HYPNOTISIZED: Freddy/Zack [School of Rock]

[w00tiful.livejournal.com]

Title: Hypnotisized
Author:  w00tiful
E-mail: brokenfritos@hotmail.com
Website: From the New World
Fandom: School of Rock
Pairing: Freddy Jones/Zack Mooneyham
Spoilers: Um, the movie?
Notes: This was due in a few days, but I felt I needed to put it up now. Just because I knew I would forget later. And for as much as I talk? This was much shorter than I thought it would be.

FREDDY+ZACK
Don’t take much to memorize your lies
Feel like I’ve been hypnotisized

I. Andante
Learning to Love the Movie

Okay, so it’s time you admitted it. You saw the movie. You know, the one with Jack Black teaching a bunch of fifth graders how to rock out. And you liked it, didn’t you? Don’t worry, I liked it too. It’s okay to like cute, unique movies, even though if that happened in real life the teacher would have been arrested and everything. Not that things like that matter.

I like to be involved in things. I like to start things, and sometimes even finish them. Still, it was a surprise when I inadvertently helped the small fandom that is School of Rock get bigger and, gasp, helped make School of Rock slash more popular.

And really, it’s no wonder why the fandom was, and still is, small. First there’s the problem of getting people to admit that they liked the movie, and then there’s the problem of the fact that any slash would involve a bunch of preteens.

But see, that’s the beauty of it all. Only the best people with the best imaginations can make this work.

And man do we make it work.

II. Acapella
My History

I never saw this movie in the theatres. In fact, the first time I ever saw it was in my English class when my teacher was sick and the sub randomly thought that School of Rock would be appropriate. Heck, I had no interest in watching it, even though Hot!Addison insisted that it was a great movie. Well, about thirty minutes in is where the whole class realized how great this movie was, and from then on I was hooked.

Still, I wasn’t really a part of the fandom at all until a few months later when my friend ellen_drell saw it and mentioned it in her Livejournal. We then squee’d for a few moments and, eventually, we produced stupid fic to amuse ourselves. Somehow, this lead to the thoughts of real, long fic in my head, and before I knew it I had created both a community for School of Rock fanfiction as well as written some myself.

I will never look back.

III. Suite
The Movie

School of Rock is the grand movie of the grand adventures of the grand man, one Dewey Finn. Mr. Finn is a born and bred rocker; the only problem is, other people don’t share this opinion. His best friend’s girlfriend is now very fed up and wanting the non-existent rent money from him, and his best friend is too desperate for some tail to fight for his friend. To add insult to injury, just as he believes his band is going to hit the big time he gets kicked out of it. Thankfully, a choir of angels and music from heaven come from the sky and into his telephone in the form of a call for his friend, Ned. It seems that a local preparatory school, Horace Green, needs a sub, and Dewey is just the con man to pretend to be his friend and make money he has no right to earn.

The glory!

He is perhaps not the most glorious teacher ever, having proclaimed to be hungry, hung-over and to have the runs. The kids are not thrilled with this teacher, obviously. This changes when Dewey hears them in music class and decides to use them to his advantage and create a rock band. His band comes to consist of the whole class, Zack being the guitarist, Freddy the drummer, Lawrence the keyboards, Katie the bass, Marta, Alicia and Tomika as backup singers, and himself as Lead Shredding Guitar. Miranda becomes the manager, and other, less important class members fill in the roles of Security, Roadies, Groupies, and yes, even a Band Stylist. Together, this band becomes the School of Rock, which manages to overcome the fact that Mr. Finn shouldn’t’ve been teaching, they got into Battle of the Bands by lying, and Dewey’s inevitable outing. Still, they go to Battle of the Bands, don’t win, and get an encore! Then everybody loves them and they continue to have the band! And life is beautiful!

A heartwarming tale, really.

IV. Recital
The Future Hendrix

We first really hear from and see Zack Mooneyham when Dewey is forming the band and calls him up first to give him an electric guitar and see how well he plays. It is first established that he is an excellent guitar player. ("That's perfect. You're perfect.") He gives a small smile. Later on when he is officially chosen and the nickname "Zack Attack" is given to him, he has little response more than a nod and going to his seat. When Dewey hands out the "homework," which is to listen to rock music, his unenthusiasim is noticed and pointed out, and he just goes "okay" when he is told that "[he is] the lead guitar of an insane rockband. This is a dream come true for [him]!" This shows how he thinks of this whole project as a serious project, just another thing to do for a grade, and that he is very shy and almost robotic.

