snowflake challenge #6
Jan. 11th, 2025 02:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nerakroseevery year I think, oh this year I will do ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
snowflake_challenge, and then every year something about the prompts fails to grab me or some other reason, and I don't. if I manage 1 challenge at all, I call it a win.
Anyway, today I will gleefully pounce on challenge #6 so I can share my favourite moments from the Afdeling Q films. XD and I do call that a win. XD
Challenge #6 - Share your favourite piece of original canon.
I do have many favourite pieces but the other day I put together a post of screenshots from Journal 64 of Carl waiting for Assad to wake up from his coma, and posted it on tumblr here, so I will go with this one. I don't know how to make gifs (or rather, I used to, like 15 years ago, with cracked versions of adobe CS2 programmes, but things have changed and I haven't kept up) so screenshots it is.
The reasons why this is one of my favourite bits of canon:
- this directly follows the dramatic sequence of Assad getting shot, Carl desperately calling for help and cradling his face and begging him to stay awake + Carl's breakdown in the hospital bathroom trying to wash the blood of his hands, and it is a quiet sequence. there's very little dialogue, and there's a newsreporter voice over narrating what has gone down and continues to go down, so that it becomes clear that this state of limbo time in the hospital has a duration of several days (I think four days, though we can't really tell - it's definitely at least 3). it's a nice way to show time passing - halfway through, Assad loses the ventilator and only has nasal cannulas, for example - and it's got this combination of serenity and tension as we all wait for Assad to wake up and the reporter's voice washes over us, wrapping up the case, but we don't really care about the case because we are in the room with Assad.
- and throughout that whole time, Carl doesn't leave. He has gotten rid of the bloody shirt but he's still wearing the same slacks and undershirt (also stained with blood) as he arrived in. The only time he leaves Assad's room is to go out into the hallway to get coffee/check the news.
- there are four films leading up to this point.
#1: Carl comes back from sick leave (being shot + PTSD) after losing his best friend in a shooting and his partner left paralysed. He grudgingly accepts Assad's presence as his new assistant/partner but very quickly comes to rely on him, and at the end of the movie when offered to come back to his original job, turns it down in order to stay in the department Q with Assad.
#2: Carl, clearly still unwell (PTSD) is also struggling with interpersonal relationships - he appears to still get along with Assad, but has hated every secretary and even this one who is here to stay he has a constant contentious relationship with (they keep sniping at each other, mainly because he's a dick to her), and he also starts trying to push Assad away. "I don't need you" he says, intentionally provoking and hurting him.
#3: Carl is meant to come back from sick leave (PTSD), doesn't, as he's still very, very unwell, so Assad goes to pick him up. they have an uneasy partnership for the entire first half of the film, including Carl (unintentionally this time) hurting Assad. In the second half of the film they're more or less back to normal and at the end, Carl manages to pull himself together enough to express his gratitude for Assad.
#4: They're off on the wrong foot from the beginning - Assad has accepted a promotion into another department and is trying to get Carl to acknowledge their friendship and partnership, and Carl is rudely pushing him away by declaring they were only ever colleagues. over the next week they keep arguing and sniping at each other - Assad still trying to pull Carl towards him while Carl is actively pushing him away. It all comes to a head when they get into a physical altercation because Carl is being a dick and Assad (usually level headed) loses his cool entirely. The last thing he said to Carl was 'fuck you'.
- the next day is when Assad gets shot! and Carl, who has already lost a close friend to a shooting, now faces the very real possibility of not just losing Assad to a different department, but losing him entirely, and he freaks out. and camps out in Assad's hospital room without a change of clothes for four whole days, waiting for him to wake up. at one point he even tries to wake Assad up himself. his whole entire aura during these days is of desperation and guilt. but he can't leave - Assad finally succeeded in making Carl stay. by nearly dying.
now of course Assad does wake up and Carl panics and almost leaves without talking to him at all, but they do have a tearful reunion and Carl begs Assad to come back and tells him he needs him and it's emotional and poignant and all that, and it's a full circle moment for these four films, but....these four days in the hospital... if we hadn't had those, the reunion moment wouldn't have hit as hard. (Carl also really needed to sit with his feelings all that time, ha. He managed to lessen his emotional constipation somewhat! well done, Carl.)
snowflake_challenge, and then every year something about the prompts fails to grab me or some other reason, and I don't. if I manage 1 challenge at all, I call it a win.Anyway, today I will gleefully pounce on challenge #6 so I can share my favourite moments from the Afdeling Q films. XD and I do call that a win. XD
Challenge #6 - Share your favourite piece of original canon.
