#it wouldn’t be as bad if pacific rim wasn’t the best movie of all time but it is

[jame7t]

Learning John Boyega produced pacific rim uprising is so upsetting. That’s one of the worst movies ever. John I trusted you..

[nocek]

Don't spare us the long rant! We want to hear your thoughts!

Oh you are going to regret this ;P

So here goes my loooooooong angry rant about Taskmaster and also the Black Widow movie in general.

Let's start with my point of comparison. Captain America the Winter Soldier was a good movie. It's still in my top 3 Marvel movies as I'm sure is for many people. And statistically speaking everybody likes Bucky. He is like the most beloved side character right after Loki. I guess.

Anyway. My point is that Taskmaster and Winter Soldier have bit for bit the exact same building blocks: hypercompetent antagonist that is a serious threat to our hero who just can't win with in one on one combat. But then plot twist: our antagonist was just a victim and puppet without free will in hands of actual villain who is bland bureaucrat.

So why did Winter Soldier worked really really well and Taskmaster was just ehh.. ok?

Well the short answer is that catws was a much tighter movie that had clearer goal (and also that goal/theme was singular: good things get corrupted with time and sometimes you get to start over) compared to black widow which had to jump through too many hoops and still somehow managed it but it wasn't as graceful as it would be if they (as in executives) resigned from one or two hoops and flips and explosions.

And I'm omitting a BIG disadvantage of making a prequel movie about a character that they killed off in shitty way. Though that created one of extra hoops for them to jump through: quickly build up Yelena as a character.

And character build they did. Because srsly Yelena is awesome and I love her. BUT. That came at a price.

Lets compare to catws. The new character there is Sam (and kiiiiiiiinda also Natasha a bit but that's a topic for a different rant) who is nowhere near as well build as Yelena. At the beginning. Because he had time to be fleshed out and naturally grow in few different movies and then we got a deep dive in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

But Marvel can't give Yelena few movies because she will appear in Hawkguy an Hawkeye series and also Marvel is generally dividing their assets into: outer spaaaace, down to earth heros and magic stuff (aliens, androids and wizards ;P). But also they can only create so many things in a year.

So yeah. Yelena offtopic can be summarized that I love that we have her as we have her but it came at a cost of air time of the movie.

So comparing the movies again:

Catws had the theme of good things being corrupted with time. And the theme was underlined 3 times through Peggy, Bucky and then Shield/Hydra. Which are interconnected and also make nice scale from inner conflict of the main character to the outer conflict of the movie.

In Black Widow there is the topic of the past evil that never went away and is still taking away free will from people. And again we have it shown through 3 outlets: Yelena, Taskmaster and Black Widows. But there is also whole family subplot attached to Yelena and there is Red Room attached to Black Widows. So as you can see things are getting crowded. Which in turn make the theme a bit blurry.

I mean, sure, the Red Room should be the Shield equivalent. Even it could take smaller space because good Shield turns out to be evil Hydra is generally more time consuming to explain than Red Room bad. But still combining Red Room and Black Widows make things a bit crowded.

(There is a reason why the surprise subplot of there is more Winter Soldiers was in separate movie and was kinda handwaved and cut to minimum. But they couldn't do that here).

But it's time to stop my ranting about whole Black Widow movie and focus on comparing Taskmaster and Winter Soldier.

Because to be honest both are bare bones of character and more of an carte blanche in the movie. Both have barely any screen time yet there are colossal difference which stems out of:

first introduction: as I mentioned they are hypercompetent and unstoppable threat that you can't win with, you can only hope to run away (both done equally well)

programmable killing machine:

For Taskmaster we just get a scene with her watching other heroes fighting at the screen. For the sake of building up the mystery of character we think that "he" is just watching. Maybe learning or more likely just being creepy. The information about the chip and literal programming is given to us much later in the movie which makes this scene lose the power. idk how it will work on rewatch? Maybe better? Hopefully. right now there is too many new movies in cinemas to go for a rewatch and disney+ still isn't available here -.-

For Bucky we have literal torture scene. You just can't be more blunt than that. It also hammered the next point in.

there is human behind the mask:

Winter Soldier is introduced with full face mask which he gradually loses and then we have the big reveal of not only: that's a human but also that's a human our main hero cares about deeply.

With Taskmaster they fucked up it for chap plot twist. We are learning quite late that oh snap that's Antonia (that we don't really care about) and our main hero kinda feels guilty about her.

I think the big difference is what kind of character Steve and Nat are and also the way they reveal this secret. Steve actively recognizes Bucky by himself and is very openly shocked. Nat is passively told and shown that hey, this is Antonia. And there is no time in the movie for Nat (and for us) to be shocked because that's the 3rd act and we need time for explosions and stuff.

