention was for Eddie to be straight and Buddie was never going to be a possibility. The focus would be exclusively on Buck and T*mmy and while they have gotten some focus because of Buck’s coming out and that’s who he’s dating there’s always stuff about Buddie and Eddie. Tim and Oliver and the rest know how popular Buddie is, if it wasn’t happening I truly think they’d try and distance themselves and Buck from that. Obviously you want fans to tune in but you also don't want fans expecting something that's never going to happen because people will just get frustrated and tune out.

They very intentionally made Buck's coming out connected to Eddie in such a huge way that if Buddie wasn't happening I find it next to impossible that not one person would have looked at the script especially for 7x04 and said hey maybe we shouldn't feature Eddie so heavily in this episode when so many people want to see these characters in a relationship.

Plus everything that Lou has been saying too leads me to believe he's not staying beyond this season. Like I know some of you really like him and like him and Buck together but nothing the show has been telling us and nothing the actors etc are telling us gives me the impression he's being set up to be a long term love interest.

I also think when you look at Buck in some ways he's almost the main character of the show. I know it's an ensemble show and I know more experienced actors like Angela Bassett and Peter Krause get a lot of attention but if you go back an watch earlier seasons a lot of storylines are from Buck's pov to a certain extent. Plus there isn't another character that we've watched grow and change as much as we have Buck. My point is considering Buck is such a central character of the show (and an extremely popular one at that) I find it highly unlikely they're going to just stick him with any ol love interest as his endgame ship. Especially now that Tim is back as showrunner he's expressed that he didn't really like some of Buck and Eddie's past relationships.

Oliver has also talked in interviews about how Buck is going to have to work at his next relationship and I don't see that as being with T*mmy. He hasn't really had to put any work into this thing with him. He liked T*mmy and now they're dating. Same as with any other relationship he's been in. Oliver literally said that is how all of Buck's relationships have been. He likes a person and he gets that person and he said this season that is supposed to change for Buck.

The thing that will be different I think is when Buck finally realizes he's in love with Eddie and has to deal with that. I also wonder if Buck is going to have to work to prove to Eddie he wants to be with him. Eddie has been there loving and supporting Buck for years but then you had Buck saying (last season) that Natalia (this women who he just met) saw him in a way no one else does. Which I think had to have hurt Eddie on some level.

I also wonder if Eddie, once he truly realizes his feelings for Buck will be hesitant to change their relationship. Eddie has historically chosen romantic partners he doesn't allow himself to get too invested in, I think so he doesn't have to be afraid of losing them like he and Chris lost Shannon. I also think that Buck actually dying for a few minutes when he was struck by lightning brought all of this up even more for Eddie. Buck has been the one constant in Eddie and Chris' life and I wonder how Eddie will deal with things as the relationship is changing. I think he'll be afraid of losing Buck and resistant at first so I see a lot of areas where the show can take things to have Buck be the one to fight for Eddie and for them to be together.

There's also the fact that Buddie parallels Bathena, Madney, and Henren all the time. The show has a history of these epic ships while Buck and Eddie have for so long been in these lackluster relationships that go nowhere with partners that are not their equals. The deserve to have a great love story every bit as much as the other characters and that's clearly with each other.

#sorry this got rambly just had a lot of thoughts #911!#buddie

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thefirst3chapters · 3 months

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Rewatched "Introducing Lorelai Planetarium," the one where Rory and Logan end up in a fight over an article Rory wrote and Logan says that Rory is "one of us." There are a lot of interesting discussions on here about whether Logan was justified in saying that, but there's also a lot of context behind what happened.

Some key details:

Rory had an intense day before she went to the party she wrote about. She was initially planning to go to a study group when Lorelai insisted that she go home for dinner that night instead. Then Logan made a surprise visit and invited her to a launch party with his team. Rory went home for dinner, and (surprise!) her parents got married in France while they were in a fairly new relationship that already had Rory somewhat concerned. After all that, she ends up at the party and stands there while someone tells her about all the challenges that have come up in building his luxury island home. Logan introduces Rory to a more down-to-earth journalist who invites her to send him an article about the party.

This launch party was for a project that Logan has been working on and is proud of, so it is significantly insulting when Rory takes a critical stance on the attendees. Even though Rory says that Logan isn't like the other people from this party, he has the self-awareness to acknowledge that he's a "rich trust fund kid," and he doesn't want to be seen as different from them.

Rory has a habit of throwing herself into projects when she is distressed, and she recognizes that is what happened with writing the article.

Logan talks to Rory like he's trying to win an academic debate and convince her that his stance is the most valid, and he has a habit of communicating in this business-like manner in personal relationships. (This is one of the reasons I ship Literati in the long run, because Rory's people-pleasing tendencies and need for stability can lead to her ideas being drowned out by both Dean's and Logan's personalities. Jess of course struggles with communication a lot as a teenager, but he does appear to be the most open to seeing things from Rory's perspective, and even if it takes time, he acts on what he's learned whether he and Rory are together or not.)

Rory doesn't claim to be a member of the working class, but she also says that she isn't living off a "$5 million trust fund." Logan tells her that she "isn't exactly paying rent, either" even though he asked her to move in with him in S6.

After this fight, the last shot is of Logan, who is visibly remorseful.

Rory brings her article to Lucy and Olivia, who think that the article had a "mean" tone. Rory is concerned because she was trying to be humorous and didn't intend to be that critical.

At the end of the day, Logan apologizes and says that he "was way out of line." Rory says that she didn't want to sound as harsh as she did in the article, and they both talk about how they are proud of each other. Rory was already thinking about moving out of the apartment since Logan is moving back to the US, and she decides that it's important to her to have her own place to live. This takes away the power dynamic of Rory living somewhere that is technically Huntzberger-sponsored and is arguably healthiest choice for both of them. A nice feature of S7 is that both Gilmore girls get to have pretty reasonable conversations with their love interests.

Anyway, there is a lot going on beyond the debate over whether Logan was right because Rory doesn't realize how privileged she is and someone needed to tell her or whether Logan was cruel and completely wrong. Besides, this isn't necessarily an either/or question. Personally, I think there is a kernel of truth to Logan's point, but the wealth he has access to is on an entirely different level from what even Richard and Emily have, and Rory spent most of her childhood in a working-class home before she benefitted financially from her grandparents. Logan might not know all that much about Rory's childhood because one of the themes of their relationship is mutual escapism. It's been brought up before that this dynamic is highlighted when he doesn't know that it's Rory's birthday in S6 and doesn't quite understand how important the plan of going to Atlantic City with Lorelai was to Rory. It's not a condemnation of Logan as a character, but it shows that Rory leaves part of herself behind, intentionally or not, when she's in the high society world. It could be (and is) argued that this is solely a side effect of Rory growing up and discovering new interests, but the narrative doesn't appear to frame it this way. When Rory retreats from her involvement with wealth, she is usually portrayed as being more fulfilled, but like Lorelai, she'll always be connected to high society at some level. This state of being caught between worlds is a major theme of the whole show.

