#hiccannamonth2022

[hiccanna-tidbits]

AKGHBKUEFYDGJ when I tell you I just BARELY got all my submissions from last year's Hiccanna month in in time for this year's Hiccanna month--

Truly I have levels of procrastination inside me that most college students can only dream of.

So anyways, here's a moodboard for a fic I wrote a full-ass year ago. A moodboard that I made...last week XD Better late than never, I guess?

The fic is We're at the movie scene where everyone drowns, and it's also posted both on my AO3 Infrared_Ultraviolet and my ff.net Infrared-Ultraviolet! Go check it out :3 Hopefully I'll have the time and energy to write more full-length one-shots for Hiccanna month this year, but we will have to see! I'm a working woman now earning the big bank so I can continue to pay my internet bills and maintain the fandom lifestyle XD

Anna gets to have terrible insomnia because she is my beloved projection blorbo and she gets to deal will all of my issues for me <3 But hey, it's not like it doesn't have canon basis! We see that she does in fact have trouble getting up in the morning (enough to make it a running gag!) and is pretty bleary and out-of-it when she does, which could easily be the result of not running on much sleep and (unwillingly) staying up late. We can also see pretty consistently that she's not what would be considered a "morning person" (although I have my doubts such a thing even exists in real life). Anna's pretty heavily ADHD-coded, which often has insomnia as a side effect because your brain will not turn off ever, least of all when you need to sleep. Things like time blindness when you get super into doing something right before bed or existing anxiety and/or paranoia that's exacerbated by the ADHD really do not help, either.

Anyways, I'm here to tell you that the fear of forgetting your sleep meds when you're going on a short trip/crashing at a friend's house is very, very real. Especially since you often don't realize it until everyone else is already dozing off and no one wants to take you to the pharmacy to buy more XD At that point, your options are a) start taking shots in hopes the alcohol drowsiness will put you to sleep or b) lie awake and get bored and angry and hate your life and also have no one else to talk to because everyone else went to sleep in under 5 minutes. Yes, it really is that bad.

The one upside is that there IS the possibility you will get to watch your crush sleep in a non-creepy way (like you didn't seek them out like a stalker--you just can't go the fuck to sleep and they happen to be 5 feet away!) and fawn over how cute they look doing it XD Which is the only thing that gets Anna through the night, I'm pretty sure!

Although being alone with the stars and the creature noises doesn't sound half bad, if you HAVE to stay awake XD Better than staring at the wall of your room, anyways! Still praying for Anna to get that Starbucks the next morning, tho ^^;

Man, I really wish my college campus had had a duck pond with amusing but occasionally aggressive geese. We had some pretty insane squirrels, but staring down a squirrel is just not the same as being chased by a hissing goose. This is something that I think should happen to everyone at some point, to keep humanity humble. Also being followed around by hungry honking geese while you try to evade them and go to class sounds like the exact kind of college shenanigans I needed in my life! Instead of the depression-laden mess it actually was ajnsdlkuhkuedgh

I love the idea of Anna kinda inadvertently memorizing Hiccup's freckle patterns and finding little designs in them, like constellations <3 She pays WAY too close attention to him, and it shows XD I remember back in college I was gone af for this one guy, and I noticed he had this freckle pattern on his cheek that kind of looked like a baseball diamond. And I adored the fuck out of it ;____; If anyone replaced him with a clone who didn't have that little baseball diamond, I would catch on SO DAMN FAST. I imagine Anna would do the same thing with Hiccup XD Ain't nobody swaps Hiccup for a doppelganger without Anna being ON THE FUCK TOP OF IT.

Pretty pleased with how this one came out! I kind of wanted to do a juxtaposition of dark pics with well-lit pics, and I think the end result turned out pretty decent! Also ended up with a green, orange/brown, purple, and black color scheme, which all go together surprisingly well :O

Any modern AU Anna would also definitely own that exact greenish-blue sweater. Just sayin!

As always, pic credits available upon request!

[fuckyeahhiccannamonth]

Hiccanna Month 2022

HELLO, MY DEAR HICCANNA NATION! It is my absolute delight to tell you that just within the couple of years I have been on this hellsite, I have gathered enough hype for my funky little rarepair OTP that people were requesting...a Hiccanna event??? And who was I to say no???

BEHOLD! The first-ever Official Hiccanna Month, scheduled to begin June 1, 2022 and will go through the end of the month!

So without further ado:

WEEK 1 - TEXT PROMPTS 1. “Let’s be pathetic together” 2. “You said you needed a distraction” “So where is it?” “You’re looking at it” 3. “This is you thinking rationally?” 4. “What’s it gonna take to make you smile?” 5. “I can’t stop crying” “I’ll be strong for the both of us” 6. “I don’t know what to do” “We’ll figure it out” 7. “You’re not alone”

WEEK 2 - WAYS TO SAY "I LOVE YOU" 1. With a hoarse voice, under the blankets 2. Loud, so everyone can hear 3. When the broken glass litters the floor 4. As we huddle together, the storm raging outside 5. A taunt, with one eyebrow raised and a grin bubbling at your lips 6. On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the late sunlight glowing in your hair 7. In awe, the first time you realize it

WEEK 3 - ALTERNATE UNIVERSES 1. Fairy Tale AU 2. Studio Ghibli AU 3. Steampunk AU 4. Modern AU 5. Sci-fi AU 6. Pirate AU OR Vampire/Werewolf AU (couldn’t decide, so do whichever one you like better!!! Or both!!! Live your best life!!!) 7. AU Free Space

WEEK 4 - MUSIC 1. TSwift (I couldn't pick just one TSwift song for them so this is basically a TSwift free space XD) 2. West End Kids--New Politics 3. Read My Mind--The Killers 4. Teenage Dirtbag--Wheatus 5. Anna Sun--Walk the Moon 6. Walking the Wire--Imagine Dragons 7. FREE MUSIC SPACE

June 29 and June 30 will be FREE SPACES!!! Go hog wild!!! Do whatever you want!!! Be completely uninhibited!!!

