Jun 28, 2022
Give these Disney TVA girls a hug.
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Japan
seen from Malaysia
seen from Japan
seen from Denmark
seen from Hong Kong SAR China
seen from Laos
seen from Japan
seen from Belgium
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Russia
seen from Denmark
seen from Yemen
seen from India
seen from Belgium
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from China
Give these Disney TVA girls a hug.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Você viu essa pessoa? Filomena Cardoso Visto pela última vez perto dos penhascos ocidentais Desaparecido desde 11/03/24 Se você tiver informações, ligue para 116-000
Dewey slowly removed the poster from the wall, staring at it and frowning.
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Jack stared up at Ma Beagle, her crowbar pushed under his chin, a wicked smile on her face. Around him, he could hear the dark chuckling of the Beagle Boys, no doubt plotting to bury him when this was over. His hands and feet were still strung together behind his back, and his mind was racing to string thoughts together coherently.
“…Um…” He croaked. “Could I ask to be untied before I explain myself?”
“Nah. I reckon you’re good to talk where you are.” Ma Beagle sneered. “In fact… let’s both get comfortable.”
She snapped her fingers, and one of the nearby beagles darted forward with an unfolded lawn chair. Ma Beagle sat down upon it, waiting expectantly for Jack to start talking.
“…Well…” Jack began nervously. “Credit where it’s due, you’ve… done your research. I… did used to be a FOWL agent. Emphasis on used to be!” He added quickly, in response to the chorus of jeering from his surrounding captors. “I’m not with them anymore!”
“Course you’re not! FOWL’s gone!” Snarled one of the brutes who’d captured him, the short, squat one. “Hard to be a part of somethin’ that doesn’t exist!”
“Granted, but I left FOWL long before they fell apart!” Turning to Ma Beagle, he said imploringly, “I had nothin’ to do with… whatever the hell happened at the Library of Alexandria! I didn’t know nothin’ about anyone bein’ brainwashed, or anyone plottin’ anythin’ against you!”
His accent was coming out. He cursed inwardly, knowing it was exposing his panic to her. The crime lord barely batted an eye at his desperate pleas, reaching into her purse and calmly pulling out a carton of cigarettes. “I’m hearin’ a lot of words, Fed, but I need a bit more convincin’ to know that they mean anything.” She told him, putting the roll of carcinogens into her mouth and lighting it. “You were playin’ both sides, weren’t ya? Spyin’ on the FBI?”
Jack forced himself to calm down. Fear was going to kill him, not save him. Swallowing his pride and anxiety, he answered reluctantly, “…Aye. I was their mole.”
Ma Beagle chuckled. “And you were talkin’ to me about playin’ things by the book.”
“Yeah, well… suppose you can call that ‘learning from your mistakes’.”
Ma Beagle leant back in her chair, remarking, “Trustin’ you with a job like that… how’d that happen?”
“…I was already in the agency by the time FOWL got to me.” Nickel started to explain. “I was an up-and-comer, see. I had skill and drive, but I wasn’t much more than an ambitious trainee. And a right prick, too.”
“More so than you are now?”
Jack forced himself to laugh. “If you can believe that… I joined up with this idea that I’d be servin’ America, protectin’ the people and bein’ some noble hero… only to find out that some of my buddies were takin’ bribes from the mafia and my boss was divertin’ funds to buy himself a swimmin’ pool. I learned the hard way that the FBI was no less corrupt than the cops, or the CIA, or… everything else, really. And, instead of acceptin’ that was just the way the world worked, I chose to mope around and angst about it… and that’s when Buzzard found me.
“Buzzard saw that I was clever, skilled and disillusioned – the perfect soldier for his war. He came to me and gave me this pretty speech about how the world was corrupt, chaos reigned supreme, how McDuck was the catalyst for all of it and that FOWL was here to bring order and stability back to the world. I’m sure he gave you a similar speech, he was full of them.”
“Mm.”
“Well, I was young back then, and-”
“The hell do you mean ‘young’? What, were you fifteen when they took you in?”
“I was twenty-two.” Jack replied, annoyed.
Ma Beagle raised an eyebrow. “And how old are you now?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“You look like you’re twenty-one.” One of the nearby beagles said confusedly.
“That’s the power of moisturiser, lad.” Jack retorted. “Point is that I was impressionable back then. And I’m sorry to say that I fell for it, hook, line and sinker. How could I not? It all made sense! Everythin’ McDuck does causes trouble further down the line! Pissin’ off Magica? That led to her stealin’ people’s shadows back in 2018! That space rocket he made? Led to us bein’ invaded by moon people! And Glomgold? If it weren’t for McDuck, that moron would’ve remained some nobody in South Africa! He had me sold, so I joined him.
“For eight months, I fed him and FOWL information on what the FBI was doing. I gave him case data, redirected investigations for him, I made sure that nobody in the FBI could get so much of a whiff of what he was doing. I protected the man and his followin’ of crooks, all for the perfect world he’d told me he was building in place of this one.”
Ma Beagle just looked at him impassively. “How’d that work out?”
Jack didn’t say anything. For a moment, he was lost in his own memories, remembering the humiliation he’d felt upon realising how easily he’d been manipulated. The retributive anger that had surged through him upon realising the truth.
“…Do you know what FOWL’s plan was?” He asked quietly. “For what they’d do after they took down McDuck?”
“…They didn’t have one?” Ma Beagle guessed.
“Didn’t even have sticky notes on the whiteboard.” Jack shook his head sadly. “No, FOWL’s plan for world domination began and ended with defeating McDuck, and everythin’ else was a big fat question mark, because guess what? FOWL was never established to take over the world, or to bring order to society, or to do any of that grandiose nonsense that Buzzard went on about! It was created because the old man had some unresolved childhood trauma and the man decided to play at bein’ a supervillain instead of goin’ to therapy like everyone else!”