#gilmore girls #gilmore girls meta #economics of gilmore girls #rory gilmore #anti logan huntzberger #(for filtering purposes)#but hopefully this isn't too harsh on Logan

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sparkbugs · 7 months

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Thinking bout Chip Jrwi

This has spiraled from ramblings to character analysis to whatever it has turned into. I rewatched episodes too JUST to make sure I had the right information and plot points in mind cause I want to make sure I’m not making a fool of myself in front of all of Jrwiblr.. ANYWAYS! This is a lengthy read. Total words being 1318 under the cut. Yeah, I’d say the hyperfixation is hyperfixating for sure. Chip Jrwi you are my blorbo atm and you mean everything to me <3

Do you guys think that before they went to the Black Sea, before they left Canella, before they left the town of Zero that Chip looked at his crew, his friends, and his family and wondered if he should stop? Yeah, he lost his old family years ago, and he wanted to do everything in his power to bring them back, to do something about it that his 9-year-old self couldn’t. But do you ever stop and think that maybe he’s realized that he has a family now, a new one and that he’s afraid to lose it to the Black Sea as well? But they’ve come so far now, they found Drey and Finn, hell Finn had been with them the entire time!! They’ve come so far now, and they’re expecting him to want to keep going, to find Arlin, and maybe even some of the other crew they lost as well. I think about it a lot, maybe too much at this point.

Back in the Feywild when Chip could’ve reached out to anyone, he could’ve talked with Arlin again, but he didn’t. He didn’t because he saw something in his nightmares in Liquidis while being cured of his curse. He saw Arlin, covered and surrounded by this black ichor, and he talked to him again. He saw Arlin, the man who took him in when he had nowhere to go, and he had looked at him with so much rage and hatred.. and he had attacked Chip. This would honestly terrify me if I were in Chip’s place. The person who showed me all the care in the world suddenly turned and attacked me? And saying that this has happened before? In a nightmare situation that felt so real, Chip knew it was real… I’d be terrified to find him if he thinks I’m gonna kill him, he’d be fighting for his life too, I’m sure. The Black Sea has affected Arlin too, I don’t think they’ll be able to convince him that they aren’t going to kill him unless somehow Drey and Finn can get through to him, but it seems highly unlikely.

I think if Chip feels this way at all, maybe not like all I’ve written exactly, I think he feels immensely guilty. He doesn’t want Arlin to be trapped in the hole in the sea, but he’s also immensely terrified as to what he’s going to find once he gets to him. He doesn’t want the person he’s looked up to for so long, the person he’s risked his and his friends' lives for, to hate him. But I also feel that somewhere in his heart (or lack of one), Chip doesn’t blame Arlin for hating him, cause he’s starting to hate himself for getting his new family dragged down into this hole in the sea as well.

Yes, they all chose to come with him to the Black Sea, but if anything happens to them, Chip will forever blame himself for it. Hell, he lost his heart and he has no one other than himself to blame. Jay almost lost her leg (did she? They haven’t made it clear if she did) and I feel that Chip blames himself for that too. Yes, they helped save everyone on the island, but Gods is Chip scared he’s going to lose his family again. Being on this ocean reminds him of when he was just a scared little kid, but now he can do something about it. He’s trying but he’s still so fucking scared.

Speaking of his heart- he’s trying to hold onto himself. He’s an undead now, and by meta the mechanics of it are roughhhhh. I rambled a bit on another post about one of my characters named Amani, an opal Tiefling whom Chip is starting to remind me of- not exactly but they both have had their hearts taken!! Doing the checks to see if he loses a part of himself terrifies me each and every time and I know there’s going to be more, we can only hope the dice are in Bizly’s favor as we do not know when Chip will be able to get his heart back. It could be months from now, years maybe. I dread the session they head back to Zero and Chip is still undead. I dread Chip reuniting with Ollie. I don’t think Chip wants Ollie to see him that way, he can hide it with the bandana as much as he wants, but the stench of rotten flesh will give it away. Ollie told him to come back alive! Chip wasn’t able to keep that promise. It kills me to think that Chip dies at 19. Yeah he wasn’t a kid, but he was still so young- yeah he might come back once getting his heart but how much of his humanity will he have lost? How much life experience would he have gained in this undead state? He hasn’t even had the time to grieve the loss of himself with everything that's been going on, and I am really hoping with the next episode of Riptide we get to see some of his thoughts on being undead. Yes, he’s made jokes about it! But I feel he still hasn’t fully processed it all and once he finally does it's going to be PAINFUL.

He’s grown so much from this journey with Jay and Gillion, he was using them at the start, to get back his family. I mean I could be wrong here, but it certainly feels like it at the start of everything anyway. Along the way though, he started opening up a bit and he realized that while sailing and learning about the whereabouts of his family he’s lost, he’s made a new family. And it’s become precious to him. It shows how he has grown during the fights he had with Gillion, the first fight they had dealing with Chip lying and pranking him, wounding Gill’s pride. They resolved it after communicating and getting to know each other better. The second fight was initiated by Chip himself because he knew he was in the wrong and that he had hurt his friend by keeping the fact that Edyn was working with the Navy a secret. He remembered how much lying had hurt Gill, and as much as he didn’t want to tell him at the time, he wanted to protect Gillion from the truth of his sister potentially doing something dangerous behind his and his friends' backs. There hadn’t been much time in between Gillion escaping the pearl and the time that he found out about Edyn, and Chip had tried not to think about it but those damned bracelets (WHICH I WISH THEY WOULD USE MORE?? WHERE DID THEY GO-) outed him on those thoughts. He stayed up ALL NIGHT just to build the arena, just to show Gillion he was sorry and that he needed to fix it, he wanted to fix things between them both. He goes on and on about how Gillion’s actions helped him change for the better, about how he cares about him, and that he never meant to hurt him. Of course, this ends in them battling again, them starting the fight and Jay ending it like the girlboss she is, but this battle was never out of malice or anger, it is light-hearted and fun, and it shows that they’ve all grown stronger together.

I love Chip Jrwi, I am so happy that he got a second third chance at a family- He deserves it and the world. I totally will be coming back to this at some point but this is all I have to say for now! Feel free to reply/reblog to this with ur thoughts, or even send me an ask bout it cause I would love to continue talking about this boy!

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shadebloopnik · 7 months

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Whenever Im feeling down(or need some emotions or diy therapy session) i like to rewatch that supernatural episode where John's dying and so uses one of his last moments to apologize to Dean; to acknowledge all that Dean's done for their family, for him, things Dean never should have had to do. He knew he should've been more of a father to Dean, but he wasn't.

The admittance of his mistakes, how shit he'd been as a dad, how he'd become more of a drill sergeant. Admitting how wrong it was to raise Dean as a soldier, how Dean had to lose his childhood.

The responsibilities he put on his child. Dean gave his all for John and Sam, they're all he has, and finally, Dean can see that being acknowledged. Finally someone says it out loud.

To hear those words, so so important....

John was a horrible father. He was a good man, strong, intelligent, a protector, perhaps a hero to many; but to get there, he had to sacrifice his role as a father to his sons. He became jaded, obsessive , callous, and abusive; mentally, emotionally, and, well we all know it, physically. He was their drill sergeant, of course it got physical. It was to toughen them up, yes, saved them in the long run, yes, but its not how a Father should have raised them, and that's where it all circles back to doesn't it? Him being a father, the one role he failed in.