When posting, tag with #hiccannamonth and #hiccannamonth22 so I can reblog from here :D I’m very excited to see what everyone comes up with!!! Literally anything is welcome--edits, art, drabbles/fanfic, videos, interpretive dance you record yourself doing that has Hiccanna motifs, it is all fair game as long as it’s Hiccanna-related! Hit me with your most adorable Chocolate Dragons fluff and give me the dopamine rush my burnt-out 20-something body is in desperate need of!

See y’all in a month <3

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Me typing away on my multi-thousand word Dracula Daily AU for Hiccanna month be like

Does this fanfiction make sense? Hold water? Not an ounce! Does that mean I’m going to stop writing it? Not an ounce! I’m a moron with a keyboard and half an idea and that’s your problem now. God couldn’t stop me and neither could my dad, and now I’m on your screen with another thousand words of whatever the fuck this is. Bon appetite bitch!

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Don't mind me, just continuing the trend of trying to get all of last year's Hiccanna Month content in before this year's Hiccanna Month gets here XD

This is a moodboard I made to go with my fic Loud and Proud, aka the first-ever crack I've taken at writing Established Relationship Hiccanna! Also available on my AO3 Infrared_Ultraviolet and my fanfiction.net Infrared-Ultraviolet, btw! It was surprisingly easy to write once I got going, even without The Horrors that usually plague them in my fics after they get together XD

I feel like their relationship evolving from friendship to romantic would feel so natural that they're only like. A little awkward about it ^^; They'd be one of those couples who are attached at the hip as soon as they get together, but everyone's like "...what actually changed?" XD They literally never leave the honeymoon phase, but it's way less gross sappy nicknames and obnoxious PDA (although regular hand-holding is par for the course) and more that they constantly want to be around each other. Sometimes their neurodivergent asses won't even be interacting??? Like they'll be sitting next to each other at a friend brunch or smth and will be having two completely different conversations, and they'll still insist their shoulders are touching. They just seem like the kind of people who were pretty touch-starved growing up, and really need that physical grounding to feel safe and secure.

Tangentially related, but I am very certain Jack would be a dipping-fries-in-his-shake kinda guy. Anna may or may not adopt this chaotic tendency as well after too much time spent in proximity to Jack's shenanigans XD

Ngl, I kinda made myself hungry making this ^^; I really need mozzarella sticks, onion rings, and a cookies and cream shake now. Tfw you have to live vicariously through Blorbo From Your Animated Movies in order to not get fat D:

Fun fact: I have a very Jack-coded friend irl, and I myself am extremely Anna-coded (for better or for worse akdjhsukyfuh). Literally like a week after I posted this story, my Jack-coded friend and I had an argument extremely similar to the spat Jack and Anna get into in this fic. Like, right down to the arguing about the validity of depressing themes in movies and everything! Unknowingly predicted my own future with this one in a quasi-alarming way! Art imitates life imitates art, amirite?

Pic credits available upon request!

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Still on my spree on posting Hiccannamonth22-related content before next Hiccanna Month hits and I'm an entire year late XD This is a moodboard I made to go with The Rock and the Moss and only just now got around to polishing up and posting ^^; The Rock and the Moss is also posted on my AO3, Infrared_Ultraviolet, and my fanfic.net, Infrared-Ultraviolet! In case you don't want to attempt to read it on the hellsite akajdhslufhu

Anyways, it is my firm and stubborn belief that Hiccup would (as much as he was financially able) get a sick as hell cyberpunk glowing prosthetic leg in any modern AU. Maybe not initially, if he was insecure about it--he might want to hide it and try to appear "normal" at first. But once he embraced it and stopped caring if/when other kids made fun??? This kid would get himself the COOLEST cybernetic robot leg and wear it like a battle trophy! And honestly??? Good for him, he deserves it!!! Also would defs have glowing lights inside if he could, both because Anna thinks it's pretty and to fully let himself be consumed by the TRON aesthetic XD

Deadass really glad I impulsively wrote this little fic because it got @gryffindorkxdraws irreversibly obsessed with these two XD It did a number on me, too, considering now whenever I see a mossy rock, I can't not think of Hiccanna D: Deadass I was interviewing at some garden centers and I was like "okay, if they as me what plant I am or smth I'm gonna say MOSS" and I had a whole spiel ready to go, ripped almost entirely from this fanfic XD None of them actually asked me that, but you know what??? If any plant place does in the future for whatever reason, I AM READY TO GO BRO.

As always, pic credits available upon request!

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Chapters: 3/3 Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Frozen (Disney Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Tangled (2010), Brave (2012) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Anna (Disney)/Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood)/Rapunzel (Disney), Anna/Merida (Disney) Characters: Anna (Disney), Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Merida (Disney), Tuffnut Thorston, Ruffnut Thorston, Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Rapunzel (Disney) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Vampire Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Inspired by Dracula - Bram Stoker (Novel 1897), Dracula Daily AU, So basically I signed up for those Dracula emails, And I had no idea how hysterically funny the first third of the book is, So naturally I did the only thing I could, and fused the hilarity with obscene angst to make a Hiccanna AU, Vampire Merida, Vampire Ruffnut Thorston, Vampire Tuffnut Thorston, Human/Vampire Relationship, Lawyer Anna, Mild Gore, Body Horror, not a whole lot though!, Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Humor, Diary/Journal, Letters Series: Part 2 of Hiccanna Month 2022 Summary:

Fresh-out-of-law-school property attorney Anna Runeardsen has been sent off on her first real job: helping an eccentric client in Transylvania make a daunting purchase! Enamored with the beautiful landscape and the delicious local cuisine, Anna is eager to tell her friends back home of her many adventures.

However, not all is as it seems on the Haddock family estate. The charming Count Haddock begins to reveal dark secrets, and Anna finds her new workplace relationship becoming unexpectedly complicated. Something sinister--and decidedly unprofessional--is afoot.

A story told in letters to an anonymous friend, inspired by the Dracula Daily email chain!

