Song's Title:Things Are Not What They Appear
Guardian's Name: Cassie Norton
Song's Name:Madison & Mason
Gender: Female and male respectively
Song's Lyrics:
http://www.disneyclips.com/lyrics/lyricspoca4.html
Link to Actual Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7vAoXV6GYo&feature=related
Attributes/Unique Habits:
* Both twins tends to have facial features, hair styles and builds opposite their physical sex .
*Madison takes an odd pleasure out of making people cheer and laugh; whereas Mason delights in making them shudder and squeal. Mason's delights are not intended to be consistently negative, however; he enjoys being able to scare people in that good 'oh god, don't let me die on a roller coaster' way. The kind of fear that makes your stomach clench, but you're secretly happy while you scream.
* Shape-shifting abilities: these will grow as the children age. When they start out, they will be a minor ability to shift eye colors and other such simple things. This is based on the concept of deception and disguise
* left out most physical attributes becuase I wanted to leave that up to Shnazz and give her more artist liberties. All that was important physically was the deceptive gender looks.
Why this song? Well for one it was the only song in the movie I actually liked ^-^. Honestly I love it because it manages to be both dark and bouncy at the same time. It truly brings the promises of entertainment both interesting and creepy by changing the tempo a lot and using the sort of smooth confident voice of Ratcliffe versus the eerie and usually higher pitched voices of the jesters.
How does it make you feel? [Guardian's POV.] I'm no fan of Disney in general but this song is ok. Considering my line of work it rather embodies what we do a lot with slight of hand and heavy costume makeup.
Everything for me is about misdirection or forced perception so that things and situations often look like what they are not. The song is about similar things and I rather like that although some of the voices are a bit creepier than my tastes usually run to.
History:
* Comes from Pocahontas 2 journal to a new world which came out in 1998
* Sung by Ratcliffe (David Ogden Stiers) and the magicians (Chorus)
* A rather intricate song that sort of foreshadows a scene follow directly after wherein the English are portrayed as the savages for using bear baiting as animal entertainment and Pocahontas is seen as the dignified one.
Verse 1: [Your plans for the Song's early development.]
( Adding lyrics in quotes here to show where I divided up the song because it's so odd without real distinguishable sections when sung)
Quote:
Things are not what they appear
As tonight will make quite clear
But what is real will be revealed
I can feel the moment's near
As tonight will make quite clear
But what is real will be revealed
I can feel the moment's near
This is the beginning for Cassie when she acquires the mysterious orb not really sure what the hell to make of it. Upon the twins initial emergence there's going to be some panic as she pokes and prods at them making sure they aren't hallucinations. The first twenty four hours or so is going to be when it all sinks in for Cassie that she's technically a mother now whether or not she wants to be.
Things are never what they seem
That will be this evening's theme
A music sights for your delight
perhaps a few to make you scream
From the start the twins are handful, active and curious they make keeping track of them and reigning in their rambunctious behavior more than little difficult. It's also quite obvious right from the beginning that Madison seems happiest when she's making people smile and laugh whereas Mason prefers to frighten or startle them first with funny faces or sneak attacks followed by tickles. They're good natured children but they are a bit obsessed with getting reactions out of people. This can be detrimental when everyone around just wants to relax or when the twins are distracting other workers from their jobs because they want attention.
Verse 2: [Your plans for the Song's later development.]
You'll be surprised to see whose disguise
Is the cleverest one of the lot
After our show the whole world will know
Who's is pretending to be what they're not
If a jester's grin or a dancer's spin
Should be pleasing, please sayYea!
Crowd
Yea!
Ratcliffe
If a jugglers feat should be incomplete
He's the one to greet with Nay
Crowd
Nay!
Ratcliffe
If the fools we see should look like you and me
Then before the night goes by
Ask why, why, why, why, why,
Why?
Madison: As she ages Madison becomes more confident and outgrowing though her mischievous nature never fades. She takes great pleasure in fussing with her appearance always shifting it so that only those who know her best will recognize her. Being raised in a traveling circus has given the girl a greater love for performing and she likes to use her talents to entertain the crowd before bigger acts. Since her shape shifting is easily passed off s the slight of hand her mother does or the type of stage magic those weird quick change outfit people do she has no worries about begin discovered as anyone special and Madison likes it that way. Likes pretending to be a regular human pretending to have magic when she is in fact a magical being of sorts pretending to be a normal person.
Socially the girl is a bit stunted because the circus remains in most places only a few months and it is hard to make friends outside of those who already work there. It's not like people come to see the same shows day after day. However she makes friends within the group easily enough even if she can still be rather demanding of their attention at times.
Mason:
While Madison's deceptive nature tends to come in a more physical form Mason's is different, well aside from his rather feminine looks. The calm and soft spoken boy is neither shy nor lonely as many might believe. He does not sit alone and stare at the sky because he has no one to play with, he sits and clears his mind so that great ideas will come to him so that better schemes than the ones before can be hatched. He thinks of ways to best words things so that he is never really saying what he means and yet never outright lying either. Mason enjoys being an enigma to most people.