John loved his sons, of course he did, no question, but at this point, his love was twisted. His love for Mary became obsession, and love for his sons became rage fueled training, harsh and cruel and biting. To him, the greatest act of love he could offer was making sure they lived, no matter how they may end up on the other side.

Dean took all of that on from such a young age; tried to shield his brother from it best as he can. It never gets acknowledged before; not much by Sam who sees it as blind obedience, and not from John who simply expected it.

And yet now, John's acknowledging Dean's struggles and apologizing, and yes it was suspicious as hell, but do you know how else that'd feel like? How freeing? Knowing that your efforts didn't fo unnoticed?

Yes it doesn't change anything but its in ADMITTING IT. Its in the saying, in just being.

Its hard to be hurt so much by the one you love, one you choose to stick by regardless of trouble. To hear them acknowledge everything, its-...... Sometimes you'd have doubts you know? Think maybe you're just imagining all the pain, that you're just being dramatic and things aren't actually that bad. Even when your heart hurts, you try to convince yourself nothing's actually wrong. So to hear someone else validate it, and not just anyone else, but the person who hurt you!!!! Its such a rush of emotion; you wanna cry and laugh hysterically at the same time!!! Like haha im not a dramatic cracy btch after all!!!

And its not even till then that you realize just how badly you needed to hear it.

Maybe its why I come back to this scene when I'm down. To hear the words of a bastard piece of sht of a failed father who against all odds is still filled with love, admitting everything.

Those exact words, even the situations....

Guess I need to hear em too.

#sorry ranted lmaoooo am at a dark space of mind #hate relating so hard to Dean sometimes lmaoooo #cuz im always gon he dropped with bombs like this #john winchester #supernatural #spn #dean whinchester #sam winchester #Winchester #long post #rant

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windser · 8 days

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unholy nai (million knives) thots (which actually just turned into a lot of personal modern!verse lore madness ) —

currently rewatching trigun stampede and cooking up my usual obsession for nai. it's always the evil brothers, i swear. anyways, i love thinking about modern verse ceo/cto of some high end research institute where he oversees medical research and what note. minor details here. the point is the man is loaded but like he built this life brick by brick.

actually brief back story, i see the twins growing up in an orphanage after losing their parents to an accident. this is where they meet you. someone who went from having a family to no one. bc like yeah the twins lost their parents but at least they had each other. and i imagine vash latched on to you first and nai was still processes the loss of his parents (still debating if he was the cause, i low key vibe with his villan backstory but we'll get back to that). anyway, for awhile he's like forever in the background just observing. he's always been and forever will be protective of vash but like he's never really worried about you. you with your bright, gapped smile after you lost a tooth a little early to a fall. you who never seems to fail to make vash laugh when he's feeling down. you who harbors your own demons late at night when you think no one is looking. (i swear ill elaborate more on the orphanage days) but the point is he noticed. and slowly unintentionally you wormed your way into his life right beside vash and that just kind of sealed the deal?

it wasn't to say that you and vash we're smart but nai was just like this diabolical genius and he quickly got noticed for it. even at a young age, he was like controlling the room. i swear he vetted his own potential foster/adoption options before he eventually found conrad on his own. conrad who was already an established research physician intrigued by nai's intelligence. the man with no offspring who basically had his ideal protege just email him?? anyways, nai basically convinces him to like foster all of them but not legally make the trio of you siblings but the three of you grew up together.

(once again, ill elaborate on the whole coming to realization of feelings even though nai basically already claimed you a long time ago) basically fast forward to you mid-late 20s, youre a housewife to one of the smartest, youngest geniuses in biomedical technologies in this era. nai who had never missed a step securing his future (and vash and yours). the man who swept you out of the orphanage and into pretty dresses, expensive jewelry and extravagant galas.

the man who will press his lips to your temple first thing in the morning and in the same second pin you to the mattress with the weight of his thrusts smacking into your pliant body. this is the man who taught you how to kiss, how to use your mouth on a man and how to receive in return. this is the man that molded you into the person you are. and you love him for it...(until he gives you a reason to question the glass you're standing on)

#million knives #million knives x reader #nai x reader #trigun stampede x reader #trigun stampede imagine #asdghjrgr i just like the complexity of his villian era #windworks

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norellenilia · 3 months

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Damn, I remember the first time I watched FMA 03, when I was 16 or 17, I stayed up until 1 am to finish it, and today, watching episodes 38 through 42 turned me into such an emotional mess that I have to take a break lmao what happened??? My own emotional traumas, that's what happened

I'm feeling so many things again

In episode 38, when Ed and Al are fighting, Al drenches Ed in water and he says "it's going to rain!!!" and I'm like haha no don't try to pull a Mustang on me I know this episode won't make me cry and GUESS WHAT the flashback with Trisha convincing Ed to go and find Al so they can talk things out and Al looking so happy that Ed isn't upset with him anymore it's so cute I CRIED

I need -- no, I DEMAND a spin-off series where Winry and Scziezka solve murder mysteries together (I'd love to write it myself but I know I'm not nearly good enough at coming up with mystery stories lol), they're adorable I'm so happy they totally get together post CoS

Martel's death hits SO MUCH HARDER than I remembered holy shit, she and Al actually got close, we see more of her, her death is so horrific and hearing sweet sweet baby boy Alphonse cry just BROKE MY HEART I never wanted to hug an armor so badly

Scar's brother's last moments, the way he looks so terrified and desperate to protect his little brother from Kimblee and Scar being so devastated when he dies I just-- *clenches fist*

Sloth using Ed's PTSD against him that's so UNFAIR; also I was thinking that I was a bit disappointed that this anime did not include the nightmare that Ed has at some point in the manga where he sees his mom saying "why didn't you make me right" etc but this is it, this is this scene, and it's worse because he's hearing it for real, he is very much awake, he has the real voice of his mom in his ears and she's saying this to him and I'm-- *clenches fist harder*

Rose's story, I'm still so mad, she deserves all the happiness in the world

Speaking of Rose, it's so funny how the moment Al is like "I wonder how Rose is doing" the show just full on goes "Ed/Rose shipper" mode lmao, with Ed blushing while pretending not to remember her, him being so awkward when he speaks to her just before they go on their separate ways and her son just smiling and giggling when he speaks (first time we see the baby laugh, he had only been crying up until then) :') To be honest it feels a bit out of the blue to me but idk

Dante sporting Lyra's white ass in the town of brown people and speaking as if she was part of them just because she's following Rose around to manipulate her is incredibly cringe, but then again, it's Dante, she's the villain and we're already supposed to know something is up with "Lyra". But still.