***

The final chapter of the Dracula Daily Hiccanna AU from last year’s Hiccanna Month!!! Sorry I uh. Procrastinated for literal months submitting this ^^; My life got pretty wacky--car troubles, money was tight, had to get a job, etc etc. But with the new round of Dracula Daily this year (including a very cool audiobook I’ve been listening to on the way to work!!!) I got back into the spirit of this fic and wanted to finish it!

Also wanted to get it in before July, which is this year’s Hiccanna Month aksjdiosybdhuiyh

ANYWAYS, without further ado!!! The thrilling conclusion, all!!! I still think about these two every single day, even if I don’t have the time or motivation to write them as much as I like <3 Will hopefully be back with some new content for them in July!

This story is also posted on my fanfiction.net account, Infrared-Ultraviolet! Go here for the tumblr version and the spoopy accompanying moodboard I made :3

[hiccanna-tidbits]

@ohlooksheswriting​ the future I imagine for Hiccup and Anna in the Dracula Daily AU

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Frozen (Disney Movies), Tangled (2010), Brave (2012), Rise of the Guardians (2012) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Anna (Disney)/Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III Characters: Anna (Disney), Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Rapunzel (Disney), Merida (Disney), Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Elsa (Disney) Additional Tags: Modern AU, College AU, Camping AU, Anna Has ADHD (Disney), hiccup has anxiety, Autistic Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Anna has insomnia (Disney), Love Confessions, Idiots in Love, Friendship/Love, Dorks in Love, Declarations Of Love, Anna is gone af for Hiccup, Hiccup's a lil oblivious but the feeling is (spoiler alert) mutual, Insomnia, Camping Series: Part 4 of Hiccanna Month 2022 Summary:

After the rest of her friends doze off, Anna is left alone with her thoughts. She comes to an overwhelming realization.

Title taken from the song "Air I Breathe" by Sophie Blair.

Hiccup mumbled in his sleep, turning onto his side and pulling his arms into his chest. Anna smiled.

He tended to hunch up like that. He was small, and he got cold easily.

She squirmed partway out of her sleeping bag and inched toward him, frowning as he stiffened. The summer night had grown progressively chillier as she soldiered into the wee hours of the morning, the last of the day’s lingering warmth slipping quietly away.

Anna picked up a spare blanket and carefully pulled it over Hiccup’s sleeping form, tucking it around him gently enough not to wake him. He seemed to relax, melting into his bedding and letting out mellower breaths.

Anna sat and watched him for a long time. Inhale, exhale. Tufts of bangs fluttering up with every puff of air. Shifts and shuffles what felt like every five minutes, because even in his sleep Hiccup couldn’t stay still.

Eventually, most of his hair stopped being in blowing range and settled into a silly-looking cloud over his eyes. Anna fought the urge to brush it away.

She was whipped, and it was becoming a concern.

***

No but I wrote this almost a year ago and just now got around to posting it on AO3 ;_____; I have no excuse here except laziness XD

BUT!!! I got it in just in time for this year’s Hiccanna Month, starting in a couple days!!! And better late than never, I suppose ^^;

Anyways, enjoy my deep-thinking insomniac!Anna who says more than a few unwise things in her sleep-deprived delirium XD

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Frozen (Disney Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Tangled (2010), Brave (2012), Moana (2016), Hotel Transylvania (Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Anna (Disney)/Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Anna (Disney) & Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood) Characters: Anna (Disney), Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Rapunzel (Disney), Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider, Ruffnut Thorston, Tuffnut Thorston, Moana Waialiki, Mavis Dracula, Jonathan "Johnny" Loughran, Toothiana (Guardians of Childhood), Merida (Disney), Astrid Hofferson, Elsa (Disney) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Modern AU, College AU, Anna has ADHD, hiccup has anxiety, Autistic Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, some minor squabbling/tension between Anna and Jack, but nothing too serious, Fluff, Self-Esteem Issues, Moreso for Anna, But Hiccup helps!!!, Hiccanna Month 2022 Series: Part 3 of Hiccanna Month 2022 Summary:

Anna should be having a good time. She has the boy of her dreams, a dynamic friend group, and all the mozzarella sticks she could possibly want. Not that any of that stops her insecurities from rearing their ugly heads...at her new boyfriend's birthday dinner, no less.

Luckily, Hiccup has no plans of leaving her to face her demons alone.

His volume drifts up on the last sentence, like he’s speaking over a blizzard instead of a light, silent snow shower. Anna catches glimpses of several of their friends turning to look at them.

She tenses against him, sliding her hand out of his hair. Suddenly she’s looking at the snowy concrete, unable to meet her boyfriend’s eyes. “Why do you always say it like that?”

“Say it like what?”

“Like…like loud like that. So like…any old person can hear.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Aren’t you embarrassed?” She finally looks up, grimacing slightly. “I mean—well, it’s just—I guess I wonder—aren’t I embarrassing?”

He looks genuinely perplexed. “…are you? This is news to me.”

“You’re not like…” She bites her lip anxiously, somewhat dreading the blunt answer she knows she’ll get. Her voice softens, as though if she speaks too quietly for him to hear, she’ll have an excuse to drop the subject and put off learning what has to be a painful truth.

“You’re not embarrassed to be with me? Like…at all?”

To her surprise, his confusion only grows. “In what world would I be embarrassed to be with you?”

***

AKAJDSUKFBHG not me realizing I never actually posted the AO3 link for this ^^; Oh well!!! Here it is now, in all its glory: My Hiccanna one-shot from last year’s Hiccanna month that was my first crack at writing Established Relationship for these two! Enjoy :3

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Chapters: 2/3 Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Frozen (Disney Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Tangled (2010), Brave (2012) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Anna (Disney)/Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood)/Rapunzel (Disney), Anna/Merida (Disney) Characters: Anna (Disney), Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Merida (Disney), Tuffnut Thorston, Ruffnut Thorston, Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Rapunzel (Disney) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Vampire Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Inspired by Dracula - Bram Stoker (Novel 1897), Dracula Daily AU, So basically I signed up for those Dracula emails, And I had no idea how hysterically funny the first third of the book is, So naturally I did the only thing I could, and fused the hilarity with obscene angst to make a Hiccanna AU, Vampire Merida, Vampire Ruffnut Thorston, Vampire Tuffnut Thorston, Human/Vampire Relationship, Lawyer Anna, Mild Gore, Body Horror, not a whole lot though!, Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Humor, Diary/Journal, Letters Series: Part 2 of Hiccanna Month 2022 Summary:

Fresh-out-of-law-school property attorney Anna Runeardsen has been sent off on her first real job: helping an eccentric client in Transylvania make a daunting purchase! Enamored with the beautiful landscape and the delicious local cuisine, Anna is eager to tell her friends back home of her many adventures.

