#he was so damn good in pacific rim he made the main character white guy look so god damn boring

[cirnogaming]

charlie day is an absolutely phenomenal actor who is afflicted with the curse of only appearing as the comedic relief

[minaminokyoko]

Pacific Rim: Uprising (A Spoilertastic Review)

This movie should be the ultimate lesson for Hollywood on why you shouldn’t just replace a director who has vision with someone who just wants to make a quick buck in a lazy sequel. My God, I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this utterly annoyed by a sequel. I mean, late sequels have a serious tendency to suck for many reasons: hiring different writers/directors from the previous film, changing the tone, removing important characters and awkwardly jamming new ones in there, relying on boring sequel clichés, or misunderstanding the entire reason why the first movie was a hit. Pacific Rim wasn’t a mega-hit stateside—it did $101 million domestically and did much better in the foreign market with an additional $309 million—but it was easily a fan favorite. Even if I had the full story on what went down between Legendary Pictures and the delightfully talented Guillermo del Toro, there is no excuse why Pacific Rim Uprising is such a pathetic pile of nothing. With del Toro, we had some excellent world building, a basic understanding of the premise, a loose but still adequate story, and characters that were easy to remember and enjoy. We also had a fun cameo from the incomparable Ron Perlman, a fantastic score, and some truly imaginative fight sequences of the Jaegers vs. the kaiju. I’ve said before that I think PacRim is a good movie, not a great movie, only because I felt you could have simply removed Raleigh entirely and focused on Mako and Stacker instead since they were both ten times more interesting and easier to connect with on an emotional level. However, after seeing this nonsense, I have a whole new appreciation for the first film, because at least it told a goddamn story and its characters had personality traits and arcs. Uprising is honestly an affront to what the first film established, not only for retconning things with Stacker’s forgettable son, but just botching every single enjoyable element from the first film.

I’ll get right to the point—yes, the Jaeger/kaiju fights are the main draw for this franchise. Even though I’m going to list why this sequel is godawful, a lot of people really just want to see it for the big fight scenes and that’s all they might want to take away from any reviews. Well, I’m here to tell you, I still don’t think Uprising is worth your hard-earned cash, because it’s frankly a bait-and-switch. The trailer shows you a monstrous kaiju made of three other kaiju, and that sounds amazing, right? Well, it’s intentionally misleading. If you want the full story, check below the spoiler line.

Overall Grade: D

Pro:

-Seriously, the only positive thing to note about this entire film is that the fight scenes were at least adequate. Not good, not great, adequate. When the fights finally do happen, there’s plenty of smashing, and the idea of the kaiju melding into one huge kaiju was at least a nifty idea. It was easily the only thing about the trailer that got anyone’s blood moving and could have built any hype.  However, judging by the movie’s poor opening weekend, enough people could tell something was off about it.

Cons:

-The trailer is misleading. How? Well, there are no kaiju in this movie until the last fifteen minutes. Seriously. They pulled a Huntsman sequel on you guys—promising something that only appears at the end of the fucking movie. All other times, you are stuck with the bland protagonists training or trying to figure out how the rogue Jaeger attacked Sydney. IIRC, there’s only the fight of Gypsy Avenger vs. the rogue Jaeger and then the end with all of them fighting. There’s a brief chase sequence in the beginning with Bland White Child and Stacker-lite, but it’s barely five minutes long and it’s just them rolling away from the full sized Jaeger like Sonic the Hedgehog. Look, if that still excites you, hey, go see it. But to everyone else who doesn’t want to feel ripped off, I’m begging you to sit this one out for this and many other reasons I’m going to outline below. There are only kaiju at the end of the damn movie. It’s Godzilla 2014 all over again—a magnificent creature that is advertised heavily as being in the film, but isn’t actually in the damn thing.

-The dialogue is so painfully cliché that you will roll your eyes so many times they might eject from your skull. Jesus Christ. I swear, it’s like they had a checklist of every action movie cliché they could think of and they made sure to check off every single one. Every line of dialogue in this movie is a sickening cliché. There is not one original thought. Not. One. Every character is flat and some form of a lazy archetype. No one gets any development. It’s Michael Bay-levels of incompetent writing. The movie couldn’t have been any worse written than if there was a room of chimpanzees hammering away at the screenplay. It’s just plain embarrassing. Every moment there isn’t a kaiju smashing something or a Jaeger beating wholesale ass, you will be in massive amounts of pain.