Very random but Al pulling objects from or putting objects inside his armor from behind the cloth always looks very awkward lol

I used to never really care about Scar but I have learned the errors of my way as I now realize he is actually one of the best characters in this goddamn series, even with the orb of knowledge and the three arm losses, and Mangahood!Scar being much more villainized and ending up working with the military will never come even CLOSE to 03!Scar using his last bit of strength to save Alphonse to honor his love for his lost brother and take his ultimate revenge on those who murdered his people in the goal of protecting oppressed people, all of this while an epic music is playing (honestly it even feels like Ed is made to be seen as an obstacle as he tries to prevent the soldiers from entering Liore lol)

Sorry but Wrath is annoying as hell, I know that I'll probably have a different opinion if I rewatch CoS after that, but for now I hate him

We're finally entering the "Rewrite" era of the show and I had forgotten how much it rocks (Ed's hair animation at the beginning fhjkfhkdhjk)

I only have 9 episodes left but between Lust and Sloth in the upcoming episodes I'm not even sure I'll be able to watch it all in one go lol. Still excited to see more of Winry and Scziezka and remembering how much Hohenheim is absolutely useless in this x)

#fma #fma03 #fma 03 #fullmetal alchemist #fullmetal alchemist 2003 #nore rewatches fma #it's so funny I thought I already knew I loved this series #I even feared that rewatching it would actually disappoint me #but actually I think I love it even more now #at the ripe age of 34 I'm happy to see I still enjoy and relate to it a lot #I even learn to love characters I had never really cared about before #like Rose and Scar #and as an equivalent exchange now I despise Izumi lol #but hey people grow and learn and change #that's literally one of the themes of the series so it fits

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catlokis-blog · 2 years

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Tell me about how Bubby also has NPD I want to hear your ramblings

alright!! there might be some moments of mischaracterization (i feel like that's not the right word but i'd be framing him differently than the intention yk?) because i haven't rewatched hlvrai for a hot second! but!! here is my bubby narcissist theory, brought to you by someone with the disorder

probably the most obvious one is that bubby is EXTREMELY self-centered and confident. to a nearly satirical degree. he's often described as "crass" or "egotistical" because he's constantly talking about himself, how good he is, & talks huge about himself because he made to be the ultimate lifeform, duhh.

but it's also been shown he has some STRONG self doubts in the extent of how "perfect" he really is in moments of weakness, it's especially highlighted during his betrayal arc (ill come back to this) once he's been brought into his tube again, but it's also even highlighted during small moments in the commentary when he would stop praising himself briefly to doubt "is my plan working?" before immediately switching back to "yess, yes, im the best"

he's also been shown to be a compulsive liar towards tommy a lot with his "classic pranks" which is a habit that can come in a lot of npd patients, usually as a form of self-preservation or some other defense mechanism. (benrey also has a similar symptom here, where his memory will rewrite events to be biased in his favor! but this isn't about him)

his short temper and somewhat bitter attitude can also be easily taken as a lack of empathy for those he doesn't consider "on his level", so to speak, noting strong disregard to anything gordon really has to worry about - this doesn't mean he doesn't have his moments, however, just that he shoves it to the side a lot

another thing about his temper - he's very destructive! narcissistic personality disorder comes hand-in-hand with destructive anger issues, usually targetted towards the thing that's causing them the most frustration, but it could also really be anything (such as the random scientists he decides to kill)

probably the thing that solidified it the most for me was the concept of the betrayal arc as a whole, though. his only reason for going with it because he was convinced that nothing was his fault - but it had to be someone's, because people with narcissistic personality disorder can really struggle to figure a "that's life" kind of thing. he immediately pointed the blame to gordon once he realized gordon had failed the experiment, and instead of benrey helping correct his misleading train of thought, he fed into it and led bubby to assist in getting gordon's arm chopped off

something that, may i add, bubby did not want to happen!

npd is often caused by trauma, which could easily be a result of his tube and being a case of study, but that's more of a theorizing part.

i think the main reason why i take all of this as a personality disorder headcanon and not a "he's just a little charmingly shitty" way is that even once he's redeemed these qualities never go away - and nobody seems to mind that. nobody is constantly telling him that he needs to "fix his attitude" - they just learn how to understand him :)

this is kind of thrown together very like... haphazardly i can't explain it all very well BUT that is my opinion!! bubby npd haver

#tldr hes emotional self centered easily manipulated slightly delusional and very insecure deep down which we see small hints of #which is EXACTLY what its like to have npd!#hlvrai #dr bubby #cats asks #cats thoughts #OH AND AN ADDDITION #hes also very defensive when people point out ''flaws''#like how when his head is in the cieling he immediately goes like oh i like it there leave me alone #and when he turns into a car he deflects #half live vr but the ai is self aware #bubby #doctor bubby

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ilikekidsshows · 11 months

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The following up on things might be valid if there was a single scene where for example Marinette looks at Gabriels statue with a troubled expression or had some weird reaction to Adrien saying he wants to be like his dad, like "oh... yeah wouldn't that be nice"

It's like the writers don't even have to do anything for the fandom to jumps to conclusions about how things will play out even though we should've learned by now that they will never happen, you know? I mean I sort of get it, Adrien not knowing is kind of the elephant in the room and if this were a normal show the logical conclusion would obviously be "that's gonna be relevant later!" but we're talking about miraculous here... idk sometimes I wish I had this endless optimism the fandom seems to have

Anonymous asked: God, seriously, why should people have to watch next upcoming seasons or finale episodes to appreciate this finale. And ml as a show has been extremely flawed and all over the places for many episodes now, the writing mistakes on the show have not been fixed when the writers had to chance to fix them they only destroyed things further. Like lets be real here. "It will be so good when the writers finally fix things and payoff" argument makes no sense. It just sounds like wishful thinking and not wanting to acknowledge the bad writing here.

I'm combining these asks since they cover similar stuff. I would definitely say that it's more wishful thinking than actually having a solid belief that the show will payoff everything it has been playing keepaway with, because there's nothing in the show to base this belief on. I'd even go further and point at sunk cost fallacy playing a part here.

Sunk cost fallacy is a logical fallacy where you've invested so much into a thing that you'll feel like you lose out on something if you give up. "Sunk cost" refers to an investment you can't get back. Each episode of Miraculous you watch is you investing at least that episode's worth of your time into this show, in addition to any rewatches, theorizing, fanficcing and thinking about it you do. That's all time you've "wasted" if you drop the show. There's also the emotional investment. You've cared about this show for so long, how could you give it up, when that means you wasted all those emotions? It's a hard choice after several years of fandom.

The easier choice is always to keep doing what you've been doing. In the case of Miraculous, it's easier to keep watching than to find a new interest for many. In addition, the fandom going: "just wait for the payoff, just wait a bit longer, just until the next season finale!" constantly makes it easier to convince yourself that you can totally stick out another season to see how things go. Even when the finale comes and it's bad again, you keep hearing the same excuses: "Just wait until the next season!" It's a vicious cycle.

The sunk cost is why I stuck out through season four, waiting for some kind of payoff that would make me excited to liveblog it. I'd already liveblogged the first three seasons, I loved the characters so much, I couldn't just give up after all that. Needless to say, the only episode I liked the sound of was 'Psycomedian', so I decided to put the liveblog on hiatus, but I kept up with news of the episodes just in case the show would start resembling the show I liked in the first place again. But when season five was just more of season four, I finally accepted that no, it was not worth it to keep waiting for the show to get worth watching to me again.

I realized that, even if the show got better again, I'd have to watch all of the awful garbage in season four and season five to get to the good episodes. I realized that it wasn't worth the cost.