Besides, the problem is that all the big plot twist reveals are boring on rewatch (stil big props for Pacific Rim and giving us the monster reveal in like second minute of the movie, I will never not appreciate that).

Also on related shitty note. We the audience. Bucky is handsome and vulnerable and we can drool all over him (and oh man, we the fandom did a fair share of drooling). Antonia is disfigured and not sexualized in any way. Which I'm actually grateful for but there is no pretending that doesn't make a hell lot of difference. But that's a whole different, ugly and big topic I'm not remotely qualified to write about. I'm just angry ranting here.

they don't have free will:

For Winter Soldier we have amnesia + torture tropes which to be honest have been done over and over again and it shouldn't have worked as well as it worked. Bit it did. In context of Black Widow movie it worked because it was just one guy that actively broke through brainwashing with active help of the hero.

In Black Widow there is a lot of characters that are pasively "woken up" out of mind control over and over again by active protagonist. Unfortunately the repetition kinda cheapens it. Especially in comparison to main gut punch right in the feels scene in the other movie. Which is why it's not fair to compare the two.

So lets talk about lack of free will aspect itself. To be honest the mind control aspect in Black Widow was done really great from story perspective. Evil scientists perfected it to the point it being (bit handwavey but) completely impersonal but also completely dehumanizing to the subject. So I'm buying that it can be completely switched off in equally efficient and impersonal way. Even the way they explained it with Alexei the pig was great and terrifying... to a point. Because then kicked the main problem with this movie. Clearly some execs came and saw it and went whoa... that's too dark for pg13 blockbuster. Let's put some cheap jokes here. And it happens over and over again in this movie :S

humanizing flashback scene that ties them to main hero:

For Bucky, sure we had Captain America First Avenger but a movie needs to stand on it's own legs. That's why we have the flashback scene which shows us that Bucky cared about Steve. Leaving it at the narration in Smithsonian of "best friends since childhood" would be just telling us. And we needed to be shown and we needed a space for the "till the end of line" so it could come back and stab us right in the feels.

Also because we are ignoring previous movie Russos cleverly made us care about Winter Soldier because Steve cares about Winter Soldier. And we already know and like Steve so building up our main character gives us more mileage out of new bare bones character (because let's be honest, Winter Soldier is just that). Two birds one stone thing.

In Black Widow there is no such thing which IMHO is the main reason Taskmaster doesn't work. We just get information about cardboard cutout: insert cute little girl here (only told, not even shown actual cardboard) and all of the emotional connection to Natasha is: I know that my boss that I hate has a daughter, she got in the crossfire. Which means nobody cares.

All it would take is adding a short flashback scene. idk Dreykov is an asshole and doesn't care about Antonia but she is she cutest and most adorable little girl. She treats the Black Widows as older sisters. Hell if you want to make it more horrorish copy of the idea of Thor wanting to be a Valkyrie when he grows up or T'challa wanting to be a Dora Milaje. Little Antonia wants to be Black Widow when she grows up because they are badass and they are nice to her (and are also slightly confused by her) because she is nice to them and is only person that treats them as humans. Hell we could have short interaction between her and Nat. Just a smile between them would be enough.

You could get a lot of character buildup mileage out of such a short scene.

But it couldn't happen partially because the movie didn't have time for that but we didn't get that mostly because it would show us instead of telling that Nat killed a cute little innocent girl for her own personal gain. (well she thought she was destroying Red Room but mostly wanted to get away - vide she didn't check on Yelena or other widows. But I wouldn't hold that against her. It was put your oxygen mask first kind of situation. But still it would make her look bad)

Besides, that would take guts to actually show.

And technically they could have afforded to have that guts. That was last movie with Nat anyway. It would actually make this plotline about her feeling guilty about Dreykov's daughter and red in her ledger work. But well... It was last movie so they wanted to leave us with the most goodest and bleeding hartest and heartwarming mary sue version of Nat with just telling us without showing hey, she got dark past.

On the other hand if we had the rumored Endgame plotline of Nat running an orphanage. Damn that would tie to this plotline so well. We could tie the loose widows also. Dam we were robbed here I tell ya >.<

Ok I'm overdoing offtopic about Nat. Sorry

design

So yeah. Design wise Winter Soldier is like great. For Taskmaster, she sure looks cool but also kinda generic? If in 10 years you'd show me her and say it's antagonist from GI Joe or something I'll believe you :S (not touching the debate that in comics something something because unfortunately I don't know Taskmaster from comics. Although I hear that few recent ones were quite good so I'll check them out sooner or later)

snapping out of mind control

I mentioned before. It would be unfair and there is no point comparing main emotional scene of the movie versus means to an end that were repeated several times through a movie.

