Another piece about what it would be like if Rita appeared in "The Perilous Plunder of Pirate's Park", since that's the episode I can imagine her fitting in the best.
This episode would allow her to actually use her monster abilities given all of the water, but alas, she would still get outshone by the seal in the end. Better luck next time, Rita.
Drew Rita into a screenshot from the Drak Pack episode "The Perilous Plunder of Pirate's Park", complete with her own pirate disguise to match the boys and trying to mimic the show's style.
It's been more than two years since I last drew visual references for my main fan characters, so I figured it's time for a refresh. I started with Rita since she's the one who's had the most changes.
Her human form is what has changed the most, but while drawing this I decided to tweak her monster form too. The biggest change is that I gave her visible gills on her neck and spread out her scales into patches across her body.
Summary: Dr. Dred decides to check in on one of his rivals in an attempt to feel superior to someone. Or, Eve L. Scientist's evening is about to get even more irritating.
An OC-focused Drak Pack one-shot.
Word count: 1,696
The battered Dredgible returned to Drednought Island after another failed outing. At landing its door fell off the hinges, saving Dr. Dred the hassle of kicking it down himself.
"Have the Dredgible fixed before I get back," Dr. Dred snapped to his underlings, "Or you'll-. I'll-. Forget it!". He waved them off and then stormed inside.
He went straight into the monitor room and up to the giant screen, jabbing a finger towards his reflection. "Dr. Dred is not a failure!" he declared. "My inventions are the vilest things in the field of villainy! My intellectual inferiors beg to be as successful as me! I could look at any of them right now and see their failures firsthand-!"
He paused for a second and then smirked.
Dr. Dred turned on the monitor and accessed the internal video system he had installed in it. Skipping over his usual cameras in Pack Headquarters and Count Dracula's tomb, he started flipping through the ones he had placed where rival scientists and inventors resided. Certainly, he reasoned to himself, someone was currently failing in their plans and could give him a much-needed laugh.
Eve L. Scientist was indeed having a rough evening.
She stood in her greenhouse lab, a scowl on her face and a pounding in her head. She had planned for a simple test - to see if an altered ray gun could send her controlling pollen a farther distance than her own touch could - and had planned for it well. She had picked an older ray gun model so her daughter would have prior experience with it. She had set up the machine in the middle of the lab so it could reach as many plants as possible. And as she knew would happen, the neighbor girl had shown up that afternoon and made herself a target for it.
She had not accounted for the ray gun backfiring the moment the trigger was pulled, sending her daughter and the neighbor girl stumbling backwards and scattering the pollen everywhere.
Eve held up her hand, signaling her desire to skip straight to the results section of the experiment. She tried not to let the crashing noises her hyper-pollenated helper vines were making annoy her further.
One of the helper vines was finally able to find the tape recorder and dropped it into Eve's hand.
She immediately started the tape. "This is Eve L. Scientist. It is approximately six forty-five in the evening of the fourteenth of January, nineteen-"
Loud blaring noises from her computer, followed by smacks from the helper vines trying to turn the machine off, interrupted her. She pinched the bridge of her nose and dismissed it as her plants still acting up.
"Today's test resulted in an unexpectedly quick failure," she continued, "as the altered ray gun exploded the moment the trigger was pulled. It would be both unnecessary and unwise to continue putting resources towards this ray gun design, so I have decided to declare it a failure and use a different design going forward. I will need to investigate further to see if it was pure mechanical mistakes or if user error was also involved."
Eve took a second to sigh and shake her head, trying to regain some composure. She then straightened herself back out. "In terms of positive results, the controlling pollen was successful in enhancing the plants capabilities, but perhaps to a level that would be difficult to maintain. My helper vines are working to assist me with limited prompting. Further-."
Her eyes scanned over the rest of the chaos in front of her, landing on her daughter first. "The defensive plants went to work without any input from me-"
Maddie appreciated the aloe plants that came to cushion her fall and attend to the scrapes she got from the explosion, but the ones that attached to her skeletal leg and fingers made her shake and fuss in frustration.
"And the offensive ones have done the same," Eve continued, her eyes now on the neighbor girl.
Rita dodged one of the pouncing ivies and lead the rest into the room's water feature, then patiently waited for the plants to float back to the top waterlogged.
