Power Rangers: Kat/Tommy
Apr. 19th, 2005 03:54 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
cynthia-harrell.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ship_manifestoAuthor: Higuchimon (cynthia_harrell@Yahoo.com)
Fandom: Power Rangers
Pairing: Kat Hillard/Tommy Oliver (Power Rangers)
Disclaimer: I don't own Power Rangers or anyone involved in this at all.
Warning: If you haven't seen Mighty Morpin Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo, Power Rangers Turbo, or Power Rangers Dino Thunder, you'll probably be spoiled.
The first time we met Tommy Oliver was very early in the first season. He was the new kid in Angel Grove, who didn't have a single clue of what he was getting into. The fact that he tied in a martial arts competition with local champion Jason Lee Scott brought him to the attention to the evil space sorceress Rita Repulsa, and before he had been in town for very long, he was captured and placed under her spell, making him her evil Green Ranger. This created a Power Ranger legend, really. Every other evil Ranger has been compared, at least in the minds of the fans, to him, and really, no one else has measured up.
Tommy didn't stay conntrolled for long, though, and after his defeat at the hands of the Rangers and the destruction of the Sword of Darkness, he fought from then onwards for the side of good. Indeed, in time he became the leader of the team, and throughout the majority of his tenure, he dated a fellow Ranger: Kimberly Hart, the Pink Ranger. This relationship lasted roughly three and a half to four years. It's hard to specify beyond that since time in Power Rangers is really hard to pin down. But it did last a while.
The relationship ended some months after Kim went to Florida to pursue her dream of being a gymnast at the Pan Globals. She sent Tommy one of the most controversial pieces of mail ever, the infamous "Letter", in which she tells him that she's found someone else and is breaking up with him.
I'll go into more detail on what happened after that in Kat's section, since it really relates more to her and what I feel are her emotions for Tommy than to Tommy himself at the moment.
The Letter did affect Tommy, and for some episodes after that, he wasn't quite as calm as he needed to be. This tied into the episodes with the Red BattleZord, and discovering his brother David Trueheart, but underneath it was the uncertainty that the Letter had left him with.
Tommy himself was a very strong person, able to deal with almost anything, and it's a good thing he was, since just about everything has happened. From being turned evil to having his powers ripped from him to having to take on being leader when three of his best friends move to Switzerland to seeing his girlfriend almost lose her powers and her life to seeing that same girlfriend move three thousand miles away and then breaking up via a letter...if it's going to happen in Power Rangers, there's a good chance it'll happen to him. He went through four different colors of being a Ranger (green, white, red, and black) and was almost always in a position of leadership or where he could give advice of some kind. I would surmise that he's used to have people look up to him and depend on him, and expecting him to always be strong, no matter what. He is a leader and a survivor.
After almost four years of being a Power Ranger, more or less, Tommy finally moved on and gave the Power to someone else, devoting a lot of time to his racing. What happened after that is mostly detailed out in Power Rangers Dino Thunder, which has no Kat, or mention of her, at all, so I'm not going to bother much with that until I get to the end of this.
Kat Hillard showed up late in season three of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the ninja era. She was tall, pretty, blue-eyed, blond, and one of the first things she did was lounge around in the park with nothing on but some fur.
Let it not be said that Rita Repulsa wasn't capable of learning from her mistakes, to a degree. After the disaster of Tommy turning on her way back in season one, when Rita finally chose another human to work her dark magic on, she managed with a little more sense. Where enspelled Tommy was mean and arrogant to everyone else, enspelled Kat is kind and sweet to all, with one exception: Kim. I'll refrain from going into a tangent on the fanon perception of Kim and Kat's friendship due to that, and just say that Kat was under a spell from before we first saw her. The Rangers never figured out that she was on the other side. Kat told them once the spell on her was broken. No one even suspected a thing either.
Kat had the ability to turn into a white cat thanks to Rita's magic, and she's adopted by Aisha and Kim shortly after they met her in her feline form. This allowed her to roam around unnoticed and spy on the Rangers, learning secrets. Why Rita should want to do this when she's never really had any problems spying on them herself is unknown. Really, anything Kat did, Rita herself could've done, or Scorpina (if Scorpina had been around and had been able to conceal her natively nastiness a little better than she could when last we saw her). Of course this really was just to prepare Kat to be the Pink Ranger in a few more episodes, but I digress.