-The fights are mediocre. Remember how carefully staged the fight scenes were in the first movie? Hell, most of the time we can list them off the top of our heads because those fights were so damn memorable. We had the opening montage, the Knifehead fight, the two kaiju vs. the Jaegers, Gypsy Danger vs. Otachi, and then the final brawl underwater at the Breach. Each fight was staged well and paced well throughout the film. You didn’t have to wait too long between fights during the film, and it also entertained you with smaller bits like Mako and Raleigh training or the flashback to Mako’s childhood with that scary crab kaiju. Uprising is a bottom-heavy film, much like the equally terrible Jurassic World (God, talk about another late sequel that entirely misses the fucking point of the original property.) The only difference is at least Jurassic World had enough sense to deliver a powerhouse ending to an utterly stupid film, and Uprising doesn’t. The fights don’t have clever staging, great music, or very much creativity to them. After suffering through two hours with these annoying paper cutout characters, you should deliver the best damn fights we’ve ever seen, but no, they’re just standard hacking and slashing. Punctuated by the intensely annoying, shrieking helium balloon shaped like Charlie Day shouting inane dialogue in his squeaky voice. The fights have zero weight, too, because no one has a character, so you don’t give a shit if they live or not during the fight either.

-Like many terrible sequels, they kill off a main lead from the previous film in order to give the new protagonist some pathetic kind of Mangst. If there is one thing I am sure of, it’s that most fans of the original movie are going to be LIVID they dragged the actress playing Mako all the way back on set just to kill her fifteen minutes in. It’s just insulting. Mako was the fan favorite from the first film. Seriously, she has most of the fandom in her back pocket, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the immediate backlash is because the movie’s disgusting use of Fridging the main female lead from the first movie to make way for Bland White Child and Stacker-lite. It’s possibly the most insulting thing about the entire sequel. Mako deserved better. I’d rather she was out of the movie entirely, like Raleigh mysteriously is, than for them to kill her in such a cheap, stupid way. What a waste of a good actress and a great character.

-Making Charlie Day the villain. Yes, because nothing is more intimidating than a tiny man with the voice of Bobcat Goldthwait spouting dialogue so corny you’d expect it from an Austin Powers movie. Are you kidding me? Look, I get it, Charlie Day is a fan favorite so of course they were going to bring him back, but what the actual fuck made you think he should be the bad guy? It’s weaksauce. It sounds like they were just bored and out of ideas for the villain, as if the fucking kaiju or the Precursors weren’t good enough somehow, and just slapped this idiotic role in his lap. It’s such a bad idea. I hated his character in the first film and wanted him removed entirely, but at least he served a purpose. Here, it’s just lip service. Anyone who liked him in the first one is going to be pissed off at this random turn of the character with no indication of changing him back.

-Thin, boring leads. Let me be clear: John Boyega is not to be blamed for any of why this movie is failing critically and financially. The kid is talented and sweet and I want to pinch his cheeks and feed him apple pie in my kitchen. But he couldn’t save this film because of that rancid excuse of a script. Boyega is a darling on screen in almost everything else, but here, he has nothing to work with. Stacker-lite is just a cobbled together mess of leftover script notes from Chris Pine’s portrayal of Captain Kirk in the Star Trek reboot. He has nothing going for him at all. No motivation, no skillset, no charm. This character is completely empty inside. Bland White Child is the exact same as well; basically just every Little Miss Badass/Underdog stereotype only done amazingly poorly. She has nothing to offer the audience and while she has slightly more motivation than Boyega’s character did, it doesn’t mean anything. Then we have Generic Good Looking White Guy Lead, because for fuck’s sake, it’s not like it’s 2018 and we aren’t tired of seeing him, Generic Latina “We couldn’t get Michelle Rodriguez to do this bullshit so here’s someone else instead” Tits and Ass (who made me even angrier because normally when they have the Hot Latina Military Lady, she gets at least ONE badass moment, but this chick seriously serves no fucking purpose and is relegated to the laziest Hot Girl/Potential Love Interest role of all fucking time), Generic Cadets Who are Carefully Ethnically Diverse (you are fooling NO ONE, sequel; if you’re gonna bother to make them diverse, GIVE THEM ACTUAL CHARACTERS FIRST), Kick Butt Asian Lady (seriously, why the fuck did you cast this lady and kill off Mako? It would make more sense if Mako was in this role, like maybe Raleigh died in the Jaeger and she wanted to make automated Jaegers so no one would ever lose their partner again, there, ah fixed it, you morons), and finally Returning Cast Member Who Looks Tired AF But Needed the Money. It is a headache spending two hours with these characters. You don’t care about any of them and they have nothing to offer you. They’re just constantly stumbling around bumping into things and spouting dialogue from 30 years ago.