The younger Beagle Boys backed away slightly as Jack rambled. He couldn’t help but let some old bitterness into his voice. Ma Beagle didn’t seem phased, so he sighed, calmed down, and continued, “Well… once I came to that realisation, protectin’ FOWL didn’t make much sense anymore. So, I leaked a bunch of FOWL’s info to the FBI, changed my name and went off the grid for six months before Buzzard realised what I’d done. I only came back to the Bureau after I heard what went down at the Lost Library.”
“I thought you didn’t like the FBI ‘cause they were corrupt?” Said one of the larger Beagle Boys.
“Corruption’s everywhere.” Jack replied bluntly. “You can’t get rid of it. But what I realised is that you can manage it. And that’s exactly what I did for the next three years of my career – gettin’ rid of my less scrupulous fellows and makin’ sure that the ones I couldn’t get ousted were watched very carefully.”
“How noble of you.” Ma Beagle grunted sarcastically.
Jack shrugged, casually remarking, “Well, I had to do somethin’ on the side while we were hunting FOWL.”
For the first time this encounter, Jack saw confusion emerge in Ma Beagle’s eyes. She frowned at him, demanding, “The hell do you mean? FOWL was gone.”
“Yeah, McDuck beat ‘em!” Shouted one of the Beagle Boys.
Jack laughed again. “No, McDuck beat Bradford. Sure, he knocked down FOWL’s figurehead, left ‘em crippled, but once his family was safe, Scrooge did what he always does – retreat back to his Duckburg bubble and leave the rest of the world to figure it out. FOWL still existed in splinter groups and rogue agents, and it wasn’t McDuck who put them all behind bars. It was me.
“I knew all of FOWL’s hideaways. I knew who the bigwigs were and what they’d do in a power vacuum, and I caught them all!” Jack bragged, speaking with confidence now that the Boys were listening to him intensely. “Steelbeak, Phantom Blot, Rockerduck, all servin’ life sentences in Washington State prison!” He gestured to the FOWL document that Ma Beagle had thrown at him. “That dossier that you caught me on? I had it released to the public. I… had to scrub my own records from it. For my own protection, of course. But apart from that, it was completely undoctored. And do you know…”
Jack leant forward toward Ma Beagle, saying, “In that dossier – and you can check it out for yourself – FOWL had written up a list of magical relics that McDuck had been gathering over the years. Items of untold destructive power, arcane superweapons, all at the fingertips of the Richest Duck in the World.”
“…The names you had me look at.” Ma Beagle said in realisation.
“Exactly!” Jack exclaimed. “I couldn’t just let that knowledge slide… but I couldn’t exactly go and arrest him neither. The dossier’s info on these things was incomplete, and mostly speculative. There was no proof that McDuck even owned them. But I knew he did. And I knew I could prove it. My bosses were reluctant to approve my investigation – McDuck’s not someone you can just fuck around with – but they were hardly going to refuse to the man who brought in the most prolific terrorists in America!
“After that, I came here and set up my investigation. I got one of my informants to slip McDuck a bit of info on this magic cloak, hidden in some Middle Eastern ruin. Figured he’d take the bait to get back into his old habits, and so he did. I’ve been watching him ever since, waitin’ for him to slip up and once he does…”
“You’ll do what?” Ma Beagle questioned him.
Jack smirked. “Well… if the dossier was correct, some of these items are the magical equivalents of an atom bomb. Once I’ve got proof that he has one of these things, definitive proof that he has something magical and dangerous, I come down with a warrant and thirty guys to search that house back to front. Only for that one item, of course, but once we find one, we find the others.
“We charge him with hoardin’ weapons of mass destruction, concealin’ them from the US government, hell, we could hit him with plottin’ against the government if we wanted to. And sure, maybe he won’t go to jail in the end, or not for very long, but he’ll be ruined. His reputation will be shot to pieces, he’ll have to spend a fortune in court, and all of his fancy magic relics go from him to the government, where they belong! The man will never be able to adventure, ever again.”
“…Alright.” Ma Beagle leant back, peering at him suspiciously. “Here’s my question – why? If you’re not a FOWL stooge, why go after McDuck?”
Jack stared at her like she had asked him to explain what was wrong with murder.
“Because he’s Scrooge McDuck!” Jack cried. “Buzzard might have been full of shite, but he was absolutely on point about McDuck! The man flies across the world nickin’ treasures from other countries, hoards magic and superweapons like some doomsday survivalist, hiring lunatics to build robots and time machines and all kinds of insane nonsense-” He strained against his restraints, hissing, “The man takes his nephews to ruins filled with deathtraps! Brainwashes them into believin’ his own insanity when they’re as young as ten! That’s not the work of a hero, or whatever the papers have made him out to be, it’s the work of a bloody megalomaniac!
“I mean-” Nickel spluttered in fury, forgetting he was a prisoner for a moment. “Think of all the chaos and destruction that Magica and Glomgold have caused! Neither of them would even exist if it weren’t for McDuck! And at the end of it all, does he try to make up for what he’s done? Does he use the money he’s made to help people, or to change things? No! He just goes back to his mansion, throws some token amount of money at the problem, and acts like none of it matters! Like he’s above it all! The man is greed and selfishness incarnate!”
He ran out of breath, panting as the Beagle Boys around him stared at him in shock. Even Ma Beagle had been stunned into silence by his outburst. Jack took a deep breath, then straightened himself as much as he could, trying to regain his composure.
“…I love this country.” Jack told her quietly. “But it’s built on a mountain of problems, and McDuck symbolises the worst of them. You want to know why I’m doin’ this? It’s because I want to do something that’ll change things for the better.” He shrugged, adding, “Someone has to.”
Ma Beagle didn’t say anything. Her cigarette was resting in her fingers as she peered at him, a pensive frown on her muzzle. Any number of thoughts could be going through her head, and it was all Jack could hope that mercy was among them.
Finally, she gestured at one of the nearby Boys. “Cut ‘im loose.” She muttered reluctantly.
The thug approached Jack, whipping out a folding knife from his belt as he knelt down behind him.
