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Don't let me falter.
God damn, I've been away from this too long. I don't know how to give it a proper start. Maybe I'll just start talking and we'll go from there, hm?
V. The Reds. Or, When An Emotionally Stunted Dickbag Loves A Tsundere.
They are my favorite. They are. They are full of angry!cake and drama!cake and tragic!cake (and, as a result, WIN!CAKE). In a lot of ways they are almost the quintessential Soap Opera Couple, and even though a little part of me dies to bring soaps into any part of this, it is the truth. There's screaming matches and heated denials and my favorite type of torturous!UST – the type that may never get resolved. (I mean the belligerent variety.) They absolutely cannot stand each other, and yet...
Well, I gotta stop a moment, because this is all fanon interpretation of the couple. First we have to get there.
V.a. Second Best to None, Son. Or, A Girl Possessed By Noble Heart.
Blossom is one of the best leader characters I've ever seen. When it comes to cartoons, team leaders in general tend to be the most boring ones – only as intelligent as they need to be, the ones that hold the whole team together, so staggeringly NOBLE IN ALL CAPS that they make you want to vomit... and Blossom kinda turns the trope on its head.
(The trope I'm referring to is the Standardized Leader trope. The point is I generally find the Heroic Leader-types pretty damn unimaginative. See: Goliath from Gargoyles, Cyclops from X-Men, Superman of like everything he's ever been in (though sometimes I try to make myself like Superman out of spite for Batman just because Batman's so friggin' popular).)
Is Blossom noble? Totally. Morally upright? Yes, sir. Take-charge kinda girl? Ohhhh, yeah. But the great thing about Blossom is that, in addition to all these things, she is also petty and argumentative and kind of egotistical about heading a team of five-year-old superhero girls. (And she gets points for being a five-year-old superhero girl, too!) She does tend to ultimately win the big battles (delivering the finishing blow to Mojo, besting Princess where her sisters have failed, lead guitaring Mr. Mime back into Rainbow the Clown, etc.) by virtue of being the leader. And she likes to deliver those epic, moralizing, leader-type speeches...
But the Leader is still, traditionally, the least favorite among fans. Which Blossom is. (Or was, certainly, based on a fan poll from CTN at the height of the show's popularity.) Even among younger fans these days I hear a lot of them saying they don't really like Blossom. Which bums me out a little, dudes! As the oldest sibling myself (and I do think this can play a significant part in the types of characters you like), the older I got the more appealing I found Blossom (at the beginning I was simply neutral about her). It's a fine line to toe with the Eldest Sibling character—who, in this case, is also the Leader. She is portrayed as more responsible but kind of a nag, someone who can't take a joke, someone who likes to stick her nose into everybody's business and tell them exactly what they're doing wrong. Nobody likes characters like that! They're bossy and annoying and a killjoy! They don't want to let you have any fun!
For how much I like Blossom, it surprised even me to look over this and see how much I had to say about her. But she gets a lot of unfair flack from a lot of fandom, so before I go into my fanon interpretation, I do want to take a moment to defend her.
I myself have never been a huge fan of naggy characters, mostly because the naggy, annoyingly responsible one is almost always a female whose sole function is to do nothing but nag, especially when she's the lone girl in a group of guys. (Because everyone knows how much girls like to nag! GRRRR >:\) I think Blossom manages to avert that not only by being the leader of a group of girls, but by also demonstrating that for all her haughtiness and lecturing and bossiness, she's also just a little kid. She's not perfect. For how much she may overplan an attack, she can still fuck up (“Not So Awesome Blossom” and “Fallen Arches,” with hilarious results). For how much she tries to do the right thing, she still lets her personal wants take precedence over the greater good (“Candy is Dandy” and “Ploys R' Us”). Even her love for her family doesn't always lead to her doing the right thing (“A Very Special Blossom”). How many of us try and try, every day, to be awesome and good at what we do, and how many of us wind up having to deal with that exploding in our face? How many of us feel we've earned our gloating privileges when we wind up being successful? And, to the eldest siblings out there, how many of us feel that pressure to be the responsible ones, the ones who look out for our siblings, the ones who need to be reliable and held accountable and who are expected to be more mature and sensible? I see Blossom (just like her sisters) as a remarkably human character, and don't doubt that a large part of that is due to me relating to her on many levels.
But Blossom's a nag, and a killjoy, and she bosses around her cooler, cuter sisters, so as a result she's not extremely popular. (Although I've noticed she tends to be well-liked among... um, again, at risk of sounding elitist, more... “mentally mature” fans, regardless of age.) It's easy to write off the nag and simply interpret her as an annoying Miss Bossyboots (geez what am I like five), especially when she's put up against characters who seem to have a little more fun. And, being siblings, her sisters pick up on that, and (Buttercup especially) get on her case about it. (Buttercup has authority issues in general anyway, so she's going to get on Blossom's case about anything and everything, even when Blossom manages to succeed.)