If you can overlook all of those flaws for the promise of Jaeger vs. kaiju fighting, have at it. Everyone else, don’t bother. If you’re that curious, wait until this hits a premium channel. I’m extremely glad I saw it for free, because I’d have been pissed paying $10 for this lump of expired crab meat. Save your money and go buy another copy of the first movie.

[sleepy-hailey]

Pacific Rim: Uprising

So as some of you might know, I like giant monsters and I like writing stuff (in theory), so how about I try combining the two things. In like a tangible way, not like the Kumonga (giant spider from Godzilla series) fanfic I have been working on for well over a year that still is not halfway done.

I am going to give my short and spoiler-free thoughts here and then go into more depth under the cut.

I really liked it. I laughed out loud at some of the gags, my mouth hung agape during some of the action, I whispered excitedly to my girlfriend next to me who had her own adorably goofy grin throughout, my feels got poked here and there, and I left the theater really happy. It was not perfect by any means nor was it as good as the first, but I will honestly probably watch again while it is still in theaters once it goes discount.

Now for my detailed thoughts where I spoilerize the whole movie.

Having said that I liked it, the first thing I want to talk about is, from what I’ve seen, the biggest point of contention. They fridged Mako Mori. For those who don’t know, “fridging” is a short hand for “Women in Refrigerators” which is when a character, usually a woman, is killed or otherwise brought to dramatic harm for the narrative benefit of another character, generally used for making a guy sad and angry. What separates this from general tragedy in fiction is that usually the character whom the harm befalls was a character in their own right and what happens to them has nothing to do with them or their narrative.

Mako Mori was the deuteragonist, or second main character, of Pacific Rim 1. What made her different from just being a supporting character was that she had her own story entirely independently from the other main character, Raleigh. Her story was about how her family was killed in a kaiju attack, she was adopted by the legendary pilot Stacker Pentecost, she longed to become a pilot herself and strike back against the monsters that had taken so much from her and others and to prove to her adopted father that was as strong and capable as he. In Uprising she is killed in a helicopter crash to prevent her from delivering her negative views to a committee about deploying drone Jaegars. She is mourned briefly (but with incredible acting by John Boyega) and it’s revealed that her dying act was to send information that advances the plot one step.

This is a really crappy way to see a character out. This is right up there or worse than things like Tokyo S.O.S. where the entire previous movie was about building up the character of Akane only to shuffle her off at the start of the sequel for “Special Training in America”. This is worse than the Power Rangers’ peace conference they kept sending Rangers too. I mean, in the 2nd Mortal Kombat movie, they kill Johnny Cage in the first five minutes and THAT was better than Mako’s exit because at least he died doing things in his character, ya know, fighting the bad guy, and it raised the stakes by saying “oh this guy beat the tough guy in the previous movie but THIS tough guy killed him like nothing”. The other main character from the first, Raleigh, is just never seen nor is his fate brought up, THAT would have been preferable to this.

I’ve heard rumors that this was done for political reasons to get better box office in China. The first movie’s bad performance in China was largely blamed on the fact that it featured a Japanese woman protecting China, or so it is said. I’m not sure if I believe that was the actual motivation, but with the lousy killing of that Japanese woman and then having a Chinese woman go on to protect Japan, well, I see where the rumor is coming from at least.

So yeah, tl;dr, the way they killed Mako sucked and I don’t blame anyone if that’s a deal-breaker on their enjoyment of this movie. If they decide to bring her back as a cyborg or say that she survived the crash, but they put her in hiding for her protection, or whatever in Pacific Rim 3, I’m all for it. It would be dumb, but not as dumb as how they wrote her out in the first place.

All that out of the way, there was a lot I liked. The Mako thing puts a big “but” on my feelings, but I still liked it. There were other little issues I’ll talk about too, but none of them are comparable to the killing of Mako.

