WARNING:

This document contains spoilers.  Please read the story first, then come back here.

Theme

There are many different themes in Star Crossed.  The primary theme of the story is what it means to be a hero.  The perspectives of the citizens that live in both the "real" world and the "ideal" world are examined.

Townsville exists as an idyllic "cartoon" community filled with happy citizens, bumbling criminals, and giant monsters.  In contrast, Citysville represents the "real" world.  The people are angry, criminals are crafty, and monsters aren't supposed to exist.  Ironically, the people in this "real" world do not admire individuals who actually do anything heroic.  The citizens choose to instead treat celebrities as their heroes.

Unlike the PowerPuff Girls, the RowdyRuff Boys are able to adapt to their new surroundings and become "heroes" in the eyes of the citizens.  They accomplish their goal by becoming rich and famous television stars.  The boys rationalize their actions by pointing out the "trickle down" effect their success has on the town.  These concepts are reinforced by the citizens of Citysville including the Mayor.  This theme serves as a commentary on how we as a society define what it means to be a hero.  Stars from movies, TV, sports, etc. are held in much higher regard (and are paid a heck of a lot more money) than the people who risk their lives for the good of the people on a day to day basis.

Another theme of Star Crossed is "being yourself."  The boys try to become something they're not in order to fit in to society.  When that fails, they unsuccessfully try to find a place for themselves in Townsville.  The RowdyRuff Boys eventually find a city where they are welcomed with open arms.  They are immediately accepted by the populace of Countysville and become the superheroes they always wanted to be.

Plot

The story is a continuation of the HER! fanfic.  The RowdyRuff Boys were sent to Citysville with the hopes of becoming superheroes.  However, Citysville has banned all super powers due to the destruction of their beloved bridge by the PowerPuff Girls in the "Town and Out" episode.

The PowerPuff Girls return to Citysville to find that the RowdyRuff Boys have become major television stars.  The boys' show is the most popular one on TV and generates lots of revenue for them and the rest of the town.  All the people in Citysville love the boys and treat them like heroes.  However, when a "real" monster forces the RowdyRuff Boys to reveal their true identities, they end up destroying the very same bridge as the PowerPuff Girls did in "Town and Out."  The boys are subsequently ostracized by the citizens and effectively banished from Citysville by the Mayor.

The plot also opens the possibility for a RowdyRuff Boys spin-off.

Characters

PowerPuff Girls

I always try to capture the essence of the girls' characters from the TV show and keep it consistent in my fanfics.  Blossom is still the leader.  Buttercup is still the rambunctious and defiant one.  Bubbles is still the sweet innocent child of the group.

In "Town and Out," The PowerPuff Girls tried to be superheroes in the "real" world.  No one in Citysville appreciated their efforts or took them seriously.  Understandably, the girls are a bit jealous of the boys' success and break a number of laws in an effort to find out what is going on.  Blossom rationalizes the girls' actions by claiming it's for the good of the citizens.  However, the PowerPuff Girls are really more interested in finding out why the heck the boys are so loved while they were despised and hated.

The girls try to interpret what happened in Citysville in terms that they can comprehend.  They assume that the RowdyRuff Boys must have concocted some kind of outlandish criminal plot like the ones they are used to in Townsville.  The irony is that the boys succeeded in "real" world by pretending to be heroes rather than actually being heroes.

RowdyRuff Boys

The RowdyRuff Boys are a bit more developed here than they were in the HER! fanfic.

Each of the boys effectively adapt their particular personality traits to stardom:

• Brick uses financial gain and materialism as a substitute for conquest.  The more money and possessions he owns, the more he feels he has "won."  When the monster starts tearing up Citysville, Brick is more interested in the loss of profits than the actual destruction.
• Boomer genuinely believes he is helping the people of Citysville.  He points out to Bubbles that crime has been reduced to an all time low as a  result of the boys' success as TV stars.
• Butch substitutes the glory of hand-to-hand combat by fighting for TV ratings.  His battlefield is the television network and his enemies are the other programs that compete with their show.

