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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Ducktales Della Arc Reviews: The Great Dime Chase!

Welcome back all you happy people, to my look at the series first arc! I covered the pilot last week and this week i’m going full speed ahead with two more review for this arc, one more for the Lena arc all leading up to BOTH finsihing up next week for DUCK WEEK, my huge celebration of the final episode of Ducktales 2017. So with all that in mind when we last left off the kids moved in, webby gained friends, Donald and Scrooge made the first steps to patching up.. and Dewey found out his mom was also invovled with their adventures setting this arc off.

This is also where the airing order reshuffling started as this episode was pushed up by two replacing impossible summit as the third episode... and where said order reshuffling for both this arc and the Lena arc really bit Disney in the ass by giving fans the wrong idea about the series pacing. See the original idea was to have a few episodes as a buffer, since this arc itself is only about 5 episodes long, so the pacing would be more spread out and fans while likely getting impatient for the della mystery to be resolved, would expect it to take about that long after a while. The same was clearly planned for the Lena arc.

The problem is Disney didn’t give one shit about proper airing order, story pacing or any of that at the time despite their most popular show at said time having the same pacing structure and having been aired in the right order. So as a result and as most of you already know, season 1′s structure was a mess: The globetrotting adventure episodes were off ballance with ones set in Duckburg itself, Scrooge sometimes felt like a supporitng character in the first half due to his two focus episodes being crunched to the back for holidays... it was bad. And it was worst here as by having both the Della and Lena arcs progress pretty quickly in the first 6.. it was thus jarring and grating that there was zero progress for either in the rest of the first half, and they had to move the spear of selene up a few episodes when they came back just to make up for it.. which still messed with pacing as that arc wouldn’t be picked up until the final three episodes solving nothing. This made fans blame the creators for sloppy pacing and for taking too long to get to the Della thing when they’d done nothing wrong and HAD staggered it out. It wasn’t till Frank later revealed the order was a bit bungled we got the message and until a few months into the series being on Disney Plus we got a proper order for the series. And again, the arc has pacing issues we’ll get to without this.. but they were made so much work by Disney blatantly disrespecting and ingoring their creative team.

I will give credit where it’s due though: Disney learned from it. While Season 2 had a few episodes shuffled around, this time it was due to trying out that binge airing strategy they were doing to get shows on Disney Plus faster, airing DuckBombs (Woo-Ooo!) frequently, so they wanted the airing to flow properly with that without screwing up the flow fo the season more than they absolutely had to. They were being careful and delberate this time not to make the same mistake and with season 3, they simply havent’ shuffled the airing order at all> The only two episodes aired out of order were holiday episodes purposefully made to air at the right time and detached from the season as a whole. This stretches to other shows too: Amphibia is two seasons in and Owl House got through it’s whole season with at worst minimal changes to the airing lineup and the arcs all being properly spaced and aired as intended. I give Disney a lot of shit, rightfully so, but I will give them all the credit when they learn from their mistakes and they REALLY did here, learning to trust their creators to know when to actually make an episode and simply having them set aside holiday episodes if they want one.

Otherwise not a lot of lead in for this one: It introduces a bunch of the supporting cast, reintroduces the board in full, and in general is a pretty good episode. Find out why under the cut.

We open with the introduction of the shows go to Show Within a Show Ottoman Empire. And what I’d forgotten was Louie wasn’t always into it but there’s a subtle arc to it: he gets into it, slowly obesses over it, by the end of the season he’s got his brothers into it, it’s not a huge thing but it’s a little detail I can’t help but enjoy a hell of a lot. But him not liking it is part of a larger problem Scrooge has picked up on: Louie’s laziness has reached godlike new levels: he’s opened about 7 cans of PEP! and only taken a sip from each, won’t change the channel because the remote, which is right next to him and would only take him hopping slightly to the left to get to it or incnching over a bit is “too far”. Scrooge finally blows up at the sight when Louie tosses his phone away for not being charged and assumes he can get another one because “We’re rich”. Scrooge corrects him “I”m rich!” and then drags him off by the hoodie with him to the office so he’ll learn the value of a hard day’s work. And really.. the scene is a good showcase for Scrooge: Louie is acting like the embodiment of all deadbeats and Scrooge is still VERY patient with the boy until it’s very clear he needs a wakeup call. Given Scrooge has a temper on the best of occasions it really shows he’s trying with the boys, and only really snapped when it was clear Louie NEEDED someone to snap at him and snap him out of his bullshit.

Meanwhile Dewey sneaks into Webby’s room to read her secret file on the McDuck family only to LITERALLY be caught red handed as she put glitter on her outside.. because it looks pretty. And as a security measure. Given she lives with a trained spy who likely has riffled through her stuff at least once, or would at least solely try to check her files just to make sure their secure, and lives in a place that gets broken into or nearly blown up, both by Glomgold, on a regular basis, i’d expect no less. But she also points out the obvious once he explains he’s looking for information on his family: He could’ve just asked. As we saw back in Woo-ooo! like yours truly webby will gladly go on about things she’s obsessed about at the drop of a hat and has likely been dying for someone to share her vast conspiracy board with. As for why he didn’t do the obvious, keep in mind he doesn’t know Webby well this point, so he dosen’t know what questions he asked might set her off and also doesn’t know WHY his uncles don’t talk about her, so he’s being cautious and it’s a nice foreshadowing for his secret keeping throughout the arc.. and how it’s an inherently dumb and selfish idea that only slows down his investigation.

