u/JageshemashFTW

Ever since I found out Murray was originally supposed to be Bi, I’ve been thinking about which male character in the franchise could be a good love interest for him. The Carmelita and Penelope to his Sly and Bentley, if you catch my drift.

And I don’t know why, I don’t know what brain worm is possessing me to think this, I know I’m going to get a dozen comments saying ‘What the actual hell is wrong with you?’

But I keep mentally picturing Murray hooking up… with Inkspot Jackson.

Don’t remember him? I’m not surprised. He’s one of the generic guards in the Muggshot level of Sly 1. The Dalmatian who throws cards at you. You only ever learn his name through the Binoc-U-Com dossiers.

I don’t know, the idea first came to me when I remembered that Murray moved to America post-Sly 3, and I like the idea of Murray hooking up with a former enemy, but not a high-profile one. Just a random mook that Sly might have brained with his cane that one time, but Inkspot didn’t take it personally, and now he and Murray are ‘very good friends’ who run an autoshop in Mesa City together.

Considering the first movie was all about Judy and Nick figuring out their relationship dynamic and that the second movie *really* drove it in how much these two actually mean to each other (In their own words, the most important person in each other’s lives), it’d be interesting if the third movie explored the idea that their intense ‘friendship’ actually verged into straight up codependency. Like, they’ve finally accepted how much they need each other… and now they’ve overcorrected by being unable to be separated for too long.

It would make perfect sense, especially considering how close they both got to dying several times in the second film specifically because they weren’t there to protect each other. I can see both of them internalizing that *hard.*

If people just didn’t like the show, whatever, differences of opinion. I get it if it’s just not what you wanted out of a Star Trek show. I had the exact same problem with Picard.

But Starfleet Academy was like Deep Space 9. It set out, from the jump, to be something fundamentally different from other Star Trek series and fulfill a niche in the worldbuilding that was mostly unexplored before now. And it did that job very, very well.

But for so many of the haters, it is so abundantly clear that so many of them didn’t even watch the show. Didn’t even give it a chance. So much culture war bullshit surrounding the discourse of this show completely suffocating any discussion as to its actual quality.

It’s not the best show Star Trek ever made, but god did it deserve better than this.