However, not all is as it seems on the Haddock family estate. The charming Count Haddock begins to reveal dark secrets, and Anna finds her new workplace relationship becoming unexpectedly complicated. Something sinister--and decidedly unprofessional--is afoot.

A story told in letters to an anonymous friend, inspired by the Dracula Daily email chain!

***

Chapter 2 of the Hiccanna Month Dracula Daily AU is finally posted!!! I meant to post it in November, so I could still technically claim it was Spooky Season, but, well...life happens ^^; I had to do prompts for Jackunzel month and my friend got married and I had to finish a final project for a class, and--well, lots of various Things and Stuff. You get it.

This story is also posted on my fanfiction.net account, Infrared-Ultraviolet! Go here for the tumblr version and the spoopy accompanying moodboard I made :3

Just pretend it’s still Spooky Season and not Holly Jolly Season aksjzhdpbiyfousvy Maybe this can be your gift though???

[fuckyeahhiccannamonth]

Oh this is so cool!!! Love the thought of these two as badass superassassins :O  They have the range!!! Hiccup would be such a good stealth assassin, while Anna could either be a very charismatic distraction, or just run in guns (or fists!) blazing and beat the crap out of whoever her target is! They’d really just be the most lethal assassin team and I love that for them <3

Also wow, your editing is so good!!! Like this legit looks like a movie screenshot and I want to watch it!!! :O Anna’s hair looks flawless and natural, and I really like the way you kinda altered her facial proportions to go with the rest of her body. And heh, Hiccup really DOES have the Bucky hair, huh? He pulls it off VERY well, that’s quite the handsome mane <3

Lovely job and thank you for your submission!!! <3

🖤𝔻𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕛𝕦𝕕𝕘𝕖 𝕡𝕖𝕠𝕡𝕝𝕖 𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕚𝕣 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕞𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕜𝕖𝕤🖤

This is my first time editing a as an entry edit for @annahaddock Hiccanna Month Collab 💜 I hope you’ll love it 😍Kay, I couldn’t think 🤔 of any Marvel characters to fit Anna and Hiccup but they would totally fit in as the assassins Natasha Roman-off🖤💥and Bucky Barnes 🛡⛓

I hope you’ll love it 😍 💜💟

Tags🏷:

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Chapters: 1/3 Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Frozen (Disney Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Tangled (2010), Brave (2012) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Anna (Disney)/Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood)/Rapunzel (Disney), Anna/Merida (Disney) Characters: Anna (Disney), Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Merida (Disney), Tuffnut Thorston, Ruffnut Thorston, Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Rapunzel (Disney) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Vampire Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Inspired by Dracula - Bram Stoker (Novel 1897), Dracula Daily AU, So basically I signed up for those Dracula emails, And I had no idea how hysterically funny the first third of the book is, So naturally I did the only thing I could, and fused the hilarity with obscene angst to make a Hiccanna AU, Vampire Merida, Vampire Ruffnut Thorston, Vampire Tuffnut Thorston, Human/Vampire Relationship, Lawyer Anna, Mild Gore, Body Horror, not a whole lot though!, Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Humor, Diary/Journal, Letters Series: Part 2 of Hiccanna Month 2022 Summary:

Fresh-out-of-law-school property attorney Anna Runeardsen has been sent off on her first real job: helping an eccentric client in Transylvania make a daunting purchase! Enamored with the beautiful landscape and the delicious local cuisine, Anna is eager to tell her friends back home of her many adventures.

However, not all is as it seems on the Haddock family estate. The charming Count Haddock begins to reveal dark secrets, and Anna finds her new workplace relationship becoming unexpectedly complicated. Something sinister--and decidedly unprofessional--is afoot.

A story told in letters to an anonymous friend, inspired by the Dracula Daily email chain!

***

Happy Halloween y’all!!! Not me finally putting my Dracula Daily Hiccanna AU on AO3 for Spooky Season XD It’s also now posted on my fanfiction.net as well!

Go here for the tumblr version and the spoopy moodboard I made to go with the story <3

[hiccanna-tidbits]

HICCANNA MONTH WEEK 3, DAY 7 - AU FREE SPACE MOTEL POOL MERMAID AU

Happy AU free day!!! I was inspired to expand on this post I made a while back, and here we are! I blame @ohlooksheswriting for taking me down with her in her magic realism spiral XD I’ve been thinking about road trips and mildly-spooky liminal spaces (i.e. backwater motels in the middle of nowhere/super isolated wilderness-y areas) a lot, and thus this AU kind of wrote itself XD

Art from the original post inspired the moodboard a lot, as you can see! I kinda like the red-and-green color scheme for them--red to go with Anna’s hair and vibrant personality, green to go with Hiccup’s eyes, sass (idk green is just the color of sass to me???), and general vibes.

As always, moodboard pic credits available upon request!

***

Anna was all too quick to agree to the impromptu family road trip, hoping being trapped in a car for several hours will finally get her ever-aloof sister to open up. Elsa is leaving for college come the end of the summer, after all--and if this is truly their last hurrah, Anna’s last chance to reach out to her sister, then she wants to make it count. They were going to bond so much on this drive--Anna just knows it.

They did not bond on the drive. The lack of a phone signal as they drove through miles and miles of pine forest meant that there was not a scrap of wifi or internet to be seen, and Anna couldn’t check social media or text her friends to occupy herself. She tried to get Elsa to play some classic road trip games to pass the time--I Spy, 20 Questions, Shout If You See An Animal, the works. The last one was what Anna was most looking forward to, and of course the one that yielded the poorest results.