Natasha freeing Antonia even if she thought that Antonia will kill her because that would fair was great. What I'm annoyed is a cheap fakeout that went with that. It was just after the bombastic finale with explosions and all the cgi shit. Even without looking at the movie runtime it was obvious there will be no extra fight scene.

In catws it worked because the cgi pew pew extravaganza was a background noise and was part of a continuous fight. In BW helicarriers fell already, there was a second of dust settling and then Nat throws away the shield (uses that capsule). Tension just fell from highest place in a movie (quite literally lol), trying to rise it again for such a short moment just doesn't work.

But that's the general problem with Marvel movies. Bombastic CGI fest as grand finale that probably is "outsourced" and then actual director comes back and needs to end movie super quickly.

disappearing act at the end

So in catws there is mystery of what will Bucky do. We are given some hope since he dragged Steve out of river and visited the museum but thats all. I mean there is this annoying Marvel thing of skipping over the interesting ending of last movie and starting with next plot point. We were hoping for the grand roadtrip/hunt for Bucky but nope. We must run ahead with all the plotlines (same way I'm sure that the Spiderman is Peter Parker and he killed a guy thing will be already dealt with in the beginning of the next movie -.-) But that's bonus mini rant.

In BW they needed to wrap up to many plot lines too quickly so Antonia wakes up and that's all. We don't get a suggestion what she may do. The problem of the chip she still has installed is omitted. There is nothing. She just fucks off to lalaland with other Black Widows the end. Because we needed ending for Nat's actual family which was ok but also kinda rushed.

As I mentioned waaaay before (god, this rant is pretty long) too many hoops to jump through.

Which really sucks because if they added that one flashback scene just for Antonia and spared few more minutes for the overall ending it would work so much more better.

And I even know where they could have saved few minutes (besides the explosions thingies). The supply guy. One extra character in a movie with too many characters. In catws the supply problem (with wings) was solved with nbd shrug. If you wanted to show that Nat has her own web of contacts it should be more than one guy. IDK in Budapest there could be 10 second scene with neighbor saying hi nice to see you again we reinforced the walls after last time. In Norway we could see her visiting some special secret supply stash run by some rando before getting to the mobile home.

But oh she was on the run so that would be too many people. Then cut the people entirely. The shitty helicopter can be worked around with joke that I'm not on speaking terms with Stark rn and that's the best we can have on short notice.

Eh.. side rant again. Sorry.

So to wrap it up. I actually really would love to see what will happen with the loose Black Widows and Antonia because here they were really underdeveloped. And while widows were more of a group hero and we have Yelena as a representative so in a way it balances out but Taskmaster needed so little extra care to make her character so much better and I'm a tiiiiiiny bit salty about it.

[river-bottom-nightmare]

this was originally a bribe for @screennamealreadyused but since she already did the thing i wanted her to do, think of it as a thank you instead. this is kind of a mess bc it starts off as a hc and ends with a fic-style thing but whatever. accept my offering.

Jason had always been good with kids. No matter what others seem to think of “The Red Hood,” Jason knew that he’d been the sole reason some of those kids in Crime Alley had grown up okay, had grown up at all. And soon enough, the Red Hood developed a rep for helping kids.

Jason had seen himself reflected in those thin, hunger-stark faces, wary and untrusting but still holding out hope for someone to care. he’d become that someone for a good couple of people. of course he hadn’t expected his affinity for kids to stretch into almost all of them. and he certainly hadn’t expected his family to pick up on it.

But here he was, standing helplessly in the middle of Dick’s apartment in Bludhaven as he rushed through the different rooms, talking faster than the Flash. Rules for Mar’i and guidelines for dinner and where the first aid kit was and on and on and on. When he finally left, Jason turned to stare at his niece (his niece!), who was floating in the middle of the room, looking at him with her eerie green eyes. He’d met Mar’i a couple times, she was a sweet kid, but he’d never been alone with her for this long, and he had absolutely no idea what to do. This wasn’t a kid from Crime Alley that he could take to a seedy diner and feed them a burger and laugh about that old crappy corrupt pharmacy burning down on accident. This was a child that had grown up on an alien island, was now on Earth with her dad for the first time, and didn’t know what the hell was going on.

Then, Mar’i tilted her head and said, “Papa says you like books.”