But Blossom remains the leader. And really, she deserves to be there. And it's great that she also happens to be the smartest of the girls (though Bubbles may be the most... unintentionally brilliant (see “Him Diddle Riddle”), though she's probably more “selectively brilliant” than anything else, since this idea is usually played for laughs), which fuels her justification for being the leader and gives her an excuse to be proud about it. But leading isn't without its drawbacks. As a more responsible character, she tends to feel more pressure than either of her sisters to do the right thing. In the movie scene on the asteroid, when they hear the people of Townsville screaming? Bubbles doesn't know what to do, Buttercup's trying not to care, and Blossom is sitting there very clearly struggling with the right decision. She knows going back to help them is the right thing to do, even before the girls become heroes. This is even paralleled visually in that see/hear/speak no evil shot—yes it's a cute visual gag, but also. Also. Bubbles is covering her eyes. Buttercup is covering her ears. Both of them are blocking out the world from coming in and hurting them further. Blossom is covering her mouth—done in the real world out of horror, yes, but also to keep yourself from speaking and actively interacting with the rest of the world. Blossom is holding herself back from acting. She is the only one sitting there, eyes open, ears open, letting the world that hurt her come in, and trying to stop herself from rushing to their aid.
Blossom also has a more difficult time dealing with failure because she's so responsible. She's so together, she's so composed, she's ready and planned for anything and everything. Also, buh, she's smart! So failing for her can be remarkably destructive from a psychological standpoint. This was the whole point of “Not So Awesome Blossom,” and is supported in “Power-Noia,” where Blossom's nightmare involves her failing a school test. (I've known people like this, and all I can do is laugh and hug them with the utmost affection. ♥.)
As for taking things too seriously and being overly bossy, let's transfer that to a social atmosphere. Those aspects (as well as being more responsible) are generally viewed as unappealing in a social setting. What does this type of character hear? “Loosen up! Relax! Have some fun!” I think Blossom would have a lot of trouble with this message, especially as she got older. She's already shown to be pretty mature for her age, which already alienates her from the rest of the “the kids.” She still has her “kid moments” in the show, which are awesome and wonderful and make her character that much more human to me. But I think the more Blossom matures, the more likely she is to go with the responsible “grown-up” choice than the less-responsible “kid” choice.
The trouble she (and a lot of eldest siblings) runs into there is that in playing the Adult constantly, the older she gets, the less able she is to relate to Kids. Interacting with people her age socially becomes a difficult, awkward thing. Sure, she can give off a professional air for the sake of the city, but an atmosphere in which you're basically putting on your camera face is quite different from a “relaxed” social atmosphere. Blossom's so on all the time in public, to the point that when it comes time to turn that responsible, serious part of her off in front of non-family members or very close friends, she has an extremely difficult time doing so. Nobody can see her as anything less than the Responsible Leader or the Perfect Little Girl. She has a job to do. And she needs to maintain that image for the sake of her job so she can continue to command their respect and trust in her. In a way, it's a lot like real life celebrities, who have to (and are urged to) maintain a certain public image... which some obviously handle much better than others. Which just goes to show you how fucking hard (not to mention unfair) it is for someone to deal with all that pressure.
This isn't to say that Blossom's need to help people arises out of a superficial desire to look good. She takes on the Eldest Sibling/Leader role because she genuinely wants to take care of and save people. (Very noble, remember? Almost sickeningly so?) Oh, damn, and if anyone were to imply that any part of her was fake... Blossom's a very proud girl, too, so she'd immediately go on the defensive. Maybe, you know, politely at first, but get progressively pissier and pissier the more someone brought it up. So obviously she and Buttercup would get along swimmingly. (Sibling interaction! Yay! ♥)
I mentioned back in Buttercup's section that romantically, I see Blossom as a Tsundere. Type B, to be specific. Upon further reflection, I have to retract my claim that she's only a Type B Tsundere romantically—the people she's closer to definitely get to see her cranky side as well. So perhaps Blossom qualifies as a Type B Tsundere in general. (That would partially explain why her character and Buttercup's have so much appeal to me...)
On a final, personal note, putting Blossom in romantic situations is pretty awesome. And fun. I guess it's because I'm a torturous bitch and I like to watch socially awkward people flail when confronted with scary romantic potential. (Although I also like seeing girls reacting violently when confronted withscary annoying romantic potential. Whoo Buttercup.)
V.b. Let Me See Just Who I Will Become. Or, I Am A Very Special Fucking Snowflake, Damn It!
Brick. Wow, do I ever love Brick. Boy Blossom with all her drive and ambition to succeed... at not being good. (But looking good is acceptable, if not a requirement FANON, SBJ FANON. Save it for later!) Canonically, he's clearly the leader—he's certainly got ideas, if you can call them that, and he barks the orders in his team, and, as the Boys' return ep demonstrates, he's also the one who manages to stay focused on the task at hand, without all that pesky CRAZINESS (see: Butch) or OOH SOMETHING SHINY IS HAPPENING! (see: Boomer) getting in the way. (Though he certainly has his lapses too—“Boy Toys,” anyone?)
