Okay, no, I'm not seriously suggesting it as a Step, though it might work as a Stagger. But either way, it would be awfully... cathartic... to see Doug play cleanup to the GG universe.
GG is... unusual. It's as if someone took the classical anime trope "cute little girls who are actually cyborg assassins" and ripped out every bit of lollicon and damnear every iota of cuteness, and ended up taking a seriously 'realistic' look at how such a story might *really* play out... and it isn't pretty. In one scene, three adorable young girls sit around a table having tea, calmly discussing their brainwashing and whether it needs to be adjusted, while one keeps spooning loads of sugar into her tea because her sense of taste is deteriorating. Each girl is partnered with a "big brother," a handler whose job it is to manage his cyborg assassin, and is the target of her carefully installed fixation. The handlers run the gamut from kill-him-now abusers to guys who wander through the series with haunted expressions, obviously wondering how the hell they became party to this monstrosity, and yet unable to abandon their charges (Marco and Angela are particularly heartwrenching). And the support staff span the same spectrum, with some characters who manage to be very memorable on very little screen time.
Having Doug, or someone similar, drop in post-series and stumble over the truth of the Social Welfare Agency, when the first-gen girls are approaching the end of their shortened lifetimes, would... well, I'm a sucker for poetic justice and happy endings. Probably why I like fanfic. Of course, there's a good chance Doug couldn't *do* anything with this situation, given it's such a tangle, and the opportunities for him to make things *worse* by overreacting... ouch.
And yet... I can't stop *wanting* it, wanting *something,* for these poor girls. GG got dismissed by a lot of people when it came out, but for me, it was a real yanker on the heartstrings. I guess I just can't let it go.
GG is... unusual. It's as if someone took the classical anime trope "cute little girls who are actually cyborg assassins" and ripped out every bit of lollicon and damnear every iota of cuteness, and ended up taking a seriously 'realistic' look at how such a story might *really* play out... and it isn't pretty. In one scene, three adorable young girls sit around a table having tea, calmly discussing their brainwashing and whether it needs to be adjusted, while one keeps spooning loads of sugar into her tea because her sense of taste is deteriorating. Each girl is partnered with a "big brother," a handler whose job it is to manage his cyborg assassin, and is the target of her carefully installed fixation. The handlers run the gamut from kill-him-now abusers to guys who wander through the series with haunted expressions, obviously wondering how the hell they became party to this monstrosity, and yet unable to abandon their charges (Marco and Angela are particularly heartwrenching). And the support staff span the same spectrum, with some characters who manage to be very memorable on very little screen time.
Having Doug, or someone similar, drop in post-series and stumble over the truth of the Social Welfare Agency, when the first-gen girls are approaching the end of their shortened lifetimes, would... well, I'm a sucker for poetic justice and happy endings. Probably why I like fanfic. Of course, there's a good chance Doug couldn't *do* anything with this situation, given it's such a tangle, and the opportunities for him to make things *worse* by overreacting... ouch.
And yet... I can't stop *wanting* it, wanting *something,* for these poor girls. GG got dismissed by a lot of people when it came out, but for me, it was a real yanker on the heartstrings. I guess I just can't let it go.