I do have many favourite pieces but the other day I put together a post of screenshots from Journal 64 of Carl waiting for Assad to wake up from his coma, and posted it on tumblr here, so I will go with this one. I don't know how to make gifs (or rather, I used to, like 15 years ago, with cracked versions of adobe CS2 programmes, but things have changed and I haven't kept up) so screenshots it is.
The reasons why this is one of my favourite bits of canon:
- this directly follows the dramatic sequence of Assad getting shot, Carl desperately calling for help and cradling his face and begging him to stay awake + Carl's breakdown in the hospital bathroom trying to wash the blood of his hands, and it is a quiet sequence. there's very little dialogue, and there's a newsreporter voice over narrating what has gone down and continues to go down, so that it becomes clear that this state of limbo time in the hospital has a duration of several days (I think four days, though we can't really tell - it's definitely at least 3). it's a nice way to show time passing - halfway through, Assad loses the ventilator and only has nasal cannulas, for example - and it's got this combination of serenity and tension as we all wait for Assad to wake up and the reporter's voice washes over us, wrapping up the case, but we don't really care about the case because we are in the room with Assad.
- and throughout that whole time, Carl doesn't leave. He has gotten rid of the bloody shirt but he's still wearing the same slacks and undershirt (also stained with blood) as he arrived in. The only time he leaves Assad's room is to go out into the hallway to get coffee/check the news.
- there are four films leading up to this point.
#1: Carl comes back from sick leave (being shot + PTSD) after losing his best friend in a shooting and his partner left paralysed. He grudgingly accepts Assad's presence as his new assistant/partner but very quickly comes to rely on him, and at the end of the movie when offered to come back to his original job, turns it down in order to stay in the department Q with Assad.
#2: Carl, clearly still unwell (PTSD) is also struggling with interpersonal relationships - he appears to still get along with Assad, but has hated every secretary and even this one who is here to stay he has a constant contentious relationship with (they keep sniping at each other, mainly because he's a dick to her), and he also starts trying to push Assad away. "I don't need you" he says, intentionally provoking and hurting him.
#3: Carl is meant to come back from sick leave (PTSD), doesn't, as he's still very, very unwell, so Assad goes to pick him up. they have an uneasy partnership for the entire first half of the film, including Carl (unintentionally this time) hurting Assad. In the second half of the film they're more or less back to normal and at the end, Carl manages to pull himself together enough to express his gratitude for Assad.
#4: They're off on the wrong foot from the beginning - Assad has accepted a promotion into another department and is trying to get Carl to acknowledge their friendship and partnership, and Carl is rudely pushing him away by declaring they were only ever colleagues. over the next week they keep arguing and sniping at each other - Assad still trying to pull Carl towards him while Carl is actively pushing him away. It all comes to a head when they get into a physical altercation because Carl is being a dick and Assad (usually level headed) loses his cool entirely. The last thing he said to Carl was 'fuck you'.
- the next day is when Assad gets shot! and Carl, who has already lost a close friend to a shooting, now faces the very real possibility of not just losing Assad to a different department, but losing him entirely, and he freaks out. and camps out in Assad's hospital room without a change of clothes for four whole days, waiting for him to wake up. at one point he even tries to wake Assad up himself. his whole entire aura during these days is of desperation and guilt. but he can't leave - Assad finally succeeded in making Carl stay. by nearly dying.
now of course Assad does wake up and Carl panics and almost leaves without talking to him at all, but they do have a tearful reunion and Carl begs Assad to come back and tells him he needs him and it's emotional and poignant and all that, and it's a full circle moment for these four films, but....these four days in the hospital... if we hadn't had those, the reunion moment wouldn't have hit as hard. (Carl also really needed to sit with his feelings all that time, ha. He managed to lessen his emotional constipation somewhat! well done, Carl.)
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Date: 2025-01-11 01:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-12 09:20 am (UTC)