#lizzy chrome

With the Roaring Twenties comes the West’s first form of youth culture. The trauma of the Great War and the Spanish Flu pandemic has left the surviving teenagers determined to enjoy their lives while they still can. Also contributing to the change is the fact that secondary education is no longer just for the elite; middle class teenagers are now attending high school, and sometimes college, creating a new section of life  between childhood and adulthood, where all the teens and college-age people are gathered in one social setting.

Wendy Darling enters the Twenties—and her twenties—in a melancholy state. She's seen her brothers changed by the Great War, and and lost school friends to both that war and the Spanish Flu. The introduction of jazz and flapper culture is a welcome escape from her personal demons and college studies. Mr. Darling has hangups about “negro music,” but the Darling children have long ago learned that so-called "less civilized" cultures can make some damn good music and dancing. For the first time since Never Land, Wendy can dance vigorously in a feathered headband, to high-energy tunes.

Victorian courtship is also being replaced by independent dating. And girls don't even have to wait for boys to ask them out first! It's now acceptable for her to make the first move. Wendy is now free to be as flirtatious and flighty as a mermaid. And the other girls at her sorority won't try to drown her for trying to join in the fun. (Well, some of them maybe.)

Wendy can also guzzle rum like a pirate, because alcohol is still perfectly legal in the United Kingdom. But when she visits America as an exchange student, she can finally attend a proper speakeasy. Donning furs and sneaking to secret hideaways brings back memories of her time with the Lost Boys. When the energy at the Hangman's Tree speakeasy winds down, Wendy, emboldened by liquor and the energy of the night, takes the stage. She brings many a drunk lounge-lizard to tears with her slow-jazz rendition of “Your Mother and Mine.” Even Tinker Bell is misty-eyed, from the green absinthe bottle she’s taken up residence in.

AN: This took longer than planned. Tinker Bell and Tiger Lily came out good enough the first time around that I didn't feel the need to redraw them. But I really wanted to change Wendy's pose. Her getup is very inspired by "Downton Abbey." Drawing that dead fox made me sad, but it was true to both the time period and the Lost Boys. (It's easy to forget that they're all human boys wearing pajamas made from full-bodied animals skins!)

By the late 1910s, poor Cindy is struggling to maintain the hope that she promised her parents she'd never give up, as she is worked to exhaustion by her abusive stepfamily. With the limitations placed on both the poor and women, she knows that her only realistic way out of this hellhole is through marriage. With her natural beauty and charm, she’s confident she could score a wealthy man, if she just had some way of worming herself into one of those upper-class social gatherings...and into something nice to wear. It seems impossible...

But then Cindy starts to notice some surprising upgrades in her stepfamily's lives. She's carrying and cleaning luxury items that would be pricey even for her filthy-rich relatives. Without revealing how much she's learning, Cindy gradually worms information from her stepmother and stepsisters about how they're affording all these things, and becomes familiar with the growing system of Credit—"Buy now, pay later." Credit Unions have been opened since the early 1900s, and as of 1914, Western Union and some department stores have begun issuing the first ever credit cards. The doorway Cindy needs to set her plan in motion has just opened before her, like magic. 

While out running errands, Cindy looks around and realizes that social mobility is exploding all around her. Immigrants are fleeing persecution and starting new lives here in America. The African American community is undergoing a cultural revolution of art and music. The number of high school students in the country has doubled, and more and more of them are going on to college. To top it all off, women are finally about to win the right to vote.

Relying heavily on the advice of magazine columnist “the Fairy Godmother,” Cindy learns that the most important thing in winning over others is “it,” and all “it” is, is confidence. Clara Bow demonstrates on the silent screen, and Cindy practices dancing to the radio whenever her step-family isn’t looking (much to the chagrin of her rodent friends, who scramble to get out of her way). “It” finally all pays off when the most eligible bachelor in Manhattan throws a Gatsby-worthy New Year's ball at his mansion, on the eve of Prohibition. This December 31 of 1919, Charles "Charming" Prince's courtyard is lined with pumpkins full of alcohol that will only be legal for a few more hours. 

