TFTSZ Season 2 Episode 2: Aggressive Towards Schlock (Sea Change and Philodendron by AstralSilk.) Author’s Note: I HATE the Netflix version of Aggressive Retsuko. In the original TBS shorts, Retsuko DID get annoyed with her coworkers and bosses and had to vent, but she still wanted to come back to work the next day (In fact, her catchphrase is basically “I’ll do my best tomorrow!”), whereas Netflix Retsuko tries to get married so that she doesn’t have to work– What a cop-out! Add the fact that the character doesn’t really fit with a serialized storyline (She’s a Sanrio character, her primary purpose is to sell merchandise!) and that the dub voices are both generic and annoying, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for hype backlash! Please note that these will be the only two Aggressive Retsuko fanfics I will actively seek out because it makes me so angry. If you want me to read another one, you’ll need to find one and tell me what it is (and I won’t just read a normal “bad” fanfic, it either has to be so bad it’s good [think Plan 9 from Outer Space] or so bad it’s horrible [think Nukie]), otherwise I’d go absolutely insane! Commentators: ME: Bismuth83 SMS: Samus WAV: Wave VBR: Vibri DAR: Daria LAN: Lan MGX: MegaMan.exe CAL: Callie MRE: Marie MYU: Miyu CLM: Clemont RTK: Retsuko EGT: Eaglette PRL: Pearl MRN: Marina LPF: Lord ‘P’c’f’l (Sketch character) HDA: Haida (Sketch character) NTK: Netsuko (Sketch character) RSK: Resasuke (Sketch character) FNK: Fenneko (Sketch character) ASK: AstralSilk (Sketch character) �TURN DOWN YOUR LIGHTS� (IF YOU WANT TO DAMAGE YOUR EYES) � In the not too distant future/ In a nebula of schlock/ Is an accountant named Retsuko/ Who really likes hard rock Her Netflix adaption was pretty bad/ And as you’d expect, she got real mad/ She took a few days rest up on our satellite/ And nearly every single action she does here is out of spi~ite! RTK: *Destroying cutouts of Haida/Heinrich, Resasuke/Lester, Zelda/Fenneko, a miscolored version of herself with a black dot on her chin and the Netflix logo* I! HATE! YOU! They *pointing to me* pay me to read fanfics/ The worst this guy *holds up a picture of Lord Epicfail* can find/ I’ve gotta get back to my job/ Or I’ll lose my goddamn mind! Now keep in mind we can’t control/ How Lord Epicfail reacts/ She’ll have to keep her sanity/ Until she can go back! GUEST STAR ROLL CALL! RETSUKO! RTK: I MISS MY JOB! EAGLETTE! EGT: Same here! MARINA! MRN: Stay off the hook! PEAAAAAAAAARL! PRL: This is wack, yo! If you’re wondering why I hate Netflix/ Then look up to the top/ And if you like their adaptation, then/ You should probabl~y stop! This is Tales from the Schlock Zone, biatches! *twang!* *SOAP interior. Retsuko is staying here until she calms down after the events of the DarkDoomFireMaster duology left her too traumatized to go back to work for a while. She’s on a couch wearing headphones with a microphone, angrily watching the Netflix adaptation of Aggressive Retsuko and providing occasionally snarky, but mostly angry commentary (For instance: Netflix Retsuko (henceforth Netsuko): “Hi there! I’m Retsuko!” (I don’t care if I get this quote wrong) RTK: “And I have a really annoying voice that makes me sound like a ditzy teen who only thinks about sex, which I basically am!” Also, NO! YOU! AREN’T! I! AM! THE! REAL! RETSUKO! *under her breath* Fucking spineless, dick-worshipping impostor... )Enter Samus. SMS: ...Didn’t you say you hated the Netflix version of your series? RTK: Yeah, but I can’t just keep my hatred bottled up, so I’m recording commentary on these in the style of MST3K/ Rifftrax/ The Film Crew/ Cinematic Titanic so I can share it with the multiverse. SMS: I don’t exactly think that’s a good idea... Maybe you should, I dunno, do something to take your mind OFF of it instead of perseverating on it. *She taps a button on the side of her helmet* Hello? Uh- huh. Okay. We’ll be there soon. Bye! *She presses the same button again* Bismuth’s calling for us. We have a fanfiction to commentate on. RTK: WHAT?! OK, FINE! *They walk over to the main screen* RTK: Stupid fanfiction... pulling me away from my job, making me so angry I can’t go back to work̶ I’m already starting today pissed off at Netflix! LPF: *The screen comes on and his nebulous visage appears* I’ll give you something to be angry about— 2 fanfics about the Netflix version of your universe! *maniacal