So naturally given the sequel hook at the end of the pilot, he asks about Della. And after drawing the curtains and making sure Scrooge isn’t around to listen Webby asks what HE knows. Naturally given this is a whole story arc he only knows what she looks like from an old photo of her dunking donald’s head in his birthday cake, and Webby.. knows even less. No one talks about Della and the last time anyone did, a mailmain brought some junk mail with her name on it, Scrooge bought out the post office and they never saw that mail man again. Webby naturally thinks Scrooge murdered him... and while I don’t think he went THAT far, I pity that poor shcmoe and whatever ice floe he’s been banished to. And not a small villiage in the arctic mind you like an actual ice floe scrooge left him on with a lifetimes suply of beans.

This also admittedly answers a question i’ve been griping about for some time that turns out had a logical answer: I thought he’d somehow wiped her out from public record and the internet and then magically put her back. I was wrong and simply hadn’t rewatched this episode and connected the dots. He likely didn’t do.. any of that, but the triplets likely never thought to internet search her with Donald because as far as they knew Donald was an average person, and thus their mom would be too and looking her up wouldn’t tell her anything about them. It still leaves the plot hole of how they knew about Scrooge and not the Della search, I have no answer for that one, but hey sometimes these things happen and it’s a good enough show I can ignore it. Point is they had no reason to research her before then and Donald likely went out of his way to hide anything about her when they visited places. Likewise Scrooge was likely so miserable and consumed with his search, and once that was called off his failure, he likely pulled every archive and artifact for his own personal collection to pour over them in sadness and loss and simply put most of it back into the public once the boys helped him heal by the end of the season and the truth was out there. Likewise while the internet info was likely there after this episode too Dewey, as foolish as he can be, likely wasn’t stupid enough to look up his mom’s name on his uncle’s wifi. While Scrooge likely isn’t tech savy, given how paranoid he is and how much of a sore spot this is, it’s not a stretch to have him ask gyro to monitor his wifi for certain key words. So yeah i’ll admit when I was wrong and there was a logical explanation, if still with some holes, all along.

Anyways Webby has one place she hasnt’ been able to get into that might have the answers: Scrooge’s Personal Archives. And as it turns out, both parties are heading to the bin: Scrooge since, much like the comics, that’s where his office is, and Webby and Dewey for the same reason The bin being Scrooge’s buisness center, where his office is where he has meetings where a lot of his emoployees are is very accurate to the comics, as while the layout was never entirely consient apart from “Scrooge’s office is the only way in and out of the bin itself” and said office having a very consistent and iconic look that the series didn’t change. But as we’ll see they added two extra parts to it that in the comics scrooge would Balk at the expense of but this scrooge, whiel still probably not happy about the extra money, knows are vitally necessary.

Speaking of which the plot splits in two pretty cleanly once we actually get to the bin: Scrooge has no real issue with the kids going to the archives and no glimmer of their real intention, so the plots don't’ meet up again outside of when Louie’s literally crashes into Dewey and Webby’s for a second. There’s some thematic connections, cutaways and an intercut montage, but nothing outside of that. So as is tradition for me i’m covering them seperatly and since it’s both the reason why i’m covering this episode and our B-Plot, let’s start with the archives Webby and Dewey in The Mad Archivist of Scrooge McDuck!

Webby and Dewey head to the archive where we meet Quackfaster. In the comics she’s scrooges long suffering secretary, emphasis on suffering. He barely pays her, takes expenses out of her paycheck and she generally seems once minute away from a nervous breakdown at any given time. What i’m saying is the character and the “gag” have not aged well in any way shape or form so instead here she was revamped. Frank and Matt leaned on Scrooge’s love for adventure more than his greed at first, and had his thrill-seeking be his vice more. It does make sense as greed isn’t nearly as good as it was to people in the 40′s and especially the 80′s, but they eventually clearly realized they made it a bit too subtle, as it’s still an iconic part of the character and played it up a bit more in seasons 2 and 3, to the point two of his worst moments in backstory, both revealed in season 3, come from his greed. They found a nice ballance and I do think having his adventuring also be a vice was a nice change of pace. As such, they came up with the idea that he’d hire people who like him are exceptionally talented but also a bit reckless and unhinged. The kind of people most employers would unfairly shut the door on but Scrooge sees their true talent and worth and treats them with the respect they deserve. People who in most other works would be super villains, but here are kept from that by being given honest jobs for their talents and a boss who has no intention of ripping them off or undermining them. IT’s a great concept and I wish we’d saw more than two people hired with that in mind, but the two we got are great.

So with all this Quackfaster was reinvented with this idea in mind to someone entirely different but infinitely more entertaining: She’s now a ham of the highest order, not literally, and slightly unballanced. She also refuses to help Dewey until he completes some challenges for her, sorting out a code in the dewey decimel system

And in sorting the books to get to know the archives. Webby is all for it naturally as this is a dream for her: she’s likely tried to access the place for years and couldn’t as a non-relative, something Scrooge hopefully relaxes in the future, so a giant pile of books about adventuring, Scrooge (including an apparently 7 volumes on his favorite smells one of which Webby gives a happy “I knew it” upon finding out it was fresh baked cookies), and places he’s been, including a sly nod to Plain Awful. This is a hallmark of the show making smaller nods to the past incarnations without going into them or doing those adventures again and while I was at first disappointed those tales already happened in some form, I now get they simply wanted to tell NEW ONES, and were a big as fan of the olds ones as most of you reading this and myself. Though between you and me I was never a big fan of the square eggs story. Good idea just a weird and not all that funny execution.

Dewey however has the patience of a coked up ferret who also took some shrooms and being Dewey tries simply demanding she tell him. Naturally yelling at the weird hammy lady intrusted to guard the private library of someone whose a certified badass.. is not a smart or correct move and Quackfaster decides if they can’t respect the archives they’ll become PART OF THE ARCHIVES and pulls out a crescent shaped sword to apparently murder them.

So a chase ensues with the two trying to simply throw books at her, escape her and only narrowly doing so for a minute when Louie pops up being chased by a giant robot made by a smaller robot using a giant change machine. I love this show.