Under Rita's twisted power, Kat did all manner of evil things, including stealing Kim's Power Coin and the FalconZord, and leading into getting Kim captured by the forces of evil. In the end, however, she was able to free herself from the spell and to save Kim's life. When Kim chose to go to Florida to pursue her goal, Kat become the new Pink Ranger, a position she held until she passes it to Cassie some years later.
Kat has been known to have a few issues with her appearance, perhaps hinting at some insecurities of her own that were never quite delved into. She also worked quite well with animals, having been showing teaching chimps sign language and working with police dogs as well. Her talents appear to be quite extensive, ranging from architecture to dance, and she has never really let her dark start get to her. She simply put everything she had into doing the best she can at everything.
When Kim's letter came, the first thoughts on Kat's mind were that this just wasn't right. She didn't believe it was happening. She did agree to take Tommy to the mountains along with Billy afterwards, and when he was briefly attracted to the skier, Heather, Kat made certain that they spent time together. She devoted all her time around then to helping Tommy deal with what had happened, even bringing Heather down to Angel Grove to have a dinner with Tommy.
That dinner fell through, however. What happened after that, comes in the next section.
Kat is probably one of the more overlooked characters, since being female she didn't get much comparative airtime to the guys. But she's strong, compassionate, and determined.
The first time they met, Tommy was dating someone else, and Kat was working for the enemy. It's hard to tell just then if Tommy helping her out is because he was subconscioiusly attracted even then, or if he just was being a nice guy. Kat was a little clinging and possessive, mostly due to the spell on her, while Tommy was true to Kimberly.
But the real fun in their relationship started when Kim sent that letter so many months after Kat's arrival in Angel Grove. Kat worked to the best of her ability to get Tommy to cheer up and feel better. When Tommy encountered Heather Thompson and seemed to like her, Kat made certain they spent time together.
At the same time, however, Tommy seemed almost to want to go to Katherine right then and there. When he first showed up for the dinner with Heather, he complimented Kat's outfit, and seemed to think the dinner was between the two of them. He even looked disappointed when Kat told him that his date would be there soon. Later, when Heather had left in anger because he'd been late returning (from a battle to save the city, though she had no way to know this), Kat and Tommy had the dinner together anyway, and then danced together happily.
There were many points in the show, especially in the Zeo era, where Kat and Tommy worked together. From pretending to be married for a project to being shrunk to the size of dolls by one of the villains, their time together was almost constant. This faded a bit by the Turbo era, because of Tommy's actor making preparations to leave the show, but there were still moments when they were shown being close. Unfortunately, the first Turbo season really focused more on the new Blue Ranger than the older Rangers, so Kat and Tommy's romance was pushed into the background.
Most of their real interaction and everything else occured in the Zeo era, both before and after the Letter. Tommy casually complimented Kat many times, something he didn't really do for anyone else, not even Kim when they'd been dating. This can be easily explained as the development of his confidance and maturity, and the differences in the relationship between the two ladies. But it still stands he paid attention to what Kat did. There are other views of that situation, of course, but since this is in their favor, they can be passed over for the moment.
The relationship didn't really get all of the attention it deserved in canon, I feel, because of the way Kim's actress wound up leaving. Her final appearance in the Power Rangers Turbo movie, and Tommy's reaction to it, did a disserve to both relationships, and everything could've been improved if more attention had been paid to their personal interactions instead of throwing the monster off of a cliff. Of course this show really is for kids, so that kind of thing has to be expected. But it doesn't change that things could've been better anyway.
The most important episode that touched on the Kat/Tommy relationship was Hawaii Zeo, which was where it became blatantly obvious that Tommy was interested in Kat. After some urging from the others, he finally asked her out to a luau being held at the Youth Center. That fell through somewhat, thanks to the resident villains, but later they did have another date that went much better. This was just a little before the switch to Turbo, so they didn't have much on-screen dating time, but their moments together are still quite sweet and meaningful.
While I love other pairings with Kat and Tommy, they've held a special place in my heart ever since they began to get together on the show. The way they interact between each other speaks to me of two people who are not only comfortable with each other, but with themselves as well. Very few other pairings give me that 'vibe', but this one does.
I don't really think that because they were both evil, they share a special bond. Perhaps a slightly deeper understanding of the world around them and the world they have to fight in, but that's never been a strong point of the romance. If that's all it took, Tommy would be especially best suited either for Karone (Formerly Astronema, of PRiS) or Ryan Mitchell of Lightspeed Rescue, who was raised by demons. While those do raise many amusing thoughts in my head, that's just not what I see between Kat and Tommy.