Building off the counterparts section and the case made for Anti-DumBrick (which you'll have to read if you can't stomach the idea of Brick being intelligent; I'm not getting into it again here), we start getting into some fanon interpretation: he's got Blossom's take-charge, no-nonsense attitude, her ability to focus, her penchant for planning things out in such a way where he believes success is the best possible outcome (with varying results)... but none of her noble tendencies or upstanding morals or charity. At the end of the day, Blossom is looking out for others. Brick is always looking out for Brick.
Multiply Blossom's negative aspects—her pettiness, her selfishness (see: “A Very Special Blossom”), her lack of ability to relate to other people—and you get this bastard. Where Blossom suffers a bit from her alienation, though, Brick revels in it. What business does he have relating to others, particularly those weaker than him? He was born with special ability and power, which only feeds his high sense of self-worth. He's the leader of a team of boys with special abilities and super powers, besides. That means something. That means that Brick is a Very Special Fucking Snowflake.
By the way, in case you're having trouble keeping up with my horribly disorganized essay, we're definitely in fanon interpretation territory now. So we've got a kid with superpowers and no tendency towards acts of “good” who has a Giant Fucking Superiority Complex. He takes a look around him, and he's got a lot of Evil Competition. Assuming he has Blossom's drive, it seems the next natural step would be to set about making a Very Evil Name for Himself. Because it isn't enough that he knows he's superior—he's gotta make sure everyone out there knows it, too.
Obviously this wouldn't sit well with certain authority figures in his life. Brick would have to be sneaky and secretive and fail miserably and get super-pissed off about failing (like Blossom, he has a difficult time dealing with the f-word) and come out of each fuck-up even more driven to show everyone just what he is capable of. (Special Snowflakes are Special, and all.) In this particular fanon interpretation (because I recognize that everyone does it differently), even if you don't necessarily buy Brick as an intellect from the start, the setup of his character is such that he would compel himself to learn and be smarter, or at least smart enough to hold his own against other villains and certain hero(in)es. Whether he succeeds is another story (and admittedly, fun to play with).
As for his relationship with his brothers... so far he probably doesn't sound like much of a leader if all he cares about is himself. But—from a logical standpoint—more manpower gives you that much more of an advantage over your competition. If your team is a well-oiled machine, that's all the better. Brick would push his brothers around, not only to maintain his position as Alpha Male, but because his brothers are a reflection upon himself as a leader. As with Blossom, maintaining a certain image is very important to him.. And also—from a more sentimental standpoint—no matter what he may think or believe, Brick needs them. But that's something that's embedded deep in his subconscious, not something he thinks or would even allow himself to recognize.
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philosophicwax said this once in an e-mail exchange we had, and I think it sums up the Boys' sibling dynamic in relation to Brick very nicely:
And since we mention “histories,” let me say this—my fanon interpretation of Brick doesn't give him that tortured, angst-ridden past a la Sasuke from Naruto, or even Zuko from Avatar (though Zuko happens to be an angst-ridden emo boy that I actually like). Not thatphilosophicwax implies that Brick having a history means he's tortured and angst-ridden; we're pretty much on the same wavelength about this guy. Brick's got issues, yes, but the baggage he carries is minimal and besides, he can't waste his time wallowing when there's scheming and evil action to be done. Plus, he's such an emotionally stunted dickbag that I can't picture him managing even a tenth of the emotional attention you need for proper wallowing. I think the biggest emotional struggle he would ever face would be in making a choice, which again, is motivating him to action, rather than dwelling in angst and self-pity.
I also tend to prefer characters who are just balls-out evil, rather than having had something happen to them that has turned them to the dark side. (This is why Him is my favorite villain of the PpG.) Brick is born evil. The kid starts evil. And eventually in this fanon, it all boils down to Brick having epic delusions of grandeur born out of his ambitious dedication to making something of himself. (Blossom, conversely, is dedicated wholeheartedly to making the world a better place.) I think a big part of why I like my head!version of Brick so much is because I have way too much fun making a character like that fall flat on his face, and then instead of going all emo about it he just gets more pissed off. (Almost like Zim without the spastic crazy.) Oh, Brick. You try. You try so hard, and it makes you so angry. Good luck on becoming the Big Bad Manipulative Bastard you so desire to be *snerk*.
V.c. 99 Problems (And A Bitch Makes 100). Or, Slow Dancing In A Burning Room.
See, I've been away from this for so long that I'm not even sure where to start. What draws the Reds together?
...Ahahahaha. Absolutely nothing. They hate each other. It's two stubborn, tightass leaders butting heads and snarling at each other like rabid dogs. They do not get along. Brick the Giant Jerkass does not jive with Blossom's Upright Moral Core, and her dedication to a life of charity and caring for the “lesser man” strikes him as a stupid thing to waste her powers on. Fighting is very verbal with this couple; it degenerates into physical violence when they are absolutely at their limit with each other.
Y so angrious? (Yeah, I just did that. You read it. You're complicit in this, too.) Besides the fact that they're enemies, they're both responding on a subconscious level to the fact that they are quite similar—in leadership, responsibility, intelligence (arguably), obstinacy, etc., etc.—but took different paths. It's that thing where each party represents what could've been, if Blossom's selfishness had gotten to the point where it would damage other people and if Brick had been instilled with the desire to do the right thing (if he'd had that kind of caretaker). Of course, those paths weren't taken precisely because Blossom was created for good, and Brick was created for evil.