The party is a wild display of extravagance and decadence that Jay Gatsby would envy. But the most enthusiastic dancer is a girl who no one knows. She must come from an incredibly wealthy background, with all her extravagant jewels and sequins. She belts it out on top of the pumpkin kegs to the roaring cheers of guests and servants alike, kicking her heels in a pair of art-deco glass shoes. The smitten heir jumps up onto the pumpkins to dance with her, and suddenly Cindy forgets all about money.

In the crowd below, Cindy’s stepmother narrows her eyes suspiciously, while her two daughters bury their heads in some pumpkin kegs.

Before Charming can get the girl’s name, the clock strikes midnight…and an ambush of FBI agents burst from their hiding places around the mansion’s grounds, hollering, “This is a raid!” Prohibition is now officially in effect. Feathers and sequins fly through the air as guests tear across the courtyard. Coppers are hacking the pumpkin kegs to pieces with axes, spilling their contents onto the brick paths below. Cindy’s stepmother tries to bribe the police lieutenant, while the stepsisters catch booze from the wrecked pumpkins in their bucket hats.  Charming searches frantically for his dance partner, but Cindy has already taken off in her rented limo.

The next morning, no one from the party seems to know the mysterious woman. Did 200 drunken dancers all hallucinate the same girl? 

Then, finally, among the overturned furniture and smashed pumpkins, Charming’s butler finds an art-deco glass slipper—the largest purchase on Cindy’s new credit card.

Being first-class, the mother and daughters made it to a lifeboat, but that lifeboat capsized. Elsa instinctively created a small ice raft under herself and her sister, who she shielded from the frigid temperatures with her own body; the cold never bothered Elsa. But she wasn't big enough to do the same for their mother, nor strong enough to hold on to her. The sisters were rescued, and brought to Arendelle Manor, located between Minneapolis and St. Paul. There they were raised by their Uncle Kai and Aunt Greta, who ran the house with the formal Edwardian etiquette they were used to, but were warm and loving to their nieces. They never directly addressed Elsa's "condition," but quietly accommodated her needs. Elsa grew up concealing and suppressing her gift as best she could, fearing that it was her emotional outburst that had caused the iceberg to appear in front of the Titanic.

Years later, Annie Arendelle is ecstatic by the booming Roaring Twenties. For the first time in forever, Annie is allowed to have as much wild fun as when she was a child. The new social freedoms for young women offer an open door for Annie to find love. Elsie however remains stubbornly trapped in an Edwardian "conceal, don't feel" lifestyle. At a Forth of July carnival, Annie meets Hans Sønder, and declares herself in love. Later, at the family's Forth of July ball, Elsie has a lapse in self-control, and turns everyone's (illegal) champagne into booze icicles, exposing her condition to everyone. In a panic, Elsie literally heads for the hills. She doesn't realize that she has left Minneapolis, St. Paul, and every suburb in-between covered in a thick July snowfall. For the many people whose business involves the illegal sale of alcohol, assets have literally frozen.

Dr. Weaselten Weselton, a prominent psychiatrist and guest at the family ball, comes up with a scientific explanation for how a woman's uncontrolled hysteria might have adverse affects on the weather, and suggests having Elsie committed for the protection of society. Annie won't have that, and begins tracking down her sister. She teams up with iceman Kristoff Bjorgman, and a talking snowman newsie named Olaf.

Kristoff's business may be declining due to the invention of the refrigerator, but most people still use ice boxes in the '20s, so his job security looks alright. New houses are still being built with ice doors opening right into the kitchen. And that St. Paul Winter Carnival has been doing its ice palaces since the 1800s. The group eventually finds that Elsie has made an art-deco ice palace of her own, that blows all of those others out of the water.