STUFF I LIKED! Jake Pentecost! I have yet to see John Boyega not be a delight to watch and this movie did not break that streak. His character was funny and charming in a dorky way. He also had to do most of the emotional lifting on this movie (with his dead disappointed dad and his newly dead sister and his shame at his past bad behaviors) and he carries that weight like a friggin champ. Also I really liked how they seemed to be leaning towards a OT3 with his copilot, whom he does call sexy and seems to have the most feelings about, and that engineer lady, who was just kinda there to make it less gay I guess.

The cadets! These kids, I may not remember all their names, but they brought a great feeling to the movie. I’m not gonna lie, I like kids’ stuff sometimes (a lot of the time depending on your definition of kids’ stuff) and kids in action/adventure is easy to fuck up. They brought in a lot of energy and the idea of “the younger generation” being able to step up and even being pushed to do so before it might be seen as appropriate due to a rapidly deteriorating situation is certainly relatable. Also they actually killed one of them as a way of saying “no, their youth does not guarantee their safety for the finale”. Also they used a giant robot to flip off a giant monster and I have to respect that.

Scrapper! Most the Jaegars in this movie felt more than a bit derivative of the ones from PR1, but that little girl was a delight. I liked the idea of a mini Jaegar able to run with one person and move into smaller areas faster. I loved how she rolled up into a little ball to preserve momentum and to protect the pilot during impacts. I loved her being used to do field maintenance on one of the bigger Jaegars in the finale. I just really feel that scrapper was an unsung hero of the movie.

Newt and Hermann! PRECIOUS GAY NERDS! If you watched PR1 and 2 and you actively deny that these two are in love, we are not friends any more (feelings of ambivalence are fine, but it won’t win you any points in my book). These two stole the show every single time they were on screen and that is impressive for a giant monster movie to make me actually more into the scientist characters than the pilots. I know some people were pissed about Newt being brainwashed by the Precursors, but it’s not like he was a willing ally. I mean, he was all but crying when he was strangling Hermann (who also seemed to be effing reassuring him that it wasn’t his fault and aaaaaaa I’m gonna cry). And honestly, I think giving the Precursors and the kaiju a human face and voice, and one as interesting as Newt’s, was a great idea. It actually made me hate the Precursors in a way beyond the generic “they’re trying to destroy the earth” way. If a third happens I want Newt to be struggling back and forth under their control. Also he and Hermann should kiss.

This does segue into my favorite complaint against most things by the way; it should have been gayer. I use this complaint so much that it’s basically a running joke with my friends, but I mean it every time. Newt and Hermann are in love. Their plot in the first movie was all about them coming together and how it made them better and helped them to aid in saving the world. In this movie, I don’t even know where to start, it’s just unambiguously a sad romance where two people’s lives split when they both know they’re happier together. Like even the people making the movie straight up say that, yeah, that’s intentional and it would have been explicit if the powers that be didn’t fear losing money by having gay stuff. Also there’s no way way Viktoriya’s hostility towards Amara didn’t stem from misplaced feelings of attraction, I honestly expected (hoped with my gay heart) that Vic would kiss Amara during the finale.

I liked the kaiju! THIS SHOULDN’T SURPRISE ANYONE! Now the three main kaiju that attack Japan, none of them really stood out too much to me other than one of them had a cool thing where their face opened up and one of them liked to dig I guess(?), but that wasn’t all we got. The Jaegar/Kaiju hybrids that attacked in mass were pretty effing cool, honestly with their color variation from white to kaiju blue glowy bits and weapons and yeah. Then we got the Ultra Kaiju that was a combination of the three big un’s that attack Japan, that thing was quite the friggin monster. It may seem like a silly thing, but a kaiju that is a giant to other giants always gets me, like, terrified if done right. Were any of them better than my girl Otachi from PR1? No, but I wouldn’t mind having toys of any of them on my desk either.

The action! I mean, duh, it’s an action movie, if you don’t like the action you’re not gonna have a good time. I can’t say it was better than PR1, but I CAN say it was better LIT than PR1 with all the colors of the kaiju and jaegars shining brilliantly and all their moves on clear display. And they did a damn Rider Punch from the atmosphere to kill the Ultra Kaiju. I even loved Newt and Hermann beating up the guards in the elevator in their feisty nerd way.

