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Branch had been working on his bunker for a few months now and was getting tired but he had to continue, he had to be safe. the Bergans were coming. The other trolls had done nothing but sing and throw loud parties since they escaped a year ago, and he had to survive. He had to be there for his brothers when they came back. Floyd promised but Branch knew deep down there was no use in hoping. He’d learned his lesson not to believe in Floyd’s pretty lies, not after his last song. He lost hope but he still owed it to his brothers to prepare and he couldn’t waste the gift of life his grandma had given to him.
Floyd had told him he would always be safe with Grandma and everything would be alright as long as he stayed safe on Trollistace. He can still remember that day. The Bergans and the lies he was told about being safe, but especially the feelings.
‘I was lost and was afraid, I believed all of the lies, I believed I was safe. And that I would never die’
Branch had finally gotten the bunker ready enough to stay in but he still had plenty of work to do and would keep working as he always had. Alone. It was starting to get to him and if he didn’t talk to himself who would? The other trolls? Ha! As if they could stand to even look at him. Poppy was nice but all she wanted to do was party and sing. He would rather be alone but he can help but think about how he wouldn’t have to be alone if he had just gotten the song right, if he had just been perfect then he’d still have his brothers.
“Now I'm all alone! I've been hiding in the dark!”
The Bergans are terrifying but he misses his brothers and he is so sick of hiding.
“I want to go home but my deeds sent me too far” he whispered desperately. he had messed up everything and this was his punishment. He could never go home.
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Floyd had been living his dream of a solo career and was in his dressing room when he heard arguing going on in the hall between some siblings who would perform after him. It had given him a flashback to when his siblings would be fighting. How he used to split them up, be the voice of reason, be calm and sensitive. As if it hadn’t been affecting him too! As if he didn’t want to complain or get mad or be a reckless teen for once! As if it hadn’t been painful for him too. He needed to practice and so began to sing his feelings he couldn’t help but imagine he was singing to his family.
“I often do pretend, can’t you see I'm broken down.”
He thought of all the bickering and fights over and over again that he being the sensitive one would have to fix. He remembered his thoughts back then too, even daring himself to sing them for practice.
“I wish this were the end, but I continue I vow”
He remembered his promise, his promise to branch that he would come back but he also remembered he once promised he’d keep his brothers together with their parents. He couldn’t keep one so why bother trying to keep the other? Even if he did try branch wouldn’t forgive him.
Drop.
He looked in the mirror and noticed he was crying. He was crying?! What right did he have to be crying when it was his own fault he was without his family, it was his one fault he was alone! Fortunately for him, he had a lot of practice singing while containing his tears. he still felt empty every time he did it though, like his body was happy singing and dancing but his soul was crying in a dark room trapped.
“Now I'm all alone, I'm still hiding in the dark. As saddened souls we roam. We can only go so far.”
He could never go back, he didn't have that right anymore, he couldn’t go back home.
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John Dory was the oldest, he was the leader, and he was the one in charge. He was also the one who left and said goodbye. Forever. He would regret it in time but he would also remember the pressure and the mantra he would always have to tell himself so that he wouldn’t just collapse and break. He could push through the pressure and make a name for his family for their band. They would carve their names in history as the first band to do the perfect family harmony! He would say that mantra so often that even after he left he found himself repeating it.
“All stay strong, we live eternally. All is well in the Brozone family”
It’s what got him through the interviews, the fights, and the loss of their parents. Looking back at it now it all just felt like a lie he found himself believing. And after he went back to apologize he saw the troll tree and the empty home that used to be his. It felt like a cruel insane joke that he was the last of his family alive. He was all that was left of the Brozone family. He came up with a new mantra after that.
“Lives, they fell to pure insanity. All is hell for the Brozone family”
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Clay had always loved choreographing, it was the only time his family would ever take him seriously. He thought about taking John's role as leader more than once. He was so sick of pretending and pretending to be blonde! Pretending to be the fun guy! Pretending like he was enjoying being in the band with John always criticizing him! But then he saw it. His chance! his opportunity to quit. John being the perfectionist he was had messed with his choreograph sheet for their first performance, however having no experience in choreographing John would be the only one that would mess up on stage with the way he changed it. He said nothing to the rest of his brothers and waited for the day they would perform, the day he would get his revenge, the day he would finally quit. He would finally kill Clay, the fun boy.
After the show, he had planned on digging into John like he always had with him. spruce had beat him to the punch in quitting first but he would still get his time to get John back. Only John had LEFT! He was gone!? Then Spruce left too, so he might as well because he didn’t need the band or his family.
Oh how wrong he had been. After a while roaming around in the middle of nowhere, he regretted leaving the dance sheet the way it was. He regretted how he left things. He decided he would go back for Floyd, branch, and his grandma when he came back to the tree though it was chaos. Bergans with shovels and trolls fighting for their lives so he joined them and ended up with them in the tunnels where he met the princess, Viva. When he finally got a moment to breathe he was borderline psychotic having almost died due to a Bergan attack. He was rambling to himself.
“I never did go near, 'Cause I know just what I saw. Yet on a day of joy, my life ended to their flaws.”
Oh why hadn’t he just told John his mistake, why did have to ruin the whole show? Why did he have to be so immature? He hadn't just killed Clay, the fun boy he had killed Clay a part of the Brozone family.