And ahhh, Good and Evil. They would fight each other tooth and nail, moreso than their siblings, yes, even more than Butch and Buttercup. Why? Because Brick and Blossom each offend what the other really, truly believes in. Blossom doesn't just want to do the right thing—she believes in doing the right thing. Brick doesn't just want to be the best little evil mastermind that ever was—he honestly believes that he can be, maybe even believes that he already is. We all know what can happen when two different belief systems clash. And yet, some part of me wants (and really, truly believes, haha!) that they could get together. Briefly. With a lot of pain involved.
It occurs to me that I honestly don't know the mechanics of how this would work, except maybe in the way that two people who have such strong emotional feelings about each other, even if it's very negative, unwittingly become very emotionally invested in each other, to the point where they might actually define the other person's actions. Like, Brick's arrogance and selfishness would only drive Blossom that much more to Good, and vice versa with Brick and Evil. Not only that, but they have such strong opinions and beliefs about the other person, to the point where they stop recognizing the other person as a human being existing outside of what they see. When they are confronted with the side they never see (be it via familial interaction or hobbies like art or dance (and yeah, all of which I jammed into TEF)), yes, their self rejects and denies and decries the image because they are both just that stubborn, but those are all still tiny little chips in the Animosity Mountain. It is a very long, slow, and arduous process, because they aren't just battling with each other—each is battling his or her own self. Because of their (for lack of a better word) beliefs, they will constantly try to reject each other, even while their subconscious begins to see something that doesn't make them hate each other so much, maybe even something they want or, God forbid, like.
But maybe they do hit that point of recognition or, at the very least, acknowledgment of non-negative feeling for the other. Because all those little chips add up. And sometimes it isn't just little chips, but actual pieces of you that the other person is taking, whether they know it or not. And it happens because they allow the other person to get under their skin. Which is a significant thing for Brick, and I think this is how Blossom functions as his Anima, albeit an unaware (or maybe even unwilling) one—all those little pieces of him she takes, that he unknowingly lets her take, make him care about someone other than himself. Sooner or later he'd figure this out. He wouldn't like it, because Brick is a Very Special Fucking Snowflake who is grim and stoic and serious!face and revels in the fact that he doesn't care about other people. He would fight her all the way. He would not want her to take more. This Very Special Fucking Snowflake is off-limits to anyone that isn't the Flake himself (...). Which creates an interesting paradox, because in making a bigger effort to fight her, he acknowledges that she is affecting him, and that acknowledgment is like confirmation that something has begun to matter more to him than just pleasing himself.
As for Brick functioning as Blossom's Shadow Self, I mean, come on. Blossom is selfish and petty and a very proud girl, not to mention a bit of a glory hog, but this is tempered by the fact that she actually does care about saving the world and, as previously mentioned, believes in her heart of hearts that it is her and her sisters' noble obligation to do so. If she were any more selfish or petty or proud, she might stop caring about doing the right thing. She'd care more about herself. Like Brick. Brick represents the part of her she does not want to let herself become. He is as strong as her and as smart as her, but he only cares about himself. Therein lies the key difference, and Blossom doesn't want to put her needs and desires above the people who she is supposed to protect. It wouldn't be right. (Whether it's always fair is another issue, and why it's important to come to terms with your Shadow Self.) Blossom's playing the martyr too, but not in the way Bubbles does. Bubbles—in a heartbeat—would become a martyr out of love for those who were close to her. Blossom would become a martyr because it's the heroic thing to do. (So you could really, really make Blossom seriously fucked up if you put her in a situation where being a hero pitted her against her family... but anyway.) Not that Blossom wouldn't martyr herself for the ones she loved, just that her martyrdom arises out of a sense of heroic obligation, while Bubbles' martyrdom arises out of love more than anything else.
So Brick fights his Anima because he doesn't want to care about someone other than himself, and Blossom fights her Shadow Self because heroes can't be selfish. It gets doubly complicated when, no matter how much they fight it, Blossom is the person Brick starts to care about, and Brick becomes someone who Blossom wants for herself. He can't have her because he's a fucking lone wolf, and she can't have him because she's a righteous hero. Neither of them wants to want each other, and yet they do... see, it's this horribly soap-operatic, torturous cycle of realizing what you want and refusing to acknowledge what you want and then wanting it anyway but then screaming No, no, I absolutely do not want this, and yet...
This is why the Reds are my favorite. It starts out with them fighting each other, and then becomes all about fighting themselves. It is so drama and tragedy and pretty fucking emo, actually, but in a way that makes me keen with wondrous fannish grief. They are so determined to fight each other off that they can't see the bigger damage they are doing to themselves in the process. (And meanwhile, the room burns down...)
My overall approach to this couple, even more so than the Blues and the Greens, is this: It doesn't end well.
This isn't to say that they always end up unhappy (because certainly around here that isn't always the case), nor that it can't end on a mostly ambiguous-but-vaguely-optimistic-if-you-so-choose-to-read-it-that-way note. And who knows—some of you may just get lucky.