#ml salt #media and fandom response

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trelkez · 1 year

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Me watching Ted Lasso 3.11:

I truly thought the last few episodes of the show had broken any remaining faith I had in its storytelling, but no. The second scene of this episode: that broke any remaining faith I had in Ted Lasso's storytelling. This season is NOT GOOD. And yet: are they going to make my OT3 canon? Are they?

I'm going to process Ted Lasso 3.11 (mostly) the way I did last week, by doing a rewatch and taking everything in order as it happens. The show's writing is so incoherent at this point that I'm not going to attempt to impose order on it; things just occur. This is the way.

1. Ted's Mom

I spent the entire opening credit sequence mentally reviewing every Ted/Trent fic I've ever read that had some kind of take on Ted's mom – and realizing that whatever we were about to get wasn't going to be as interesting as anything I'd read in fic, because this season is hell-bent on the idea that all conflict can be washed away in the space of a single conversation.

Remember when I would've just been excited to finally meet Ted's mom? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

2. Jade hates working with her boyfriend

And who can blame her? This woman has one thing, and that is working at Taste of Athens. Come on, Nate, get your own thing!

3. "We want you to come back to Richmond."

So, okay.

I've already written pretty extensively on how badly handled Nate's redemption arc has been. This has been a problem all season long; before I moved back to Tumblr, I was writing small, irate tweets about it.

Let's go back and look at some of the things I said during and after season 2:

2.07: Nate - his characterization has been really consistent: he's always been a jerk to Will, he uses his power over others to belittle them to make himself feel better, he conflates being assertive with being aggressive, this stuff was in s1 too

post-s2, 1/3: the show put a lot of work into showing Nate punching down, his growing narcissism, the ways feeling underappreciated makes him cruel to others and himself; I don't think we're meant to take away that being denied a Nespresso machine justifies a heel turn

post-s2, 2/3: Nate's history with women as shown is not great - when he thinks he's fired he immediately calls Rebecca a shrew; "perhaps you'd like to give me your number, too" to Jade the hostess as soon as he feels like he can order her around; kissing Keeley at all

post-s2, 3/3: when he kissed Keeley I was like, sure, this tracks; (for him) it becoming solely about him being mad that it wasn't enough to get Roy's attention also tracks. but the rest ... and some of the media takeaway ... is weird to me. is this relatable content?? should it be?

What gets me about all of this is that sometimes, this season has almost convinced me that Nate leaking the panic attack story to Trent was just a weak moment for which an otherwise lovable guy should be forgiven – but the evidence isn't there. They were so consistent in how they built up Nate's fall; they seeded that in as far back as season one. They signaled it through hair color! They unfolded it piece by piece, in a deliberate, escalating spiral from which there ultimately was no last-minute escape.

And then we get to season three, and two seasons of careful character building immediately becomes meaningless. Season three's Nate is a different person. This entire season is taking place in an alternate universe. And there's no reason they had to do that, because they had an entire twelve-episode season of increasingly long episodes in which to slowly but surely make Nate a better person! Time for him to learn a series of important lessons that tie into past behavior; time for him to slowly reconcile with his father; time for him to grow without erasing the person he had always been. Time to build him up into a better version of himself.

Instead, this is what we have. And even then, some of the most important parts of the story of Nate's redemption have happened off-screen. Nate quitting off-screen last week was truly shocking; the team discussing Nate's situation, deciding to forgive him, and voting on whether or not to invite him back – that happening off-screen is unforgivable. The West Ham storyline has, thus far, mattered so little to this season that maybe (.......maybe) we can say that severing ties with Rupert wasn't a key part of his journey, even though that's absurd, but Nate's return to Richmond is everything. That's the whole ballgame.

For Colin to be part of the welcoming committee is truly fucking egregious. Even this very season, Colin is still repeating his affirmation from therapy as he actively works on building up his self-confidence – something Nate deliberately tried to destroy. At no point did I imagine that a one-on-one with Colin wasn't going to be part of Nate's apology tour. But now – one sprig of lavender for Will, and that's all it takes? Nate's treatment of Colin isn't going to be addressed at all?

This is the same team that collected red cards like candy against West Ham after Roy and Beard showed them the video of Nate ripping up the "believe" sign. Remember the power walk of fury past Nate to open the second half of that game? Why do they now suddenly want him back? Because they heard he was working in a restaurant and felt sorry for him? Because they heard he apologized to Will and decided that was enough? At this point, I genuinely think the writers didn't know how that conversation would go, so they skipped over it. If you aren't sure how to get the team back on Nate's side, just have it happen off-screen; then it doesn't matter how it happened, only that it did. If you only tell and never show, you can make anything happen without having to get from A to B.

All of this mess, all of this time, and we don't get to be in the room as the team reaches some kind of closure on everything Nate did.

4. "Richmond have won fifteen matches in a row. With two games left, you're just four points off Manchester City for the Premier League title."

Thanks for expositing all of that, Reporter Guy. If it weren't for the occasional infodump, we'd never know what was going on in the team's season! Exposition Characters, you're the true heroes.

5. "That goal is a lie. It should be retracted from the record. I apologize to everyone, especially the kids."

If they had kept to this kind of funny-but-alarming tone without going too overboard on it, Jamie's pre-Manchester depressive episode would've been a lot more effective.

I know this show can handle depression, anxiety, and parent-induced stress in a thoughtful way and balance that with tonally appropriate comedy, but can it do that … anymore?

6. Ted's ever-increasing mom stress

To that end: the way they built up Ted being so put out his mother was in town, I thought for sure we were going to find out he had been dodging her calls about something (was Michelle getting married after all?) and this would reveal whatever it was to the audience.

I think – I think – that the actual intended effect here is to underscore that Ted ran an entire continent away from his problems and all of his unprocessed trauma, and having all of that catch up to him without warning triggered a stress cascade resulting in the meltdown we'll get at the end. But if that's the intention, what this episode really underscores is that they simply do not know how to handle this sort of storyline anymore. Dottie Lasso is lovely and entertaining and you definitely can look at her and see where Ted comes from, but the Ted parts of this story are about as nuanced as a sledgehammer on concrete.

7. "Trent, your hair is fabulous. It really is. It's just stylin'."

I never thought that Trent would actually meet Ted's mother in the show. I can't wait to see what fic writers do with this. (Please don't get discouraged by however the show ends and walk away, fic writers! We need you now, tonight. We need you more than ever.)

8. Van Damme's mask

This is officially more follow-up on a previous episode's subplot than we have had about almost any other subplot this entire season, and it's about one of the most disposable stories they've told.

9. OT3 Watch: "Shouting is Roy's love language."

Does Trent ship it? One of us, one of us.

10. OT3 Watch: Jamie crying on Roy

There's a lot about this scene I loved, so let's take a break for positivity! That sounds nice, doesn't it?

Jamie bursting into tears and then, when asked what's wrong, saying, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know": intensely relatable. He's already in tears as he walks into the boot room, just barely holding it in, and the second Roy pushes him to toughen up (in general), he loses it, because of course he does: he's dreading another trauma at the hands of his abusive dad, in the hometown that hates him. It makes perfect sense for Jamie to be having a serious depressive episode, and it is entirely in character for him to describe that as "I don't use any conditioner anymore, because what's the fucking point."