Oh yeah, the other thing I didn’t really like was the ending. Like the very ending after they Rider Punched the Ultra Kaiju to death and captured Possessed Newt. I get that they were trying to have a light moment much like the end of PR1, but Jake and Amara having a snowball fight right after a fight that left them both pretty banged up and one of the cadets dead, along with probably a lot of civilians, was just kinda weak and odd. And where the flip was Shao? She was instrumental in saving the world, you'd think they'd give her a parting scene/shot. Then came the sequel stinger and I just wasn’t feeling the idea of a movie where we invade the Anteverse. I mean, it might be cool, but it just made me think of a movie with humans running around in giant robots and stomping on aliens, but it being ok because it was us doing it to them this time.

So yeah, those are some of my thoughts on Pacific Rim: Uprising. I get why some people hated it or just didn’t care that much about it, but I enjoyed it even with it doing Mako dirty. See you in the drift, nerds!

[shinobicyrus]

“Haunted”

A belated birthday present for my very good friend @beccadrawsstuff, who wished for something involving any of her OCs. I decided to do something with her character Phuong, Tucker’s eventual wife. Happy Birthday Becs! Sorry this was so late!

“Oh hun. Nobody warned you about Amity before you moved here, did they?”

Phuong was already having second thoughts about calling that number Linh had given her. The woman who answered Fenton Works’ main line was disarmingly chipper, and seemed to accept Phuong’s stuttered, embarrassed explanation of the situation without an ounce of skepticism. 

“I don’t usually work the phones but we’re actually kind of short staffed at the moment,” Phuong had already forgotten her name. Something with an ‘i’? “It doesn’t sound like bloody threats on the walls or ectoplasm clogging the sink level of haunting; we can get a guy over to you tomorrow afternoon, about eleven. Is that okay?”

No, it was perfectly fine. Just the right amount of time for Phuong to hang up and feel foolish for being desperate and jumpy and gullible enough to resort to this, no matter how many times Linh tried to explain it to her. There were so many logical, non-paranormal explanations that made sense, considering her circumstances. Moving to an unfamiliar town, new apartment with its own quirks and night-noises, she wasn’t used to living alone. It had only been two months since the funeral. 

She still had a little camp-out in the living room with her laptop, armored with blankets and the tried and true childhood defense against all manner of monsters by leaving every light on, electric bill be damned. Because she was an adult, dammit.

The pendulum had swung again by morning, frazzled and on edge from yet another sleepless night, the back of her neck prickling with the constant, persistent sensation of not being Alone. She almost jumped out of her skin when the intercom buzzed. 

Past the point of caring, Phuong answered the door with her hair uncombed since yesterday, still wearing sweats and a t-shirt. She didn’t know what she expected- Bill Murray? (preferable) a shifty guy in a tacky redone exterminator’s jumpsuit but for ghosts? (likely) Kate McKinnon? (If only).

....a handsome man with tied-back dreadlocks and a tacky but endearing Pacific Rim t-shirt?

“Uh...Ms. Lôc Thi?” He shifted awkwardly trying to balance the gear hanging off his shoulder, shake her hand, and nudge up the black-rimmed glasses that almost hid the tired bags under his eyes. Phuong was impressed- the pronunciation wasn’t half bad. “I’m Tucker. I hear you’re having a bit of a ghost problem?”

“Lacking a better explanation? Yeah.”

He smiled wryly, like he was enjoying an inside joke. “Just moved here, huh?”

“Why do people keeping knowing that?”

“If you make it past six months, I’m sure you’ll be snerking at tourists with the best of ‘em,” He said, and motioned behind her. “May I come in?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry.��� Against her better judgement, she stepped aside and let him in. “And what’s that supposed to mean, ‘if I make it six months’?”

“Most people move away before then,” He glanced around her entryway- like he could spot...ghost droppings, or something- spotted her shoes on the mat, and shuffled out of his sneakers. “Didn’t you wonder why the rent was so low?”

She did, actually, but as a grad racing to finish her degree and juggle a job before her loan eligibility expired, she wasn’t in much a position to complain. “I considered mentioning to the landlord that he was undercharging me, but I haven’t gotten around to it, yet.”

“Ha, I’m sure it’s on the top of your To Do list,” he said good-naturedly. The...case hanging on this shoulder reminded Phuong of old sound equipment- thick like a nineties laptop. Tucker walked further into her house, quiet and intrusive in his mismatched superhero socks, and started waving a wand around like some kind of Geiger counter. 