Eventually their backed into a corner while Dewey defiantly demands info on his mom. And his impatience and anger is understandable: this is the first time in his ten or so year old life he’s had ANY chance of learning anything on her.. and he’s having to do various fetch quests. While he could use some tact, may not get him stabbed so much, his viewpoint is understandable.

Thankfully it turns out Quackfaster was just doing a Mr.Miaygi and secretly testing them, having chased them to the book Dewey wanted, and said code she had them find earlier is the login for the vault. Granted it also has them put away some books (”How much of this is us just doing your job for you?” “About fiffttty perceeennnt”), but she works for scrooge. While he thankfully pays her a living wage here he still can’t be paying her much. Still they find their way to a secret vault and Dewey gets stabbed a bit to verify he is a mcduck.. and let into Scrooge’s secret room, full of treasures Della likely gathered. As I said, he DID put them aside somewhere, and likely just wanted them to cry over and donald didn’t fight it since the last thing he wanted was the boys learning their legacy. D

The telling part here though, despite accusations later.. is that Dewey’s first instinct upon finding this is to tell his brothers. Keep in mind Dewey’s all consuming need for attention and validiation, all of which he could possibly get and only have to share with Webby. He has every selfish reason for not telling them.. but he wants to. He knows they deserve to learn to. The only wrinkle is webby finding a note saying “Scrooge i’m taking the spear of selene, i’m sorry”. He decides to hide it for their sake right then and there. But while part of this as we’ll get into later in the week is him simply being afraid of what he’ll find personally.. it’s fair to NOT want to tell them. To try and protect them from the horrible truth whatever it may be. He has no way of knowing the betryal was nonexistant here and neither did we. It’s not the right course of action, awful truth or no they deserved to know too and both would say as much later, she’s their mom: good person or bad they know.. but like his uncles he’s not hiding this out of malice but because the truth might genuinely hurt them.. and as we’ll learn.. it will.. oh boy will it ever. But more on that next week and more on the arc itself later this week. What about the rest of the episode?

Louie in The Great Dime Chase! and Scrooge in The Boardroom Full of Heartless Assholes!

Winding back a few hours, Scrooge drags Louie up to his office, where the boy is genuinely impressed.. before naturally trying to take a swim in the money while Scrooge tries to tell him about his number one dime. Scrooge stops him before head injury occurs explaining that yes, even the money thing requires proper training: Louie would’ve just cracked his skull open and this would’ve either gotten really dark really fast or turned into a horrifying and hilarious child death version of weekend at bernies. It’s what Louie would’ve wanted. Scrooge can do it because he’s built up the muscle and resistance over time, strong enough and skilled enough to travel through the solid metal and dive into it. It’s a nice nod to life and times: While Scrooge didn’t necesarily train to swim in money, he bathed in it at first and when he needed to during an adventure discovered he could swim through it going from one barrel of his cash to another. So tweaking that slightly to an earned skill, and one Louie will have leanred by the end of the season, was a billiant move..and a way of silencing all those head injury jokes.

But their soon interrupted by the board, who Scrooge dosen’t recall having a meeting with and likely pull this kind of shit all the time when they can get Scrooge. It makes even more sense after the Della reveal, as he likely has to be forced into dealing with the men who, while as far as he knew were trying to help him, still pulled him away from Della.. and in one case, had a shit eating grin about it. Seriously Bradford you smirked evilly about your nemesis not being able to rescue his daughter how do you NOT get that your the bad guy?

The meeting ends up being boring with Louie asleep and Scrooge almost there, as let’s face it most board meetings probably are, until Gyro barges in! It’s our first apperance of 2017 Gyro and a lot of people were upset by how much more of an ass he was. Me, while I like the kind and gentle original, like the more mad sciency version here and feel Jim Rash did a good job with it, and I only really hate it when he’s around Fenton, and the show eventually addressed how fucked up that was in Season 3 after downplaying it in Season 2 by having them barely interact and have Gyro genuienly show some pride. Otherwise I like my insane prideful version even if I get why some don’t like it as it is nothing like the comics, but as we see with Donald not being a lot like the comics version isn’t a bad thing.

IT’s one hell of a character establishing moment, as he barges in, is rude to everyone and has to read cue cards to properly intro his latest invention Little Bulb, Gyro’s most iconic invention whose made here to help people not do work. The Board is skeptical though as most of Gyro’s inventions have turned evil, a nice nod to the fact that most of Gyro’s robots in the original series, who are in fact on a list of previous inventions.. turned evil and tried to kill people. IT also shows his warmer side as he insists they aren’t evil just misunderstood, or at least half were anyway, and tries to cover for Little Bulb shaking his fist at them and doing a throat slitting gesture... which while Bradford plays dumb about what that means.. he’s worked in organized Villainy for at least 55 years. He knows what that gesture means. It’s Heron’s favorite. And even if he didn’t he’s also worked with Scrooge for around 30. It’s also Scrooge’s favorite. So it’s rejected though Scrooge encourages Gyro who vows they’ll understand one day and they’ll all pay. Really should save that for outside.

Scrooge vouches for the board to Louie who questions such a slam dunk, pointing out he trusts their judgment.. mostly because he dosen’t know they’ve been embezzling from him to fund an evil spy orginzation the whole time but still, he usually trusts them. He would’ve found a way to fire them if he didn’t on the Della thing. But sometimes they overstep and they undermine that statment by suggesting cuts to the Bin’s budget, starting with Magical defenses “Do you know how many curses I have on my head?”. And props to the creators as they apparnetly had the whole Bombie idea in mind this far back, and as Bradford later shows towards the end of next season when he lures Louie into cutting it, he KNOWS where that money goes. He just was trying to feign ignorance to get Scrooge killed if he could. Clever bastard.