laughter as the screen turns off* RTK: *Her kanji is glowing at max brightness* WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?! THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO LIKE THE NETFLIX VERSION?! ME: *frantically types in a command to the teleporter to summon Eaglette, Pearl, and Marina* EGT: Retsuko? Is that you?! What’s going on?! ME: *nervously* Hi, we’re going to commentate on two fanfics based on the Netflix version of your universe, and as you can see, we don’t really like it all that much… PRL: Daaaaaang… MRN: All this over fanfiction? ME:Yeah, so anyways, let’s get to commentating! FANFIC SIGN! sea change astralsilk Summary: Haida leaves late on Friday and ends up staying up all night drinking Sapporo in his underwear in the dark ME:Hah! Loser! , feeling something light in his chest filling up the breathless, aching hollow space that used to live there — the slow-healing wound he’d been nursing since he was twenty-two. He’s not young and stupid and in love any more, ME:But he’s still stupid and in love. Particularly the “stupid” part, though. but it’s a feeling he recognizes all over again, knowing that he’s fucked but too stubborn to derive the answer for himself. Notes: i guess i'm a big ol' fucking furry now (See the end of the work for more notes.) Work Text: A month after she calls off the engagement, RTK: This even ACKNOWLEDGES that I don’t want to get married! Haida’s plan is to keep his head down, shut up, and WAV: Drink his goddamn TEA! nurse the still-open wound Tategami gave him when she left until his heart is swallowed by the scar tissue. RTK: Oh, go listen to “Crawling in My Skin,” you big whiny BITCH! Everyone at the office assumes he doesn’t want to talk about it except for Fenneko, who is knocked uncharacteristically off balance as she tries to tiptoe around the minefield of his relationship issues. RTK: She fails, though, and gets blown up. He keeps showing up to work, because he has to, but he doesn’t bother pretending to be anything but soul-crushingly depressed about it. EGT: If he doesn’t like his job, then why doesn’t he get a different one?! It’s not like he lives in a communist society where his job’s decided FOR him! He CHOSE to work here! It’s so awkward that nobody has anything else to say. He dedicates himself to his work, EGT: Liar, liar, your pants are so on fire that I’m surprised you don’t have third-degree burns all over your entire ass. showing his face only at mandatory office parties, and whenever anyone tries to needle him about his love life he draws into his shell so tightly that it only takes three months of his behavior before Fenneko gets fed up and smacks him upside the head. RTK: OUT OF MY LIFE. NOW. The next day they decide through a series of gestures and half- spoken apologies that they were just going to pretend that all his weird pining shit was already over. RTK: IT’S NOT?! That March, the company makes forty million yen on coffee futures CLM: From the makers of the Mocha Angry comes the Coffee Future! A taste of science and technology yet to come in every cup! and the size of the accounting department triples. Fenneko brings one of the newbies into the break room to eat with them on a whim, a short-statured red panda with wide, anxious eyes and ill-fitting work shoes. When Tategami left, she’d still been in her work uniform, filling a bag with the detritus CLM: …Why would she put dead bodies into her bag? of her daily life even as she was speaking to him. Haida shakes his head, as if the action will dispel the memory. “Douzo,” the new girl says, bowing deeply. “My name is Retsuko.” “Nice to meet you, Retsuko.” Haida says. RTK: “I already hate you.” ME: Don’t we all? I mean, look at this: Isis pre-April 2013: The Egyptian goddess of healing. Isis post-April 2013: A terrorist group you can’t even mention without sounding right- wing. Haida pre-April 2018: One of the Canadian First Nations. Haida post- April 2018: One of the reasons the Netflix reboot sucks. Haida likes numbers LAN:Oh yeah? If you like numbers so much, then why don’t you marry them? , and he likes the vision of himself as a businessman with a family he never sees and coworkers he drinks too much with — the Japanese dream RTK: I never saw it that way… — so when the man who interviews him at the firm asks him why he wants the job he waxes poetic about the beauty of tracking accounts payable.