Existing for ten years and only finally seeing the light of the Internet in April 2012, One Hundred Days is an epic and a fandom legend. Co-written between sisters SL Watson and KR Walker, this Buzz Lightyear of Star Command fic is one of the longest ever written for the fandom and the biggest Buzz×Mira story ever. It gained infamy for its unpolished and unpublished state, and, for years, SL Watson would email the story out to fans who requested it.
Princess/Ranger Mira Nova has just been promoted to Detective when old nemesis Warp Darkmatter shows up, claiming that he has information she and Buzz Lightyear will want to know. This tidbit? Oh, nothing less than proof that Warp is somehow Buzz and Mira's son. Uh-oh.
To save their reputations and their jobs, Buzz and Mira get married that very night, then spend the next hundred days dealing with the fallout. Along the way, they end up falling in love, but so slowly that they don't "end up" for sure until, well, the end.
One Hundred Days, due to some Alternate Universe components, is considered to be its own universe like few Buzz Lightyear of Star Command fanfics are. SL Watson has written several one-shots set in the same universe, both prequels and sequels: "Snow", "Pool, Camping, and Murder", "Fireworks", "Mild Identity Crisis", "Coffee Wars" and "Where She Was", though "Coffee Wars" is apparently ambiguous canon. "The Thin Blue Line", "Soda Can", and "Signal Fifty-One" probably take place in the same Fan Verse, as well. In the author's note for 100D's prologue, SL Watson stated, "But if you want, feel free to remix, rewrite, draw for, write the sequels to it with my love, blessings and gratitude. Just leave the credit for the original to K Vancelot and I, and I'll be happy." This has already encouraged one fan to go ahead with her own spin-offs, and it may encourage others to do so, as well.
One Hundred Days provides examples of the following tropes:
- Antagonistic Offspring: Warp generally comes off as less of a villain and more as a pain in the neck, albeit a major pain in the neck.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: The couple in question throughout the fic. Most commonly pointed out by Booster.
- Badass Family: What else would you call a family that has Buzz Lightyear, Mira Nova, and Warp Darkmatter in it?
- Better as Friends: This is how Buzz and Mira would've preferred to keep their relationship. Fortunately for Beer shippers, they changed their minds.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Just at the start, Buzz, Mira, and Warp, plus a father-in-law who hates poor Buzz. It goes downhill from there, though, when Buzz investigates his criminal mother and finds out things about his family that he would never have imagined, or would have wanted to know. Discussed with fair regularity by the characters. Best moment? This:Warp: Y'know, I'm starting to think we've got family issues, Lightyear.
Buzz: What gave you that idea? - Big "SHUT UP!": Little Heinekin does two, including a semi-heroic one.
- Brick Joke: Warp and his beer.
- Call-Back:
- "Evil never wins."
- "Slim" and "Steve".
- Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: More of a development of Buzz's and Mira's attitudes towards each other throughout the story — they go from the former at the beginning to the latter at the end.
- The Captain: Buzz Lightyear is still Buzz Lightyear, and he still has a team to lead.
- Character Development: See Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them. Also, Warp. You can't deny he's a bit nicer at the end of the story.
- Converse with the Unconscious: Warp does this with Buzz, then is a bit put-off when Buzz doesn't respond.
- Cool Old Guy: Chief Hill. We don't know how old he is, exactly, but, c'mon — he's head of the detective agency.
- Crack Fic: At times. But if the entire thing is crack, it's pretty glorious crack.
- Curse Cut Short: Aaand Hilarity Ensues.
- Darker and Edgier:
- Mira and Buzz consider several times how her work as a detective is darker than her work as a Space Ranger. Tradeworld is presented as the epitome of this.
- Days 96 and 97 are definitely this in comparison to the rest of the story.
- Deadpan Snarker: Buzz, Mira, and Warp all get some pretty good moments.
- Dynamic Entry: "FREEZE!"
- Elopement: Since Buzz and Mira get married in secret, not daring to tell anybody until after the fact... yeah.
- Enemy Mine: Warp finds that, not only can he not kill his father, he has to help keep him alive, too — or Warp will simply fade out of existence.
- Everyone Can See It: Commander Nebula, Booster, XR... even Warp can!
- Evil Genius: Warp purports to be this. YMMV on how true that really is.
- Evil Is Hammy: And how!
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin
- Exiled to the Couch: Subverted when Mira moves in with Buzz — he was already on the couch!
- Famed In-Story: It's not just Buzz who's legendary — Mira's acquired quite a lot of fame, herself. Enough for rookies on backwater planets to want her autograph.
- Family Business: Evil is simply the family business for the Darkmatters, Warp's creepy adoptive partners.
- Fate Drives Us Together
- The Fighting Narcissist: Warp, definitely.
- Flying Car: Played with. In an age when all cars can fly, Buzz prefers the feel of the road.
- Heroic BSoD: Buzz and Mira's initial reaction to Warp's news.
- Heroic Resolve: Buzz gets shot and electrocuted into unconsciousness, and still goes on because so much is at stake and... and... and because he loves Mira.
- How Dare You Die on Me!: Warp to Buzz in Day 97. "Okay, wake up. I told you this wasn't the time for a nap."
- Hug and Comment: Mira hugs, Warp lets her, he comments, and she lets go.