"Unfortunately, the increased amount of pollen has not seemed to increase the intelligence the plants display."
"A lack of intelligence is be expected, Evie!" a voice rang out from behind her, followed by an obnoxious cackle. "They're your plants!"
Eve shut off her tape recorder and whirled around to see who interrupted her.
Dr. Dred's face filed the screen, laughing at her. "Nothing like watching someone completely and utterly fail to improve your mood."
He pulled back from the screen to reveal that he had pulled up a chair to watch the chaos unfold, his mood improved so much that he decided to lean back in it and prop up his feet for an extra level of disrespect. "I must say, the suffering children is a nice touch."
Rita had gone back to help the still-struggling Maddie get the excess aloe plants off her, but a new wave of ivy sent her back to the water.
Eve put the tape recorder in her pocket, thought to herself how this situation was having the opposite effect on her mood, and then finally responded to his initial comments.
"My plants have greater intelligence than the creatures you associate with. And that's Eve to you, Mister Dred."
"That's Doctor Dred to you!"
"I do not acknowledge fake doctorates."
"The fool that paid for hers wouldn't."
Eve already felt the conversation exhausting her. "For what do I owe the displeasure, Dred?" she sighed.
"Oh, is your hearing failing too?" Dr. Dred's smugness grew. "I'm here to see your frustration firsthand! To delight in your defeat! To bask the in glory of being superior to someone-!"
"A rare experience for you I am sure," Eve interrupted, "and certainly not one that is occurring right now."
"Is it not?" Dr. Dred put his feet down and lead forwarded again, hoping that his grin was getting under her skin. "I see those little leaves of yours can't even turn off this screen."
A portion of the helper vines were indeed still fruitlessly smacking the computer, but the rest had returned to their resting positions awaiting instruction.
If Eve was paying proper attention, she would have stopped the conversation to record that the hyper-pollination was starting to wear off. But Dr. Dred and his self-satisfied grin was getting to her.
"They are trying to hide your hideous face."
"Flattery won't cover up your pathetic performance here," Dr. Dred mocked. "Why, you can't even make a ray gun work!" He then placed a hand on his cheek to feign sympathy. "You should have known a model like that would be futile to use. It's almost sad that you didn't."
"What is sad is that you do not understand the importance of experimentation," Eve snapped back. "A researcher with any level dignity would follow scientific protocols. But I suppose you do not have any of that, do you?"
Dr. Dred again leaned back in his chair. "Again with the flattery, Eve. I appreciate you trying to maintain my good mood."
Eve opened her mouth to retort, but then her self-awareness - and the pounding in her head - returned with a vengeance. She decided to take a breath to steady herself instead. This kind of banter was why she rarely conversed with her fellow villainous inventors.
But Dr. Dred lived for it. "Is there something you wanted to say?" he prodded. "Did you have retort that would get me to leave you alone to suffer your defeat in silence?"
Eve held her head for a minute to think, ignoring the snickering coming from Dr. Dred. She then looked directly at the monitor. "No. I just wanted to share a theory with you."
"To explain your failures?"
"To explain yours." Eve leaned forward and pointed a finger at the screen. "I theorize that the reason you do not adhere to scientific protocol is because you are too stupid and impulsive to do so. These impulses are why your inventions consistently get destroyed by a pack of children, and I hazard a guess that exact situation happened to put you in a bad mood enough to interrupt me."
Her comment earned Eve a glower from Dr. Dred, which she chose to take as her winning the bickering match. "You can ponder that as you get off my monitor."
She looked down to find the switch to turn off the computer, only to notice that her helper vines had finally dispersed. She turned to see if they went back to their resting positions, only to instead see her daughter and the neighbor girl watching her. She quickly deduced they had been waiting on her acknowledgment but was too embarrassed by them seeing her engaging in a petty squabble with her intellectual inferior to respond right away.
Ignoring the strange man on the screen that Ms. Scientist had been arguing with, Rita turned to Maddie. "Will I see you at school tomorrow?"
"No," Eve answered for her, trying to sound unfazed. "She will be home tomorrow working on new ray gun designs. And she will be spending the rest of this evening cleaning up the lab."
"Yes ma'am," Rita nodded politely. She took that as a cue she would be allowed to leave, but before going gave a sympathetic glance to Maddie. "I'll see you after school tomorrow, Maddie."