“Let me make this clear to you, Fed.” Ma Beagle declared as the knife started to saw through his bonds. “The only reason I’m lettin’ you go is because you’re more a threat to McDuck than you are to me. But you’re only foolin’ yourself with your good-cop bullshit. You already know that you can’t beat Scrooge by the book. That’s why you pulled that stunt in his brats’ school. Fact is, in order to bring him down, you’re gonna have to get your hands dirty.”
With a snap, the ropes broke loose. Jack winced and nursed his wrists where the rope had been rubbing against it, then began to stand up.
“When that time comes…” Ma Beagle continued, stepping up to him with a scrutinous glare. “…are you gonna be a man? Or are you goin’ to be a mutt?”
Jack glared back down at her, trying to assert some measure of authority over her. He patted his jacket down to confirm what he already assumed, then turned to the crowd of Beagle Boys.
“Whoever stole my phone and wallet, give ‘em back.” He requested them exhaustedly. “I need to call a cab to get home, and a tow truck for what you did to my car.”
Ma Beagle scoffed, a smirk returning to her lips. “Lead him out, boys.” She ordered, turning back around with the cigarette in her mouth.
With that, the boys grabbed Jack by the arm and started to drag him out of the junkyard.
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It was decided, in the end, that the family would delve into the castle in the evening, with the rest of the day dedicated to whatever one pleased. Donald had opted to spend most of his day relaxing in his motel room, quietly napping away the day. Scrooge spent his day resting too, saying that he had somehow thrown his back out in his sleep. That left the kids with the entire town to explore on their own.
Truthfully, there was not much to do in Galinha. The town was small, with the only tourist destination being the one they’d be going to later this day, though they still found some amusement. Wandering around the back streets and scaling the rough cliffs and hills that enclosed the city. Goldie didn’t make another appearance, to May and June’s satisfaction, and their day as a whole was quite pleasant.
Towards the end of their exploration, as they were walking through one of the side streets of town, Dewey slowed down and stopped as he noticed a poster, plastered on the alley wall. He’d seen these things all over town, but now that he was getting a good look at it, he found himself stopping to read it.
The poster was dominated by a picture of a young, smiling duck girl with brown feathers and messy black headfeathers. She looked to be around the same age as him. Around the photo was blocky red text that read,
Você viu essa pessoa? Filomena Cardoso Visto pela última vez perto dos penhascos ocidentais Desaparecido desde 11/03/24 Se você tiver informações, ligue para 116-000
Dewey slowly removed the poster from the wall, staring at it and frowning.
“Looks like a missing person poster.” May commented when he showed to the group later, hanging around a soccer field on the town outskirts. “Filomena Cardoso… I guess that’s her name.”
“Is that when she went missing?” Dewey asked, pointing at the date. “The eleventh?”
The others bunched around the poster, sitting in a circle on the grass. Louie peered at the sentence near the bottom, then confirmed, “Yeah, ‘Missing since the eleventh of April.’ That was over a week ago.”
“You speak Portuguese?” June inquired.
“Nah, Spanish.” Louie corrected her, shaking his head. “Portuguese crosses over with it sometimes, but that part there’s the only bit I can understand.”
“You speak Spanish?” Webby asked hesitantly.
Everyone turned to look at Louie. He faltered for a moment, then muttered uncomfortably, “Uh… yeah. Through an online course.”
“…Why Spanish?”
Louie exhaled sharply, then answered frustratedly, “I dunno, I guess I just felt like it.”
Dewey looked between Webby and Louie, the tension blindingly obvious. Knowing that the next question would be ‘when did this happen’ and ‘why keep it a secret’, he wondered aloud, “Isn’t this weird, though? A missing person in a tiny little town like this?”
“I mean, a little, I guess… But stuff like this happens all the time.” May pointed out. “What got you about this one?”
“I dunno, I just… I don’t like seeing people in trouble, you know?” Dewey told her. “And something about this girl being missing, maybe even hurt… it doesn’t feel right to me.”
“It’s because she’s pretty, isn’t it?” Webby deadpanned.
Dewey stared blankly at her.
“I-I mean, she is pretty, but that’s- that’s not why-” Dewey stammered. “I mean, come on, guys! There’s a mystery here! What happened to her? How’s she been missing for a whole week?”
“I think she just ran away from home.” May countered. “It’s not uncommon.”
“To where? There’s nothing but grass and rock for miles!”
“She could’ve had an accident.” Louie suggested. “I saw some kids scaling the cliffs around here. It isn’t nice to think about, but…”
“They would have found a body by now.” June pointed out, frowning. “Dewey’s right, there’s something weird about this.”
“You know what I think? I think this chick’s been kidnapped.” Dewey declared. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
The kids were quiet for a moment. May sighed and folded her arms, asking, “Okay… so what do we do about it?”
“We find her.” Dewey responded, without a moment of hesitation.
“How?” May asked flatly. “We go to the castle tonight and head back home tomorrow morning. How do we find the time to solve a missing persons case?”
“Uh…”
“We could convince my dad and Uncle Donald to let us stay here a bit longer.” Webby answered, jumping to Dewey’s rescue. “They could even help us!”
“This sounds good to you?” May asked with a raised eyebrow.
“What? We’re McDucks!” Webby exclaimed. “Saving people and beating bad guys is what we do! And you can bet that whoever abducted her is some world-class creep who deserves to be punched!”
“Yeah, like, think of what her family’s going through!” Dewey exclaimed. “If police haven’t found anything, after a whole week, then it’s gotta be us!”
“I dunno, man.” Louie muttered, visibly uncomfortable. “I feel like this is too dangerous.”
“How could it be any more dangerous than the stuff we’ve done before?”
“Uh…” Louie stumbled for a response. “…Okay, I don’t have a good answer for that. It’s just… we’re not superheroes, Dewey. Or cops. Right now, we’re a bunch of foreigners. This isn’t our business, and we’re not gonna be thanked for poking our beaks into it.”
“I’m with Louie.” May agreed. “We’re not going to find anything the cops haven’t already found, it’s just stupid to insert ourselves into this.”