This is one thing this season has done well, with patience and consistency: it's believable for Jamie to break down crying on Roy because they put the time in to get these two to that point. Last season, it was a big fucking deal when Roy hugged Jamie. This season, if Jamie is going to cry on anyone, of course it's going to be Roy.

That said: I think it was a mistake to go quite so hard on playing this for laughs. Depression and trauma absolutely can be mined for comedy. "Do you think a depressed person could make this?" works because it's still Ben Wyatt, it's just Depressed Ben Wyatt. Jamie smushing Roy's face around as Phil Dunster gives it his absolute best comedy wailing sob doesn't … feel like Jamie? It just feels like comedy. If the moment isn't organic to the character, probably it needed a rewrite.

"It probably needed a rewrite," the Ted Lasso season three story. – Then again, I wonder all the time how much of this season's problems are due to the infamous production-halting Jason Sudeikis rewrites, so … maybe not? Maybe this season needed fewer rewrites and more Bill Lawrence? Who can say.

("Will, you missed a good one" is a great closing note for the series-long gag of overheard emotional scenes in the boot room. If they do another one in the finale, they'll have overshot it.)

11. "Hey, Roy, would it bother you if we brought Nate back?" / "No, I don't give a fuck."

At this point, I briefly stopped watching.

I went back to 2.12 to see if Roy knows that Nate was the source for the panic attack story: as of that episode, as far as I can tell, he doesn't.

I went to 3.04 to see if there was any indication during the West Ham episode that Roy had figured it out by then, but that episode focuses on the "believe" sign, which everyone but Ted seems to be finding out about for the first time.

Roy doesn't know that Nate actively tried to ruin Ted. (Does it make any sense for Roy to not have done the math when he was in the room when Ted opened up to the coaches about his panic attacks? Probably not, but that appears to be the canon.) He does know what Nate was like, particularly toward the end; he knows that Nate abandoned ship for West Ham; he knows that Nate ripped the sign, and he used that to turn the entire team against Nate for the West Ham game; and perhaps most importantly, Roy is not especially known as an easygoing, forgiving guy.

This is a man who carried a devastating news clipping around in his wallet for his entire career and beyond. A guy who couldn't hug Jamie in celebration until he headbutted him to make them even. This is Roy Kent, who is known even by people who don't watch this show as the one with the anger issues.

And he's just – fine? To bring Nate back? He holds no grudges? Roy Kent? We're really going to have Roy Kent as the voice of "yeah, whatever, I don't care" while Beard is left to fume alone?

12. "If you bring that Judas back, I will burn this place to the fucking ground."

Once again, Beard is the only one who's seen season two. And yet, this is being set up as a conflict that Beard has to set aside.

Has Nate apologized to Ted at this point? No. Was Nate an increasingly toxic presence in the locker room last season? Yes. Do they have any knowledge of his coaching style at West Ham that we're aware of that would suggest that he's had a major personality change? No. Are they currently on a fifteen-game winning streak without Nate? Yes. Are there only two games left in the season? Yes.

Is there any reason to bring Nate back at this point? No. And Beard, who has been the only one all season long who has retained any emotional awareness of past events, is only allowed to have that awareness so that it can be used as a justifying force for Nate's return.

I support you, Beard. This is all some bullshit. You should be allowed to be pissed about it.

13. Nora!

Is Rebecca's aside about Nora telling her to stop using her private jet the closest we're going to get to a Nora appearance this season? There's still time for her to pop up in the finale, but that seems unlikely.

14. OT3 Watch: Keeley checking in on Jamie

I was on the fence about whether or not they were going too hard on humor with Jamie's depression until "a suitcase is a drawer without a home … wahh." This is the best they could do for depression comedy? This is a comedy series that did an entire season about depression!! Phil Dunster really is doing his best in this episode, but not even he could elevate that line.

I do like the general concept of Roy going to Keeley for help with Jamie, only for Keeley to make it all worse. Roy being better at comforting Jamie is conceptually very funny. Writing dialogue that does justice to a story outline is tricky, isn't it? Mm.

15. Sam and Rebecca???

Are they doing this, or are they just going to tease it every single episode? Are Sam and Rebecca endgame? Surely not, right. If it were endgame, wouldn't we have gotten into the meat of it a lot sooner than … the finale?

If you know a Tedbecca shipper, maybe give them a warm cookie this week, because this episode did not move that anywhere promising.

(My money is still on Houseboat Guy popping up out of nowhere.)

16. OT3 Watch: Jamie and Keeley follow Jamie home

If this is the first time Keeley is meeting Jamie's mom, that means – he never took her home when they were dating?

Roy staring in absolute slack-jawed shock at Jamie and his mom cuddling on the couch is me. Roy is me. Setting aside for a moment just how much is going on there, I never would have guessed that Jamie had a relationship like this with a mom who was still in the picture.

In 1.06, Jamie talks about how his mom got him into football and supported him but probably wouldn't be proud of him lately; in 3.06, we hear about a trip they took to Amsterdam when he was a teenager. Is that … it? Have there been other references to his mom? In 2.08, when Richmond plays Manchester City, there is a lot about his dad but no reference to his mom that I remember. The show is so laser-focused on Jamie's dad that I assumed his mother, whether dead or estranged or somehow unwell, wasn't an active force in his life in the present day.

This is a show about dads. They've told us that in interviews all along. Ted's dad, Nate's dad, Jamie's dad, Sam's dad, Rebecca's dad, even a whiff of Trent's dad; Ted's relationship with his son, even Phoebe's relationship with her Uncle Roy. We see Nate's mom, but that is almost entirely about Nate's relationship with his dad. The only characters who get to have meaningful ongoing not-about-dads onscreen relationships with their mothers are Rebecca and Nora, which is … weirdly gendered?

But now, with the curtain about to drop on this show, they're doing a Mom Episode. We get two moms we've never met before dropped on us in one hour. We know almost nothing about these moms, because they've never been made central to the story in a way everyone's dads have been; and here, in an episode titled "Mom City," their stories are still mostly about each character's relationship with his dad.

Even so, those stories need to fit into what we know about Ted and Jamie. "I love meeting people's moms. It's like reading an instruction manual as to why they're nuts," right? Ted and Jamie's moms, introduced here at the eleventh hour, should shine a light on things we already know about these characters and make us think, "this explains so much."

Does Jamie's mom actually explain anything we already knew about Jamie? Does it actually make sense for Jamie to have had, all this time, a sweet, supportive mom available for hugs on demand, or does this just create a lot of new questions the show doesn't have time to answer? I don't think Jamie's mom as we meet her (or his future GBBO star baker stepdad) are fully outside the realm of possibility for his character, but we could've had more time to untangle all of this if they had spent as much time on Jamie's mom as they did on his dad. Instead, I'm left with: you're telling me Jamie Tartt isn't actually touch-starved? Jamie Tartt?

You're telling me Jamie's mom watches all of his matches … but has never been to one? Jamie's mom got him into football and drove him to all of his practices, but he's playing right down the street and she's watching from home? Jamie's mom is this important to him, but never met Keeley? Jamie's mom is this important to him, and we've only ever heard about her as the reverse side of a story about Jamie's dad? There are some drop-ins you just can't make in the eleventh hour.

Also: what is going on here? I'm with Roy. Wow. Wow.