Maddie had also decided it was time to make her exit and went back towards the lab to begin her chores.
As the girls left Dr. Dred got the literal last laugh and finally disconnected from the computer, giving Eve the promised alone time.
Eve stood in silence for another minute, parsing through everything that had happened and letting her bruised ego simmer. Her mind eventually landed back onto the experiment, the failure that had started the evening off, getting her to fish the tape recorder back out of her pocket. She needed to finish her report.
"This is Eve L. Scientist. It is approximately seven fifteen in the evening-"
A fun little thing I've been working on this past week. Decided to try and find which TV Tropes can be used to best summarize my Gravedale High/Drak Pack fan characters, as a thought exercise of sorts.
Under the cut is the explanation for the 6 tropes you see listed on the image proper, plus a few extra ones, for each character.
Moonbeam
Big Sister Instinct - Moonbeam is very protective of her younger brothers, in particularly her youngest brother Howler. If there's a situation where her anger shifts from passive to direct, it's likely because she felt that her brothers were being threatened. This instinct also shows in Moonbeam's desire to still baby her youngest brother, despite him living away from home with a new pack and having a successful superhero career. To a lesser extent she feels this way to the older two of her brothers as well, often checking in on them and wanting to stay together as a pack.
Enthusiastic Newbie Teacher - Moonbeam is the new assistant gym coach at Gravedale High. This excites her, partially because this is first ever profession, but mostly because she wants to encourage students to enjoy being physically active, an experience most of them have not gotten under Coach Cadaver. Moonbeam also fully expects that her experience with her younger brothers will make it easy for her to work with the students, so she gets flustered at first when they (especially the kids in Mr. Schneider's class) didn't instantly listen to her without issue.
Flowers of Femininity - Moonbeam always has flowers in her hair. Even in her werewolf form when she's more rough-and-tumble she keeps at least one flower in her hair, showing that she still maintains some level of softness and femininity. The dress she wears in her human form also has flowers on the belt, further pushing this connection.
Girly Bruiser - Moonbeam may not have fighting as her preferred method of conflict resolution, but she can snarl, claw, and bite just as well as any werewolf. In her werewolf form she prefers to wear a knee-length skirt to for ease of running and fighting if needed, but if she needs to let her calf-length dress tear during a transformation to protect someone than so be it.
Promotion to Parent - Moonbeam first got this experience when her father passed away, leaving her to help her grieving her mother raised her younger brothers, especially her youngest, then-infant brother. However, she got the full "promotion" soon after she turned 18 when her mother left her and her brothers behind to start a new family in Transylvania. This meant that she had to put her life on hold to become her brothers' legal guardian, up to and including to make tough decisions like letting her youngest brother leave home to live in a better environment for him. Moonbeam still resents her mother for her leaving, though now that things have settled into a new normal for her and her brothers, a small part of her can acknowledge that her mother does genuinely seem happier now.
Wonderful Werewolf - Moonbeam is a nurturing person who prefers to keep the order instead of jumping into conflict. She has a firm belief that stronger monsters should use their abilities to protect others, so even when she does have to fight, it is in a protective manner. Due to her own experience of living as a human, Moonbeam is also much more pro-human than most monsters (though she does still understand why most monsters are hesitant around them).
Bonus tropes:
Cool Big Sis - Moonbeam's youth and sisterly instincts leads her to be respected by the students of Gravedale High a lot more than Coach Cadaver is. In particular by the non-athletic students like Reggie and Cleo as she actually tries to reach out and help them during gym class.
Pointy Ears - Moonbeam's ears are pointed in her human form.
Werewolf Theme Naming - Moonbeam's name references the moon.
Working-Class Werewolves - Moonbeam is the lowest paid teacher at Gravedale High and has less familial wealth than most of the students there. She also currently lives in her brother's apartment, downsizing from the already small house she grew up. (Not that she would complain, of course, she's very grateful that her brother lets her and their other brother live with him.)
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Rita
Aloof Dark-Haired Girl - Rita is quiet and tends to keep to herself, and is easily the maturest out of her small friend group. In her human form, she has long, black hair that she sensibly keeps tied back with a classy ribbon. These factors combined leads others to praise her sophistication and intelligence, viewing her as fitting into the high-class lifestyle her family leads. Rita is also taller than a lot of her peers at 5'11".