Dewey looked down at the ground awkwardly, then turned towards June, the only one who hadn’t thrown her opinion into the ring. June seemed to flounder for a moment before saying timidly, “Um… I mean, if we find anything that could help, we should pass it on, but… I think May and Louie are right.”
“…Yeah. I guess so.” Dewey mumbled, looking down at the poster.
Webby looked around at her family in disbelief. “We can’t just do nothing!” She exclaimed. “That girl-!”
“Webby, this isn’t our country!” May said exasperatedly. “When we get back to Duckburg, we can solve all the kidnappings you want, but playing ‘white saviour’ is not gonna help anyone!”
“That isn’t what I’m-” Webby spluttered. She looked around at them again, then conceded reluctantly, “Look, I’ll let this go if you guys don’t think it’s a good idea, but I don’t feel okay ignoring someone in trouble. That’s all.”
“Yeah, well, the right thing to do doesn’t always feel good.” May replied. She pulled out her phone and checked the time, saying, “Ah, shit, it’s getting late. We should head back to the inn.”
“Yeah. Don’t want Scrooge taking off without us.” Louie joked as they left.
Webby and Dewey hung back for a moment, sharing a conflicted look with each other. Dewey sighed, folding the poster and putting it in his jacket. Then, they both followed after them.
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It was around six o’clock when the family arrived at the castle. The sun was setting behind the walls of the fortress, casting a long shadow over the McDucks as they stood before the open archway where the castle’s portcullis might have once stood. Before them lied a vast courtyard, similarly draped in darkness, with not a soul in sight. To anyone else, the scene might have been too ominous to consider approaching.
“Flashlights, kids.” Scrooge ordered.
One by one, the kids turned on their torches. Scrooge and Donald passed the threshold first, leading the kids as they entered. The girls stuck close to Donald, who was carrying the rope, first aid and other supplies in his rucksack, while the boys hovered around Scrooge.
Castelo de Cristo was a far cry from the fantasy castles of yore. The inner courtyard was largely unworked dirt, rock and grass, bordered by a low stone wall only ten or so feet high. Flashlight beams swung back and forth across the castle yard as they scanned the area, with the only protruding elements being a couple of boulders and a single stone building. It very much felt like it was merely a medieval military camp, rather than a place where people had lived in.
“So… we’re looking for a secret entrance, right?” Louie asked.
“Aye.” Scrooge replied, his eye peering through the darkness ahead. “A trapdoor, secret lever, anything. The original builders of this place wouldn’t have put the idol where anyone could find it.”
“I don’t know…” June questioned as she searched, speaking a little louder so she could be heard by everyone. “There have been tourists in this place all day. Wouldn’t something like that been found by now?”
“Never underestimate a good hidden door.” Scrooge replied. “If it’s built right, it can stand undetected for centuries! You could search the same place for hours and never-”
“Found it!” Dewey called out.
Everyone rushed over to him, looking over where he was pointing his light. The door of the building was ajar, leading into what seemed to be a small chapel. In the middle of the floor of this structure, they could see that a trapdoor had been raised, old stone stairs leading down into a tunnel.
“Curse me kilts!” Scrooge growled. “Goldie’s already here!”
“How did she find the entrance before us?” Donald demanded.
“She has her ways. Come on! We haven’t got a second to lose!”
“Great…” May muttered as the team rushed forward. “I was afraid this would be about us for a moment.”
The steps descended down into an unlit hallway, cobwebs strung between the ceiling and the walls, and a musty earthen smell hanging in the air. They crept down the corridor in double file, Scrooge and Webby taking the lead, the boys walking in the middle, and Donald and the twins watching the rear.
They didn’t have to walk long before the corridor ended at an old wooden door, featureless and unremarkable. Webby and Scrooge stopped five or so feet before it, sharing a look with each other before kneeling down and inspecting the area around it.
“…What are you doing?” June asked curiously.
“Doors are the most common places to put a trap.” Scrooge replied as he inspected the floor before him. “Most adventurers see a door and don’t think twice before openin’ it… ah, here.”
He pointed at one of the flagstones directly before the doorway, saying, “This one here. This is a pressure plate, I’m sure of it.”
Webby knelt down to inspect the stone closely. “Hmm… Do you think Goldie would’ve disarmed it?”
“Knowing her, probably not. Just watch your step around it.”
“So… what, she just left it unmarked so we could trigger it?” May asked concernedly.
“Oh, don’t go thinkin’ less of her for it.” Scrooge replied casually. “She knew we’d stumble upon it.”
“Yeah, I don’t feel like that’s something you should leave to chance.”
Stepping around the pressure plate, Webby gingerly pushed open the door to the next room, and the family made their way inside. This square-shaped room had two passages that branched off to the left and right, both indistinguishable from one another. Against the wall of the room was a stone altar, draped in a decaying, moth-eaten cloth runner.
“…Hm.” Scrooge looked between the two paths, frowning. “Alright, everyone look for tracks. We need to know which way she went.”
“Wouldn’t Goldie be just as lost as we are?” Dewey asked.
“Maybe, maybe not. I’d prefer to know where she is either way, so I can get me guard up before she backstabs us.”
“Urgh.” Louie groaned as the family began to search the room. “The one time Huey’s track-finding skills would’ve been useful…”
Scrooge remained at the altar, inspecting the old stone table carefully. He noted the empty alcoves behind the altar, where once might have been statuettes or crosses. He inspected the empty candlestick holders, seeing nothing of interest, and lifted up the runner upon it to look at the surface underneath it. No sign of a hidden compartment or mechanism, which disappointed him. Altars like this were usually a good spot for something like that.
“Hey, Mister Scrooge?” June piped up after a moment. “Does Miss Goldie smoke?”
“Not since our Klondike days, no.” Scrooge replied, turning around. “Why?”
“Well, then, this probably wasn’t hers.”
June stood up from the passage she’d been investigating, picking up an old cigarette butt as she did. Everyone else gathered around to take a closer look.
“…Ew.” Dewey scrunched up his beak in disgust. Then, he said in realisation, “Wait, but then that means…”
“Someone else has been down here.” Donald quacked worriedly.