Elsa was having none of any of them. She was perfectly content to bury her nose in some gothic novel (how on earth did she read in the car without getting nauseous, Anna wondered), and griped any time Anna interrupted her. She wasn’t even interested in discussing the plot when Anna asked, claiming it was the kind of deep, dark, and tragic story that her baby sister simply “wouldn’t understand.”

Restless and frustrated after a long, aggravating ride, Anna couldn’t be more glad when they finally pull up to the motel that night. It’s a lonely, decrepit little place, all retro-feeling flickering red neon signs and dilapidated infrastructure. The picture-perfect budget road trip motel.

Anna wonders if it’s haunted. She feels strangely eager at the thought--whether the hypothetical ghosts were friendly or not, they sure would spice things up, at least.

She gets a different kind of surprise when she decides to go for a night swim in the pool, hoping to get some of the excess energy and irritation out before she goes to bed. Before she can get lost in her thoughts (and concoct a new plan to get that stick out of Elsa’s ass), she keeps catching glimpses of a flickering movement out of the corner of her eye. When she finally tracks it to the bushes just outside the pool, her curiosity piques.

It’s hard to tell, with nothing but the glow of the red motel sign and the lamps in nearby windows for light, but it looks like there’s a long, shiny green tail somewhere among the leaves. Braving the cool night air in nothing but a bathing suit, Anna goes to investigate the rustling bush.

She sees something trying to squirm out the back, but whatever-it-is doesn’t get far. The bush-rustler now scooting rapidly toward another thicket--now in the full light of both the moon and the hotel signs--appears to be a naked teenage boy (well, that’s awkward)...that is, until she notices that this boy is not in possession of any legs.

Anna certainly didn’t have “find a merboy hiding in the bushes by a hotel pool” on her road trip bucket list, but she’s willing to make adjustments. In fact, this just might be more interesting than ghosts.

As often happens, Anna is reduced to stuttering and asking stupid questions when in shock. “You’re--you’re a--why aren’t you in the water?!”

The merboy pauses before answering--green tail lashing, matching eyes looking like they’re doing a calculus problem. “...because you were in it? And seeing me tends to get screams once people realize I’m not a really detailed floatie?”

When she just stares at him, trying to take all this in, he sighs and goes on. “Look, I’m not used to people actually using the pool. Usually folks just pass through--stay one night and then hit the road. The swimming pool’s kind of a deadzone.”

In a fortunate twist of fate, Anna doesn’t fall into this category. Her parents were deadset on seeing some obscure state park in the area, and this was the closest and most affordable place to stay.

She’s going to be here awhile.

“So no one else has ever noticed you in there? People swim so rarely that no one’s freaked out and reported you to the news? Do you have to hide every time someone comes swimming? How do you even get out in time? What do you do when the pool cleaners come? How did you get here in the first place? What do you eat? Do you have to eat the bushes? Or dig in the trash cans like a raccoon while everyone’s asleep?”

He only ends up answering a few of her questions. Hiccup, as it turns out his name is, once lived on the west coast--that was, until he ended up in the nets of a ruthless opportunist and got sold to a seedy traveling circus. He arrived at the hotel in a tank in the back of a semi-truck, and just barely managed to squirm out and off into the bushes while the circus workers unloaded. As a slow scootch through the woods at the mercy of bears and mountain lions didn’t seem ideal, he made a home in the motel pool after the circus left without him. He’s gotten by ever since by being hypervigilant and quick, getting out of sight as soon as someone comes to the pool or camouflaging as a bizarrely realistic decoration. His diet is berries from nearby thickets on a good day, and half-eaten muffins and burgers from the trash on a bad one.

He’s accepted his rather sad new life, but he misses his orca Toothless more than anything. He longs to return to the ocean, but a cross-country trek for a boy who need to be submerged in water at least once every 2 hours and has a flopping-along speed of about 0.25 miles an hour is hardly feasible.

And thus begins the most unexpected adventure of Anna’s life, introducing Hiccup to pillow mints (the really good kind with mint cream and dark chocolate), vending machines, funny ocean animal videos on her phone, and chocolate chip pancakes smuggled right out of the continental breakfast hall. Before she knows it, she’s half paying attention during family hikes, busy hatching a plan to steal a semi-truck and a water tank and take Hiccup home.

When Elsa inevitably discovers Anna’s secret new friend, Anna is prepared for the worst--only to somehow get her sister in on her plan after about 45 minutes of frantic rambling and pleading. In yet another pleasant twist of fate, it would seem rescuing a constantly-annoyed and very cynical merboy might finally be the thing that bring Anna and Elsa together. However, the sisters have to be prepared to be arrested, stalked by sketchy performers hunting down their missing main attraction, and/or make their parents very, very angry. One thing is for certain, though: this will be a trip--and a summer--that Anna will never forget.

[hiccanna-tidbits]

HICCANNA MONTH WEEK 3, DAY 5 - SCI-FI AU BLADE RUNNER

Next up for Hiccanna Month: Another fic idea that’s been bouncing around in my head like a Windows screensaver since 2015! GOD, I remember watching Blade Runner for the first time alone in my dorm room my freshman year, and just getting OBSESSED--and, of course, the first thing my brain does is start building an overly-detailed Hiccanna/RotBTFD AU longfic that I’ll never have time to write XD Idk, maybe someday???

WELL ANYWAYS. Figured y’all deserved to see the base concept that I get super obsessed with every now and again, even if I never do anything with it XD I’ve read the book the movie’s based off of, too, so some concepts from the book found their way in here as well. I also rewatched the movie for this, and lemme tell you, that shit holds up--like every other cyberpunk dystopia deadass wishes they could be Blade Runner (1982). How they did all those flying cars and futuristic buildings and shit with practical effects and mini-sets is beyond me.

Fic summary under the cut! As always, moodboard pic credits available upon request!

***

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was one of the best Blade Runners in Los Angeles back in the day. Not like he had much choice in his career; he comes from a long line of proud android hunters--strong, ruthless men who will do anything necessary to protect humanity from its own rogue AI creations. Hiccup trained to “retire” replicants since childhood--and with excellent tracking skills, sharp intellect, and ruthless pragmatism, he was very good at his job.