We get to see a little bit of Boomer's pessimistic nature throughout the story.  He's certainly not optimistic on the boys chances of making peace with the citizens after they inadvertently destroyed the bridge.  He also sheds doubt on Brick's plans to reunite them with MoJo JoJo.

We see a good example of Brick's temper getting the better of him.  His frustration over the boys' disastrous attempts to rid themselves of the monster leads to an outburst of fury.  Brick's unrelenting attack on the monster inadvertently contributes to the destruction of the bridge he tried so hard to save.

Professor Utonium

The Professor plays the doting father once again.  He tries to help the PowerPuff Girls experience new things and come to terms with their past failure in Citysville.

Even though his intentions are good, he inadvertently starts a chain of events that lead to disaster for all of the other characters.

Monster

The monster in this story is modeled after Godzilla.  I did this for two reasons:

	1.		Godzilla movies are filled with cheesy Japanese live action monsters much like the RowdyRuff Boys' television show.
	2.		Godzilla and the rest of the monsters from Monster Island are themselves symbolic of natural and man made disasters.

The monster in this story represents Citysville's fear of the unknown.  The people of Citysville have no idea what to make of this giant lizard that is destroying their town.  They are not equipped to deal with the problem and fail in stopping him through conventional means.  The destruction of the bridge is blamed solely on the RowdyRuff Boys, but in reality it is due to the actions of the monster.  In other words, the link (i.e. bridge) to the unfamiliar and mysterious (i.e., Townsville) is destroyed by the irrational fears of the people in Citysville.

Mayor of Citysville

The Mayor is pretty much the same as in "Town and Out."  However, this time he's smart enough to demand payment for the damage caused.  The Mayor is a kind of father figure to the RowdyRuff Boys.  He represents "decency" and "order" to the boys as a contrast to MoJo JoJo who represents "villainy" and "chaos."  However, like every other father figure the boys have known, the Mayor eventually rebukes them.  

The Mayor in this story represents the hypocrisy of Citysville.  The Mayor benefited greatly from the help bestowed on the city by the RowdyRuff Boys.  Instead of helping the boys in their time of need, he takes all their money and banishes them.

One minor bit of symbolism to note: the Mayor begins speaking to the boys with his back turned to them.  He starts off by saying how he'd like to help the RRBs.  However, when he turns around to face the boys, the conversation changes.  This is symbolic of the Mayor's "two-faced" personality.

MoJo JoJo

MoJo makes a brief appearance in the story.  Once again, MoJo's evil desires are foiled.  His greatest creation, the RowdyRuff Boys, have turned to the side of good.  He too turns his back on the boys in their time of need.

Mayor of Countysville

To be perfectly honest, I haven't really developed her character too much.  I don't plan on including her in my two remaining fanfics, so I won't be working on her character any more than I have in Star Crossed.

Basically, she serves as a Deus Ex Machina for the boys.  Since this term comes up a lot in writing, let me take some time out to explain it.  In Greek and Roman drama, they used to sometimes lower a "god" by stage machinery to resolve a plot or extricate the protagonist from a difficult situation.  Over the years, the definition has been generalized to mean "an unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot."  The Mayor of Countysville (heck the whole town of Countysville for that matter) provides a sudden and unexpected solution to the boys difficulty.

The ending of the story should be familiar to the reader since it's very close to the ending in HER!.  Instead of the RowdyRuff Boys getting a bit more than they bargained for, it's the citizens of Countysville.

I have spent some time thinking about the characters I would introduce if I were writing a RowdyRuff Boys cartoon show.  Since the odds of me getting a chance to write for Cartoon Network on a RowdyRuff Boys spin-off are about as likely as your computer monitor coming to life, jumping off the desk, and smacking you in the side of the head, I'm just not going to bother developing the idea.