So Louie goes to get a drink, and naturally scrooge’s drink machine in his office not only charges but requires an extra ten cents. Louie assumes the dime in his office is an emergency Dime only to walk in on Scrooge giving the full story. As you all likely know, it’s his number one dime, with the origin taken straight from life and times: He was a poor shoe shine, and he worked hard to clean off a ditchdigger’s muddy boots, working himself to the bone.. only to get an American dime which inspired him both to work harder and smarter than anyone and to go to America to seek his fourtune. There’s some extra steps in the original material, and another bit that the show would also adapt later that we’ll get to next week, but point is it’s his symbol of all his hard work.. that Louie just sent into the vending machine. So said great chase insures as Louie follows the dime, as it’s emptied from the vending machine.. by a gull janitor we only see this season. And he’s a really likeable guy I wish we’d learned more. He then faces his and Charles Xavier’s greatest enemy THE STAIRS. There’s a runner about Louie having to constnatly run up and down the massive amount of stairs the bin has as someone else takes the elevator and by the climax it’s been taken out entirely. It’s pretty great. So Louie’s seemingly screwed and instead looks up how to pick a lock on YouTube.. no really. That’s what he does. Frank outright mentioned this in an interview, pointing out they wanted the kids to act like a kid would.. and props to him that’s what a kid would do. Hell that’s what I would do if I were locked out of a place and time was of the essence. Either that or look up a step by step instruction on google. He then runs into Gyro though, and gets the idea to use LIttle Bulb, convinces Gyro he has money and would like to invest and just needs to borrow the little guy and Gyro is happy to agree to it.

Naturally though, Louie’s laziness and a volatile machine who only likes one people just like his daddy, do not mix and Louie leaves sorting the coins to it while he watches Ottoman Empire, actually getting really sucked into it. IN fairness he did start with the Glomgold episode. Little Bulb meanwhile shows just how awesome he is by turning himself into a giant coni sorting mech by rewiring and reconfiguring the coin sorter.. and naturally given who made hi going mad with power. So while he did get the dime out.. he’s not horrifyingly obessed with chasing it and the real great dime chase begins.

Back at the meeting Scrooge continues to debate the Buzzards who now want to cut staff, both of whom Scrooge rightfully defends. While Gyro is a bit unhinged, his inventions have likely made the company millions and saved them billions, and while Quackfaster is the same as we just saw, there’s a method to her madness and her laziness. And given Quackfaster works two additional jobs to afford a nice retirement, it’s clear that while he pays them decently he’s likely still not paying them gobs. With the power of hindsight i’ts very clear Bradford just wants to try if he can to eliminate two sources of chaos and backup for Scrooge and when Scrooge sarcastically suggests just getting rid of the bin, Bradford goes with it with a shit eating grin, but it’s very clear by that and Scrooge’s frustration this is a non starter, and Bradford’s likely doing it just because he frankly knows it’ll piss Scrooge off.

So Louie runs for it working harder than he has in his whole life, with Gyro eventually trying to talk little bulb down, to no avail.. though we do get a nice moment of it registering him as father. Awwww. So the chase naturally eventually leads to the bin and Louie stuck in it, slowly swimming across, until Gyro gets to LIl Bulb, and realizes he’s in the wrong time of wattage and has literally gone mad with power and puts him back in his tiny old body fixing the problem. Gyro also crashed in with the bulb mech earlier, and while it disproves Scrooge’s point he’s stable.. he simply rolls with it and points out his staff is dangerously insane, and would likely swear vengeance on the Board if they were fired. And while he dosen’t say this part of it directly given Scrooge treats BOTH Quackfaster and Gyro exceptionally well, he knows they’ll know EXACTLY whose idea it was.. probably even tell them. So the board agrees to keep things as is to not die horribly as supervillains or not they have limits.

So the day is one, Louie finds the dime, replaces it and passes out with Scrooge none the wiser. it also turns out the Dime isn’t even the real deal, to Louie’s frustration. But Scrooge is proud he clearly worked hard, and gives him the fake dime as his own number one dime, a nice setup for their bond and a nice showing that Louie really has the potential to be as rich as his uncle one day, and it’s clear by this setup there was a lot of potential here for an arc.. which is why we got one. More on that some other time. Louie accidently spends it while Gyro ends realizing if he put himself int he robot it wouldn’t go mad with power.. and thus Project Blatherskite is born. And we all know where this is going.

Final Thoughts: All in all a decent episode. It has great pacing, some excellent world building, and some really good gags. While the series would do better episodes as it went, for an early episode helping set things up including Louie’s charcter arc, Gyro, Gizmoduck and the board as proper characters, it’s still very good and one of the series early standouts.

Next Time on Della: Donald is forced to confront his adventuring past when he runs into his old sorta friend THE INCREDIBLE STORKULES, Scrooge is forced into games of the gods by their resident Douchebag Zeus, and Dewey is forced to confront his own fear of whatever it is his mom did. Confront this review later this week.

Next Time on This Blog: It’s Lena’s Dark Night of the Soul as she and Webby head into “The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!”

If you liked this review share it, feel free to commission your own and feel free to join my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. Even a buck a month helps, and helps me reach my stretch goals, the current one being just 5 dollars away, and netting you reviews of the super Ducktales arc of Ducktales and a Darkwing Duck Review every month. See you at the next rainbow.

#ducktales #the great dime chase #louie duck #gyro gearloose #emily quackfaster #scrooge mcduck #dewey duck #webby vanderquack #bradford buzzard #F.o.w.l.#reviews #animation #disney channel #launchpad mcquack #little bulb

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bubonickitten · 7 years

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So what do you think are anders best traits (other than him worrying about mage rights and him being a compassive healer?) I really love him and I love the way you write about him so I'm just curious.

There’s a lot I love about him :0

I mean, on a personal level, he’s a really relatable character for me, so that’s part of why I like him so much.