“I heard you talked with Dani.” Phuong resisted scampering over and hiding all the wreckage of her camp-out on the couch. Tucker went by a sad pile of discarded clothes, studying the readings on his...thingy. “She said something about noises? Like people moving in empty rooms? Whispers? Things getting moved?”

“It’s...it’s crazy,” Phuong shook her head, like she wasn’t the one who had called them. “It was probably my neighbors. They’re always too loud.”

"Hmm. Yeah, my neighbors like to break into my place and rearrange my dishes too,” He said, with the same kind of sarcasm Phuong had mastered after years of customer service jobs- so subtle people weren’t sure it was serious or not.

Having taking his ‘readings’ in her living room, he did a cursory sweep over her shelves upon shelves of movies and moved on to the kitchen. 

Phuong stood in the threshold and crossed her arms, biting back a good Ghostbusters joke as he examined her fridge. “Well having a neighbor with a sick sense of humor and a Poltergeist fetish sounds slightly more logical than ‘dead people did it.’” Or it could be like that woman who secretly lived in someone’s attic for years, only coming out when he left. That was an internet search result that had her jumping at every thump on the ceiling. She’d almost prefer grumpy dead people.

“This house is cleeeaan,” Tucker said in a tinny, breathy imitation. He held up his buzzing doodad. “But seriously though, this place actually isn’t clean. It’s pretty dang un-clean.”

“What...is that thing?” 

“It has a really, really stupid name,” He sighed. “But it says there’s a...’Level-1 Non-Manifesting Entity’ here. Level 1 is good. Non-manifesting is even better. But uh...just to be safe, how about we step outside for a sec-”

“So what does that all mean? Your -airquotes- ‘device’ magically detects a completely invisible and unverifiable thing-”

“Did you just say ‘airquotes?’”

“-that you can conveniently get rid of with- let me guess- an application of super scientific snake oil- ”

“Actually it’s called ecto-rejcto...” He raised his hands and glanced around the kitchen warily. “But maybe we can talk about that not in the apartment.”

“I tried being open-minded, I really did. And you seem like a nice guy but I’ve been letting my own issues play tricks on me and I’ve let this farce about ‘hauntings’ and ‘ghost exterminators’ play long enough, so I’m saying sorry in a polite but not really sorry way and the bill be damned but I think I’d like you to leave and-”

Tucker raised a careful eyebrow at her. “...and what?”

And there was a kitchen knife floating next to his head. 

A kitchen knife. Floating.

By itself.

Phuong moved without thinking. Tucker backed away from her, startled, and she shoved him back against the cabinets half a second before the knife flew between them. The half of the blade not embedded in the wall quivered. 

The fridge rumbled and rattled like a phone, trying to vibrate off a table. The cabinets flapped with angry wooden claps, dishes hurled themselves in a ceramic mass suicide. 

Green, spectral hands came next, grasping the edge of the sink pulling...something up. See-through, casting a green glow that thickened and congealed on itss iridescent edges like nuclear waste. A goddamn ghost with a mass of eyes bubbling and popping on its face like zits split open its almost-head like a wound and hissed directly at her. A gaping maw of needle teeth, accusing and furious. 

Tuck stepped in front of her. The wand dangled from a cord at his side. beeping urgently until he picked it up. 

“’Possible Level 3 Hazardous Malefactor.’” He let the thing drop. “Thanks, Jack.”

Phuong clung to his shoulder. “What do we do?”

Every single eyeball crammed on the ghost’s headmouthface swiveled at them simultaneously. 

“Run.”

Phuong ran. She turned and bolted for the front door. Tucker grabbed her shoulder and pulled her off-balance. The ghost barreled past where she’d just been, now between them and the only way out of the apartment- unless they wanted to fly out the windo-

The window!

“Bedroom to the left!” She said. “Fire escape!” 

Down the hall, feet thumping. Phuong didn’t look behind them but saw the glow chasing them across the walls. Did ghosts even cast a shadow? You had to have a body for a shadow, right? Not having a body didn’t seem to deter it from doing lots of things. 

Phuong slammed the door and locked it. 