“That cannae be!” Scrooge proclaimed. “The book that Goldie stole was the only source that details the location of the idol! Nobody else should know about this crypt!”
“Well, someone clearly does.” Louie murmured.
June flicked the old butt away, a thoughtful frown on her beak. Webby turned to Scrooge, asking him, “What now? If someone else is down here, they’re probably after the idol too.”
“Or they’re guarding it.” June suggested quietly.
Scrooge frowned, thinking to himself for a moment.
“…We keep goin’.” He decided. “But carefully and quietly. You found that thin’ down this way?” He asked June, pointing down the corridor with his cane.
“At the entrance, yeah.”
“Then this is the way we’ll go.” Scrooge declared, stepping into the hall. “Donald, you take the lead with me. Everyone else, stay behind us. There’re eyes on us now.”
“Hi, Uncle Scrooge.”
Ducktales Shadow Into Light (Lena Restrospective) Finale!: Lena In Season 3! (Commission for WeirdKev27)
Hello all you happy people and welcome to the FINAL part of my look at the life and times of Lena Sabrewing. It’s been a long and satsifying journey through the character’s rich arc and some of Ducktales 2017′s best episodes. Lena started as a tourtured but complacient teen willing to do bloody awful evil things if it meant her freedom, who through the power of love and friendship realized what she was doing wrong, that she loved Webby and turned on Magica... and after a brief stint of this going horribly wrong a magica simply just bodyjacked her, she sacrificed herself for Webby he story seemingly done. Of course it wasn’t, Disney woudln’t let them kill a teenager... fully grown lion men horrifcally decaying indiana jones style yeah, of course it’s disney, but killing a teen is where they draw the line. Point is Lena was merley trapped in the shadow realm with a bunch of those guys Yugi beat and with the help of everyone’s faviorte stoic hummingbird, freed Lena. Lena found new family in Violet.. but also found dying is easy but living is harder and had to wrestle with both her fears of turning out like Magica and Magica herself who naturally was gaslighting her to try and get the last scraps of her power back. We also took a detour or two to see where she came from: looking at both Minima De Spell and her rivalry with a 34 year pretending to be a small child, and Magica’s Shadow whose like Lena except almost nothing like Lena. We also took a look at her one comic apperance which was never released here for some reason and was incredibly disapointing.
So yeah i’ts been one long, fun ride filled with gay subtext, launchpad’s spider sense, giant legs, movie refrences from warriors to jaws to nightmare on elm street 3: the dream warriors, toddlers who look and probably are 34, launchpad apparently huffing enough paint to damage his brain as that’s the only way to explain the terror of the terrafirmains subplot and gay subtext. I’ve enjoyed every step of the way so before I take the last one of those steps, i’d like to thank all of ya for reading this. I’ve gained at least 10 if not more followers off this series alone and I appricate all of you. I’d also like to thank Kev for directly comissioning this, keeping me in work and in x-men comics since 2020.
As you can probably guess by the title.. this one’s a bit different. This is a combination of two things: The first is that i already reviewed “The Phantom and the Sorceress” when I was reviewing each episode of Season 3 as it came out. My thoughts have not changed at all so I felt redoing that review would be redudant and a waste of Kev’s money. The same goes for Split Sword, which has the extra issue of being a three story episode with only one of the parts starring the focus of this retrospective. The second is while she shows up about the same amount as season 2, her apperances in season 3 outside of her Christmas Cameo are all more substaial outside of her two starring roles. Both COTHJSW and The Last Adventure shed some more light on our faviorite shadow and feel like natural evolutions of her character so it felt wrong to just flat out ignore them.
So rather than do a full review of the episodes i’m just going to go into Lena’s apperances for Season 3. This way I can cover Phantom again without fully repeating myself, and fully track the last steps Lena takes as the series closes out in a fresh and hopefully enjoyable way. So join me under the cut for one last step into the shadows as we finish bringing Lena into the light.
Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks!
Challenge was one of the very first Ducktales I ever talked about on here, alongside Quack Pack, so it’s quite a trip returning to it a year later, even if i’ts just my memories of it. It’s also an excellent episode, with a great and engaging main plot and a “it’s just kind of there” subplot.
It’s also one of the only three episodes to focus on Violet, and one of only two that focuses just on her and not on Lena in any way. It is a shame: While I love Lena as a character, I wouldn’t of just spent several weeks talking about her if I wasn’t getting paid for this retrospective or not, Violet is equally intriguing and so i’ll be taking a second out to talk about her as I really HAVEN’T gone into her character this retrospective and given how important she is to Lena and to all of us, most Lena fans like Violet just as much and vice versa. I’ll still be talking about Lena in this episode, obviously, but I feel her sister from two misters deserves some time in the spotlight too as the show only gave her three episodes, and one was more focused on Webby and Lena by design and the other we’ll get to.
Violet is an excellent character. She speaks well and with little emotion but that’s just how she is and she’s never called out for it or insulted, something I like. Likewise she dosen’t judge others, never really batting an eye at the rest of the groups own quirks and at most being freaked out by leg huey a bit. She’s just a kind, curious, intellgent young lady.
And this episode shows that off: We get to see her in the spotlight of her own, every bit the Woodchuck Huey is and more, but still supporting and encouring him, seeing their contest as a friendly one and putting no stakes into it as she’s failed before, she can fail again. What matters is she get back up and keep going. Her “razzing” is also just downright adorable, and nicely shows off her and Lena’s new dynamic: they’ve gone from friends to siblings, something really not shown off last time and something that wason’t confirmed on screen till now but it just works naturally, the cool and collected but chaotic underneath that lena just plays perfectly off the uttelry calm and deadpan violet. It’s a natural, perfect dynamic that they clearly had mapped out from the beggining and simply had to build up to that.