Natural talent or not, blade running wasn’t a job that Hiccup could stomach forever. Eventually the brutality took a toll--it became more and more of a weight to bear, killing beings who looked just a little too human. Hiccup decides to retire early (much to the chagrin of his late father, he’s sure), turning in his pistols and retreating to his high-rise apartment. The perks of a such a dangerous and taxing job were that it didn’t pay half bad, and Hiccup has plenty to support himself for a while. And that’s all that’s really needed--no wife, no girlfriend, no roommates, only one real friend.

Despite his success in his career, Hiccup is a lonely man. He’s never particularly connected with his coworkers, not finding much joy or satisfaction in retiring replicants. The women he tries his luck often as not find him too awkward or sulky or sarcastic--hardly the charming man with a vibrant life that many seek.

Hiccup’s best and only friend is an electric black cat, found in an alleyway after work one day and lured into his building with canned tuna and freeze-dried salmon. He doesn’t know the precise story behind the abandoned cat, but what he’s able to semi-confidently piece together (he is a detective, after all) is that the artificial cat was an attempted scam--pawned off as real, as so many high-quality, convincing electric animals are. Real animals are a rarity, most having died off as the world became choked with trash and pollution that apparently only the human animal could consistently stomach.

The cat could certainly pass as real--at first glance, anyways. In fact, Hiccup is initially shocked, wondering how he stumbled on a real flesh-and-blood feline in a city where practically everything else is artificial. When he gives the loud-meowing cat some dinner, though, he notices the teeth seem to slide in and out of the creature’s jaw as he eats in a way no organic cat’s would. Hiccup suspects this is what gave him away as a fake to whoever adopted him--and whoever must have thrown him out in the street.

Nevertheless, Hiccup knows what it is to be rejected. To be ostracized and excluded because you’re not what people want you to be. And someone needs to fix “Toothless”’s broken tail--which, upon closer inspection, is sparking every so often, too. Certainly a fire hazard if left to wander about the city.

Hiccup’s retirement is going rather well when things get upended. Toothless is good company, Hiccup can afford the nicest games and streaming services money can buy, and he even has time to indulge in a hobby he was always too busy for--tinkering with and fixing broken machinery.

Then one day, over his regular lunch of shrimp-and-beef ramen, his old boss shows up and says he’s needed for one last job.

Hiccup won’t hear of it. He’s done with killing and hurting and destroying things, no matter how much society would have him think it’s not “real” life. It turns out, however, that Hiccup’s boss isn’t letting go of his best Blade Runner so easily.

“Your cat,” he says. “Organic or electric?”

“Electric.”

Hiccup sees no reason to lie. If he claimed Toothless was organic and word got out, everyone and their mother would be trying to steal him.

“So his software is hooked into the Cloud, just like every other electric animal in the city. Their brains were built to share a network.”

Hiccup freezes.

“What I’m saying, Haddock, is that certain...city officials have access to the animal neurological networks in the Cloud. Sure would be a shame if Toothless’ got damaged...or shut down completely.”

And so Hiccup is on the case. There are four replicants total who must be retired, all rogues who got loose on a ship bound for Earth, killed all the human passengers, and hijacked the controls.

“Jack Frost,” the supposed leader, is tough-as-nails combat model built to withstand subzero temperatures and be far more flexible and agile than any human could hope to be. He’s wily and charismatic, as likely to try manipulating or sweet-talking you as shooting you.

“Merida,” another combat model, is the brawn of the group. Aggressive and ruthless, she’s not the sort to back out of a fight until her opponent is beyond dead.

“Rapunzel” has appropriately long blonde hair to match the fairy tale moniker, though she usually keeps it braided back and out of the way. She’s a standard pleasure bot, not an uncommon sight at exoplanet military outposts, but rumor has it she is not to be underestimated, and she’s not as soft as she looks.

“Anna” is another combat bot, although she’s not noted as being brutal like Merida or cunning like Jack. She is, according to her profile under her spinning head on the hologram screen, fairly average in every way.

Nonetheless, Hiccup can’t take his eyes off her. There’s an intriguing--almost playful--glint in her holographic eyes that draws him in.

He manages to track Anna down to a seedy part of town, finding out that she’s been forced to work as an “exotic dancer” of sorts to lay low while still paying the bills. He meets her backstage, claiming he needs to run a “safety inspection” on the premises, but it only takes a short conversation for Anna to see right through his cover. She attacks with superhuman strength, throwing him hard against a wall and making a run for it while the wind is knocked out of him.

Hiccup gives chase through grungy, neon-lit streets, nearly losing her among the raincoats and umbrellas of thick crowds a number of times. He finally corners her near a backalley, out-of-the-way clothing store, in a place where there are no cars or people or power boxes to hide behind. She dives through a display window, the effort of breaking glass slowing her down, and at last Hiccup has his chance.

Something stops him from pulling the trigger.

She turns and looks at him the second before he shoots, and her eyes are filled with blazing, palpable fear. The fear of a clearly sentient creature. Not so different from the fear Hiccup saw in Toothless’ eyes when he first met him, back when Hiccup was just another in a vast world of humans that only wanted to hurt him.

He lowers his gun, and watches as Anna scrambles into the darkness of the closed shop and out of sight. He starts home, feeling sick.

He knows he’ll have to kill her eventually...but not tonight. Not tonight.

He’s almost to his car when a cold, steely grip closes around his arm, yanking him into an alleyway. In the bright neon glow from the adjacent street, he recognizes the round face and tied-back head full of red curls immediately--Merida, the most vicious of the rogue replicants. She saw him shooting at Anna, her comrade and friend, and now he is deeply fucked.

It’s not much of a fight. Within seconds, Merida gains the upper hand--and is, to put it delicately, beating the ever-loving shit out of him. Hiccup makes his peace with the gods, recognizing that tragically, this is indeed an occupational hazard of being a Blade Runner.

She’s just about to land the killing blow when someone intervenes.