“Nooot really gonna stop it much,” Tucker told her, right as a green claw reached through the door and blindly swiped at her. Phuong backed away, watching as the rest of it pushed itself though it, more green slime poured from the dead wood like ghostly sap.

Tucker had thrown his case on the bed and was assembling something. “Hey, Tuck, do you mind taking care of this lady’s apartment?” He mimicked phone-girl’s voice. “Don’t worry, it sounds like a total snooze. You'll be fine!’” 

Phoung ran to him. “What are you doing?!” She noticed the metal cylinder he was screwing together. “Is that a thermos? What the hell good is a thermos going to do?!”

“Trust in the thermos the thermos is good.”

The ghost slipped through the door, eyes twitching in every which direction, its mouth moved and spoke gibberish that sounded like warbling white noise

Tucker raised the thermos at its face. It paused. Every eye peered down it.

“’sup.” He said.

“Gragh?” It asked. 

“I don’t really have a good one-liner so...bye.” He pushed a button on the side of it.

A light poured from the end of the thermos. The ghost recoiled instantly- but was unable to pull away. As though it were caught in a vacuum, the ghost screeched and hissed and struggled, but its face hideously stretched until its entire vaporous body unraveled and swirled, caught in a vortex of light until in it was pulled into the thermos entirely. 

Tucker released the button and held the smoking thermos. “Consider yourself evicted. Wait- dammit! That was a good one, too.”

Phuong stared at the thermos. Already the smoke around it was clearing. It obviously wasn’t hot, since Tucker was easily holding it. That thing was just...gone. 

Holy crap there had been real ghost in her house and it just tried to kill her. Kill them. 

She almost died. Would have died, if it weren’t for him. 

She should. Probably say something. 

“...does this mean you’re charging me extra?”

Tucker let out a surprised laugh, hands shaky and slightly giddy from adrenaline. “Well...you did save me from getting shish-kebabed. I think I can throw in a discount somewhere in there.”

He stayed and helped her clean up. 

Her sink was covered with green goo, there was a knife in her kitchen wall, claw marks raking down her hallway, and one of her movie shelves had been knocked over. Phuong was almost...thankful for it. It was a physical reminder that it had been real. It had happened. 

Tucker made a quick call back to Fentonworks to explain the situation. By some strange consensus, the two of them started on the living room, up-righting the shelf and reorganizing the dusty dvds that were scattered around. At least nothing had been badly damaged- though it did give Tucker an opportunity to poke fun at her tastes. 

“I’ve never even heard of most of these movies,” Tucker read the back of The Grand Budapest Hotel, completely unaware of the blasphemy he had just uttered.

“This isn’t even the shelf of my of obscure films- that was a pretty big hit.”

“Meh, doesn’t sound like it’s for me.”

“If you hadn’t just saved my life I’d be tempted to throw you out the window on principle. Headfirst.”

“I’ll just have to take full advantage of your good graces for as long as I can.”

Phuong blushed. Tucker went back to sorting DVD boxes, completely unaware.

“You and my friend Sam would get along pretty well,” Tucker squinted at A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. “She’s a movie hipster too.”

“Having tastes outside of the celluloid fast food Hollywood calls cinema doesn’t make me a ‘movie hipster’.”

“Hey, some of us plebeians like our double-unnecessary sequel burgers with a side of fried Michael Bay Explosions.”

“That mixed metaphor just offended several of my sensibilities all at the same time.”

“I’m multi-talented.”

“Okay, Mr. Foley. I’ll give you one chance to redeem yourself. Name one movie that you think was an underrated gem.”

“The Wicker Man.”

“Okay, I’m actually kind of impressed. Most people wouldn’t-”

“The Nick Cage remake.”

Slowly, Phuong stood, dropped the pile of movies she had been organizing, and made to walk to the kitchen.

“Uh...where are you going?”

“To pry that knife out of the wall. I finally understand it, now.”

Sam, as it turned out, was one of Tucker’s best friends from high school, and had married his other friend from high school, Danny, whose family were the town’s local inventors and ghost-hunters, a phrase Phuong would have laughed over a few hours earlier.

Sam was currently recovering from a difficult pregnancy, and both new parents had their hands full with their newborn son- and Tucker’s godson. He gushed over the photos of little James in his phone, explaining how he volunteered to pick up the slack at Fentonworks. 

“So you’re more like a...substitute ghost hunter? How do you even prepare for something like...” Phuong gestured at the damage around her apartment. “This?”