Symbolism

There is a significant amount of symbolism in the story.  I pointed out many of the symbolic points via the flashing exclamation point bullets scattered throughout the document.  However, there are many details left to explain.

Duality

The use of duality in a story is used to:

• Distinguish two usually contradictory parts or opinions (e.g., Good and evil; male and female; life and death.)
• Imply that things are not always what they seem.

The city of Townsville and the town of Citysville represent the "idealized" and "real" world, respectively.  The two lay in stark contrast of each other.  Some examples of this duality:

• "Evil" in Townsville is represented by tangible objects and beings (i.e., monsters and villains).  Evil in the "real" world (i.e., Citysville) is more conceptual and elusive.
• The people of Townsville are happy and carefree.  Citizens in Citysville worry about "real" issues like the financial impacts of the devastation caused by the monster and RowdyRuff Boys.
• The personalities of the citizens in Townsville are pretty black and white.  They are either friend or foe, good or evil, etc. and make no bones about it.  In Citysville, the people say one thing and mean another.
• The town is "taken over" by the RowdyRuff Boys through legal means rather than force.  Buttercup remarks that the RowdyRuff Boys must have used "some kind of mind control device" on the citizens.  She also deduces that the boys must "have a secret headquarters high on top of a giant mountain armed with robot attack dogs and laser cannons."  Of course, neither is true.  Those kind of concepts just don't apply to Citysville.

By examining these differences, we can also begin to see similarities between the two "worlds."

• The monsters and villains that exist in Townsville are wild and unrealistic.  However, the actions of the people in Citysville are no less absurd.  Their adoration for the RowdyRuff Boys as television stars, but not as real superheroes is an example of this.
• The Professor's preconceived notions about Citysville are unwavering even when the contradictions are obvious.  Similarly, the citizens' negative views towards superheroes blinds them to the fact that the RowdyRuff Boys probably saved them from more destruction than what was caused.

Citysville Bridge

The bridge represents the connection between the "real" world of Citysville and the "make believe" world of Townsville.  This is the same symbolism that was used in "Town and Out."  When the PowerPuff Girls destroyed the bridge in that episode, they symbolically destroyed any hope of being accepted by the people of Citysville.  

We find in Star Crossed that the bridge was "rebuilt" by the RowdyRuff Boys.  This is symbolic of the boys gaining the people's acceptance.  The destruction of the bridge occurs when the RowdyRuff Boys reveal their true identities.  As a result, they boys are partially responsible for inadvertently demolishing the link between the "real" and "ideal" world they tried so hard to rebuild.  The monster, representing the citizens' fear of the boys new (old) personas, is also responsible for the bridge's destruction.

Monster

The Godzilla movies used giant monsters to embody very real dangers and fears.  (FYI, Godzilla represents the invention of the nuclear bomb.)  The monster in this story represents the fear of the unknown by the people in the "real" world.  You could extend this concept to racism, bigotry, etc.  I didn't want to get too "heavy-handed" with this theme since prejudice against superheroes is covered adequately in the X-Men comics and movie.

The people of Citysville are unprepared to deal with a "real" monster.  It is an unknown element in their "universe."  Their attempts to destroy the monster using conventional means are ineffective.  This is symbolic of society's inability to come to grips with its own inadequacies and fears.  The destruction of the bridge by the monster is representative of the loss we suffer for not keeping our fears and anger in check.

Scientific Ninja Task Force Excitement Team

The "Scientific Ninja Task Force Excitement Team" is a show with completely off the wall heroes and villains.  The mock television show is a plot device used to poke fun at the phenomenon of kids television shows.  The wild-eyed fans and crass commercialism depicted in the story parallel the "real" PowerPuff Girls TV show as well as other well-known "kids" shows.  Can you say waffle iron?

By the way, the "mind control device" Buttercup thinks they boys are using on the citizens is somewhat of an accurate description.  Well, at least my mother would think so.  She always used to tell me that I turned into a zombie whenever I got in front of the television to watch cartoons...