Oh Jesus, there we go, that hard shit is done. Wrap-up post to follow, complete with an ultimate table of contents. Right now my brain is fried and I am going to go be a lazy ass.
V. The Reds. Or, When An Emotionally Stunted Dickbag Loves A Tsundere.
They are my favorite. They are. They are full of angry!cake and drama!cake and tragic!cake (and, as a result, WIN!CAKE). In a lot of ways they are almost the quintessential Soap Opera Couple, and even though a little part of me dies to bring soaps into any part of this, it is the truth. There's screaming matches and heated denials and my favorite type of torturous!UST – the type that may never get resolved. (I mean the belligerent variety.) They absolutely cannot stand each other, and yet...
Well, I gotta stop a moment, because this is all fanon interpretation of the couple. First we have to get there.
V.a. Second Best to None, Son. Or, A Girl Possessed By Noble Heart.
Blossom is one of the best leader characters I've ever seen. When it comes to cartoons, team leaders in general tend to be the most boring ones – only as intelligent as they need to be, the ones that hold the whole team together, so staggeringly NOBLE IN ALL CAPS that they make you want to vomit... and Blossom kinda turns the trope on its head.
(The trope I'm referring to is the Standardized Leader trope. The point is I generally find the Heroic Leader-types pretty damn unimaginative. See: Goliath from Gargoyles, Cyclops from X-Men, Superman of like everything he's ever been in (though sometimes I try to make myself like Superman out of spite for Batman just because Batman's so friggin' popular).)
Is Blossom noble? Totally. Morally upright? Yes, sir. Take-charge kinda girl? Ohhhh, yeah. But the great thing about Blossom is that, in addition to all these things, she is also petty and argumentative and kind of egotistical about heading a team of five-year-old superhero girls. (And she gets points for being a five-year-old superhero girl, too!) She does tend to ultimately win the big battles (delivering the finishing blow to Mojo, besting Princess where her sisters have failed, lead guitaring Mr. Mime back into Rainbow the Clown, etc.) by virtue of being the leader. And she likes to deliver those epic, moralizing, leader-type speeches...
But the Leader is still, traditionally, the least favorite among fans. Which Blossom is. (Or was, certainly, based on a fan poll from CTN at the height of the show's popularity.) Even among younger fans these days I hear a lot of them saying they don't really like Blossom. Which bums me out a little, dudes! As the oldest sibling myself (and I do think this can play a significant part in the types of characters you like), the older I got the more appealing I found Blossom (at the beginning I was simply neutral about her). It's a fine line to toe with the Eldest Sibling character—who, in this case, is also the Leader. She is portrayed as more responsible but kind of a nag, someone who can't take a joke, someone who likes to stick her nose into everybody's business and tell them exactly what they're doing wrong. Nobody likes characters like that! They're bossy and annoying and a killjoy! They don't want to let you have any fun!
For how much I like Blossom, it surprised even me to look over this and see how much I had to say about her. But she gets a lot of unfair flack from a lot of fandom, so before I go into my fanon interpretation, I do want to take a moment to defend her.
I myself have never been a huge fan of naggy characters, mostly because the naggy, annoyingly responsible one is almost always a female whose sole function is to do nothing but nag, especially when she's the lone girl in a group of guys. (Because everyone knows how much girls like to nag! GRRRR >:\) I think Blossom manages to avert that not only by being the leader of a group of girls, but by also demonstrating that for all her haughtiness and lecturing and bossiness, she's also just a little kid. She's not perfect. For how much she may overplan an attack, she can still fuck up (“Not So Awesome Blossom” and “Fallen Arches,” with hilarious results). For how much she tries to do the right thing, she still lets her personal wants take precedence over the greater good (“Candy is Dandy” and “Ploys R' Us”). Even her love for her family doesn't always lead to her doing the right thing (“A Very Special Blossom”). How many of us try and try, every day, to be awesome and good at what we do, and how many of us wind up having to deal with that exploding in our face? How many of us feel we've earned our gloating privileges when we wind up being successful? And, to the eldest siblings out there, how many of us feel that pressure to be the responsible ones, the ones who look out for our siblings, the ones who need to be reliable and held accountable and who are expected to be more mature and sensible? I see Blossom (just like her sisters) as a remarkably human character, and don't doubt that a large part of that is due to me relating to her on many levels.
But Blossom's a nag, and a killjoy, and she bosses around her cooler, cuter sisters, so as a result she's not extremely popular. (Although I've noticed she tends to be well-liked among... um, again, at risk of sounding elitist, more... “mentally mature” fans, regardless of age.) It's easy to write off the nag and simply interpret her as an annoying Miss Bossyboots (geez what am I like five), especially when she's put up against characters who seem to have a little more fun. And, being siblings, her sisters pick up on that, and (Buttercup especially) get on her case about it. (Buttercup has authority issues in general anyway, so she's going to get on Blossom's case about anything and everything, even when Blossom manages to succeed.)