“It’s called four years at Casper High. I’m pretty sure half our graduating class could be used as an anti-ghost militia in case we get invaded again. Actually, come to think of it, that totally did happen one time. We all got matching jumpsuits.”

“At this point you could actually be bullshitting me and I’d have no idea.”

Tucker eyed her incredulously. “You seriously knew nothing about Amity when you moved here? I know the government purges youtube and major news stories about it whenever they can, but still...”

“I wasn’t really...” Phuong stopped scrubbing the ectoplasm in her sink. “It’s been a crazy few months. There were so many things going on, finding a town with ridiculously low apartments for rent seemed like the only piece of good luck I’ve had in a long time.” She scrubbed a little harder, the rhythmic scrape scrape scrape of her brush syncing with Tucker sweeping up broken dishes behind her. 

“Do you want to hear something stupid?”

Tucker stopped sweeping briefly, then started again. “I doubt it’s stupid, but go ahead.”

“For a while there, when the noises, and the rearranging furniture, and the whispering at night finally started getting to me- when I started not completely dismissing my cousin when she tried to explain what was going on in this town- I thought.” She braced both of her hands on the lip of the sink, right over the stained handprints of the monster that made her life miserable in more ways that even it knew. 

“A part of me thought- that maybe. That it might have been my dad.”

“I’ve seen a few family haunts. Not all of them were bad. We even left some of ‘em alone. You called us because that ghost was practically terrorizing you. Do you think your dad would have done that to you, if it really had been him?”

Phuong started scrubbing the sink again, not sure how to answer.

“Hey.”

Tucker turned. He stood in her doorway again, the thermos with the captured ghost safely stored in the case against his hip. 

“So...” Phuong clasped her hands in front of her, trying not to fidget. This was a bad idea, but it was one of those bad ideas where not doing it was worse than the act itself. “I don’t really. Well. I know that technically I’m your client. Or you are -technically- an employee I’ve hired. But I think we can both agree that this was a bit more atypical than calling the Orkin Man, since we ended up saving each other lives, and all. I was wondering if- maybe- when you leave and you’re no longer here because you’re doing a favor as a good friend or because I’m paying you. If, maybe, it would be okay if I took you out to dinner. As a thank you.”

Tucker stared with the look a man completely taken by surprise. Which, really, surprised her. Sure, his taste in movies was terrible, but he was a smart, funny, attractive man who carried baby pictures of his godson in his phone, helped out his close friends, and rescued aspiring movie critics from vicious monsters. 

“Dinner.” Tucker said, voice faint. “Sorry, I’m just. I don’t want to be that guy-misreading signals and making embarrassing assumptions that will end with neither of us speaking again but- it kinda sounds like you’re asking me out on a date.”

“I-” Phuong considered a few good lines ‘sounds like you’re right’ or ‘I can’t speak for that guy but I’m okay with ‘this’ guy. No. He’s asking straight-up for for a clear answer. No beating around the bush. “Yes. I’m asking you out on a date. I’m not sure how we’re gonna top ‘saving my life from killer ghosts’ but I know a really great Italian place with gnocchi that will do its best.”

“Oh.” That was not a guy enthused with the prospect of going out with a lady. Phuong was already feeling a preemptive stab of rejection but kept her face even. “I’m sorry,” Tucker rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m...I’m flattered. Really. You have no idea how big of a boost this is considering- well.” He adjusted his glasses and looked at her with those baggy, tired eyes. “I was just married until about six months ago. It was...” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “As far as divorces go, my lawyer said it was a pretty clean break, but there were still things that ended up...broken.

“Again- I’m really flattered, and I’m really sorry that I can’t. That I’m not in the best place to start trying to pick all that back up again. That wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”

Maybe it was her own disappointment, maybe it was the heaviness of his shoulders, or the heartsore look in his eyes. Maybe she was a tad biased because of the life-saving thing, but whoever Tucker Foley’s ex-spouse was, they were officially on Phuong’s shit-list for All Time.

She doesn’t remember how long they stood there. Her in her recently haunted apartment, him standing in the hall. Finally, she found her voice.

“How about a quiet, non-romantic lunch, instead? As...friends?”

“Yeah,” Tucker nodded, the weight in his shoulders relaxing some. “I...I think I can handle that.”