17. Jade really hates working with her boyfriend

Is this really just a way to get Nate back to Richmond? Yes. Is it nonetheless completely valid for Jade to not want to have to hear about Nate's salty nuts scheme after work hours? Also yes. You might be a girlfriend ex machina, but you are nonetheless valid, Jade.

18. OT3 Watch: Jamie's posters

*chinhands* So are they, like … are they doing this on purpose, or … no, they have to be doing it on purpose, right? Right?? Maybe it won't ever go any further than this, because even now I have a hard time imagining an OT3 becoming canon, but they are surely at least tipping their hat to it.

19: OT3 Watch: walking off arm-in-arm

Surely they aren't going to make it canon.

20. Pep????

They actually brought on Pep Guardiola for a Ted Lasso cameo? In an episode about Manchester City leading the title race, airing in the same week City won the title irl? I'm legit impressed.

21. Jamie's injury drama

This is honestly the dumbest way to generate in-game drama. Jamie goes out on injury and Ted's coaching masterstroke is to act like they've just lost a player to a red card and now have to defend a one goal lead with ten men? Just in case the training staff can shoot Jamie up with enough painkillers to let him finish the game on an injury he couldn't walk on?

I know Jamie is their star striker and all, but did Sam, Dani, and Colin suddenly lose their scoring abilities when Jamie hurt his ankle? We just had a major subplot last week about what a heater Sam has been on – did that suddenly disappear? Does this team have no ability to adjust to the loss of a player? They've won fifteen straight games!! In real life, that would be one of the longest win streaks in Premier League history! No team becomes that successful without quality substitutes. Just get someone on the pitch, before Manchester fucking City takes advantage of being a man up and gets the equalizer we're told they've been on the verge of for the entire second half.

Why. This is Ted Lasso, why am I getting hung up on its football strategy? This isn't about strategy, it's about Ted and Jamie. Nothing matters except the conversation they're about to have on the sideline. Everything else happens exclusively to allow that conversation to happen. The football is just set dressing. None of this matters.

It's just so dumb, though. God.

22. Jade hates working with her boyfriend so much

Truly next level of her to blackmail her boss to get Nate fired so she can have some peace in the workplace. Does she only exist in this show to advance Nate's storyline? Yes. Is she doing this to be a Good Girlfriend? Yes. Can I ignore both of those things and pretend this is just a badass move by someone who does not care to mix her relationship and her job? Also yes.

23. Ted Lasso and forgiveness

This season's insistence on total forgiveness – that the past is the past, that holding a grudge is a moral failing or a poison of the soul – is one of its biggest flaws. Everything needs to be tied up just so. Characters can't truly grow unless they let go of whatever anger they're holding onto. In the end, everything must come around to wholesomeness and healing. As the show nears its end, it is doing everything it possibly can to wash all slates clean.

(Except, possibly, with Rupert. We'll see.)

In a void, Ted's mini-speech to Jamie about how he should forgive his dad so that he himself can heal might be – not something I would at all agree with, but fine, in that I don't have to always agree with characters on television shows and Ted is clearly doing some projecting here re: his situation with his mom. But in this broader context of what's going on with Nate, on the sideline of a game, it just feels … forced, and kind of gross. FORGIVE YOUR DAD SO YOU CAN KICK FOOTBALL. FORGIVENESS FIXES EVERYTHING. Okay, Ted Lasso. Okay.

Remember when Dr. Sharon said, "I think you [still hate your father] too, Ted, and that's okay," and they talked about the things Ted both hated and loved about his father, because it was okay for him to hold both of those things inside him at once? Where has that gone?

24. Manchester Loves Jamie

I'm not going to ask what the point of putting Jamie back on for one minute and then substituting him straight off was – do they truly have no one else who could have put them up by two? – because honestly, the City fan ovation was so unbelievable that football strategy pales in comparison. They spent an entire game booing and shit-talking him in the stands, and then he scores a goal on a wobbly foot and they suddenly realize he's Good, Actually and cheer him off? In a game that could decide the league title?

Manchester City could have won the league title right here in this game if Jamie hadn't scored that goal and the City fans cheer him off? In what universe. In what version of reality. Were there no even vaguely believable feel-good moments they could engineer for this game???

25. OT3 Watch: Roy whispering sweet nothings

They aren't going to make it canon, right??

26. Jamie's dad in rehab

This is one of the only "thing we heard nothing about and then suddenly it happens" moments where it makes sense for no one to know what's going on. It's positive growth for a shit character that I can actually get behind and believe in.

Jamie's dad is here doing the work and trying to get better. Instead of having it as an extremely brief reveal in the penultimate episode of the series, imagine if they had done this earlier and shown his dad getting out of rehab, and spent some time on Jamie deciding whether or not to forgive his dad now that his dad is sober. Emphasize the hard parts. Show them building a new relationship as different people. That would be so much more in keeping with the actual themes of this show than the magical thinking this season has engaged in.

27. Pep??????

"Don't worry about wins and losses, just help these guys be the best versions of themselves" from Pep Guardiola is THE MOST TED LASSO version of Pep Guardiola I can imagine. I cackled out loud. I threw back my head and laughed like a woman eating a salad. A+ comedy, intentional or otherwise.

28. Nate hiding under the desk

Why? Why. I mean, I get why – this humanizes everything Nate did in 2.12 and makes him seem like a pathetic guy who can't even ruin a sign right, and retcons some of the most potent parts of Nate's season two arc to make us feel empathy for him where we might not previously have; I had this issue with the rolling chair pratfall video earlier in the season, too – but it just exhausts me. They couldn't spend the time redeeming him organically, so they're rewriting what's already happened to make it seem less bad.

Going back to Ted's funeral therapy session with Dr. Sharon: remember how Ted had this deep, terrible fear of losing someone he loved because he didn't do enough to make them feel their worth, and Nate unknowingly cracked that wide open when he accused Ted of "abandoning" him? Remember how Nate could only feel important if he was the most important person in the room, so being one part of a team felt like rejection – and Nate at the absolute bottom of his spiral, having already tried to ruin Ted's life in the press, tore at him with every emotional weapon he had on hand?

Now we're going to reframe all of that as, "ahhhh, this little guy, can't even do a harm to a desk chair, look at him hide from cleaners, so sad, someone rescue him from restaurant!!"

I'm so ready for this show to end. It'll be easier to pick and choose the parts I want to hang onto once canon is closed.

29. OT3 Watch: champagne

But they aren't going to make it canon, right?????????

Honestly, get someone who looks at you the way Roy looks at Jamie here. Just incredible.

If this is the most OT3 we ever get, it'll be enough.

30. Beard's backstory

Let's pause here a moment.

As a coping mechanism for whatever the show was going to throw at me in this episode, I made myself a bingo card. Every time I got a square, I won a tiny piece of chocolate. I made some of the squares obvious hits, some of them decent possibilities, and some were wild swings at things I knew would never happen.

Earlier in this episode, I hesitated over giving myself the "Beard Backstory" square for Beard and Dottie having nicknames for each other, wondering if that qualified as our Beard backstory for the episode. And then … Beard showed up at Nate's door.

In that moment, I truly felt I had cursed myself with this bingo card. Don't invite possibilities you aren't willing to see play out on-screen, I think is the lesson here?