But Blossom remains the leader. And really, she deserves to be there. And it's great that she also happens to be the smartest of the girls (though Bubbles may be the most... unintentionally brilliant (see “Him Diddle Riddle”), though she's probably more “selectively brilliant” than anything else, since this idea is usually played for laughs), which fuels her justification for being the leader and gives her an excuse to be proud about it. But leading isn't without its drawbacks. As a more responsible character, she tends to feel more pressure than either of her sisters to do the right thing. In the movie scene on the asteroid, when they hear the people of Townsville screaming? Bubbles doesn't know what to do, Buttercup's trying not to care, and Blossom is sitting there very clearly struggling with the right decision. She knows going back to help them is the right thing to do, even before the girls become heroes. This is even paralleled visually in that see/hear/speak no evil shot—yes it's a cute visual gag, but also. Also. Bubbles is covering her eyes. Buttercup is covering her ears. Both of them are blocking out the world from coming in and hurting them further. Blossom is covering her mouth—done in the real world out of horror, yes, but also to keep yourself from speaking and actively interacting with the rest of the world. Blossom is holding herself back from acting. She is the only one sitting there, eyes open, ears open, letting the world that hurt her come in, and trying to stop herself from rushing to their aid.
Blossom also has a more difficult time dealing with failure because she's so responsible. She's so together, she's so composed, she's ready and planned for anything and everything. Also, buh, she's smart! So failing for her can be remarkably destructive from a psychological standpoint. This was the whole point of “Not So Awesome Blossom,” and is supported in “Power-Noia,” where Blossom's nightmare involves her failing a school test. (I've known people like this, and all I can do is laugh and hug them with the utmost affection. ♥.)
As for taking things too seriously and being overly bossy, let's transfer that to a social atmosphere. Those aspects (as well as being more responsible) are generally viewed as unappealing in a social setting. What does this type of character hear? “Loosen up! Relax! Have some fun!” I think Blossom would have a lot of trouble with this message, especially as she got older. She's already shown to be pretty mature for her age, which already alienates her from the rest of the “the kids.” She still has her “kid moments” in the show, which are awesome and wonderful and make her character that much more human to me. But I think the more Blossom matures, the more likely she is to go with the responsible “grown-up” choice than the less-responsible “kid” choice.
The trouble she (and a lot of eldest siblings) runs into there is that in playing the Adult constantly, the older she gets, the less able she is to relate to Kids. Interacting with people her age socially becomes a difficult, awkward thing. Sure, she can give off a professional air for the sake of the city, but an atmosphere in which you're basically putting on your camera face is quite different from a “relaxed” social atmosphere. Blossom's so on all the time in public, to the point that when it comes time to turn that responsible, serious part of her off in front of non-family members or very close friends, she has an extremely difficult time doing so. Nobody can see her as anything less than the Responsible Leader or the Perfect Little Girl. She has a job to do. And she needs to maintain that image for the sake of her job so she can continue to command their respect and trust in her. In a way, it's a lot like real life celebrities, who have to (and are urged to) maintain a certain public image... which some obviously handle much better than others. Which just goes to show you how fucking hard (not to mention unfair) it is for someone to deal with all that pressure.
This isn't to say that Blossom's need to help people arises out of a superficial desire to look good. She takes on the Eldest Sibling/Leader role because she genuinely wants to take care of and save people. (Very noble, remember? Almost sickeningly so?) Oh, damn, and if anyone were to imply that any part of her was fake... Blossom's a very proud girl, too, so she'd immediately go on the defensive. Maybe, you know, politely at first, but get progressively pissier and pissier the more someone brought it up. So obviously she and Buttercup would get along swimmingly. (Sibling interaction! Yay! ♥)
I mentioned back in Buttercup's section that romantically, I see Blossom as a Tsundere. Type B, to be specific. Upon further reflection, I have to retract my claim that she's only a Type B Tsundere romantically—the people she's closer to definitely get to see her cranky side as well. So perhaps Blossom qualifies as a Type B Tsundere in general. (That would partially explain why her character and Buttercup's have so much appeal to me...)
On a final, personal note, putting Blossom in romantic situations is pretty awesome. And fun. I guess it's because I'm a torturous bitch and I like to watch socially awkward people flail when confronted with scary romantic potential. (Although I also like seeing girls reacting violently when confronted with
V.b. Let Me See Just Who I Will Become. Or, I Am A Very Special Fucking Snowflake, Damn It!
Brick. Wow, do I ever love Brick. Boy Blossom with all her drive and ambition to succeed... at not being good. (
Building off the counterparts section and the case made for Anti-DumBrick (which you'll have to read if you can't stomach the idea of Brick being intelligent; I'm not getting into it again here), we start getting into some fanon interpretation: he's got Blossom's take-charge, no-nonsense attitude, her ability to focus, her penchant for planning things out in such a way where he believes success is the best possible outcome (with varying results)... but none of her noble tendencies or upstanding morals or charity. At the end of the day, Blossom is looking out for others. Brick is always looking out for Brick.
Multiply Blossom's negative aspects—her pettiness, her selfishness (see: “A Very Special Blossom”), her lack of ability to relate to other people—and you get this bastard. Where Blossom suffers a bit from her alienation, though, Brick revels in it. What business does he have relating to others, particularly those weaker than him? He was born with special ability and power, which only feeds his high sense of self-worth. He's the leader of a team of boys with special abilities and super powers, besides. That means something. That means that Brick is a Very Special Fucking Snowflake.
