#because. yeah.

tagging @sluttyhenley and @redbelles since you guys asked about it to AND ALSO

bell you're getting called OUT 😈

sooo this is actually the first thing i started writing for mota and it was an unclog-the-pipe kind of idea and is self-indulgent with regards to wanting more bucky whump. i may actually never post it in totality for... a couple reasons, but i actually did a fuckton of research into how the stalags were run and kriegie culture inside of them, so it was a good exercise on a lot of levels even if it never sees the light of day. because it's sort of backburnered, that means i feel more comfortable posting BIG CHUNKS OF IT 🎉 but uh, that said, this one IS going under a cut because in addition to there being a lot of it, it's. dark.

"You know you want to," Mal drawls, scooping up a handful of water. "It'll feel good once you're in it. Aren't you like, dying in that?" 

Carlos tugs the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head. "No. It's not that hot." 

"With the amount of chlorine in public pools, the percentage of actual piss to water is probably very low," Evie says helpfully. "Probably less than 1%, if we assume that the maximum number of children based on occupancy and general health data, say about thirty kids, are constantly pissing in the water in very small amounts." 

Carlos shudders. "You're really not helping." 

Oh, right. He’s got a selective thing about germs, courtesy of growing up around her hellish wickedness, the master of animal-related health code violations. Mal’s pretty sure that Cruella never did horrible things with animal piss, but she’s not willing to swear on it. The taxidermy eyeball hat she caught a glimpse of the one time she ended up inside Hell Hall while Carlos’s mother was in still haunts her nightmares sometimes.

"I'm not baking myself like a potato either," Evie points out. "If you're having a germ freakout, you can go stand under the sprinkler by the gift shops instead. I can't see where it's drawing water from, so it's probably not coming from the kiddie pools."  Huh. It would be weird if every attraction in the park drew water from the kiddie pools, but considering the wild shit they've seen in Auradon thus far, not actually that weird. They've seen cows with shoes on, and a giant metal crab left out on the side of the road, and more weird-ass grocery stores than they'd ever dreamed of back on the isle, including the one that sold bubble gum powder by the jug, so like, piss fountains? Totally a possibility. 

“Piss fountains,” Mal says out loud, just to try out the sound of it. “Auradonian piss fountains doesn’t sound very magical.”

“They banned magic.” Carlos says. His voice is so flat that it might as well be made of the gum Mal found on her shoes last night. “So like, if you’re trying to help, you’re fucking failing at it.”

Louie seems to have negative associations with the colour red, and as a result is unsettled by it

the Rescue Corps' canon/default uniform colour is red

conclusion:

Thinking about horatio as usual lol

A thought just struck me, and I wanted to expand on it. The token best friend. You all know about it. The Black best friend, the disabled best friend, the poor best friend, the gay best friend. They are treated as an extension of the protagonist - usually not given an extensive backstory besides their marginalized identity, and important characters don’t usually talk to them other than to ask about something relating to the protagonist.

And I feel like, with the right characterization, horatio can be played into the trope - but in a self-aware and therefore exceedingly tragic way.

Think about it. Horatio is commonly seen as poor, or at least coming from a lower-class or middle-class family. He’s often portrayed as a person of color. He’s seen as gay by many people. The other characters don’t acknowledge him all that much, other than to order him to go after hamlet.

Hamlet is his protagonist, the white blonde rich kid with the tragic backstory who has to go on a ‘heroic’ journey and is given all of the spotlight, all of the characterization. Horatio is his shadow, the logical best friend who grounds him and is used to demonstrate hamlet’s loving side and show how he interacts around those he loves. Within the script, horatio isn’t given much more than that.

But. Horatio is a person. He has his own emotions, his own goals. He’s blunt but kind, loving but logical. And productions need to show that. They need to show how this loving person was absolutely broken. They need to show how he followed hamlet into the abyss and how he tried to drag both of them out of it.

Horatio is at his most interesting when he’s at his most morally complex. How much did he agree with hamlet’s methods? Did he hear about polonius’s death and why ophelia drowned, and if so, what did he think about it?

The scene where hamlet dies is also incredibly important for his characterization, because, again, he has been portrayed as someone whose only living connection is hamlet. His family is never mentioned, he doesn’t seem to have any other friends. What happens, then, when hamlet dies? How does he go on after hamlet forces him to drop the cup?

And, of course, his relationship with hamlet is vital. Hamlet adores him - he literally goes on an entire speech about how horatio is the greatest of men. Horatio is less passionate in his affection - and this can be attributed to their differing statuses. Hamlet, as a prince, can get away with more obvious declarations of love, the personal use of “thou”, while horatio knows he can’t get close to a prince without being under suspicion. Yet he stays by hamlet’s side nonetheless.