tabitha and mercedes are so detached from tybalt and mercutio they're literally just ocs at this point (yuri yap incoming)
because the dynamic shifts so drastically when they're women. take mercedes for example, who i actually see as a lot more punk than mercutio. he's involved in the punk scene, sure: he jams out to green day and dons a leather vest with bella ciao written on the back (thx spell-bloom <3), but it's almost performative in a way. he's a troubled cis teen boy from a wealthy farming family, so he's inevitably going to be blind to a lot of things. and just look at his complete disinterest in politics in the game! i like to think his identification with punk culture started as rebellion against his dad when he was a younger teen, and it hasn't evolved that much since then. however i do think that as he gets older, he learns more about how the dire state of the world negatively affects animals and the environment (two areas he's canonically very interested in) and how intertwined politics is with everything, which motivates him to stand up and actually start fighting for change. do not get him starteddd on how the american bison was nearly driven extinct by the white man during the 19th century in attempt to subjugate native american population. okay that topic involves several areas of interest for him so you know he will yap for DAYS.
now, where mercutio only realized these things in his 20s and 30s, mercedes knew since like. age 12. in my au, she's the heiress of the montys instead of romeo/ramona, so enduring the crushing pressure of maturation by her family (and the world) allowed her to be more aware and empathetic towards the global situation—this type of knowledge is generally pretty inherent with being socialized as a girl, so it was inevitable that there'd be significant differences between the type of punk mercutio is and the type of punk his hypothetical genderbend would be. while with him i focused more on environmental awareness and its connection to politics, i think mercedes would have all of that plus a metric TON of feminism. i mean, it's hard to ignore how she's affected by misogyny every single day in every aspect of life, in ways both big and small. especiallyyy in the late 90s and early 2000s. i haven't even mentioned the elephant in the room: mercedes is a butch lesbian!! so growing up not only as a woman but as one that's gender nonconforming, being neurodivergent (adhd), being the inheritor of a popular italian restaurant business and therefore a token for the montys (who are already struggling by fault of being a sicilian family in northern italy), and so severely defying every expectation by being loud and vocal about the injustices of the world…she may still be rich, but my girl has it HARD.
and then there's ms. tabitha capp, or Princess as mercedes likes to call her. at first i created this nickname because Obviously. silly homoerotic pet name to tease a pretty femme. but it's since evolved into something with more depth—i feel there's an extra layer to tabcedes that tycutio doesn't have simply because of mercedes's political awareness. tabitha is essentially everything she stands against: capitalistic, unempathetic, traditional, obedient to the whims of her family and what the world demands of her. Blind. privilege follows her wherever she goes, and she doesn't dare question why. she merely nods along and allows herself to be the capps' puppet. in a way, she is a Princess, but the nickname isn't one purely of affection… more as a mockery. instead of defending her family's values through aggressive displays and the adoption of a guard dog role similar to tybalt, tabitha embodies those values with each strategic action she takes (that aren't truly hers). like mercedes, tabby is the heiress meaning her image is what the world will picture when they hear the word "capp". it's not her, but she takes care in maintaining the facade because it's all she has. and mercedes resents her for it—for her childhood betrayal, the heartbreak she caused her, and even worse: her cowardice. because she knows her, perhaps more than anyone else in veronaville, she's felt her fear—and she can see straight through tabitha's game of pretend. mercedes wants to truly hate her, she should hate her given their families' feud, but she can't just ignore her best friend that she knows is still inside somewhere.
maybe, by continuing to bother and throw sarcastic flirts her way, she'll be able to slowly bring that girl back and make her see… or maybe she's just postponing the inevitable realization that that girl is long gone. and yet, she can't help but feel magnetized to tabitha whenever she's nearby—not being able to shake the feeling that if she were to stop pestering her, she'd forget the importance mercedes used to have in her life and there'd be no chance of recovering what was once good.
thanx @vulpixels for some of the ideas here! ♥︎
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