"Just like in Les Mis." – Nate, and all of us

I really don't know how to feel about this Beard backstory. In theory, I have no issue with Beard having a backstory about being incarcerated for meth and Ted helping him out afterward, but in practice, I'm not sure it makes any sense whatsoever. Beard has a record that no one knows about? He's been an assistant coach in the Premier League for three seasons and it's never popped up in the Daily Mail that he was in prison on a drug conviction? I know in the real world Ted wouldn't be allowed to coach Richmond to begin with, but just how far into fantasyland are we?

(I also have some questions about the "and then I stole his car" twist. What exactly are the writers trying to say here about people freshly out of prison? He had a difficult re-entry, totally understood; he found a place to land, and immediately turned back to crime? Should they maybe have spent a little more time unpacking this story before they made it canon?)

All of that aside, I'm not sure I really wanted a Beard backstory. For the entire run of this show to date, Beard has been something of a Ted-adjacent cryptid with a very clear personality but relatively opaque motivations, whose history we've learned about through wildly random drop-ins that always raise more questions than they answer. He's a guy who roams the city at night and collects subcultures like stamps. He's in an eternally tortured relationship with a manic pixie nightmare girl who somehow suits him perfectly. His devotion to Ted has never, ever been in doubt.

I just don't think it actually rounds out the character of Beard to know exactly where he's coming from and why he's with Ted. The mystery is part of the character. Introducing an in-depth backstory in the penultimate episode of the entire show feels … kind of cheap? I would completely understand if other people felt it was long overdue and are happy to get it before the end, but to me, pulling back the curtain feels like a misunderstanding of what makes Beard a great character. We don't need to see the man behind the curtain. Being able to wildly speculate about what makes Beard Beard is a big part of his appeal.

And to drop this in as a plot mechanism for bringing Nate back into the fold – to make this significant change to a major character as a shortcut on Nate's mismanaged path to redemption – I'm just so tired.

This whole thing where Ted emotionally manipulated Beard into forgiving Nate by invoking Ted's own past assistance to Beard – I'm not sure that comes across the way they think it does. Ted wants everyone around him to forgive Nate and the only one who isn't willing to do it is Beard, so Ted forces the issue by hitting Beard where it hurts to get Beard to project his own past trauma onto Nate's situation. Does Ted really think that Beard stealing his car is equivalent to Nate putting his mental health history on the front page of every newspaper in London? Even if he does, why does he think it's fair to Beard to pull out Beard's trauma like a trump card?

31. Fuck you, Mom!!

What was Ted's relationship with his mother back home, that she comes to visit him in London and within 48 hours, everything he's been holding onto for years comes boiling out of him in a series of F-bombs borrowed from Jamie Tartt? What was their dynamic like in Kansas, that the minute she shows up his shoulders go up around his ears and he can't handle anyone he cares about liking her at all?

Is this happening now because Ted unlocked all of this in therapy? Is it happening now because he's been away from her for so long? Was he not visiting her on those trips to Kansas? Is it the change in setting – having her in London, in his space, meeting his people?

This whole "thank you / fuck you" speech feels overcooked at best, well-acted as it is, and it veers into some really incoherent areas. When Ted tapped his chest, I thought, "oh god, is he impotent in his soul?" Honestly, that would have made more sense than Ted saying he's afraid to get close to his son because "I know he's going to leave."

Yes, Ted is afraid of losing people, but we know because Ted has said so in therapy that his response to that fear is to pull people closer in. To try to make people feel wanted, feel valued, feel good about themselves.

In Ted and Henry's relationship, if Ted has projected his dad onto anyone, it's been himself. If there is a monster under the bed here, it is Ted's fear of turning into his dad, of having the potential for that inside him. That line would have made 110% more sense if it had been, "I'm afraid I'm going to leave," even if we would have had a lot more to unpack on-screen at that point. As it is, it's just – kind of nonsense?

Did they feel like they had to pull out some extra motivation for Ted having been in London all of this time? They didn't. The degree to which they are trying way too hard in some areas and not at all in others sure is something.

32. I've read this fic

Rebecca and Bex? Yeah, I've definitely read this fic. That "Bex divorces Rupert and takes West Ham" square on my bingo card is going to reappear next week.

33. "Do you know what time it is?"

"It's the time of the season when we do X" is a little too much meta self-awareness for me, and the "I'm going to invoke truth bombs as a concept but I don't actually have one" is clunky execution to set up Ted's cliffhanger line, but the staging: flawless. In seasons one and two, Rebecca comes into Ted's office and stands on the left of the frame, facing right. In season three, Ted is the one who comes into the office and stands on the left, reversing their positions both physically and narratively. That kind of attention to detail is A+.

(I wish they gave that much attention to the plot, but I'll take it where I can get it.)

What's next?

One more episode left to cram in everything they could possibly want to do with this show! We're on a real run here of episodes that cram in abrupt resolutions to ongoing stories while also dropping in a ton of new elements we don't have time to explore, and I wouldn't expect the finale to be all that different.

- Before 3.11, I thought the chances of Ted going back to Kansas were 85% for, 15% against. Now … I think it might actually be closer to 75% for, 25% against?

This episode pushed so hard on sending Ted back to Kansas, and we're being set up in that cliffhanger for him telling Rebecca he's quitting after the season ends, and – there's still an entire finale to go. Will the episode just be one long goodbye, or will there be some last-minute twist to keep him in London? I think the chances of him staying in London are actually slightly better now that the "I'm going back to Kansas" twist isn't being held for the end. Still pretty unlikely, though.

I say again: if he goes back to Kansas, fine, we can fix that in post. If he goes back to Michelle, I'm turning this car around.

- Every social media feed I have has been frantic with speculation as to whether or not they're going to make the OT3 canon in the finale. My money is on Not Canon – I think a wink and a nod at it is as much as they're going to do – but I'll be happy with anything that isn't a flash-forward in which Jamie has a girlfriend. Just let us walk off arm-in-arm-in-arm with room to speculate, show.

- So Nate goes back to Richmond, Ted leaves, and Nate becomes head coach, right? Just like we could pretty easily guess was going to happen before this season even started? There's still a chance of a surprise shake-up there, but I'd put it at, like … 5%. A 5% chance of this not going in the most predictable possible direction.

- If Ted leaves, does Beard stay or does he go? He stays, right? If they try to convince us that Jane is dying to move to Kansas, I'll have to Eternal Sunshine the entire finale from my memory banks.

- I am very much hoping for a thoughtful farewell with the pub trio. They've earned it.

- It's West Ham they're going to be playing in the last game, right? If Nate's West Ham storyline is going to have any meaning, he has to go up against his old team with his old old team in the last game of the season while Rupert's drama plays out in close-up.

There should also be some simultaneous game drama happening with Manchester City. They were four points down before this game, so on the final day of league play, they'll be one point down. If City wins, they win the title. If City draws or loses and Richmond wins, Richmond wins the title. If City loses and Richmond draws, then … actually, there could be interesting last-minute drama if they're trying to break through on goal differential, but I don't think the show would go that far into technicalities. Richmond has to win, right? They aren't going to send the show off on anything less.

Five days until we're free!

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