Hope Mama gets the shopping done

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. Which is OK. This one was nice enough. :)

I had a kind of a Darkwing-y Christmas, with finally receiving both the second set of the Darkwing DVDs (it has been a while) and also getting the first 4-issue arc of the comic series in the paperback collection. FINALLY. You guys, this is awesome squared. ^_^ The nicest part is that I can read and enjoy it without feeling a need to view it as "canon". I was really worried that, since there is a continuity in this series, I was going to take it as canon and watch my AU be utterly obliterated (I'm a bit of a canon fiend... I find it very hard to go against canon unless there is something I REALLY dislike), but this is more just a new series I can really enjoy. I told my husband it's like really good illustrated fanfic that has an "officially approved by Tad Stones" stamp on it. Awesome without being definitive, you know? :)

Since I have a few minutes here - though probably fewer than I will need - I thought I'd do a characterization post. It's been a while since I've done one, I've been saying for eons now that I'm going to do one for Bushroot, and here it is. ^_^ I'm finishing up "Sea of Green", which is the Bushroot "episode" of TWC. I will say that i don't quite have his voice with this one. I'm not saying I feel like I'm writing him blatantly OOC, but I don't feel like his dialogue is precisely him.

I actually feel like I have a pretty good handle on Bushroot's dialogue, when I hear it. He's whiny (especially his earlier eps, Tino Insana really pushes the whine in his voice) and kind of wishy-washy, and actually very cute in those regards. The problem is I'm just not translating that properly in my head. :P Maybe that's proof that what I'm trying to write doesn't *really* fit for Bushroot... I don't know.

Anyway, in some ways I'm glad I've waited a while to do a characterization post, because the way I've been writing for Reggie has developed a bit since I started writing this fic. I've gone back and rewatched some earlier eps (as I said), read some other fanfics, and just generally refined how I thought Beth and Reggie would interact. Initially I had him a lot more sort of semi-harmless, and motivated almost entirely by loneliness. At this point in my rewrite I think his underlying motive is still loneliness but also a pervading sense of injustice and unfairness, that the world (and Darkwing) keep dumping everything on him. Some of this has to do with Cheezey (among other authors) putting into words a view I realized I'd held for quite some time, which is that Bushroot refuses to take responsibilities for the things he brings on himself. He hates that Darkwing comes and ruins everything and throws him in jail - well geez, never occurs to you to maybe STOP COMMITTING CRIMES, Reggie? Admittedly, Darkwing would likely never *believe* that he'd stopped, but so far, he's been right. ;)

Reginald Bushroot, pre-accident, strikes me as a guy who is used to being stepped on and pushed around. he's never had any way to hit back. He has this accident (sort of; that's the term I'm using but it really was more of "unintented side effects of a successful experiment", but that's long, so we'll say "accident") and he gets powers, and suddenly he can push OTHER people around. He's not the first thwarted little man to quickly go out of control once he can actually hurt back. There's so much hurt and resentment boiling inside that guy that he completely doesn't even see. Reginald Bushroot is a nurturing, pacifist, gentle, caring man who hates other people and this dichotomy gives him such a sense of cognitive dissonance that he fails to recognize the second half of it. In his own mind, he's a guy who continues to take the lumps that fate keeps giving him and who sure, has made some mistakes, but no one ever lets him make up for them without judging him first.

And he's lonely. As far as he's concerned he doesn't have a friend, he has friendly underlings (he clearly adores his plants, and as much as he sends them out to do his dirty work, he's horrified and grief-stricken when they get destroyed) and pets, like Spike. Darkwing points out that Spike would be happy to be Bushroot's equal and friend, but really, Spike is NOT that. None of the plants have the "foot-in-the-human-world" that Bushroot has, and this must be maddening to him. This is clearly why he's tried more than once to create other "mutants" to join him - Rhoda Dendron, Gosalyn, and even Posie the potato. It's not enough to try to woo Rhoda as a duck, because he is NOT a duck, so he has to make her like himself. It's not enough to have plants for friends, because he is NOT a plant, so he has to make his own bride out of a plant and other things. Etc, etc. (Oh sure, I know he didn't *set out* to make Gosalyn a mutant plant-duck but the fact that the formula worked that way indicates it was intended to do much the same thing anyway - give heightened intelligence to whatever plant life he used it on, such as Hedgey, even though it failed.)

SO. I might not be able to write in his voice, but I've been trying to incorporate all this stuff into "Sea of Green". His motivation for his actions isn't about monetary gain - and aside from when he's with the Fearsome Five I don't see him acting for money, it all seems to be stealing for other purposes (gifts for Posie, fake money so he can buy plant supplies, screwing with people at Christmas, etc) - but because once again, he's been rejected. THIS IS NOT FAIR, and in the vein of someone who is tired of being expected to be a certain way he decides to really show them just exactly HOW much "that way" he can be. Then upon meeting someone who seems sympathetic - it could be anyone really - he has a new best friend. But I wanted to keep an element of danger in there - don't reject this guy, because if you are not with him you are against him, and he will not like you if you are against him. And years and years ago a friend of mine pointed out to me that as much as everyone seems to view Reggie as the most "harmless" member of the Fearsome Five, he is to date the only one of them who has actually killed ANYONE. Even including Negaduck, I think. I mean, Dr. Gary and Dr. Larson seem pretty totally dead.

Which is amazing when you think about it. DWD as a series had some really gruesome deaths that were totally glossed over by the people around them. Like the SHUSH agents made into candy. GAH! XD

My final feeling: I love Bushroot. And I do think he could reform. But not without a lot of therapy, anger management, and general support group work. One thing he has to do is accept all of his actions - everything he's ever done no matter what the consequences. That'll be hard because since his accident he's made a lot of really bad decisions. And ya know, if it were me at the end of this story, I'd send him to jail. We'll see what happens though. ^_~