#after that it turned into a farmer!Kurtbastian West Side Story-esque musical about Kurt hiding Sebastian in his barn

[icedteaandoldlace]

So last night I dreamed that I was watching Struck by Lightning, but in this version it was mixed with A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Carson was still the protagonist, and he remained exactly the same, but there was no grandmother character, and instead he had two sisters (one two years older than him and the other an infant--essentially Violet and Sunny, but they had different names). The movie opened with the whole family being shown as close and happy, and just having a chill night hanging out together at home, and then the phone rang, and the dad (played by Hugh Grant) left the room to answer it. The person calling was from a shady, top secret organization that he used to be a part of (VFD, but an even more mafia-like version of it). He had apparently run away from the organization and gone into hiding years ago, before any of the kids were born (possibly before he met his wife?), but now they've finally tracked him down, and they're out for revenge, because no one is allowed to leave the VFD, and anyone who does instantly becomes branded an enemy and a target. So now with his cover blown, Mr. Phillips panics, and instead of explaining the situation to his family and taking measures to protect them, he just runs away again, abandoning his family and leaving them all at risk with no warning.

So Mrs. Phillips of course reacts by drowning her sorrows in alcohol and prescription pills, and the would-be Violet takes on the responsibility of taking care of both her mom and little sister while Carson finishes high school. And every day when Carson comes home from school, he takes over looking after the family while Violet goes to work. This is incredibly frustrating for Carson for several, obvious reasons, one of which being that Violet is his best friend as well as his sister, and not only does he rarely get to see her anymore because of their conflicting schedules, but, while she is able to look at their family’s situation from a more pragmatic and functional point of view, he gets the brunt of the emotional side effects of being walked out on and having adult responsibilities heaped onto him, and that disconnect between them makes him feel like he’s going through all this alone.

Meanwhile, he's still trying to start a literary magazine and get into Northwestern, and on top of that, he now also has to deal with shady people hanging around trying to find his dad.

When Carson and his dad eventually have dinner together (because April's storyline is still the same and she doesn't know Mr. Phillips also has two daughters), he’s justifiably angry with him for leaving. And he just gets angrier when he learns the real reason his dad left, and when he sees that he doesn’t even really seem that sorry about it, since Mr. Phillips’ own self-preservation takes priority over ensuring his family’s safety (this guy’s kind of a mash-up of canon Neal Phillips and Aunt Josephine). So Carson does what his dad should have done, and puts all his energy toward protecting his family and stopping the VFD, with help from Violet and a handful of former VFD members they managed to rally.

So more shit happens--some SBL related, some ASOUE related. The Phillips’ house burns down at some point, because of course it does, and Carson uses his journalistic and blackmail skills to try to take the VFD down, all the while still masterminding Clovergate. He still ends up getting killed by lightning, but it happens in the middle of the movie, and it was orchestrated by the VFD (because they have Thanos on their side and he can use his metal glove or whatever it is to control the weather, and idk what he's even doing here because I've never watched an Avengers movie in my life and I’m pretty sure that's not even how his glove works, but whatever, there are no rules in my unconscious mind).

Violet witnesses Carson’s untimely death, and is devastated. And from that point on, she takes over as the film’s protagonist. Now it’s up to Violet to try to save the family, which is difficult, because Carson knew more about the VFD than she did, and he died before he could tell her everything he knew. And Mr. Phillips isn’t being of any help, Mrs. Phillips won’t sober up or take the situation seriously, most everyone else Violet goes to for help won’t take it seriously, either, the VFD rebels are seriously outnumbered and about ready to admit defeat, and the baby can’t even walk yet so Violet has to carry her everywhere.

The dream shifted into something else before I could see how the movie ended, but it was wild, fam.

Another interesting thing about it was that there was a lot of red. Like, you know how SBL and ASOUE both have blue and gray tints to the screen throughout? This movie's was more orange, like a war or apocalypse movie, and most of the characters wore colors with red in them (lots of orange and reddish brown, and Violet alternated between scarlet and pink), so Carson stood out in every scene he was in because he was the only person on the screen wearing blue.