By the way, in case you're having trouble keeping up with my horribly disorganized essay, we're definitely in fanon interpretation territory now. So we've got a kid with superpowers and no tendency towards acts of “good” who has a Giant Fucking Superiority Complex. He takes a look around him, and he's got a lot of Evil Competition. Assuming he has Blossom's drive, it seems the next natural step would be to set about making a Very Evil Name for Himself. Because it isn't enough that he knows he's superior—he's gotta make sure everyone out there knows it, too.
Obviously this wouldn't sit well with certain authority figures in his life. Brick would have to be sneaky and secretive and fail miserably and get super-pissed off about failing (like Blossom, he has a difficult time dealing with the f-word) and come out of each fuck-up even more driven to show everyone just what he is capable of. (Special Snowflakes are Special, and all.) In this particular fanon interpretation (because I recognize that everyone does it differently), even if you don't necessarily buy Brick as an intellect from the start, the setup of his character is such that he would compel himself to learn and be smarter, or at least smart enough to hold his own against other villains and certain hero(in)es. Whether he succeeds is another story (and admittedly, fun to play with).
As for his relationship with his brothers... so far he probably doesn't sound like much of a leader if all he cares about is himself. But—from a logical standpoint—more manpower gives you that much more of an advantage over your competition. If your team is a well-oiled machine, that's all the better. Brick would push his brothers around, not only to maintain his position as Alpha Male, but because his brothers are a reflection upon himself as a leader. As with Blossom, maintaining a certain image is very important to him.. And also—from a more sentimental standpoint—no matter what he may think or believe, Brick needs them. But that's something that's embedded deep in his subconscious, not something he thinks or would even allow himself to recognize.
philosophicwax said this once in an e-mail exchange we had, and I think it sums up the Boys' sibling dynamic in relation to Brick very nicely:Boomer and Butch are all he has in the world, the only real family he's got, and the way he treats them is just repulsive. (...) It's almost (...) like he's trying to say "I don't need anybody, you dumb shits are lucky I let you tag along, you're barely worth keeping alive." Like he's got to prove it to himself. Which is, you know, pretty logical, considering his history.(...) Caring about anyone or anything is a sign of weakness to Brick, and he won't let himself do it, won't even make exceptions for his brothers.
And since we mention “histories,” let me say this—my fanon interpretation of Brick doesn't give him that tortured, angst-ridden past a la Sasuke from Naruto, or even Zuko from Avatar (though Zuko happens to be an angst-ridden emo boy that I actually like). Not that
philosophicwax implies that Brick having a history means he's tortured and angst-ridden; we're pretty much on the same wavelength about this guy. Brick's got issues, yes, but the baggage he carries is minimal and besides, he can't waste his time wallowing when there's scheming and evil action to be done. Plus, he's such an emotionally stunted dickbag that I can't picture him managing even a tenth of the emotional attention you need for proper wallowing. I think the biggest emotional struggle he would ever face would be in making a choice, which again, is motivating him to action, rather than dwelling in angst and self-pity.I also tend to prefer characters who are just balls-out evil, rather than having had something happen to them that has turned them to the dark side. (This is why Him is my favorite villain of the PpG.) Brick is born evil. The kid starts evil. And eventually in this fanon, it all boils down to Brick having epic delusions of grandeur born out of his ambitious dedication to making something of himself. (Blossom, conversely, is dedicated wholeheartedly to making the world a better place.) I think a big part of why I like my head!version of Brick so much is because I have way too much fun making a character like that fall flat on his face, and then instead of going all emo about it he just gets more pissed off. (Almost like Zim without the spastic crazy.) Oh, Brick. You try. You try so hard, and it makes you so angry. Good luck on becoming the Big Bad Manipulative Bastard you so desire to be *snerk*.
V.c. 99 Problems (And A Bitch Makes 100). Or, Slow Dancing In A Burning Room.
See, I've been away from this for so long that I'm not even sure where to start. What draws the Reds together?
...Ahahahaha. Absolutely nothing. They hate each other. It's two stubborn, tightass leaders butting heads and snarling at each other like rabid dogs. They do not get along. Brick the Giant Jerkass does not jive with Blossom's Upright Moral Core, and her dedication to a life of charity and caring for the “lesser man” strikes him as a stupid thing to waste her powers on. Fighting is very verbal with this couple; it degenerates into physical violence when they are absolutely at their limit with each other.
Y so angrious? (Yeah, I just did that. You read it. You're complicit in this, too.) Besides the fact that they're enemies, they're both responding on a subconscious level to the fact that they are quite similar—in leadership, responsibility, intelligence (arguably), obstinacy, etc., etc.—but took different paths. It's that thing where each party represents what could've been, if Blossom's selfishness had gotten to the point where it would damage other people and if Brick had been instilled with the desire to do the right thing (if he'd had that kind of caretaker). Of course, those paths weren't taken precisely because Blossom was created for good, and Brick was created for evil.