Her genuine shock at Huey’s betryal... hurts the heart, as she genuinely thinks it’s her fault and not just my boy having a panic attack and doing something questionable. But it also shows her character.. when givne the same opprunity and no guilt for it, he struck first.. she dosen’t. She saves him because it’s the right thing to do and shows Huey she really is the bettter woodchuck.. but htere’s no shame in it. It’s okay to fail, what matters is you keep trying. And as a result despite giving Huey the opporunity to win with her.. he turns it down. She gets a deserved win, celebrating with her family and just wearing the most adorable smile. She also just has.. buckets of chemistry with Huey. I mean it was apparent to me with the whole Library Scene in Nightmare but god damn do they ramp it up with this one. They just contrast each other perfectly here, the handshake is adorable and he clings to her.. while also being hilarious “I naturlaly defer to authority!”. I will take this ship to my grave, and fully support it... that being said if you ship Huey/Boyd or all three togehter, go for it man. I do the latter sometimes. Your good. You didn’t need me to tell that but sometimes shipping discorse can get downright ugly so rather than make it a war between two ships, I just wanted to offer an olive branch for once you know? Same with Weblena. I obviously adore that ship but if you have a non-boys ship with her, tha’ts cool too. Ship what you want to.. i’m just doing me through this retrospective.
Now back to Lena. Her apperance in this episode is really heartwarming and really nice after all the shit she’s been through. This is the first episode she’s in where NOTHING bad happens to her. No really, every apperance, even her two cameos had her suffer in some way. She spent the entire first season grappling with Magica, and her season 2 apperances trapped in a shadow dimension and nearly loosing her girlfriend to her own jealously, horrifically stalked by her abuser using her own self doubt against her, attacked by a literal tempest in a tea pot and captured by aliens. The girl has not gone one friggin onscreen break since the series started and probably not many off it either.
Here? She just gets to cheer her little sister, proudly celebrating both her and her new dads. She gets to teach her sister to trash talk, even if that ends up backfiring a bit but she meant well. And she gets to celebrate with her family when her little sister wins. It’s all small stuff.. but it’s all things she’s NEVER had. A sibling to be proud of and support. Dads to sit with and go places with. A family to celebrate things with. This is all pretty normal stuff, but not something everyone gets to have and something Lena NEVER had even remotely. But now she’ll ALWAYS have that. A supportive loving family to give her a place to belong, and to support in turn. After a nightmarish 14-15 years of existance, she’s FINALLY allowed to just be happy without having to fight a giant monster first.
She’s finally made it, she’s hoped and she’s waited, for the first time in her life she dosen’t feel alone. Her hearts started to heal, to know this is real, this is how it feels.. to have a home. Yes I haven’t given up on that song. And if you think this is the last time i’m going to quote a song you clearly didn’t read the review I did of the next episode.
The Phantom and the Sorceress:
Season 3′s primary focus outside of the FOWL plot was tying up loose ends. Pretty much every major recurring episode outside of Fethry got an episode tying up their character arc and of course Lena was no exception.
You’d think with Magica no longer a threat to her and having fully accepted she’s a good person now, and having found a place to belong that Lena was done. But while she accepted her past, that she’s not magica, and that she deserves to be happy.. she never accepted Magic as part of her despite being made of it and that’s what this episode ties up as well as the mystery of the blue aura that surronded her magic at times.
The episode starts with Lena’s amulet, which she has back now which is the only part of this episode I don’t like as they don’t really explain why she’d take it back from Violet. But her magic keeps goofing up and making Sleepovers dangerous, and gets Scrooge grousing about how magic is bad.. only to naturally backpedal when an angry Webby points out Lena is magic. He does amend things and genuinely apologize for it, having not meant her at all and not even thinking of her as part of his hatred of the stuff. It also shows why Lena likely didn’t take him up on his offer.. with her self loathing still going she probably thought he was just pitting her and would always resent her.. when really he just geninely did not care despite his overwhelming hate of magic. It worked out granted, she found a better fit for her family wise.
But Lena hates it too.. and while she hasn’t fully brought it up before it makes perfect sense: We saw how she viewed it as dangerous and not worth the risk to bring her back in Friendship Hates Magic and Magic has brought her nothing but pain, nearly killing her on several occasions, allowing magica to fuck with her head or directly control her and general putting the one person she cares about more than anyone in harms way. She hates what she is.. because it’s brought her nothing but pain and misery. She has ever reason to resent it..
Yet this episode is about forcing her to accept it.... to realize that Magic is part of who she is, and that it’s not inherently good or bad, it’s all about the intent of who uses it. Her last two uses of it were not made with any malice and in fact using it to pull her friends into her dreams allowed her to break free of Magica.
And it’s perfectly done by giving her a new enemy, something I REALLY wish tehy’d done with Fenton at some point, but get why it took this long with Lena: The Phantom Blot. The Phantom Blot, like many characters in this series is HEAVILY redone: he keeps the iconic look and threat level but instead of being an operatic supervillian, he’s an anti-villian with a link to magic he never really had before. He works with FOWL sure but it’s likely because unlike the rest of FOWL he actually agrees with Bradford’s goal for a less chaotic world and his desire to wipe out magic is perfectly in line with that.
He’s also given a backstory that perfectly parallels him with Lena: Both were created by Magica in a way and horribly abused by her: Lena mentally and phsycially, and Blot by having to suffer under her rule after he took over her family and then barely survivie as she wiped out his villiage, his family and his normal life swearing vengance on her. LIke Lena magica didn’t care about him or see him as a threat, figuring like most people who swore eteneral vengance on her he’d get swatted down like a gnat once and never return. INstead he returned again and again and again for decades, learning each time getting stronger and wiping out more magic along the way. He went from what was probably a good normal person to a vengeful vigliante dedicated to wiping out magic good or bad because he can’t concieve that it isn’t ALL bad. He’s easily what Lena could’ve become if , ironically enough she hadn’t encountered him, seeing the end result of hating something just for what it is as it tried to murder her. That hating and resenting Magic would just lead her to become as hollow and vengful as the blot, having a good cause to start.. but slowly loosing yourself to hate and anger. Letting the person who ruined your life still control it simply by focusing all your energy on hating them and people like them.