Unfortunately that ritzy ice palace is destroyed in a rein of Tommy gun bullets, from Hans' henchmen. Turns out Annie's new fiance isn't quite as respectable as he claims to be. Hans uses his social connections to get Elsie committed to an asylum, and tries to wack Annie, by leaving her to die from the icy illness her sister accidentally gave her. Elsie breaks out of the asylum, only to find that Annie is now a ritzy art-deco ice statue. Elsie drops her last Edwardian barrier, and lets lose the waterworks, which turn out to be the remedy for Annie's condition. The sisters expose Hans' mafia ties, and "Dr." Weselton's quackery. Annie hooks up with Kris, but takes things a bit slower this time around. Elsie un-f*cks the weather, except for a new art-deco ice a palace, where she finally lets it go on the dance floor.

Hamed Agrabah is a respected, if eccentric, businessman, who runs a successful shop selling animal figurines. He has no problem with his daughter being outspoken and dressing in Western fashion, because in the 1920s, neither of those is too unusual for women in many Middle Eastern countries. Women in Afghanistan actually gained the right to vote a year before women in the U.S. did! The Arab world is even developing its own version of jazz music. Yasmine Anglicizes her first name to Jasmine, and goes by Jazz for short. But Hamed draws the line at Jazz venturing outside their upper-class neighborhood, fearful for her safety.

Jazz sneaks out at night to frequent speakeasies, despite having no interest in alcohol. She just wants to break some rules, and make some real friends. During her nights out, she meets streetwise bootlegger Al, and the connection is immediate. But they’re separated when the speakeasy is busted, and they're both hauled off by the coppers. Jazz is bailed out of jail by her displeased father. To rub salt in the wound, her father’s business partner Jafar casually drops that he heard Al was killed in prison. Jazz is devastated, and blames herself.

Some time later, Jazz’s father hosts a fancy party at their mansion, in the hopes of introducing her to some eligible young men. A purple-and-gold limousine catches everyone’s attention as it pulls up to the driveway. The visitor’s blue-skinned butler introduces “Ali Ababwa,” a brilliant young business mind from a renowned “old money” family that no one has heard of. In his spiffy white suit with gold trim, Ali saunters into the party and charms the pants off everyone except Jazz and Jafar. Later that night, on her bedroom balcony, Jazz sees “Ali” trying to shoo her cat Raja away with his white, gold-brimmed fedora. His bad haircut underneath is instantly familiar. Ali insists that he and Jazz have never met, but she isn’t convinced. Nevertheless, she joins him in his purple limo for a night of adventure. Among other things, they see a production of the groundbreaking animated film “The Adventures of Prince Achmed”—the first feature-length animated movie in cinema. As the film ends, Jaz muses, “It’s too bad Abu couldn’t see this,” referring to Al’s pet monkey, and trips up “Ali” in his lie.

Later, Jafar’s hitmen send Al to sleep with the fishes, and Jafar slips Hamed a very powerful Mickey, hoping to coerce him into signing over his company and daughter. Al shows up just in time to expose Jafar’s snake-oil quackery. But Jafar catches a glimpse of a familiar art-deco bottle in Al’s fedora, and realizes that “Ali” is in fact Al, the young bootlegger who made off with the enchanted booze bottle Jafar had hoped to nab for himself. Jafar has Iago swipe the bottle out of Al’s purple limo, and the genie has a new master.

The magical battle that follows cumulates in the Miami Hurricane of 1926. Al defeats Jafar, frees the genie and gets the girl; but Aladdin City’s real estate value is permanently damaged. Nevertheless, everyone is happy to have survived the hurricane, and be free of a twisted crime lord. Citizens who recall seeing Al battle a giant snake, and Jafar transforming into a giant red genie, attribute these memories to the giggle-water they’ve been guzzling all decade. Those who don’t drink figure maybe they got a head injury during that hurricane. At any rate, Al and Jazz are married, and begin their life together in a whole new world of adventure.