And ahhh, Good and Evil. They would fight each other tooth and nail, moreso than their siblings, yes, even more than Butch and Buttercup. Why? Because Brick and Blossom each offend what the other really, truly believes in. Blossom doesn't just want to do the right thing—she believes in doing the right thing. Brick doesn't just want to be the best little evil mastermind that ever was—he honestly believes that he can be, maybe even believes that he already is. We all know what can happen when two different belief systems clash. And yet, some part of me wants (and really, truly believes, haha!) that they could get together. Briefly. With a lot of pain involved.
It occurs to me that I honestly don't know the mechanics of how this would work, except maybe in the way that two people who have such strong emotional feelings about each other, even if it's very negative, unwittingly become very emotionally invested in each other, to the point where they might actually define the other person's actions. Like, Brick's arrogance and selfishness would only drive Blossom that much more to Good, and vice versa with Brick and Evil. Not only that, but they have such strong opinions and beliefs about the other person, to the point where they stop recognizing the other person as a human being existing outside of what they see. When they are confronted with the side they never see (be it via familial interaction or hobbies like art or dance (and yeah, all of which I jammed into TEF)), yes, their self rejects and denies and decries the image because they are both just that stubborn, but those are all still tiny little chips in the Animosity Mountain. It is a very long, slow, and arduous process, because they aren't just battling with each other—each is battling his or her own self. Because of their (for lack of a better word) beliefs, they will constantly try to reject each other, even while their subconscious begins to see something that doesn't make them hate each other so much, maybe even something they want or, God forbid, like.
But maybe they do hit that point of recognition or, at the very least, acknowledgment of non-negative feeling for the other. Because all those little chips add up. And sometimes it isn't just little chips, but actual pieces of you that the other person is taking, whether they know it or not. And it happens because they allow the other person to get under their skin. Which is a significant thing for Brick, and I think this is how Blossom functions as his Anima, albeit an unaware (or maybe even unwilling) one—all those little pieces of him she takes, that he unknowingly lets her take, make him care about someone other than himself. Sooner or later he'd figure this out. He wouldn't like it, because Brick is a Very Special Fucking Snowflake who is grim and stoic and serious!face and revels in the fact that he doesn't care about other people. He would fight her all the way. He would not want her to take more. This Very Special Fucking Snowflake is off-limits to anyone that isn't the Flake himself (...). Which creates an interesting paradox, because in making a bigger effort to fight her, he acknowledges that she is affecting him, and that acknowledgment is like confirmation that something has begun to matter more to him than just pleasing himself.
As for Brick functioning as Blossom's Shadow Self, I mean, come on. Blossom is selfish and petty and a very proud girl, not to mention a bit of a glory hog, but this is tempered by the fact that she actually does care about saving the world and, as previously mentioned, believes in her heart of hearts that it is her and her sisters' noble obligation to do so. If she were any more selfish or petty or proud, she might stop caring about doing the right thing. She'd care more about herself. Like Brick. Brick represents the part of her she does not want to let herself become. He is as strong as her and as smart as her, but he only cares about himself. Therein lies the key difference, and Blossom doesn't want to put her needs and desires above the people who she is supposed to protect. It wouldn't be right. (Whether it's always fair is another issue, and why it's important to come to terms with your Shadow Self.) Blossom's playing the martyr too, but not in the way Bubbles does. Bubbles—in a heartbeat—would become a martyr out of love for those who were close to her. Blossom would become a martyr because it's the heroic thing to do. (So you could really, really make Blossom seriously fucked up if you put her in a situation where being a hero pitted her against her family... but anyway.) Not that Blossom wouldn't martyr herself for the ones she loved, just that her martyrdom arises out of a sense of heroic obligation, while Bubbles' martyrdom arises out of love more than anything else.
So Brick fights his Anima because he doesn't want to care about someone other than himself, and Blossom fights her Shadow Self because heroes can't be selfish. It gets doubly complicated when, no matter how much they fight it, Blossom is the person Brick starts to care about, and Brick becomes someone who Blossom wants for herself. He can't have her because he's a fucking lone wolf, and she can't have him because she's a righteous hero. Neither of them wants to want each other, and yet they do... see, it's this horribly soap-operatic, torturous cycle of realizing what you want and refusing to acknowledge what you want and then wanting it anyway but then screaming No, no, I absolutely do not want this, and yet...
This is why the Reds are my favorite. It starts out with them fighting each other, and then becomes all about fighting themselves. It is so drama and tragedy and pretty fucking emo, actually, but in a way that makes me keen with wondrous fannish grief. They are so determined to fight each other off that they can't see the bigger damage they are doing to themselves in the process. (And meanwhile, the room burns down...)
My overall approach to this couple, even more so than the Blues and the Greens, is this: It doesn't end well.
This isn't to say that they always end up unhappy (because certainly around here that isn't always the case), nor that it can't end on a mostly ambiguous-but-vaguely-optimistic-if-you-so-choose-to-read-it-that-way note. And who knows—some of you may just get lucky.
Oh Jesus, there we go, that hard shit is done. Wrap-up post to follow, complete with an ultimate table of contents. Right now my brain is fried and I am going to go be a lazy ass.