It also gives us an interesting and painful teamup as with the boys and Scrogoe stuck in another dimension, there’s only one person they can turn to deal with Magic: Magica herself, whose resulted to depression eating pizza and the most she can do as a threat is eat the garlic Violet was wearing in case of vampires (”There now your susceptible to vampires!” is easily the best joke of the episode, from how Magica eats the garlic in one bite to her manical laugh to Violet just being annoyed rather than terrified or anything). Magica only agrees because they have a common enemy and if he sucks up her magic amulet, that’s the end of any magic she has left.
It’s also here we learn the reason for the blue and purple color coding: Duckworld magic is indeed color coded.. but rather than be based ont he emotions used or anything.. it’s based on the user. The purple is Magica, and as we later learn Poe’s, magic, and thus Lena borrowing it via the amulet. The Blue is HER magic. Tapping into her emotions and her own inante power. It’s a nice twist I didn’t see coming but makes absolute sense in hindsight: Every time she’s triggered it.. it’s been when she’s been using her own emotions and been doing thigns for her own good, and not for anyone elses. It also explains why the Magica powers aren’t working for her or stable: their not HERS to control and thus are fighting her.
So she trains to use her own using the time honorted traditions of montages and having your sibling shoot things at you out of a magical amulet. She grows in her talent and power and herself, even if she learns from the person she hates more and comes to accept magic.. in time to fight the Blot who misguidedly thinks harming her will show Magica the pain he felt.. even though as we learn later that ship already sailed and we already knew she cares nothing for Lena.
But as he drains her amulet... she focuses on what she cares about... and if we didn’t already ahvea MOUNTAIN of subtext for webby and lena her “frienddship” montage has maybe one or two shots of her sister.. and about 80 of webby. Seriously they.. they weren’t even hiding it at this poitn outside of the finale, which we’ll get to.
And so she takes hold of her magic, no longer need the amulet to channel it and taking on her super mode! Which was highly contreversal at the time. BUt I get why. As a transformation, ala dragon ball, and a superhero type costume it works, giving her a power and grandeur not seen before and showing she’s using all of it, giving weight to when it only shows up in the finale when she needs it most and likely would’ve given it weight any other time it showed up. But it wasn’t clear if this was her permenant look now and Frank’s response to it was to say he wanted to dress everyone up in that outfit , at the same size Lena has it, including launchpad wearing it like a cape. Which while hilarious and it was, was also blatant trolling as her return in Split Sword showed it wasn’t her default form, and they could relax. But as a form showing the apex of her power, character development and confidence, it works and has all the drama i’d expect from a form like this, reflecting the blot’s power back onto him and overloading the gauntlet and facing down Magica easily.
It’s the perfect way to cap things off... Lena finally acccepts herslef as she is fully: she’s not evil and neither is magic.. magic is a part of her and her power is not something to hate.. but to embrace. To use to protect the world from people LIKE Magica who would misue their power to harm others or the blot who belivie her power is inherently evil. This is a lena freed from the chains of self hatred, fully accepted. It turns her story into a wonderful, beautiful story of escaping abuse and accepting yourself as who you are, that no matter what you are or where you come from, you are beautiful, you are good and you can do good. And as she flies off with her sister and girlfriend, she’s finally, fully, truly at peace with who she was who she is now and flies into the future.. and to free her girlfirends dad from another dimension. Nothing is holding her back now, no one can push her around, she’s who she wants to be, she’s the master of her, and the thoughts enough to lift her off of the ground. She and Webby are independent together and they are flying. And yes i’m linking the song again.
But even with her character Arc Wrapped she still could support others in their own growth. Case in point:
The Split Sword of Swanstantine!
This was the vingette episode, with a pair of the kids, one from Team Magic the other from the Duck Boys, going after a piece. And while Violet’s segment is neat it dosent’ really expand on her enough for me to go into it like I did with Challenge, so i’ll only be covering the cold open and Lena and Huey’s segment. Given these two are some of my faviorites, Lena hasn’t really gotten to have any meaningful interactoins with anyone besides Webby, Violet and Magica (And scrooge but for like.. two minutes), and this bit is really creative and intresting I loved it. It also has Steelbeak so I got a nice Jason Mantzokus fix on top of that despite him barely getting to speak in this one.. and really all season. Season 3 REALLY wasted Steelbeak, only using him three times and just ignoring the whole idea of him growing more compitent with time. Maybe Frank’s saving that for darkwing duck if he gets to do that I dunno. At least Invincible and Close Enough are using the man properly so I got that.
THe setup to the episode as a whole is comedic gold: Scrooge has taken the kids to Monocrow to find the split sword, one of the missing mysteries before FOWl.. only to then realizze in one of the best jokes of the season, after HOURS of plane travel probably that Violet and Lena had also come along having slept over and thus spending the episode in their sleep clothes. As Violet puts it in LIebe’s best delivery of the series “You said eveyrone get on the plane so we got on the plane”. So, fricking relatable. Scrooge’s awkard “Do you.. like history?” is also great, David is a treasure, as if he’s just now realizing he really dosen’t know Webby’s closest friend and girlfriend and is scrambling for some common ground so he can stop talking. 1/2′s good enough and we’re off.
Lena and Huey’s plot, the final one of the three, likewise has a simple setup: Huey finds the sword piece.. and also Steelbeak, whose ready to punch him some children. Lena freezes time as she can do that but can’t delay the inveitble, just give them time to plan.
And this is a nice showcase for Huey and a nice chance for Lena to be snarky as Huey wants to try anything and everything he can do that dosen’t involve fighting as he hates it and Lena endulges him as he gets tossed around, playing on her phone while he tries dumb scheme after dumb scheme from prtending to be his dad, to his inner child, to construction to offering him a snack, to “what sword piece” while hodling the sword blade twice his side behind his back.
Lena eventually calls him on it: He can’t keep avoiding this and there’s some reason he dosen’t want to fight. The reason turns out to be he bruce bannered himself and thus has a split personality for all his agression and primal rage, the duke of making a mess, Huey’s version fo the McDuck family anger he’s buried away and is ashamed of, hating his more impuslive emotions due to his desire for control.