Captain Fishman - Rita is descendent of the original Creature from the Black Lagoon, so her monster abilities are what one would expect from an amphibious humanoid - enhanced strength, breathing underwater, super swimming. While not treated as a joke character, she does have notably less abilities than other monster heroes like the Drak Pack and her powers are much more limited in scope (she can't even access her monster form without water for instance). This makes Rita secretly wonder if she really is useless in fighting situations and that people do really view her as a joke.
Iconic Item - Rita's seashell bracelet. This was a gift Franky gave to her when they were children and she hasn't stopped wearing it since. She always has it on her, human or monster form. This trope can also somewhat apply to her red lipstick, something else she purposefully wears in both her human form and monster form.
Old Money - Rita's family is very wealthy. Her relatives from generations back were early adopters of the monster story and later movie crazes, which not only gave them entertainment money but also greatly increased their networking opportunities by allowing them to mingle with the likes of the Draculas and other rich families. Because of this wealth, Rita grew up attending parties with other wealthy kids like Drak Jr. and her family can easily afford to send her to a private schools like Gravedale High.
Please Keep Your Hat On - Rita is always covering her head in her monster form. This is for two reasons: One, it psychologically helps her transition from having very long hair in her mammalian human form to having no hair at all in her amphibious monster form. Two, and more importantly to her, Rita has no top fin in her monster form, which she believes other monsters would mock her for. This has never happened to her before (and in fact her parents like to brag that she lacks a top fin just like the original Creature did, and that physical feature is what separates them from the other, more distant relatives in their family), but it is something that truly worries her. Thus, this trope is more internal for Rita then anything literally being hidden by her hat. (This is arguably an overlap with Vanity is Feminine then.)
True Blue Femininity - Rita's favorite color is light blue and she wears it in all of her outfits, both for her human clothes and her monster ones. In a more symbolic/meta sense, the light blue in her outfit represents water, so it's an important color for her in that way too.
Bonus tropes:
Ear Fins - In her monster form Rita has external gills/fins where her ears are in her human form.
Fish People - Rita's monster form is an amphibious humanoid a la her ancestor the Creature from the Black Lagoon. (Since she is specifically a girl descendent of the creature, this overlaps a little with Water is Womanly.)
Lonely Rich Kid - To an extent. She does have a couple close friends and an overall positive relationship with her parents, but her relationship with them is somewhat strained due to their constant working and she has difficultly making friends due to her closed-off nature. This does weigh on her, at least a small amount.
Shout-Out - Both Rita's first and last names are a direct reference to Creature from the Black Lagoon. Her red lipstick is a nod to the Creature's red lips, and likewise the white part of her superhero uniform is a nod to the famous swimsuit from the film.
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Strawna
Girl Next Door - Strawna is considered a lovely but average girl: She's cute but doesn't have many admirers. She's shy but friendly to the people she does talk with. She's not One Of The Boys but she can still get along with her all-guy classmates. She overall the kind of girl who won't put herself out there, but would get a good response from her peers if she did.
Overalls and Gingham - Strawna grew up on a farm, so her wardrobe consists of outfits that can be worked in - practical coverings like overalls with nice-but-not-fancy shirts with gingham patterns for a little flair. This wardrobe was taken with her when she started attending Gravedale High, with the only "not farm work appropriate" clothing she has being her sandals, bought especially for school.
Raised by Grandparents - Strawna has been raised by her grandfather on his small farm ever since she was little. He is the only family member of hers that she knows of, leading to them being incredibly close and her having a strong respect for her elders. Coming from this home environment did give her a good amount of culture shock and homesickness when she started attending Gravedale High (especially during the "meet the parents" events like the school talent show), but it does help her get along with her teacher Mr. Tutnor, another elder figure in her life.
Scary Stitches - Strawna's main monstrous physical trait is the stitches on her body. The stitches around her neck, wrists, and ankles are the most visible ones, keeping the sacks around her head, hands, and feet in place. She also has visible stitches on the corners of her mouth.
Scholarship Student - Strawna is attending Gravedale High on scholarship as part of the school's attempt to reach a wider swath of the monster community. She, in turn, is significantly less wealthy than her classmates. This is something that intimidates her and makes her even shyer than she usually is.