Shaken and battered, Hiccup gets to his feet. He leans against a wall, watching a blur of red and orange hair as he gets his breath back.

His rescuer, he realizes, is Anna.

Merida is hard to subdue, blinded by rage and lashing out wildly in her efforts to get back to Hiccup. Anna pleads for her to stop, trying to explain that Hiccup let her go--that he’s not worth killing if he could help them.

Hiccup realizes with a start that she must really believe that. Why else would she save his life?

Finally, the realization that Anna is alive and well--and not bleeding out from a gunshot wound outside some dingy shop--seems to sink in for Merida. She calms down and takes a step back, eyeing Hiccup with distaste.

“He’d better be useful,” she hisses. “Imagine of he really had killed yeh, huh? That’s jest what his lot do.”

She spits on Hiccup before stalking off.

After Merida leaves, Anna admits she followed Hiccup, wanting to know why a Blade Runner spared her. After a rather tense conversation--including but not limited to Anna painfully shoving Hiccup against a wall and conducting an impromptu interrogation--Hiccup admits the truth: He had to take the job to retire her and her friends because someone he loved would be in danger if he didn’t. Someone mechanical.

With a little more prodding, Hiccup admits that the people he used to work for threatened to deactivate Toothless if he didn’t dispose of the four rogue replicants “terrorizing the city.” Anna muses--half to herself--that she may be able to help. No one better to understand an artificial life form than another artificial life form, after all. And Anna has been to dozens of planets in all different types of spacecrafts and interfaced with hundreds of other AIs--if anyone understands AI coding and tampering, it’s her.

Besides, she saved his life. Him, a bounty hunter who got paid for killing beings like her. That has to count for something.

Before they know it, the two are forming a tentative alliance. Anna offers to take a look at Toothless’ software and try to figure out how to disconnect him from the cloud, thus cutting off any outside access to his neural circuits. In return, Hiccup will give her and her friends protection, ceasing his hunt for them for the time being and keeping their locations a secret from other Blade Runners.

With nowhere else for her to really go, Hiccup reluctantly tells Anna she can stay in the spare room of his apartment--only because she might be the only one who can potentially save Toothless, of course. That’s the only reason it’s worth the dangers. Hiccup supposes it’s just as well--easiest to keep her safe (so she can still be around to decode and free his cat) by keeping her close. Emotions can’t factor into this when replicants have none--not like humans do, anyway. Right?

It turns out Hiccup can’t stay nearly as detached as he hoped. The more Anna tries to figure Toothless out--muttering about his wires and his circuit board and his signals as she tinkers with the squirming feline--the more Hiccup tries to figure Anna out. She’s fascinated by the humans on earth--their food, their culture, their art. Their reverence for the biological and their utter disdain for the artificial. He often finds her asking for bites of his food (despite not needing to eat), or watching cars and ships pass out of his high-rise windows. She begs to tag along when he goes undercover in dingy parts of town, fascinated by the bustle of the crowds and the crammed markets with their shouting vendors and ever-flashing neon signs.

Protecting replicants, however, isn’t without its dangers—as Hiccup well suspected. His employers are becoming suspicious of his skills having grown so “rusty” that he misses every shot and he often just “can’t track the bastards down.” But as he grows closer to Anna and meets the rest of her friends, he realizes everything he’s been taught about replicants couldn’t be more wrong. 

They’re intelligent, and they can be kind, emotional, loving, good. Their brains and souls are just as “real” as any human’s. All they want is what anyone wants—to not be treated as lesser for things they can’t help.

As Hiccup’s bond with Anna grows, she opens up to him about the horrors she’s faced. Bloody battles on distant planets. The death of her “sister” Elsa, a replicant made in the same factory as her who was the first living being she ever met. From the same line of Nexus models as Jack, Elsa was built to withstand frigid subzero temperatures...but it wasn’t enough to protect her from being slaughtered by a hoard of newer, even more cold-tolerant models.

Together with the four replicants he’s supposed to be hunting, Hiccup eventually uncovers a horrifying truth--all replicants are programmed to shut down permanently after 4 years. A self-destruct “failsafe” put in because humans were scared of their creations growing and developing in ways they couldn’t predict. Becoming a little too self-aware, and realizing how sick they are of living as second-class citizens. Before he knows it, Hiccup finds himself on a mission more perilous than ever: Find out how to override the programming sending his new friends toward an early doom, all while dodging the wrath of employers who will no doubt think poorly of him for fraternizing with the enemy, to say the least.

And the fact that he’s falling in love with his bounty isn’t going to make things any easier.

[fuckyeahhiccannamonth]

:O :O :O I love this so INCREDIBLY much!!!

Anna in that leaf-and-flower dress is just FIRE. Something about her in green just hits different :O Especially like...bright spring green??? With WHITE???10/10 perfect springtime color scheme and I am a big fan <3 The glitter too, the whole outfit’s just so lovely :D

And Anna’s HAIR??? OMG??? Your editing never ceases to amaze me--that style looks so cute on her, and you edited it so well that it looks canon!!! Oh gosh, I love the way they look at each other <3

Heh, I like to think Hiccup purposely wears armor that looks a little big on him to make it look like he has more muscle than he does XD Anna isn’t fooled one bit, but she adores him anyways!

Fantastic work and absolutely beautiful editing! Thank you for your contribution <3

𝑯𝒊𝒄𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒂 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒉 𝑫𝒂𝒚 4: “what’s it gonna take to make you smile?”

These 2 as Tara and Ronin from Epic 2013!🌳🍃 I felt like their relationship suited the prompt best :)

[hiccanna-tidbits]

HICCANNA MONTH WEEK 3, DAY 3 - STEAMPUNK AU

BEHOLD! I finally came up with a plot for the steampunk AU that’s been floating around in my head for a cool minute now!!! I always wanted to do something with this AU (because HELLO, Hiccup invents??? And the setting is just cool af???) but I could never figure out anything that seemed like a fresh or interesting take on it, and I could never figure out what I wanted Anna to do in a steampunk AU XD

THEN it suddenly came to me, and I was like “OMG??? Hospitality work???” Like it would be PERFECT for someone with her kinda friendly personality, especially in a world of flying hotels--big variety of tasks, lots of interesting people (even if many are snobs), good views, etc. Also my friend Dave and I were talking about a baker!Anna AU a while back...which somehow worked its way in here, of all places XD

Partly inspired by this post, since dragons of any sort (mechanical or not) would very definitely cause air traffic problems in any world with lots of aircrafts XD Also me??? Turning a ship month post into a scathing satire of hypercapitalistic societies??? More likely than you think!!!