But I also like him as a character in general. (I’ll put this post under a cut bc it got long.)

Him being a compassionate healer and being incredibly passionate about mage rights are huge parts of his character and they’re honestly two of the biggest things that make me like him so much.

Like, here’s a person who was subject to systemic abuse for most of his life, who knows full well the repercussions of rebelling against the status quo, but does it anyway, because his convictions are just that strong. He knows that the Circle and the Chantry are fundamentally wrong. He’s experienced and witnessed firsthand what happens to people who fight back. Hell, when we meet him Awakening, he’s only just recently been released from a year of solitary confinement for running away - he just got out and as soon as he was able to, he ran again. If he gets caught and sent back to the Circle again, he’s going back into solitary confinement at the very least, and by the time he’s in Kirkwall, he’s also possessed by a spirit, so he’s risking just being killed outright. He’s risking everything by fighting back so openly and actively, but he does it anyway.

And it’s not just Justice’s presence that makes him so willing to fight. Even when he was running, he was fighting back, because by constantly running away, he was refusing to submit. But in Awakening, Anders did feel like he couldn’t have any impact on the status quo - he believed that things would change eventually, he believed that the way mages are treated is inherently and fundamentally wrong and one day things would be different, but he didn’t think he’d ever see it in his lifetime, and he didn’t believe he of all people could do anything to enact change. Justice helped him realize that he could be an agent of change, but that fire and that strong sense of right and wrong were already there - it just needed to be validated and encouraged, which Justice did for him.

And I do like that Anders needed support to be able to get to that point, bc I feel like that’s... realistic, y’know? I don’t like the idea that everyone should have to fend for themselves and not have to rely on others to stand up and fight. He couldn’t do it alone, and there’s nothing wrong with that. He hasn’t gotten much support from others throughout his life, so I like that in this instance, he had someone to lean on. (And I still wish there were more opportunities to support him more actively in DA2.)

Like, it was difficult for Anders to admit to those feelings of powerlessness - which is entirely understandable, because in his experience, showing that kind of vulnerability could get him killed or worse (if the templars considered a mage to be weak-willed, they might not even give them a chance at the Harrowing and just make them Tranquil outright - and Anders is canonically mentally ill, which I imagine added an extra burden in terms of hiding his vulnerability). So, outwardly, he talked a big talk about only being concerned with his own freedom and pretends to be more apathetic and careless than he actually is.

This also shows a lot in terms of his sense of humor - it’s a lot of morbid sarcasm, irreverent joking, gallows humor even - because he uses it as a shield and a coping mechanism. Ngl, I love that aspect of him, it’s one of the things that started endearing him to me in Awakening first. I play my Hawke as having a similar sense of irreverent, snarky humor, so they play well off of one another. Humor as a coping mechanism is a character trait I tend to appreciate and relate to a lot, haha.

Anyway, I think in actuality he cares so much it hurts. It might not seem like it when we first meet him in Awakening, but I think it’s just that it’s easier and psychologically safer for him to pretend he doesn’t care than it is to admit that he does care but feels powerless to change things. It takes a lot of strength (and also support from others, which again, is something that Anders hasn’t had much of throughout most of his life) to be able to confront your own vulnerability and try to channel it into something that benefits others.

But even in Awakening, his actions often contradicted the “I don’t care about anyone but myself” talk - if you tell him to run away in the beginning of the game, he’ll do so, but he shows back up like five minutes later because he felt like he couldn’t leave the Warden to fight the darkspawn alone (he jokes about being “bad at the whole ‘fugitive from justice’ thing”, which... turns out to be way more accurate than he may even realize in that moment). In the endgame, he’s not eager to go along with the Warden to Amaranthine, but if you do bring him, he’s one of the companions who will argue against leaving Amaranthine to burn - his instincts might tell him to run, but he cares too much about the survivors in Amaranthine to leave them to their fate.

Not to mention, canonically, spirit healers are kinda rare. They derive a lot of their power from spirits of compassion, which means earning spirits’ trust and cooperation. A person who isn’t compassionate probably wouldn’t be able to earn that cooperation of a spirit of compassion in the first place. Not to mention his interest in being a healer in general - it’s a big part of his identity, to the point where in DA2, one of the things he worries most about is not being able to heal anymore because he’s so afraid that he or Justice will accidentally hurt one of his patients.

I think a lot of his attachment to the healer role is also tied up in his own internalized belief that he has to be a Good Mage in order to deserve freedom - it seems contradictory, it’s something that goes against his stated principles, mages shouldn’t have to prove themselves and be ‘good’ mages according to the Chantry’s fucked up doctrine to deserve freedom and life and love, but he lived in the Circle for at least half his life and he definitely internalized a lot of the hateful messages they taught about mages. Fighting against those teachings is a constant battle for him - which also ties into his occasional crises of faith, because he’s an Andrastian and all the spiritual authorities in his life have taught him that he’s a non-person, that he’s inherently sinful and cursed and deserving of subjugation because he’s a mage.

So, he has a lot of moments of self-doubt. He has a lifetime of trauma and abuse that affect his present well-being. He has a lot of self-loathing and a lot of fear of himself (the latter esp after merging with Justice). He doesn’t see himself as worthy of love or care, even if he talks passionately about how mages deserve those things - he often doesn’t give himself the same consideration that he’s willing to give others. He has an incredibly complicated relationship with his own anger - because his anger is totally and completely justifiable, but it scares him, because he associates rage and anger with demons and loss of control. (I think a big source of the conflict btwn he and Justice is how they differ re: embracing and accepting anger. For Justice, that anger is righteous fury, it’s justified, it’s a source of passion and change. For Anders, it’s a source of fear and insecurity a lot of the time. I think a lot of their miscommunication is rooted in that fear.)

