#originalbronze

ray k's 'fursona' (in lieu of the term spirit animal) has previously been well postulated by akamine_chan to be a honey badger

which i find both hilariously amusing and hilariously accurate, considering both the simulation of the haircut and the posture

now: the question, inspired by a gif of otters on my dash that reminded me of ray v's 'pelt' description of fraser's hair

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The Templar Treasure exhibit opens at the Smithsonian. Riley discovers that outside of a heist, black tie is a dangerous thing.

fraser gets thoroughly whumped in the course of this episode, as one does, but the interesting part is how the show draws parallels between the two different parties doing the whumping: namely, the mobsters, and the women pursuing fraser romantically.

as fraser is being beaten by the mobsters in the third act of the episode, there is a camera shot that lingers on his face, looking upwards: he's beaten to hell, mouth hanging open, pupils small. he can't move and he can't get free, only take the beating

less than five minutes later, at the station: fraser is laying back in elaine's chair as she dabs alcohol on the cuts on his face and he is very visibly (and unusually vocally) in pain as she does it. he stammers his way into one of his tuktoyaktuk stories, with the otter, when she asks about the scar under his collarbone, but it's obviously a shield, calling back to the opening of the episode when he literally jumped off a balcony to get away from francesca relentlessly hitting on him.

there is another camera shot, as he's laying back in the chair. he's looking up. beaten to hell, mouth open, pupils small with pain. he can't move and he can't get free- but this time he can deflect, like fraser constantly does throughout the show. we even see him do it to zuko, in the first basketball game

the episode closes (if you'll forgive the spoilers) with two paired shots of ray v and fraser, with the voiceover of fraser sr as fraser reads his journals

ray v is in his pyjamas in his bedroom, staring down at his service weapon. debating with himself over whether to keep it loaded; working through his fear, of whether he's going to live to the morning after beating up zuko. the implication is that someone might be coming for him, but both ray v and the voiceover come to the same decision: to remove the clip and lock up the gun for the night, to lay back and release the fear instead and sleep.

fraser is in his apartment, lantern lit, reading an account of his father's journals where fraser sr put away a criminal who swore to come for him, and then lay awake and heard every noise until he decided to release the fear and go to sleep.

we see the expression on his face at the lines. not quite skepticism, more 'how do i do that, dad?' 'how do i do that when i am afraid for someone else?', which goes back to fraser's issues with his father in general and how he left him behind.

and fraser lays down onto the bed and onto his back, as ray v had. and he waits, and he tries to release his fear, coming to terms with it or trying to.

a snippet:

i know i can love you (much better than that)

In the hours after Ray Vecchio has been shot by Holloway Muldoon, Fraser keeps vigil with Ray Kowalski as the surgeons search for the bullet and the ATF and FBI squabble over whether to contact the Vecchios. [F/V & F/K]

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The winter here’s cold, and bitter It’s chilled us to the bone We haven’t seen the sun for weeks To long too far from home.

The lights are blinding and steady as the gurney rattles underneath Ray, the nurses hauling it over the threshold. Fraser stays as close as he can as they rattle off words, pressing gauze hard over the plastic bag covering his chest. 

He can’t hear Ray’s breathing underneath the noise; can’t tell if it’s sucking or wheezing or ceased entirely.

The gurney is moving away from him through a set of doors before he realizes they’ve reached the operating room. There’s a nurse in front of him, stopping him. She says something, tells him something and points. He isn’t sure. 

He can only stand there, staring past the doors. 

“…Fraser. Hey. Frase.”

Ray- Ray Kowalski- is standing near him. He’s still in his leather jacket, smelling like fear-sweat and blowback. 

“Fraser.” He moves closer, hand hovering close to Fraser’s back. “Hey. C’mon.” 

Fraser allows himself to be guided away.

Based on the information in the film, Raleigh is around 27 years old: age 15 when the first kaiju landed in san francisco, age 22 seven years later when he and yancy fight knifehead, and approximately 27 in 2025 when he meets Mako Mori

Mako's age is a little more nebulous. Her canonical age is given on the wiki as 22, which would have made her 13 when Pentecost defeated Onibaba in 2016. However, Mana Ashida, who played little Mako, was 8 years old at the time of filming. While age and appearance is not an exact science, particularly for children, based on her appearance and behavior in the flashback, I would find it hard to believe she was older than 10, which would make Mako at most 20 or 21 in the film.

Based on how young Mako appears in the flashback and the date given for the battle with Onibaba, I would hazard that Mako Mori is likely somewhere between age 19 and 21 when she pilots Gipsy Danger. That tracks with both her respectful/deferential relationship with Stacker and his reluctance to allow her to pilot a Jaeger, as well as her intense focus on getting revenge for her family; as well as adds an interesting perspective to her goodbye with Stacker where he passes the responsibility on to her.

"behold, the old fish plant" [very seriously, with french accent]

the prefect's fascinatingly gold-embroidered uniform

fitz's 'oh. please, help' look to arch after natasha complimented his suit (it is a very nice suit. also a very crisp haircut. yet i remain distracted by mme jobert's absolutely lovely tan coat)

ah, the inevitable corruption subplot.

fitz gets to drive to a surprising lack of complaints from arch. growth.

'who's dumb enough to tail a police car in broad daylight' and on an extremely secluded island to boot!

fitz's faces do so much of the talking. and are hilarious. and the fact that he glances at arch adoringly when she is doing her thing.

see, sometimes the soft sepia gradient is over the top. in this case, i am loving the use of the curtains in the psych's office.

...psychologists. how i loathe them. what kind of pseudoscientific bull-

and now they're bickering over who got hit on by who. hmmmmmmm

i am increasingly suspect of the prefect, but dr. death is still the greatest douche. a guy who builds a career and signs his own books and has slides and goes on spiels about the 'serial killer gene'? hmmmmmmmm