No, what I see is two people who can understand what the other has been through, and who have a long history of working together as a team, on the battlefield and off of it. Their suitability for one another might change as they mature and new events happen to them, and sadly it seems Kat isn't in Tommy's life by his mid-twenties (the era of Dino Thunder). Though Power Rangers Zeo gave us a glimpse into their future and it seemed they will wind up together, no one knows how it happens, or if it will, since that episode aired before so many other universe-changing things did.
What I think most of when I think of them is comfort. They have always seemed to fit well together, to be relaxed around each other. It rings in my mind of maturity. They're not trying to prove anything to anyone else, or to themselves. They know who and what they are, and appear to have made peace with that. They still have a lot of growing to do, but that's only human.
It's been so long since I really thought about how I began to like them together that I almost can't remember not liking them together. I watched Power Rangers almost from the airing of the first episode, and I was simply hooked. I've still got a majority of the early episodes on tape (tape that's probably falling apart by now, too), and I've got a toy or two scattered around here somewhere. It was only natural that once I first got online and discovered other Power Ranger fans that I'd enter the fandom itself, and so I did.
I was really more of a Billy fan back then, so the thought of Kat and Tommy, or anyone else, didn't enter my head. I kept Kat and Tommy together in fanfic simply because I was focusing on Billy and it would've been too much work to try and do anything else with them. But as I started to get interested in other things to write, I started to like Kat and Tommy for themselves. It didn't hurt that I've got a stubborn streak twenty miles wide and when I began to see all the Kim/Tommy reunion fanfics and the Kat-bashing in them, I started to rebel. I liked Kat. She wasn't evil by choice, and she was so sweet. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to put Kim and Tommy back together. So I just never really bothered, not seriously anyway.
Reading other Kat/Tommy fanfics of the time helped me decide that yes, this really was something I liked. Not just to annoy other people, but for itself. They meshed well together in my view of things. Everything I saw indicated they were perfectly happy together. It was beautiful, simply beautiful.
Why should other people like this romance? Well, I've really always felt that the choice of what 'ship you like is really up to you. But I find great pleasure in reading and enjoying a romance that is relatively rare in the fandom, and once you get into it, has so much potential for sweetness. There are other places you can go for angst or drama or whatever it is you want, but Kat/Tommy speaks to me, and I hope to others, of peace and contentment and all that other sappy stuff. It's a very calm relationship, and that's why I love it. I can find emotional turmoil anywhere else I look. It's nice to have one place where it's peaceful.
Sadly, finding good Kat/Tommy fic isn't easy. If you're hunting around Fanfiction.net, there's one place to go for it: My Kat/Tommy C2 Community. There aren't any real webpages devoted to them (I keep meaning to change that but I'm insanely lazy) and with the fall of most of the big PR fic archives, some of what Kat/Tommy fic there was has been lost forever. Of course there really wasn't that much to start with.
Kat and Tommy's future is more up to the interpretations of the fans than anything else, even with that glimpse of them in the future-set Power Rangers Zeo episode. But I, at least, like to think that somehow, they'll find their way to each other, and they'll be quite comfortable together for a very long time.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-20 02:17 am (UTC)Anyway, great job, just wanted to throw in the view of a fellow fan.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-20 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-20 09:25 am (UTC)Can I ask you a question, though? Where's a good place to find good MMPR-ish era PR fanfiction? I stopped watching a long time ago (and heck, was recently surprised it was still on!), back when Rita and Zedd were still on the show (though I don't believe they were the main villians anymore). Looking at ff.net, almost all the names are very unfamiliar to me. ^^; Are there any places left where one can easily find fic fromthe Pr early days? Because man, I've got an itch for that. (Sorry to bother you. ^_^;)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-20 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-24 07:15 am (UTC)I know most of the early rangers; Kimberly, Trini, Billy, Tommy, Jason, Zach, Rocky, Adam, Aisha, Tanya, and Kat. Of the non-rangers, I remember Alpha 5, Zordon, Ernie, and Bulk and Skull. And of the villians, Rita, Zedd, Scorpina, Goldar, Finster, Squatt, Babu, Rito, Master Vile, and (dimly) the machine empire. I don't think I watched it beyond MMPR. ^^;
no subject
Date: 2005-04-25 02:47 am (UTC)There are probably more I could come up with if I thought about it long enough.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-05 07:32 am (UTC)Anyway, this was wonderful and brought back so many warm memories. Thanks so much for writing this and giving their relationship some well deserved attention. ♥
no subject
Date: 2005-05-26 08:51 pm (UTC)