But Anders works himself half to death trying to help as many people as he can for as long as he can, and even though he’s barely making a dent in all the suffering he sees in the world, even though he’s risking everything, he just keeps going, because that’s how strongly he believes and that’s how much he cares. Every mage he helps escape the Gallows, every patient he helps in his clinic is worth it to him. That kind of perseverance in the face of hopelessness and doubt and a world set against you is really admirable to me.

And I also like how clear it is that it doesn’t come easy to him. It’s not just some inspiration porn “you can do anything you set your mind to if you just try :)” thing. He stumbles a lot. He fails a lot. He spends most of DA2 in a constant state of anxiety and desperation (esp since he really doesn’t get much support from the people closest to him, except like… Justice and Hawke, if you play Hawke in a supportive role). He’s idealistic, but he can’t help but dip into periods of hopelessness and depression and doubt - partly because he has a mood disorder, partly because that’s just… expected for someone who’s seen as much shit as he has. His life is messy and he’s tired and it shows. But even when he’s running, he’s fighting. Sometimes, survival is in itself a form of rebellion and he’s a walking example of that. He is stubborn and although sometimes it’s a negative, it also has its perks. And that passion doesn’t just manifest as rage - it’s also love, because lbh, he is a hopeless romantic (in a dorky, endearing way at times) and in his romance route he loves Hawke fiercely.

It’s a shame that he didn’t get more positive character development in DA2 (it’s no secret how resentful I am toward the writers, he and Justice really deserved better). I headcanon him over time learning how to communicate and coexist with Justice; learning to practice self-care and be kinder to himself; more fully accepting that he has a right to be angry and he doesn’t have to prove that he’s deserving of personhood or love.

And he has a fair amount of flaws for sure - he has a tendency to project his insecurities onto others (e.g. Merrill), he’s not a good ally to other marginalized groups (e.g. elves), he sometimes lashes out at others when they don’t deserve it (which, although I understand why he behaves that way, it still isn’t fair to others who are on the receiving end), he was manipulative in the ‘Justice’ quest (I understand his motivations but despite his intentions it wasn’t acceptable behavior) - but I think he has an ability to better himself in those areas and I like to headcanon that personal growth for him. (That’s not to say I want him to be a flawless character - nobody’s perfect, and a flawless character would be pretty flat and unrealistic, but I also like when characters are allowed to have personal growth in a positive direction.)

I guess, in all, he’s an interesting, likable, and relatable character for me - I wish the writers treated him better, I have a lot of criticisms wrt how he (and Justice) were written (including how Anders was treated as a bipolar character), and I’m also willing to criticize him where it’s deserved (I have a whole tag full of meta w/ my criticisms of him) - but overall he’s one of my faves.

Tbh the reason why DA2 is my fave game in the series (despite all of my criticisms of the writing in it, esp Act 3) is the characters. Hawke is my favorite protag and DA2 has probably my favorite companion group - like, Anders, Merrill, Fenris, Isabela, and Varric are some of my fave characters in the whole series - so the characters are ultimately what make me like that game.

#/#//#///#////#//////#dragon age #anders #anders meta #i guess #long post #Anonymous

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withasmoothroundstone · 7 years

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I’m a mutant, I guess.

I’d always known that my tentative diagnosis of myasthenia gravis was… tentative. Meaning, because of elements of my personal and family histories, there’s always been a suspicion that I (and other living family members) might have a form of congenital myasthenia. Complicating things of course, is the fact that there have been recent discoveries of hereditary myasthenia that is autoimmune.

So… normally the way they classify myasthenia is into two basic categories:

Myasthenia gravis, which is more common, not generally hereditary, and is caused by an autoimmune disease. Autoimmune diseases happen when your immune system mistakes part of your body for a dangerous foreign invader and attacks it. For instance, in Hashimoto’s disease (which runs in my family, but I don’t have any sign of it — yet, anyway), your immune system attacks your thyroid. In multiple sclerosis, your immune system attacks the protective myelin covering around your nerve cells. And in myasthenia gravis, your immune system attacks the neuromuscular junction, which is the area where the nerve meets the muscle.

Congenital myasthenia. Congenital myasthenia is genetic and hereditary, and is not autoimmune. With congenital myasthenia, you’re born with at least some degree of the problems inherent in any kind of myasthenia. Sometimes it stays mild throughout your life, and sometimes it gets worse over time (or suddenly worsens and stays worse), and sometimes it starts out very obvious and stays very obvious. Congenital myasthenia is rare. Some forms of it are so rare that each family that has the condition has it from a totally unique genetic configuration that are not found in other families.

And recently, they have discovered that there are some forms of myasthenia that are both inherited and autoimmune. I don’t know a lot about genetic autoimmune diseases, but I assume it works a lot like Hashimoto’s in my family, where many of the biological women in one branch of the family seem to develop it at some point in their lifetimes, but at what time some event triggers it into becoming active, varies greatly. Like, one person might get a totally ordinary virus at the age of twenty, that somehow triggers their immune system along with whatever genetic predisposition they have, to attack their thyroid. But in another person, the same sort of thing happens, only in their fifties. So there’s the gene that determines a body is going to react this way to certain physiological events, but which physiological events trigger the onset of the active disease varies. Understand, I’m not a medical professional, this is just how I’ve heard it described by relatives and by other people with hereditary Hashimoto’s in their families. I don’t know if all forms of hereditary autoimmune disease work this way. And hereditary myasthenia gravis is barely being discovered right now, so there’s a lot they don’t know.

Meanwhile, there’s a lot they don’t know about congenital myasthenia because there just aren’t a lot of people who have it.

Anyway, until now, we’d been in one sort of unknown territory with my diagnosis. Now, we seem to be in a completely new sort of unknown territory. Lots of unknowns here. Nothing is certain, even my genetic testing provides as many questions as answers. (And no, I’m not going to go into details about what testing I’ve had. That information is private.)