Dewey first helps him when he helps him break out of the shell by showing him the "Goblet of Rock." It is after this that we see Zack being yelled at by his father for playing and listening to rock music. He begins to walk away while his dad is still talking and is yelled at for that. This shows how he is changing and starts to make his own decisions and have his own independent thought, and begins to think of rock as a career and a good thing, not just another grade. This is further shown later in the movie when his dad asks Dewey why "all [his] son talks about is music." Dewey then helps him again by writing a song with the class about standing up for yourself, and by the end of it Zack looks very pleased indeed. We even see a clip of him practicing Goblet of Rock at his house, looking at himself in the mirror, proving how he is starting to have fun.

He then writes the song that becomes the theme for the movie, showing his pent up anger and how he really feels about school and life. ("We was stuck in a dumb daze... don't take much to memorize your lies, feel like I've been hypnotisized... well if you wanna be a teacher's pet, well baby you just better forget it, rock got no reason, rock got no rhyme... got good grades, aint got no soul... raised my hand so I can speak my mind.") And while he acts modest about it, his smile after Dewey announces that they will be playing this song for Battle of the Bands proves that he is beginning to take pride in his work and see that it's okay to have fun and be deviant every once in awhile.

V. Presto
The Spaz

The first time we see Freddy Jones many things about his character are announced. His first words are telling Dewey that he is an alcoholic and "dude, you have a disease." When asked, he relpies that his name is "Freddy Jones" and is promptly told "Freddy Jones, shut up." We can see that he is, first and foremost, that he is very bold and feels like anything he has to say is very important. After being told to shut up, he gets an angry face and angrily goes "what" to Zack, showing that he is also very prideful and doesn't like to be shown up.

Ned gives him the nickname "Spazzy McGee," which we learn from the Kids Kommentary is from the original idea that he was to suffer from ADD. He also tells Ned that he likes to "burn stuff.” At their audition for Battle of the Bands, he runs off to play poker with another band that is smoking and drinking. He gets an affinity for punk music and even spikes his hair and rolls up his sleeves. All of this shows that he is very independent and deviant, a teenager when he's barely a pre-teen, who wants everything he wants according to what he thinks is cool and how he thinks the world should go. This also fits with his instrument of choice, the drums.

Not a static character, Freddy grows throughout the course of the movie. Dewey changes his life by showing him that rock isn't about "getting drunk and acting like [a] jerk," that it's really about the music and touching lives. He tells him that "one good rock show can change the world." At the end of the movie, when they don't win the Battle of the Bands, he reminds Dewey of this, showing that he can now listen to authority and believes in music as a way to change the world and get messages out, not just a way to be angry and deviant.

VI. Harmony
When Talents Collide

Okay, so the first thing you have to realize when you get into this pairing is the fact that it is supported almost solely by actions that are taken after the film is over. In fact, throughout the movie if you pay close attention you will see that absolutely zero interaction is made between the two of them. In fact, you are more likely to find interaction between the two actors who played them (Kevin Clark [Freddy] and Joey Gaydos Jr. [Zack], who have a few slashy moments during the Kids Kommentary on the School of Rock DVD, including Kevin’s fixation and never-ending speaking about Joey even when he leaves to use the bathroom and then his later asking Joey for a massage.). It is easy to pair the two of them up, as they became the most famous and most widely known kids characters in the movies. And why? Because there were three boys in the band besides Jack Black – one was a blonde who looked like Draco Malfoy, the other was a cute dark-haired boy and the last was a large Asian boy. You do the math. (P.S. I have a deep affection for Lawrence, who is my real and actual favorite character, but I’m just saying the facts here.) So obviously, it would be Freddy and Zack who end up with all of the attention.