As for how Lena impacts this.. it’s her own acceptance of the part of her she hated, her magic, that gives her the clarity to help Huey, helping him realize like her this shit isn’t healthy and to make peace with the Duke instead of fighting him and locking him away. The result is a perfect combo: a huey with all the power and strength of a mcduck, but the nuance and tactics Huey normally has to beat Steelbeak easily. Lena is impressed, a friendship is forged and we see how far sh’es come: from hating herself.. to helping others stop doing it before it gets worse.
How Santa Stole Christmas!
All we really learn here is that she and Violet share a room and a king sized bed.. but we got that cheek smooch and I had to mention that so there you go.
The Last Adventure!:
Like most of the main cast Lena gets a decent note to go out on, if a bit wobbly. The wobblyiness comes from two sources. The first is just a nitpick of mine; We don’t get to see the climax of her fight with the Blot alongside Manny. No really. The Blot got two spotlight episodes, his own sidekick/wife/amy sedaris, and was built up as one of FOWL’s biggest threats.. and his defeat isn’t even shown on screen for some damn reason. I feel they just ran out of time but given how important Lena and Manny were series wide and how awesome the keith david reveal was, it’s a cop out
Speaking of Cop Outs we can’t talk about this episode without talknig about the elephant in the room: Lena saying Webby “already has two sisters”, seemingly shooting down any posiblity of Weblena. I do not see it that way but do feel the two could’ve phrased it better and we could’ve gotten SOME Weblena by the end instead of none to offset this. I feel Lena’s motivations, esecpailly given the context were purely to try and placate Webby to keep her from investigating the twins further and endangering herself, not realizing how badly this wouldn’t work as Lena’s never cared about where she comes from and her past is all pain and abuse before Webby, while Webby had this gnawing at her her whole life. I do think the last episode was the WORST POSSIBLE place to put this, as it comes off as queerbaiting evne though I don’t think that was the intent. So yeah this line sucks and was poorly conveyed.
Everything else though is thankfully excellent: Her raging frekaout at June feels warranted, as June is literally trying to cut Webby out of her life and was purposffully trying to galight webby as we find out. Her and Violet’s reason for going is also just pure awesome, pure heartwarming and pure badass, both angrily and simply proclaming when stating why their going on the final attack no fowl “It’s Webby”. Webby helped Lena become a better person and lnvoes her more than anyone else and vice versa and Webby gave Violet Friends, a sister and a life of her own. Nothings going to stop them and Scrogoe wisely backed down on that one before they strangled him.
Her final scene is the best though: Not only do she and Violet give May and June friendship braclets but despite the earlier hostlitlity... Lena helps them with not a second though. She now understands them, gets that their like her: a being made by an evil dickhead who saw them as a tool to use and not a person and was willing to kill them the moment they were no longer useful. She too was once lost, sad and felt alone..but Webby pulled her out of that and now she’s going to be there for these two, these alterante versions of the love of her life, to give them the same support and encourages them they’ll find their home. And sure enough my boy comes by not a second later to adopt both of them. In an instnat they’ve gone from alone with only webby like Lena was.. to having a family of their own and loyal friends to stay by their sid.e
And so Lena ends the series charing off into the wild blue with her sister and her newfound friends, the future all ahead of her, the past finally put to bed, and herself finally at peace, in love with Webby.. and with herself at long last.
This retrospective was a wonderful time. I throughly enjoyed going through Lena’s history and being more and more impressed how much I’d missed and how it was even BETTER the second time around. This arc is Ducktales at it’s best and Lena is the finest thing they acomplished. This is easily Kimiko Glenn’s best role and really let her show off her range. Hopefully this isn’t the last we’ll see of this wonderful lesbian shadow, but as it stands with peace, love and self worth found, it’s still a good place to leave her. If she ever returns i’ll of course pick this up again, and free of charge but for now I enjoyed the ride and throughly enjoyed this retrospective. T
Thank you all so much for reading. If you liked this retrospective, please stick around. My next comissioned story arc is covering the various crossovers Lilo and Stitch did, but after that in three weeks return here for Season 2. All three arcs, All done intermidtley. Buckle up.
Until then follow for more, and join my patreon. My next stretch goal is monthly reviews of darkwing duck and reviews of the super ducktales mini series, and after finsihing this post i’m going to throw in some extra non-duck ones! 25 is being changed up from covering Tailspin every month, to covering a Danny Phantom episode every month, and the beloved special ultimate enemy. So check that out. I may throw in some more on both 20 and 25 so stay posted. And just for joining at the 2 dollar tier you get acess to my discord server and get to pick one of the shorts for my varoius shortstaculars I do. Next one up is goofy’s birthday with Donalds in june so join now!
ANd if you just have one speciifc episode I haven’t covered you’d like me to, those are 5 bucks a pop on commission and available via my ask box, direct messages on here or discord at technicolormuk#6550 and until the next rainbow i’ts been a pleasure
Listen up kids
A couple months ago, Frank made a tweet that there were still “a couple F.O.W.L. villains left to be revealed.” Me being me, I immediately thought of June & May and I kid you not when I say I fell out of a swing and said “holy fuckaroony.” Because I was just imagining a scenario where June and May are on a walk or smth and June leads them on an old, closed path and cut to the duo captured. Then the Ducks come and save them. Then brain said “oh they weren’t on a walk they were on a f.o.w.l. mission” and I go “oh fuck” and then brain says “they were finally the top agents and were sent to find April/Webby and May notices the resemblance between the three and then angst motherfucker” and I go “OH FUCK”
Gummi Bear references in Ducktales. Scrooge isn’t laughing nearly as hard as I was during this scene.
As much as I actually like Ducktales, I really don’t like how they’ve made Webby so McDuck obsessed. I love her adventurous spirit, and it makes sense that Scrooge would be her hero/idol, but I hate how it crosses over into this obsession that completely stupefies her to the point that can’t function.
Draw the squad~