So anyway, to clear up some confusion… myasthenia gravis refers specifically to autoimmune myasthenia. Congenital myasthenia is the term for non-autoimmune, genetic myasthenia. I don’t know WTF they’re going to call hereditary autoimmune myasthenia — congenital myasthenia gravis, hereditary myasthenia gravis, hereditary autoimmune myasthenia, WTF? As I said, no clue. Anyway, a lot of people just refer to all myasthenia as myasthenia gravis and abbreviate it to MG. This is because most people have only heard of MG and not of congenital myasthenia, even people who are diagnosed with MG. And because congenital myasthenia is rare enough that often support groups for all people with all kinds of myasthenia have MG as part of the name and people with congenital myasthenia are welcome, but people are just used to saying MG when they mean myasthenia in general.

So… I’ve gotten genetic testing. And I do have a rare mutation in a gene associated with one form of congenital myasthenia. My symptoms, now and throughout my lifetime, are well within the range of case reports I’ve read about this variety. Only thing is, so far they’ve only studied people with myasthenia who have two copies of the gene, and have not studied people with only one who have myasthenia, so they’ve assumed that two copies are required. My doctors think it would be way too unlikely a coincidence for me to have traits consistent with congenital myasthenia, other immediate family members with these traits as well, and to have a mutation in this gene, and have that all just be random coincidence with no relation to each other just because I only have one copy of the gene. So their working hypothesis is that, as with other recessive conditions, most people with one copy would not have symptoms, but some people, me probably included, have myasthenia from only one copy, but simply not as severe as it would be if we had two copies. They say this sort of thing happens with other recessive conditions, that genetics can be more complicated than a layperson’s view of them can make them out to be, and that… yeah, it would just be an ultra-weird, or more like close-to-impossible coincidence for me to have a rare mutation that’s usually connected with a disease I and several close relatives have symptoms of (and diagnostic testing and response to meds both showing we have neuromuscular junction problems) and have been diagnosed with, and then, for those things to just be two totally unrelated random things that have nothing to do with each other. So current hypothesis is that I have incompletely expressed congenital myasthenia.

This means I get to go off of the immune suppressants I was on (and it was scary being on something that’s normally a transplant rejection drug), and may never have to go on plasmapheresis. Meanwhile I will be switched to a treatment regimen more consistent with the recommendations for congenital myasthenia. Until proven otherwise, we’ll assume I have congenital myasthenia. Which, to me, suggests that the evidence for congenital myasthenia is now pretty strong, because most people with myasthenia, me previously included, are treated as if we have myasthenia gravis unless there’s a definite reason to believe otherwise. This is because myasthenia gravis is way more common therefore more likely. Even knowing it seemed to run in my family, they were using myasthenia gravis as the working hypothesis. So for them to change their minds suggests to me that, while we may never know exactly what’s going on (being realistic, the research may never catch up to people like me within my lifetime, if what we suspect is true), there’s strong evidence at this point for congenital myasthenia, strong enough to justify changing all my meds around.

So if you ever hear me saying I have myasthenia gravis, it’s probably just force of habit. Probably the most neutral term I could use is just myasthenia. But I do strongly suspect congenital myasthenia now, and so do my neurologist (who’s well-respected both by doctors and patients, and seems better at teasing out difficult diagnoses than most, because he just methodically goes through every possibility, even remote ones, rather than leaping to conclusions) and my GP (also very well-respected by both doctors and patients). It’s just not the sort of thing we’ll necessarily be able to prove. Especially since, as my neurologist pointed out, they haven’t even found all the genes for congenital myasthenia, not even close, just as they haven’t found all the antibodies involved in myasthenia gravis. Congenital myasthenia would also explain, though, why I (and family) tests positive for myasthenia on single-fiber EMGs but show no sign of the usual antibodies found with MG.

Anyway, either way, I appear to be a mutant. But having muscles that go floppy with exercise doesn’t seem like much of a superpower. Oh well.

I also appear to be weirdly panicky when I think about all this too directly. I’m not sure why. It’s not like anything’s changed. But something about this is feeling like one of those "Shit, my entire view of huge chunks of my entire life is totally different now and I'm going to be sifting through this information for a long time." And for whatever reason, that kind of thing can be mind-blowingly terrifying at times. I can't even read about congenital myasthenia right now, it's one reason I'm relying on memory for a lot of my facts, so don't 100% trust what I say about all the different kinds of myasthenia and stuff, I'm going entirely on memory. When I first got the test results back, I was able to read just enough to realize I fit more of the congenital myasthenia profile than I thought I did (there's nothing all that unusual about my personal history, for someone with congenital myasthenia), but since then I haven't been able to stand looking at the research or even summaries of the research, without freaking out.

#congenital myasthenia #myasthenia #myasthenia gravis #chronic illness #neuromuscular disorders #neuromuscular junction disorders #neuromuscular junction #genetics #hereditary myasthenia #autoimmune disease #autoimmune myasthenia #diagnosis #medical

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english240groupa · 6 years

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Columbus? How about... No!

https://u.osu.edu/ccbusincbus/

By X. Trujillo

For the sake of expediency and so as not to, like the old adage says, beat a dead horse lets begin with the well-established (and well-earned) premise: Christopher Columbus was a terrible person. I do not say this lightly nor without cause, in fact I could use 100 adjectives that are much worse and still be supported by research. Columbus was despicable. Let’s start with that as an accepted fact. I will not go down that particular rabbit hole today. He was. Period. And even the tiniest bit of research will prove that if you still have not quite let go of your 6th grade history lesson of the “brave and conquering discoverer of America”. I am trying not to let this blog go into “rant” territory so I will not use all the description that he so justly deserves. It is true and well-researched and if you do not solely want to take my word for it, you can take the word of historians, Howard Zinn, James W Loewen, or a contemporary of Columbus, Bartolome de las Casas.