So why put them together? After all, the two characters don’t seem like they would become friends very easily, right? Wrong. They have to spend a lot of time together what with band practice and all, and since neither of them seem to like Lawrence too much it is easy to imagine that in their young years they would cling to each other and become fast friends, before they begin to like girls. In many ways, this makes sense, since we can see them almost meeting in the middle, with Zack becoming more wild in the movie and Freddy becoming more tame. It is easy to imagine Freddy being the wilder one who messes around and plays jokes and Zack being the one to ground him and make sure he doesn't do anything too stupid and to, well, laugh.
But why imagine anything more than that? I think almost everyone can agree it is easy to imagine them being friends, but boyfriends? Well, there are many reasons why you could imagine this, and all of them come down to the classic reasons why anybody ships anybody with anybody else. (As if that last sentence makes sense.)

First, they are the classic best friends ship that so many people like. Ron/Hermione? Harry/Ron? Harry/Ron/Hermione? It's very much like that. People always say that best friends make the best lovers, right? Well, in the most simplistic aspect of their relationship, that works.
In a slightly deeper level, they complete each other. I have already said that Zack gets more wild and Freddy gets more tame, and you can imagine how beautifult he connection is when they meet in the middle.

But what makes this a unique ship, unlike any other I've ever seen? It's the uniqueness of the characters that we can imagine them being in the future. Not only are these best friends, they're rockers. They have a wild streak, one is a punk, the other is a hardcore rocker, they like the fast life, playing shows, sticking it to the man! Because of this, this adds on a whole new aspect to the relationship, the kind that has spurred many a hot makeout session between the two in the fandom. After all, the thing that makes them unique is how boyish they are and how easy it is to make them that way.
In fact, it is the fact that they rock so hard that perhaps makes this fandom so easy to get into. It is unique and different and, let’s face it, hot. It’s a couple of sweaty teenagers bouncing on the stage, screaming lyrics under dark light, playing to a crowd of their peers. You know it’s fun, heck, it’s rock. And it is perhaps this that makes their relationship so much fun to follow, so interesting to read about. After all, which would you rather read about – the life and times of a couple of teenagers in a relationship where neither party does much, just the normal life, or the life of two teenage boys in a rock band who will very likely buy into the sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle?

But even more than that, their relationship is very cliché in all the best ways. For me, the thing that makes them so alluring, and the thing that spurred the name of this site, is how easy it is for me to picture either of them even getting a crush on the other, being "hypnotisized" by the other, if you will. Zack likes Freddy's humor, wild streak, and passion. Freddy likes Zack's down to earth sensibilities, songwriting genius, slight romantic tendencies, and hot guitar moves. See? It fits. It could almost be canon, even, if only the characters weren’t nine during the movie.

VII. Fini
The Pimpage

So, have I convinced you yet? Yeah? I thought so. So then, here’s a bunch of great fic and communities and whatnot.

COMMUNITIES – THAT YOU MAY BECOME INVOLVED
schoolofrock The first School of Rock community, for people to talk about SoR
musicalfusion The second School of Rock community with people who mainly enjoy Freddy/Zack, oddly enough.
schoolofrockfic The community I created for SoR fanfic, if you couldn’t tell.
_thesorkids The community naser_ona created in honor of the kids who played in the movie. Aw. We love those little guys.


FIC RECS – THAT YOU MAY READ AND BECOME HOOKED
Somewhere On the Side by xpennyroyalx
Okay, this is absolutely my most favorite one ever because it embodies everything that is great about the two of them. It helps that it takes place when they’re adults, because then you don’t feel so much shame.


Everything by Nuwanda
This fic is great, not only because it was the first F/Z slash I ever read but because it shows how they deal with real life situations, growing up, and dealing with their attraction for one another.


21 and Invincible by Nuwanda
Another by Nuwanda, but hey, this is a classic. It’s probably her best work, and she even mentions me in the later chapters (look out for a character named Lizz! Bwa ha ha) so obviously, I kind of had to.


Bleach by tommy_gnosis
Because it faces the reality that yes, Freddy is synonymous for Draco.


Declaration Aid by shiakuu_hitome
Because fluff is way nice all the time. <3


The Way You by w00tiful
Okay, so this is by me, but just bear with me here. It’s my favorite of the ones I’ve done, so I think that makes it worth a read. Um. Obviously.


Also, all F/Z fic that has been posted to the community is archived here. So there you go.


So yeah, I think I’ll shut up now. <3