Stacy in Bloom | 15: Stop! In the Name of Love

[luxken27]

Title: Stacy in Bloom
Fandom: Kids Incorporated
Universe: Canon (Season 5 – 1988)
Genre: Friendship/Romance
Rating: T
Summary: With her sister and best friend halfway around the world, who else is there for Stacy to turn to…but Ryan? When the consequences of their actions become clear, the two must decide if pursuing each other is worth breaking up the band.
Mega-meta resource thread: http://luxken27.livejournal.com/137711.html

Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5873801/15/

Let the dramatic tension begin! :D

Lots of references this week, and lots of canon pulled in for background...so let's begin!

[+] The title song was this "interesting" cover of the Supremes hit, from the 5x02 episode "Kid's Court":

Watch on YouTube

This was the second episode of the season, and already they're flirting with each other, LOL. It's fun to watch the performances in canon order, because you can kinda tell when the flirtation became something more <3 (Slight derail: sometimes, I really Really REALLY REALLY want to believe my fellow YouTube commenters, but I find that I just can't...because they are YouTube commenters. Nonetheless, I will enjoy my misbegotten squee, just because comments on YouTube vids are about the only thing left of this fandom anymore o.O)

ANYWAY, this was one of my favorite songs from the show - one I remembered before rewatching it and picking up on all the subtext :P Stacy always did amazing Motown covers (as did the entire 1986 cast, truth be told - they were really the Magnificent Five). Apparently her natural range is alto! I'm thinking of inserting some old Dusty Springfield classics for just that reason - she certainly has the pipes for it!

[+] Russian ballerina Katrina made her appearance during the 4x08 episode "Russian 101". This was an episode I'd been dying to see ever since rediscovering the show, but I can safely say now, after watching it, that I can barely get through it anymore *blush*

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

SO MANY CRINGE-WORTHY MOMENTS OMG. This is the infamous "I Can Dream About You" episode (which seemed to be the standard they pulled out when the male lead suddenly had a crush on someone - Mickey did an equally cringe-worthy cover during the first season). And then there's the whole "HAY AMERICA'S AWESOME!!!!" patriotic vibe that - just, bleh. I realize being patriotic in the 80s was an *in* thing, but it's never been my thing, and I'm kinda appalled at how much Kids Inc went really overboard with it - not just in this episode, but in a couple others. Retch.

In spite of these (rather large) misgivings, the rest of the episode is pretty awesome. I'm a huge fan of two of the staged numbers ~ "Come Go With Me" (song #2) and "One for the Mockingbird" (song #5) ~ both of which are in constant rotation for me. The girl who played Katrina was pretty decent, although her accent is terrible. I'm a big fan of Ryan being a dork, of which there's plenty in this episode...and I even like the bittersweet ending.

Ryan's performance of the final song is ultimately what colored my judgment, tho. It's an awesome cover (I like it better than the original - more guitar, less synth), and he is incredibly subdued during the performance. From this (and their final scene together) I drew on the idea of him falling pretty hard for Katrina, and carried it forward here.

I'm hopeful that having both Ryan and Stacy reflect on Katrina brings her characterization more in line with what's actually seen on screen. Of course Stacy is feeling insecure and jealous, so she's going to read a lot more into Katrina's actions than Ryan...and, because he knew her much better than any of the other kids, Ryan's take on what she says and does is different.

This probably isn't the last we've seen of her, tho. That'd be way too easy :P

[+] The Bolshoi Theatre program is very real, and very famous. From what I can tell, the "Russian Youth Ballet" was just a fictional group the show made up. After all, in 1988, Russia was still part of the Soviet Union, so if anything, any traveling group would've been called Soviet and probably would've contained dancers from the entire Soviet region, not just Russia.

Katrina's dialogue is also very real. The Russian language does not contain articles, so Russians speaking English generally leave them out. I tried hard to make it read authentic (regarding word choice) as well, but that's one of the 'tricks' of writing the Russian accent.

[+] Did you catch the mention of Stacy's magic ring? This is definitely not the last time we'll be seeing that :D

[+] A huge shoutout to little_details members who helped me pick out authentic places for Ryan and Stacy to hang out during their impromptu trip into the city. You guys friggin rock :D so thanks for letting me pick your brains!

[+] For the love of Mickey ~ I wanted to make sure all of the main characters from the first five seasons warranted a mention somewhere, and Mickey is pretty much the last on that list. It's tricky, because he was only there for a season, and his departure made room for my male lead in the story, so I wasn't sure how I was going to bring him up, until I sat down with this chapter.

His and Gloria's supposed ground rules for the band came from "The Beginning", a prequel of sorts to the main series. I have not seen this; I'm fairly sure it didn't run on TV and was only available on VHS, and no one has put it up anywhere that I can find it online. "The Beginning," about how the group originally formed, was not the pilot episode; in fact, the Kid wasn't originally cast for the show, so his scenes were shot later than the others and edited into the piece.

I've also been shamefully bad about not watching first season episodes, so there is a good chance there's another mention of these 'ground rules' somewhere and I've just missed it. But I thought it'd be interesting for the characters to actually examine the rule and see what it was actually put in place for - there was some logic behind it, after all :)

[+] Ryan's origins were never specifically stated on the show (that I'm aware of - there is an episode where his grandmother came to stay with his family that I haven't seen but would really like to). In his first episode, he mentions that he's new in town, having just moved there, so his past is something ripe for fanon exploration. I settled on Ohio mainly because that's where the real Ryan Lambert is from, and because I think the idea of one of his sets of grandparents still living there and wanting cheeky pictures of him is hilarious. (My head-canon is weird sometimes, LOL.)