Or if you want a fast and dirty reminder watch this short video by Adam Ruins Everything which pretty much sums it up:

youtube

So, as previously established: Columbus was no hero and lacked many characteristics to even be considered a good person. It is also well established that he did not set off to prove that the earth was round; this was already a well-accepted fact in 1492. This is strike two.

The fact that there were literally thousands of thriving and established communities, with over 20 million native inhabitants, throughout the Americas when Columbus chose to set sail also negates any “discovering” which has been attributed to him. You cannot discover an inhabited land, and this is not even mentioning everyone else (Vikings, Africans, etc) whom might have actually set foot in America (which Columbus NEVER did) long before. In the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, historian James W. Loewen numbers FOURTEEN possible encounters before Columbus. 14! Strike 3. He’s out.

None of this is new information. It is all widely accessible and credible. Which is why many cities and states are replacing Columbus day as a holiday with Indigenous People’s Day. This seems a natural progression of a society which is slowly beginning to question its own cultural assumptions and history: it’s a result of reckoning with its imperialistic and racist past. This seemed like a long-overdue step in the right direction. Finally…Which was why it was even more surprising when I came across an article in the New York Times last Sunday written by Christina Caron titled, “Why Some Italian-Americans Still Fiercely Defend Columbus Day”. It was an… interesting read. And it made me pause for a second. And for a second I thought, “ok, I can see their point…” but that literally lasted a second because even as I thought that my brain was adding a “but…”.

Caron cites the racism that Italian immigrants encountered in the late 1800’s and the early 1900s as a driving force behind the push to celebrate Columbus Day. This was done as a way to seek acceptance into the dominate culture by Italian Americans; “Columbus was Italian (a fact we will revisit later on) and he discovered America so… Italians belong!” I get that. Minorities have always had to fight to be seen and had to carve out a space for themselves amongst a resisting and, often times, violent xenophobic society. Truly there is nothing more American than racism and apple pie. It is ingrained in our DNA and all new waves of immigrant populations, especially those with darker skin and identifiable physical differences, are targeted and tried to be excluded by those who “pass”. This has been true throughout American history and should not be denied nor ignored. It is important to meet this head on and to understand how damaging it is to not only the new immigrants but also the ideals of this nation. This issue, of the racism Italian Americans had to fight in order to be accepted into the dominate society, is an important one and one which they tried to fix with the bandage solution of mythicizing Columbus. But perhaps now, almost a century later it is time to rip off that bandage and not seek admittance via the hero-making of a genuine villain. Now that Italian Americans hold a fairly prominent role within American culture and are safe from that past exclusion, we should all look back and recognize their struggle and make sure that we do not do the same to any other ethnic groups. This however should not be done by lifting a vile and violent man on a pedestal; if you seek admittance by the virtue of one man should not that man be truly virtuous? There are many other Italian Americans who deserve to be acknowledged and didn’t spark a genocide nor the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Here is a short list from the Zinn Education Project of Italian Americans who made valuable contributions to American society.

Not only are these figures vastly less problematic, but they were actually Italian Americans where Cristopher Columbus was not. In his article, “The Five Myths of Cristopher Columbus”, Kris Lane points out that Columbus was born in an area that is now Italy, but when Columbus lived, there was no such thing as an Italian; Italy did not exist until 1861… In Columbus’s lifetime, Genoa was a fiercely independent republic with its own language, currency and overseas colonies… Most historians believe that Columbus was Genoese, but they hesitate to call him “Italian,” partly for the reasons stated above, and partly because Columbus left home early and moved around a lot.”

Sooooo not good and not even really Italian? What does this guy even have going for him? Not much it would seem yet his defenders still hold fierce and true: ‘“The ‘tearing down of history’ does not change that history,” John M. Viola, then the president and chief operating officer of the National Italian American Foundation, wrote in a New York Times editorial last year. “In the wake of the cultural conflict that has ripped us apart over these months, I wonder if we as a country can’t find better ways to utilize our history to eradicate racism instead of inciting it.”’ This statement is quoted in the Times article and it makes me both uneasy and laugh a little. This “tearing down of history” phrase has become a sort of dog-whistle of the far-right. I, of course have no insight on whether Mr. Viola meant it as such but it has become the rallying cry of people who try to defend waving the confederate flag and maintaining confederate monuments. No, thanks. I don’t buy what you’re selling. Those symbols are inherently racist and having them in a place of prominence is meant to instill fear not teach history. If history was what you wanted to maintain, lets put those in a museum and explain how most where built long after the civil war as a tool of white supremacy. Let’s teach history and let’s also teach values. Let’s teach that we will not blindly worship anyone and overlook their flaws simply in the name of history. This is not “tearing down history”, we simply will not stand for the incomplete version any longer.

It is also rather disingenuous, at the very least, for Mr. Viola to say that racism is being incited against Italian Americans because Christopher Columbus is finally beginning to lose the legend that has hidden his true nature. Italian Americans have “made it”, so to speak, and are favorably looked upon by dominate society. They hold a secure place of significance in American culture and will not lose that because of the unmasking of one false legend. To suggest so is untruthful and a bit of a scare-tactic.

Works Cited

Casas, Bartolomé de las, and Lewis. Hanke. Historia De Las Indias. Fondo De Cultura EconóMica, 1951.

Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New Press : Distributed by Norton, 1995.

Lane, Kris. Five myths about Christopher Columbus October 8, 2015. Washington Post.

Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World. Oxford University Press, 1992.

Stone, Edward T. "Columbus And Genocide". American Heritage. Vol. 26 no. 6. American Heritage Publishing Company. 1975

Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present. 20th anniversary ed., HarperCollins, 1999

#abolishcolumbusday #indegenouspeoplesday #whitewashedhistory #liesmyteachertoldme

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