A Song of Grumbling & Cotton Candy is a Jem fanfic by LadyofHarrenhal that can be read here
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Set several months after the series finale, Jem is involved in a charity auction where the biggest bidder wins a date with her. A drunk and creatively drained Pizzazz crashes the auction and ends up the biggest bidder.
A Song of Grumbling & Cotton Candy is a Jerrica/Pizzazz fanfic that mixes together the cartoon and comic together.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Adaptational Sexuality:
- Pizzazz is a lesbian who tries to pass as straight. In canon, she's been shown attracted to men.
- The fic takes from comic canon by making Kimber lesbian instead of Ambiguously Bi.
- Blaze is bisexual instead of lesbian.
- Ambiguously Bi: Eric rebutes Pizzazz's questioning on his sexuality by saying he's straight and has had several wives. However, he has an ambiguous relationship with Techrat and Techrat says that Eric calls him his "boy toy".
- Ambiguously Gay: Jerrica identifies as bisexual, though her girlfriend Pizzazz thinks she's gay due to her teenage diary.
- Cast Full of Gay: Jerrica is bisexual and her sister Kimber is lesbian. Three out of the four Misfits are gay, with the remaining Jetta being bisexual instead of lesbian. Clash and Blaze are lesbian and bisexual. Clash's cousin Video is lesbian. Eric is Ambiguously Bi and Techrat is Ambiguously Gay.
- Clark Kenting: Lampshaded when Jerrica reveals that she's Jem.Jerrica: "I'm Jerrica, Pizzazz. I've always been Jerrica. I... I've been using holograms for the past few years to fake another identity. At first it was to compete against Eric, but eventually I found that I depended on the Jem identity to even perform... but it's always been me deep down, Pizzazz."Pizzazz: (thinking) But... that... ...How could I have missed that? All these years... Similar voices, same height. Similar taste in fashion, similar personalities, that same cute butt... Are we all blind?Pizzazz: "This is some Clark Kent shit."
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Some pops up, such as the Starlight Girls not initially understanding that girls can date girls.
- Demoted to Extra: Shana, Aja, Raya, and Rio barely appear in the story. Instead, it focuses on The Misfits, Jerrica, and Kimber.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Pizzazz loathes being called "Phyllis". She says it's because her absentee mother gave it to her, but it's also because it's too similar to her deadname.
- The '80s: The story takes place in 1988, though it's devoid of most Deliberate Values Dissonance. This allows for '80s references and jokes that wouldn't otherwise work, such as Jerrica not understanding a Dating Catwoman joke because Batman Returns hadn't yet made Catwoman mainstream again.
- Entertainingly Wrong: When Pizzazz sees some of Jem's clothes in Jerrica's closet, she immediately jumps to the conclusion that Jem and Jerrica are a couple, not knowing that Jerrica is Jem.
- High-School Sweethearts: Pizzazz and Jerrica had mutual crushes in high school, but Pizzazz bullied Jerrica. Ten years later, they began dating without realizing they knew each other as teens.
- Homophobic Hate Crime: Pizzazz used to be bullied a lot as a teenager for being trans.
- I Have No Son!: Pizzazz's father disowns her after she begins dating Jem.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places:
- Pizzazz once had sex with Clash in her apartment's laundry room. To make it worse, there was a security camera in the room.
- Kimber and Shana have a freak out when Pizzazz lets it slip that she and Jerrica had sex in the living room.
- Clash does this a lot. She's had sex on her cousin's yard and behind a dumpster, amongst other places.
- Patchwork Fic: The fic takes place in the cartoon continuity but takes some elements from the comic reboot, such as Clash having Blaze as her girlfriend, Kimber and Stormer being a couple, and Pizzazz being Jewish (which is implied but never confirmed in the cartoon).
- Secret Relationship:
- Kimber and Stormer are in a relationship, though they keep it secretive from most. They weren't keeping it secret from Pizzazz yet somehow she never noticed it.
- Jetta and Roxy have been in a secret relationship for two years. It's barely a secret at that. The two have been rooming for years and even hyphen their name on magazine subscriptions.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Pizzazz curses every other sentence.
- Transparent Closet:
- Pizzazz kept on insisting she was straight even after she slept with her groupie Clash and began dating Jem.
- Kimber was in one when she was younger. She'd always compliment girls and read lesbian novels that she insisted were straight.