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Mira tells Buzz this when she gives him the okay to back out of the whole thing at any time. It comes back to bite her later.
- Insistent Terminology: It's the Evil Gene.
- Interspecies Romance: Buzz and Mira, Clarice and X.
- It Runs in the Family: The Evil Gene. Fortunately for Buzz, it skips generations.
- It's Personal: Mess with Captain Lightyear's wife? Oh yeah.
- Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: The detective agency uses semi-automatics, because they're invisible to scans for energy weapons. The effectiveness of the Beretta is demonstrated when Buzz gets shot in shoulder.
- Large Ham: Warp, though he pales in comparison to Guy Noir.
- Love Hurts: The last couple of Days in the story.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: And it's not Played for Laughs like it is in the show.
- Luke, You Are My Father: Well, the gist of Warp's news for Buzz and Mira, anyway.
- Missing Mom: One of the recurring themes/side-plots in the story is Mira missing her dead mother, even having trouble remembering her.
- Naïve Newcomer: Mira fits this when she first enters the detective agency.
- Never My Fault: Zurg, in trying to stop a furious Buzz.
- Noble Male, Roguish Male:
- Buzz and Warp to a tee.
- Also Booster and XR.
- No Such Thing as Alien Pop Culture: Despite Tangea's Fantastic Racism, they use Peter Pan for school plays and the Queen reads Watership Down. Seriously.
- Not Quite Dead: But, boy, do the authors have you scared.
- Parental Marriage Veto: King Nova. Hooo boy.
- Parents Walk In at the Worst Time
- Please, Don't Leave Me: Invoked by Mira in one of the most heartbreaking moments of the story.
- Raised by Grandparents: Buzz was raised by his nana and never regretted it.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Commander Nebula and Chief Hill.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Buzz gets to dish out a few of these, one of them icy and another dead serious.
- Shipper on Deck: Booster, bless his heart.
- Shout-Out:
- Casablanca — King Nova: "You'll regret this. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life."
- Clarice Darling may be a reference to Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lambs: Red hair, southern accent, and the name.
- The Drew Carey Show gets a shout-out because Diedrich Bader voices Warp Darkmatter: "I know what a Cleveland is, you dolt," Warp answered, giving his former friend an annoyed look. "I used to work in Cleveland."
- Humphrey Bogart, period.
- Also Lauren Bacall.
- The Little Mermaid, in a sequence of some of the crackiest scenes in the fic.
- XR also meets Stitch and tries to make a business deal with him.
- Mira played Captain Hook in a school play when she was a kid. See No Such Thing as Alien Pop Culture.
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Mystery Science Theater 3000, right from the prologue, gets more than one shout-out; Mira, at one point, invokes the MST3K Mantra.
- The name of Zurg's new protege is a pretty blatant parody... Heinekin Earthsquatter. Think about it for a second. Evil Emperor's apprentice. You get it now?
- Zurg himself becomes a parody with the real name Gil Bates and a company selling a not-so-good operating system called Viewports.
- "And this, ladies and gents, is why smart people use Macs." Thank you, Warp.
- Stable Time Loop: Warp's canonical death-stunt sets up Buzz and Mira to work together as teammates, thus giving them the opportunity to know each other very well. Then, Warp's revelation of his parenthood drives the pair to marry and avoid a scandal, thus allowing him to be born in the first place. At some undefined point in the future, Buzz and Mira send a baby Warp back through time (the how remains unexplained) and close the loop. Also discussed briefly by Buzz and Mira in a Call-Back to "Good Old Buzz".
- Storming the Castle: Buzz and Warp as escaped prisoners on Planet Z.
- Talented Princess, Regular Guy: Played with. Buzz is shown to be pretty darn normal at home, while Mira's overflow of talent leads to her promotion as Detective and her opportunity to do all kinds of cool, old-fashioned stuff.
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Warp, oh so much.
- Time Travel: Part of the above Stable Time Loop - a baby Warp (at a point in time when the character we know and love ought to be in his early forties at least) has to go back in time to close the loop.
- Trojan Prisoner: Buzz and Warp's plan to get the two of them into the Zurg Tower.
- Troperiffic: You can tell the authors had fun, between the shout-outs and the tropes they played with, discussed, deconstructed... So much Lampshade Hanging, Rule of Cool, Rule of Funny... that it seriously goes to Infinity, and Beyond!
- Unholy Matrimony: Subverted in that Buzz's parents likely did not marry.
- Villain Decay: Warp.
- Villainous Breakdown: Zurg. It's not pretty.
- White Sheep: It's less that Warp is the Black Sheep of the family and more that Buzz and his nana are the white sheeps of their families.
- Will They or Won't They?: The burning question of the entire story: will Buzz and Mira stay together or not?
The One-shots provide examples of:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Inverted with the title "Pool, Camping, and Murder." Blame Booster.
- Chick Magnet: Poor Buzz in "Signal Fifty-One".
- Cool, but Inefficient: Subverted in "Soda Can" with, well, a soda can. Zurg wants it to be cool, but something obviously went wrong in the designing process.
- Crack Fic: "Signal Fifty-One," absolutely. "Coffee Wars," borderline.
- Like an Old Married Couple: Invoked by Buzz in "Fireworks," when he tells Mira that's how they kiss.
- Title Drop: In "Soda Can" and "Signal Fifty-One".