Two hours later found them curled up together on the sofa, Mar’i in Jason’s lap as he read aloud Shakespeare’s King Lear. Mar’i was a good listener, gasping at all the dramatic parts and laughing at the funny voices he put on. And as she dozed off somewhere near Oswald’s death, Jason felt that familiar protective instinct somewhere inside him. It wasn’t helped by Dick’s smirk when he got home, that melted into a genuinely happy smile, despite Jason’s annoyed shaddup, dickface.

After that, it only got worse, because somehow, Mar’i Grayson and Lian Harper had become best friends. Jason had been a pretty consistent fixture in the Harper household, and now, both Dick and Roy would leave Mar’i and Lian with him whenever something came up. 

But Jason could honestly say he didn’t mind. Those two were brilliant, and always fun to watch over. Case in point: they were in Roy’s apartment while Roy was off on a job for the Titans. Lian and Mar’i had long since outgrown the need for a babysitter, but Jason liked the fact that they wanted him around anyway. (It’s just ‘cause you can cook, Dick had said. Shut the fuck up, dickhead, Jason said.)

Mar’i had finished painting Lian’s nails and had moved on to Jason, and he had to admit the deep red Mar’i had chosen didn’t look half bad.

“Thanks for coming, Jayjay,” Mar’i said, focusing on his pinky finger. “Lian really needed this.”

Ordinarily, Jason wouldn’t have thought much of it, but when he looked up, Lian looked almost,,,caught. Jason narrowed his eyes at her, and she looked away.

“Lian. What happened?”

Lian just shook her head, lips sealed, but Mar’i let out a sigh and responded for her. “Lian overheard her boyfriend bragging to his friends about how he was only with her because she was ‘Asian’ or whatever. She dumped him, obviously, but still. It’s rough.”

Jason stared at Mar’i for a minute. Then he made an aborted movement and both Lian and Mar’i tackled him.

“No, Jayjay don’t-”

“You’ll ruin your nail polish.”

“I’m gonna blow that fucker’s brains out.”

“Seriously, it’s not that bad. Nothing I haven’t heard before. Besides, I just wanna watch a movie later and eat your mac and cheese.” Lian grabbed the gun on Jason’s thigh holster and put it on the coffee table. Jason had a couple more on him, but deflated at the pleading expression on Lian’s face.

“You sure? Absolutely? Because I honestly do not give a shit that he’s a kid, I will permanently incapacitate him if the two of you want me too.”

This brought a faint smile to Lian’s face, and Jason prided himself on cheering her up as she settled back against a pillow. “Thanks, but no thanks. Now pass me the black, I’m going to do an accent nail.”

“Ooh, fancy,” Jason said. 

Later, when the two of them were curled up on the couch, Pacific Rim on the TV, Jason pulled out his phone. He sent off some quick identification, then followed it up with I want you to utterly destroy this fucker’s life.

Tim’s response was quick. Why?

Jason thought about sending a “because I said so,” but then realized Tim would probably go even harder on the guy if he told him what actually happened. He’s a racist asshole and hurt Lian.

At Tim’s quick message of Done, Jason smiled, then continued adding mozzarella to the mac and cheese.

And if Lian ran up to him and hugged him the next time they met, well, he’d keep how protective but happy he felt between the two of them.

Tag list: @comicsandhoney @anothertimdrakestan @birdy-bat-writes @yesboopityboop @dangerduckjpeg @astroherogirl @subtleappreciation

[everlarkficexchange]

Fortune Favors the Brave

Written by: @ambpersand

For Prompt 46: Pacific Rim inspired AU with drift compatible Everlark (or not if you’re inspired by angst). I really just want to see more of that aspect of Pacific Rim explored than what they did in the movie and what better way to do it than with Everlark! [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Rated T. 

———————————————————–

Gale was supposed to be my drift partner. My co-pilot in the giant, nuclear-powered Jaeger that we’ve dreamed of controlling together since we were kids. We promised each other that’s how it would work out once we graduated from the academy. There wasn’t any other option. How couldn’t we get a match? 

Dropping my head into my hands, I let out a long groan. When that doesn’t help, I pull my hands forward, dragging them across my face until I can dig the tips of my fingers into my eyes.

We’re practically the same person. Raised from birth in the same town, in houses next to each other, we are mirrored versions of the same personality. Long lost siblings, our mom’s joked to each other. Especially since I looked more like Gale and his siblings than I did with my own sister, Prim. 

We both hate mushrooms and would rather eat cold leftovers for breakfast than cook eggs or eat the cardboard-flavored cereal they served in the mess hall. We’re light sleepers and early risers. Our tempers flare up at the same time, from the same triggers. We have the same sense of humor and we like the same music. The same movies. Food. Everything. I can tell what he’s about to say before the words can make it to his lips, and he can do the same for me. We’re one in the same. 