As always, moodboard pic credits available upon request!

***

Anna, a young worker on an airship resort, hasn't quite found her life's direction yet. As is, she tries to do everything, jumping back and forth between copiloting, helping to decorate fancy cakes in the kitchens, cleaning rich peoples' cabins, and occasionally keeping the peace with her trusty zap gun--only as needed, of course. It's a good job, and it gets her up in the sky admiring some stellar views of the city, but she can't help but feel like she wants more.

Then she hears concerned whispers in the pilots' cabin, rumors of some young, up-and-coming inventor who's wreaking all kinds of air traffic havoc with his hand-crafted, enormous mechanical dragons, supposedly built entirely out of rusty gears and trashed parts. Although Anna knows great metal dragons interfering with the air hotel's pre-determined flight path is bad for business, she can't bring herself to feel the same disdain for the mysterious young man that her boss and coworkers do. The metal dragons can't even breathe fire, really, and they don't go around eating people with their huge metal maws, so that's something. As far as Anna can tell, the worst they do is get in the way.

And get in the way they do. One fateful day, the airship captain doesn't alter his flight path fast enough. The dragon in front of them, a rickety, ancient thing leaking steam from every crevice, moves out of their way about as quickly as an zeppelin whose back propellers are barely bothering. In the moments right before the explosion, Anna makes reluctant peace with the fact that the legacy she is leaving behind will be that of a stressed-out, directionless hotel worker.

She wakes up somewhere sunny. At first, she wonders if she's made it to an idyllic afterlife--somewhere with grass and meadows and butterflies and other things that just aren't very accessible anymore. That is, until she sees a wide glass dome above her head, and feels a cot underneath her.

When she sits up, she realizes she's on a platform above a vast, tiled room filled with all sorts of contraptions, dials, machines, clockwork gears, and glowing coils. As well as the workshop seems to be functioning, it doesn't look particularly polished or upkept. Weeds and tree sprouts seem to be poking up out of every crack, like whatever crew who would usually pull unwanted plants decided to take a permanent vacation.

Not that Anna minds. It's nice to see some green, after the sleek, polished whites, silvers, and creamy browns of the resort.

And then in walks a frazzled young man, fussing over some tiny doohickey with the gears out of place. He puts it down and lifts his goggles, and she gets a good look at the man who must've saved her--shrimpy, disheveled brown hair, green eyes, lots of freckles. A DIY clockwork leg in place of a real one, the original limb probably lost in some kind of factory accident. He introduces himself has Hiccup Haddock--a rather anticlimactic name for someone who's been stirring up so much trouble in the city, Anna thinks. He tells her the rest of the hotel staff and patrons are fine--the inventor arrived on a much faster dragon just in time to evacuate them all. (“Poor Old Gray--he was on his last leg. Figured it wouldn't be too long before he went up in smoke--er, steam, I guess.”) Most of the guests were out for the day, hitting tourist traps all over town, so luckily the amount of people on the airship wasn't enormous.

Anna wonders if Hiccup carried her out of the blast, and wonders why the thought is making her blush.

Hiccup, it turns out, runs an automaton rehabilitation of sorts. He makes broken machines run again, sometimes having to cobble together dozens of spare parts and practically start from scratch. The dragons were a side passion project of sorts, made out of everything that wouldn't fit anywhere else. Well...a side passion project that apparently got very out of hand. Anna wonders if he has some sort of dragon-cloner, or if these mechanical dragons are somehow able to reproduce.

He says his family was in the weapon business, but Hiccup never had much interest in fancy guns and laser shooters (Anna thanks her lucky stars that at least one of them is comfortable using a zap gun) and was more interested in society's rejects. Everything mocked, bullied, and dismissed, just as he had once been on the schoolyard and at his soulless first job designing blasters for his father. The blueprints never worked quite right--probably, Anna figured, because his heart didn't seem to be in it.

Eventually, he says, he did make a blaster design that worked. It would've been the proudest moment of his life--had he not seen his very blaster being used to mow down rows upon rows of rebelling servant automatons at a citywide protest. After that, he decided he'd rather use his knack for tech and designs to fix things rather than destroy them.

Over the next few days, the hotel patrons and staff leave Hiccup's workshop one by one. Back to their vacations, off to the resort headquarters to get stationed at a new airship hotel. (All grudgingly agree not to snitch about Hiccup's many unlicensed dragons, considering he did save their lives.) Not Anna, though.

It turns out Hiccup could use someone to fly his dragons around the city, collecting thrown-out metals and wires and defunct automatons. Just as good of views as she could get from any airship, Anna figures. Besides, he has a complicated-looking device that can somehow make much better coffee than Anna ever got in the resort staff's breakroom. It turns out a zap gun-slinger well-versed in both cake-decorating and the tourist elite, and with no less than 3/4 of an airship pilot's license, might be exactly what Hiccup needs.

And so their adventure begins, living up to Hiccup's reputation as the biggest nuisance in town and saving every downtrodden automaton they can get their hands on. But this new path for Anna is not without its dangers; Skyway Cloudside Resorts is searching for someone to sue for the massive property damage of one of their best locations exploding--and without anyone even inside to collect life insurance on! The fines Corporate has to pay for the lost hotel are no laughing matter, and the rumors that one of their ex-workers is now on the side of the geek responsible only makes them crankier.

It's a perilous cat-and-mouse game, but Hiccup and Anna are not a team to be trifled with. In the end, they can always outwit even the most cunning of Skyway's sleazy attorneys.

They find that together, they can do anything.