#mostly cruise focused bc i looove cruise if you cant tell

[highway-35]

since nobody asked me about my ideal hwlr season 3 im gonna do it myself spoilers ahead obviously

under the cut bc its getting stupidly long and also 👉 mostly unedited rambling you have been warned

ok so for starters. rearview backstories are overhauled. i dont like professor rearview being a camper with dash originally, it doesnt match with his initial motivations of disliking cars if he's out for dash SPECIFICALLY. also its a lame and overused backstory especially in kids tv. so instead he's an outside force through and through who dislikes cars for multiple valid reasons, ie accidents, dependence on cars in infrastructure, poor urban development, lack of freedom etc. he's absolutely an r/fuckcars user (and i say this as someone who agrees with this viewpoint). he's big on bikes specifically (why else does he have the bike helmet lol) besides his monsters. im keeping the monsters bc like once you remove the monsters hes basically an entirely different character. i ALSO dont want to make him too much like dr. eggman bc hes kind of an eggman ripoff already. also 👆 since dash is an inventor/roboticist in her own right it adds a nice contrast between mechanical and biological inventions. ALSO also rearview and dash do NOT look the same age at all (dash is like 20-30 tops and rearview is 50-60) so it doesnt make sense for them to have been campers together (since the campers in the show are in the 10-13 range i think). to ME. also he seems like a cornelius to me. (he adopted rearview as a nickname yes i KNOW eggman already did this and that i SAID i didnt want him to be an eggman ripoff but this doesnt have to come up in the show ✋🤚)

once thats out of the way cruise is his not-yet-adopted nibling, not his child. rearview was single and childless (he preferred it that way), a biology/bioengineering professor somewhere outside hot wheels city. i see hot wheels city in the show as equivalent to manhattan so he'd be in like upstate new york or boston. but his sibling/s were killed in a car accident- he already disliked cars and hot wheels city, but this motivated him to take things into his own hands. he developed these large animal like monsters (more fleshy and realistic compared to dash's cartoony, stylized robotic obstacles) to ultimately destroy the ultimate garage and bring the whole city down. because he was cruise's next of kin, he got custody over them. cruise is rearview's nibling and not child here since like. coop has HIS dad and axle has HIS dad and its like the writers didnt have any other familial relationships on hand. also yes i know uncle larry's there but he doesnt have the same primary caretaker role coops dad and striker spoiler do

(now i COULD ALSO make cruise bioengineered that would be sick but mega wrex put a bad taste in my mouth so im gonna say no. do NOT bring up brights, she has a prosthetic, that's different. ALSO DO NOT BRING UP SQUEAKERS in my ideal hwlr squeakers is a decently intelligent roomba kinda deal that dash made as a companion but hes like. aibo level. and people just project onto him as people tend to do with robots)

with that out of the way CRUISE is this little orphan kid that just got adopted by their uncle. they go along with it bc a) that's their uncle like xe lives with them. b) its fun to make the other kids really mad (cruise was a bit of a bully but was defensive instead of offensive since they had like 0 friends and werent popular at all so they think everyone hates it). c) its fun to be evil and d) revenge for the death of xyr parents. instead of the street shrieker being a sports car, its a bike augmented with car power shit. not a motorbike bc i dont think rearview would be into those but a really souped up, high performance e-bike. with scale patterns (prof. rearview's has more of a sinewy, muscle texture).

professor rearview was initially reluctant to let cruise race but it appealed to his ego to let a bike user win against car racers so he relented but is still VERY concerned over cruise's safety. he's still shaken up by the accident while cruise shoves that shit down and is headstrong/stubborn. cruise gets super involved in the races when they happen and starts to really enjoy racing, rearview doesnt exactly enjoy that fact? but is happy cruise has something they like.

(i should mention here that while i do hc cruise as enby, they aren't out yet. everyone still thinks xe's a girl and refers to xem as such. cruise is still figuring itself out, especially now that it's growing into puberty (around 11-12yo). cruise doesnt feel safe coming out to either their family or the campers).

everything is mostly the same in seasons 2/3 except that i took megawrex out back. yeah theres no megawrex here he gives me. INCREDIBLE fury i want him torn to shreds. he pisses me off. if they REALLY want to include monster trucks make it a cartoon and the real megawrex has a human driver.

but when cruise wins the ultimate garage, they start to really like it. rearview thinks he owns the place and uses all the cars to cause chaos in the city, while cruise explores the insides of the garage. remember: theyre a very vulnerable, emotionally charged and orphaned kid who just won the keys to the city. when professor rearview decides to destroy the garage via self-destruct, cruise remembers that xe won the garage, not xyr uncle. so when coop goes to shut off the self-destruct, cruise gets there first and officially takes over the garage, kicking its uncle out in the process.

cruise's keeping of the garage is a little bit selfish (wants all the cool amenities for themselves), a little bit selfless (doesnt want people to be hurt in the collateral damage), but mostly they just want to keep racing and thrive off the struggle of their opponents. xe enjoys playing the heel! so cruise's plan is to control the garage, let the campers and other racers struggle to win it, and (eventually) pass it on when they felt like it. they didnt think this through all that well tbh.

also this is at the top of their game. cruise has the world in the palm of xyr hands (so xe thinks) and this is when cruise decides to come out. its very casual. axle just mentions like ugh its professor rearviews evil niece and cruise says "oh actually im not a girl." more softly than they'd like. the campers are confused ("wait you're a boy?" "it doesnt sound like you are" "maybe she's actually a monster in disguise!!") until xe clarifies they aren't a boy or a girl. they're nonbinary. have been for a while, but now that they have the ultimate garage, they're confident enough to say it out loud! after all, none of the campers can stop xem, and neither can xyr uncle. what's anyone gonna do about it? professor rearview gets all huffy like UGH im your UNCLE i CARE FOR YOU WHY DIDNT YOU TELL MEEE and cruise goes stfu you suck and are generally unpleasant to be around (he also tends to misgender them and thinks winning the garage got to their head which is why theyre nb now).

this goes on for another season bc hwlr NEEDS the extra runtime badly blah blah blah coop wins the garage back on some technicality. cruise thrives on technicalities xe loves technicalities and loopholes. and living at the garage has been nice and all but also very lonely. but they can't just give up now right? theyre not ready and cant ever be ready, not like this. coop offers to let them stay and they decide not to. cruise leaves their baggage in hot wheels city, goes back to their uncle's old place upstate, cat in tow. maybe go back to school, get into the trades, professional racing? there's so many more possibilities out there, when the road forks.