The boy can be quite the terror though his trickery is always harmless beyond perhaps a bit of metal scaring. His darker humour doesn't appeal to all though and he's learned to target those most likely to shout in surprise and then laugh when they realize there was nothing to worry about.
Beyond his plotting Mason enjoys reading especially complex books with multiple ways they can be interpreted. He wants to be smart and better himself because while he thinks the circus is cool and that living in it is fun he believes there's something better out there for him. A grander stage to perform on if he can just figure out what it is . Although he does use his voracious reading to come up with new pranks or ideas for things to use in them like quickdry/fading ink or adding weird flavour drops to food just to confuse people.
Failure to have as much success scheming though as Madison does with her performances slowly leads Mason to become more daring pulling stunts that make people gasp in worry then applaud when he emerges unharmed.
Verse 3: [Your plans for the Song's future development.]
Radcliff
A change of hair, a dress to wear
And our nightmare's now a dream
Clueless and wild
I saw this sweet child as a
Danger to one and to all
Savage, I thought
What could Rolfe have brought
Now I see she's the belle of the ball
Things are never what they seem
Crowd
He's right, he's right
Radcliff
Many don't say what they mean
Crowd
He's right, he's right
Jester
A powered face is just the place
Jester 2
To hide an ugly scheme
Radcliff
Only one thing's really clear
Things are not what they appear
* Vauge because I hate trying to set in stone far into the future things when so many plans can change based on what happens icly in earlier stages
Madison: Maddy comes to realize she hasn't always been all that mature in the way she's been living her life and she needs to do a bit of real growing up and seeing the world for what it is espeically outside of the only home she's known.
Mason: Mason has moved away from petty trickery and fully embraced the daredevil life as well as a few other lifestyle changes.
Cassie: This is when the greatest changes take place within the twins when the finally solidify who they are and she has to come to terms with the choices they make whether they were what she was expecting or not.
Chorus: The song actually lacks a definite chorus so far as I can tell.
Guardian History:
Cassie was born and raised on a farm in the middle of nowhere in the land of ice and snow. She got a decent general education growing up as well as practical one in the workings of push lawnmowers, why tadpoles are not good pets and how to get a calf to follow you anywhere. Most of her socializing was done at school as there weren't any neighbor kids to play with but she wasn't really lonely growing up becuase she didn't know to be. For the most part Cassie grew up a rather happy and active young girl who loved her home her friends and her family.
When farming became too costly to continue Cassie's family move to the outskirts of a nearby city coinciding with the girl entering high school. It was a bit strange to be uprooted but Cassie managed to adapt even if she spent the first year trying to understand how the dynamics of the social system worked there.
Cassie also discovered a love for drama at this time and signed up for any sort of performance theater type class and club she could even if she was a bit behind in learning all the terms and how it all worked. The young girl was determined to catch up and spent most of her spare time practicing though it did cause her other grades to slip a bit. The former country girl had never really been all that interested in most of what the required curriculum was and having found her passion she was more than willing to slack on a science project so she could better memorize a monologue or mime routine for her more favored classes.
Now at twenty six Cassie Norton is a full grown woman who actually manages to make a living doing what she loves. Though they are something of a dying breed she has managed to weasel her way into one of the few remaining traveling circuses that roam across North America.
Having picked up more skills over the years she does comedic mime skits with slight of hand elements. In general she's one of several circus members who dress as clowns and entertain the audience in between the larger acts. It's a fun for her and being around older wiser performers she's picking up new skills all the time. Though Cassie sticks to her own area, she has no desire to try to learn to tight rope walk or ride an elephant thank you every much.
Cassie knows it won't likely last forever that there's only so much room for competition in this business and that with an uncertain economy her job is at risk all the time. If people choose not to come and patronize the circus the first people getting fired are newer people like her and those in her act which while is entertaining for the audience isn't really necessary to keep .
Still, she's saving some of her earnings just in case she suddenly finds herself unemployed. She can always go back to college if she has to or support herself until she can find some similar job. Cassie is thinking about her future and somewhat preparing for eventual disaster but there are no concrete plans yet.
How does this affect the Guardian? Naturally Cassie's biggest change is getting used to this whole parenthood thing. Having to learn to juggle her time between performances, practices, and child rearing, is no easy task
There's a lot of personal behavior modification going on as well, she no longer swears as much becuase the twins are usually withing earshot in their younger stages and she figures it's probably better they not learn that kind of language just yet. There's also less drinking and more healthy eating in an attempt to be a reasonable role model. Having the song children around is going to force Cassie to finish growing up becuase they will depend on her to be the adult.
A child is expensive and two are naturally doubly expensive. Cassie's savings are going to dwindle as the cost of providing for Madison and Mason continually grows.
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