Critters of Bright Valley: Cutting Room Floor

This game of kickball was for the championship, but weren’t they all? But this time Puck the panda was the referee, while Seabright the seal played defense with Blush the rabbit as offense, opposing Sunny the zebra as defense and Faith the fox on offense.

Sunny zoomed past Blush, snagging the ball and making a rocket kick straight for the goal. But Seabright pulled up on the bar between the posts, and with his tail he heroically intercepted Sunny’s rocket kick and slung it right back past the surprised Sunny and between Faith’s feet.

“Goal!” Blush cheered as uplifting music played.

Watching Blush’s victory dance live was a pair of Unlimited Toon Studio’s staff, sitting in the darkened editing room with a multitude of screens.

Cesixzee the computer happily hummed to himself while selecting the best camera angles and editing out the ‘boring bits’ in milliseconds.

Blush carried Seabright around on her back in a victory lap.

On Faith’s POV screen, she briefly imagined how a match with her and Blush versus Sally Southwind and Sweetie Squirrel would go. It was marked with “Foreign IP” and “Unfit for broadcast.”’

“Hey Gab,” said one of the staff to the other. “You ever think maybe we should have just, ya know, ‘edited out’ Faith wandering into Big Name Studio’s server?”

One of the screens flicked to a traumatized Faith shuddering as a portal closed behind her, sealing away the soulless machines who had tried to strip her of herself to leave a new creature with only her name as Faith, just like they’d done to every other character in their world.

“If we start taking away memories that we find it inconvenient for them to have, would it really be that different from what the bots tried to do to her, Zeke?”

“Yes, Gab! If Giant-Bio-Bots-Neon can have a setting where their characters’ lives aren’t screwed up, why can’t we keep our Critters’ lives what they were SUPPOSED TO BE from the beginning? This was supposed to be their paradise, their eternal reward.”

“Ya know Zeke, parents actually called in saying they were happy to see a realistic depiction of trauma and how it takes more than a day to learn to live with it.”

“Oh you are NOT pulling that one on me, Gab! The Critters were fine as they were, even if Greg stupidly shoved Wren into their world instead of Monstervania where she belonged. Having innocent adventures that could be swapped with each other in any order. Happy. Excited. Able to just enjoy BEING, being free to not change, something humans are denied by the very nature of the world.”

“Most who get their eternal paradise or the other thing, get to look back at how they got there, all the choices they made or didn’t make. These kids were given a clean slate, free to be who they’d chosen to be.”

“EXACTLY! They became exactly who in their heart of hearts they WANTED to be. Why should we let an infection fester?”

“Sphinx.”

“What ABOUT that invader?”

“Zeke, do you think the Valleyers would have been able to fend her off if they hadn’t had Wren, the airship Procession, the Royals, and yeah, Faith’s recovery, to overcome first?”

“Oh you did NOT just play that card. We had no idea Sphinx was going to be a thing.”

“Exactly. That’s the price of us working on this side. We don’t know everything that’s gonna happen. Do you know WHY management never just skips to the happy ending? Seems simpler right? No risk of the wrong choices that’ll last forever. But that’s why. The Valleyers didn’t have a motive or a reason for why they were.”

“They didn’t need one, Gab.”

“For a single instance spread across forever, sure. Happy ending. Close the book. But they were promised everlasting LIFE… it’s the scrapes and bruises that let them appreciate that life. And if they can’t appreciate it, what’s the point of it? Faith’s ordeal isn’t one any of us would have given her on purpose, but that’s the thing with free will that humans rarely get. Their choices don’t just affect themselves. It didn’t just introduce trauma, it introduced growth and change. Just as Wren gave them the shade to give the light meaning.”

“Don’t you dare quote that ‘balance of good and evil’ junk on me.”

“Never would, Zeke, evil’s a force of imbalance. I’m saying Wren gives them contrast, just as the Critters give her contrast. Besides, the Valleyers have seen what real evil looks like now. We could have simply erased Faith’s entire experience with Sunlightville. Snapped her back to being a perfect happy little cartoon fox without a care in her head… but she would have had to forget Sweetie Squirrel too… and Faith would never ever forgive us for that.”

“She wouldn’t remember.”

“We would.”

“… Blast it, I hate it when you make sense.”

On the monitors, the Critters readied for a championship rematch beneath a bright shining sun.

~Fin

Edited by Mangalion

Art by CuttlefishDreams

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