“Now I'm all alone. Fighting monsters in the dark. I wish that I could live, but I fear I've gone too far”
He could never revive who he was or his family; he had made too many mistakes for that. He would change, he would be someone people could rely on. He would be a leader even better than John Dory.
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Spruce had finally left the band, finally, he could be free. He could dress how he wanted, he could look how he wanted, and he could eat as much as he wanted. He didn’t have to exercise all the time. He could finally just relax. He remembered John keeping him on a strict diet and exercise routine and how he always hated it. He remembered asking for it to end.
“Always begging, ‘please’. Yet the outcome I would dread.” he said thinking to himself
After a long while he reached a place called Vacay Island. He had even set up a restaurant eventually and even had a business partner, who if he was being honest with himself was very beautiful and very much his type. He thought about telling his family about her and had cooled off enough to go back home. That was when he saw it. The troll tree was empty and dark. It was devastating. No one was left, the Brozone family was gone. When he had gone back to Vacay Island he was drifting into the motions of running a business, much like how he used to drift through stage practice. After a while, he couldn’t take it anymore and had to let his feelings out. How he regretted leaving his family behind, how he wished he hadn’t let his pride ruin the life he could’ve had with the rest of his family. He could still hear them, the giggles of Branch and Floyd when Clay would act all goofy for them. Their grandma playing her rummy games or doing puzzles. Every Time he saw a family at the beach it was like he could still see them bright as day. So he did what he as a troll was born to do. Sing.
“I have fallen to my knees, let my pride get to my head. Now I'm all alone, hearing whispers in the dark. I wander through the past seeing memories afar.”
like a shot to his head, he remembered what John would often tell himself when he looked like he was about to explode. He had always wanted to be remembered eternally in a song. Spruce could at least do that for him, he was probably dead anyway. On the slight chance he didn’t go back to the tree, he could at least send a postcard. He could figure out what to write in it later… eventually. Maybe?
“All stay strong, we live eternally, all is well in the Brozone family.”
But he decided to add on to John's saying because if the Brozone family would be remembered it would be remembered honestly as the insane, fighting, and now dead siblings they were.
“Lives, they fell to pure insanity. All was hell for the Brozone family”
With that, he could finally put to rest the Brozones and spruce along with it. From now on he was not the Hearthrob six-pack brozone member. He was just Bruce, the business owner of a restaurant. who had a business partner that he needed to be his.
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Clay after a few years of being the co-leader to the putt-putt troll was starting to understand how hard it was to be in charge. He would get overwhelmed sometimes but he thought about John and how he had his mantra. So Clay would have his own mantra, a better one at that.
“All is well, can you tell? Time for us to think and dwell.”
Much better than John Dory’s he could remind himself everything was fine and he could think of all the ways he was better off without his family. But then came that voice in the back of his head that sounded a lot like John reminding him he had already made a mantra for himself once. When he was a kid, and everyone was stressed about a Bergan attack.
“Time to sing every day, we are the Brozone family…”
No, no, no. He would not go back to his past; he was stronger now, he had viva. He wasn’t alone, he was not going to break down.
“All is well, can you tell?”
It was the only thing he could think of not to spiral but then came his own voice in his head slightly younger finishing his old mantra
“Lead that monster back to hell! This outcry set us free, we are the Brozone family!”
His big brothers would scold him for saying hell and yelling at imaginary Bergens but they would still have that smile on their face of a proud big brother. Needless to say, everything was not in fact well. If Clay’s tears were any indication.
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Floyd had been top of the music charts at one point, but his fame didn’t last. After a while of not much success, he chose to try and help others on their journey to stardom. Only for him to get himself captured in a diamond prison. Who could even afford a diamond prison!? If you have that kind of money you could just pay your way to fame, like the Trolldashians. No, here he was stuck having his talent sucked out of him by tone-deaf teen Mountragians. It was gonna be fine, he could just escape when they fell asleep like what he did with the Bergans when he left the tree. It was Grandma’s warning after all that had taught him that.
‘We can only roam when the monster’s put to rest’
Only that didn’t work out so well. What these wannabe pop stars had that the Bergans didn’t was a never-sleeping workaholic assistant. Damn that crimp! Now he was trapped in the dark closet. Just like his band days only literally this time. He’d laugh if it wasn’t so depressing. Get out of one closet only to be shoved into another 20 years later. Well, what else can a troll do when trapped and depressed but sing right? Not like he had a lot to do while being trapped. He thought about his brothers having all the mistakes he made, and he thought about how it was time he finally put aside his fear and met them head-on, not like it would do any good though being trapped and all.
“I just want to go back home and get rid of all this stress. Now I'm all alone seeing nothing but the dark, I walk without the fear. That’ll only go so far”
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John had been on his own for twenty years and still had the same mantra in the morning to keep himself going he had to take care of Rhonda after all.
“All stay strong, we live eternally. All is well in the Brozone family”
It was his way of never forgetting his family, the band they had made, or the memories they had shared. However, then came the night when he would go to bed and say the second part of his mantra, the part he had made to remind himself of the family he left behind, and the mistake he made. He had mail that day so he could have something to do while he finished.
“Lives, they fell to pure insanity, all is hell in….”
He cut himself off as he finished reading the letter, Floyd was alive? He was alive!! He was captured which was bad but he was alive!!! This was his chance, they could finally be together, they could finally reconnect, they could finally be…
“The Brozone family”