The Unblinking - Strawna has no eyelids and is incapable of blinking, so she's always wide-eyed and staring at everyone. Because of this her eyes look painted onto her face. However, she is able to move her pupils around so her eyes aren't completely frozen.
Bonus tropes:
Cute Monster Girl - While all four of these characters are Cute Monster Girls, Strawna fits the description best because, in an out-of-universe sense, she was literally designed to resemble a cute human girl.
Childish Bangs + Girlish Pigtails - These two play together to help make Strawna look extra cute, playing into her being a Cute Monster Girl. These two also combine together to make a youthful-looking hair style, ymbolically playing into Strawna's status as the (mostly) naive new kid at Gravedale High.
Zombie Gait - Strawna, out of concern of accidentally ripping her stitches and letting her straw/stuffing out, walks very slowly and deliberately, in a zombie/Frankenstein's Monster-like manner.
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Maddie
The Corruptible - Maddie, due to playing both the lackey to her mother's evil plans and the sidekick to Rita's heroic plans to stop her, is always teetering on the edge of becoming fully evil. Her belief in the inherent nature of good and evil also makes it more likely for her to stay under her mother's control, as she does believe her mother when she says that some people are simply destined to be involved in evil. Maddie's gullible nature and tendency to be a follower further plays into this, making it more likely for her mother to corrupt her, but also increasing Rita (and others') chances of pulling her away from her mother's influence.
Friendly Zombie - Maddie is easy-going and much more open to idea of humans and monsters co-existing than other monsters are. (She gets along well enough with her mom's human boyfriend, after all.) She also does not have a desire to attack or eat humans, and in fact tends not to eat much meat in general. (Though, this is less due to trying to avoid any unsavory parts of her zombie nature and more because her mother mainly feeds her vegetable-centered dishes at home.)
Fluffy Tamer - Maddie fascination with living creatures leads her to having a lot of pets. These pets include "scary" animals like a snake and a tarantula, one of her mother's carnivorous plants, and a Purple People Eater. Maddie also makes sure to give each of these pets a cute name to show her affection for them. (The Purple People Eater's name is Mr. Grape, for instance.)
Labcoat of Science and Medicine - Maddie almost always has a white lab coat on. Her mother insists on her wearing it whenever she's in public or helping her in her lab, to better present herself as underling to a proper villainous scientist. Maddie does take off the jacket when she's alone, however.
Long Hair is Feminine - Maddie's long hair is the main physical trait of hers that makes her look feminine. Due to being a zombie she lacks most of the other physical characteristics that would make people read her as feminine, so her hair is notable in that regard.
Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter - Maddie is the only child of villainous scientist Eve L. Scientist. Her mother keeps her under her control as much as possible, often taking her out of school whenever she needs an assistant for one of her evil schemes. Despite this, however, Maddie genuinely loves her mother and is more often than not happy to help her take care of her plants and perform other lackey duties. This trope is mildly subverted by Maddie having more monstrous features (and thus being "less beautiful") than her mother, who is considered an attractive Plant Person.
Bonus tropes:
The Dead Have Eyes - Maddie can see out of her empty eye socket just as well as she can her human eye.
Messy Hair- Maddie's hair is thin and stringy, with strands usually sticking out/falling in front of her face.
Undeathly Pallor - Maddie's skin is pale with a strong gray tint to it due to being a zombie.
Voodoo Zombie - To an extent. While she wasn't resurrected with magic and not under full mind control, Maddie was still raised from the dead to act as her mom's lackey and is still under her control in a sense.
I am once again playing with Rita’s design, with her monster form this time around.
This came about both because I was feeling that Rita’s Drak Pack outfit was a little bland and because I figured I should probably give her shoes for her Gravedale High outfit.
For her Drak Pack look (left) I still wanted to keep it simple to match her personality, so I went with a 1950s-like one piece swimsuit (with the white part still being a The Creature from the Black Lagoon poster reference) and made her swim cap more colorful.
For her Gravedale High look (right) I wanted to maintain a summery look for her, so I gave her some 1950s-like sandals and loosened up her dress slightly more than it already was (plus some stripes for a nice pattern).
An updated visual reference for Rita with the fully colored versions of those edits I made to her monster form outfits a few months back (and also a couple minor tweaks to her human form outfit).