How could we not be drift compatible? 

“So who did you match with?” he asks, his voice rough from beside me on the bench outside the testing center. We just got our compatibility test results back, ranked from highest to lowest. I didn’t even bother to see who else was on my list–I just searched out Gale’s name first. Anything above a 95% was considered almost a perfect match. It was rare, but it happened. 90% was good, but the Jaeger Program would accept pilots at 85% or higher. The closer the match, the better the drift.

My score with Gale? 62%. 

We spent six months in the Jaeger Program together, being beaten down by the instructors and memorizing every bit of information we could about the Jaegers and the Kaiju that we would eventually face. Every night we sparred for hours, relentless in our determination. We saw our classmates get cut. Drop out. Abandon their dreams of being a pilot because it was too hard. Too much, they claimed while they packed up their stuff from the barracks. They settled for being technicians or strategists, even though we all knew it wasn’t the same. But we made it. We graduated together, we got our pilot pins together. We did this together. All of it. 

All for a measly 62%. 

“I don’t know,” I finally find the words to answer him. The match results are sitting by my feet, crumbled into a ball from my frustration. Reaching down to grab it, I smooth out the wrinkles and hand it to him. Right now, I don’t really care to look. 

“Oh,” the sound that comes out of his throat sounds more like a laugh than anything else, and I shoot him a confused look. He’s laughing? Right now? 

“Lucky you.” 

His shoulders are shaking with restrained laughter, and horror dawns in my stomach, crawling up my throat until it feels like I might stop breathing entirely. Whatever is on that paper, it must be bad. 

I snatch the results back from him in a quick move, but my hands are shaking as my eyes track across the printed words. Please don’t be him… Please don’t be him… 

Shit. 

I can feel the color drain from my face. My usually tan complexion is probably ashen white, and my lips feel numb. It takes every ounce of energy I have to force myself to swallow. To keep breathing. To not throw up my lunch on to the sidewalk in front of our other classmates who are currently celebrating their test results. 

I didn’t just get a good match. I got the highest match possible with the worst person I’ve ever met. 

Peeta Mellark. 98%. 

———————————————————–

He’s waiting for me when I get back to my bunk. I should have known he would. Maybe I did, and that’s why I’ve got my fists clenched in anger before I even round the corner to the hallway where my room is located. It’s been burning inside of me all day, flaming up every time I think about Peeta Mellark and my stupid, pointless test scores. 

The only sound in the hall are the soles of my boots slapping against the concrete floor, but he doesn’t look up at my approach. Of course he doesn’t, I think, grinding my teeth together. He’s so wrapped up in himself he probably doesn’t ever recognize anyone else is around him. His eyes are locked on his phone, his straight white teeth digging in to his lower lip while he reads whatever is on the screen. 

“Everdeen,” he greets me with a grin when I’m only a few feet away. Or rather, he says. Greeting me would be an overstatement, considering it takes him several extra seconds to drag his eyes away from his phone and up to my face after he speaks. “You’re a hard woman to nail down.” 

I’ve avoided coming back all day, and the sun set hours ago. Just like I got my test results this afternoon, any available and eligible pilots would have received their matches today as well. The Jaeger Program is constantly scanning for better drift matches. It’s done almost weekly, with every new crop of graduates and every new addition to the pilot database. It doesn’t matter if you’re already matched if a new, better match comes along. As far as the head of the program, Plutarch Heavensbee, is concerned, the stronger the connection, the better you fight. And a well equipped Jaeger fleet is only as strong as the pilots controlling the machines. 

Peeta Mellark and I just skyrocketed to the top of the program with our 98% match. 

It’s too bad, though, that he’s absolutely insufferable. 

“You’re in my way,” I give him a pointed look, ignoring the giddy smile that’s still stretched across his face. He’s leaning against the threshold to my room, blocking me from being able to reach the door handle. 

“What? No apology for making me wait?” he teases, either oblivious to my sour mood or completely uncaring. With him, it could go either way. 

“Nope,” I shake my head and shove my hand between his back and the door, grabbing the knob. In one swift move I wrap my hand around the metal and push it forward, smiling when he stumbles back a little. 

“Easy now… That’s no way to treat your new partner, is it? Wouldn’t want me falling and cracking my head open.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad to me,” I muse, dropping my bag on the small desk next to my bed. A small kernel of guilt nestles deep into my chest. I don’t like being mean. I really don’t. But he has a way of bringing out the worst in me, and it seems like everything he does or says is my own personal brand of torture. 

Ignoring my retort, he pulls out my desk chair and drops his body down into it. He dwarfs the entire thing, built with stocky muscle and broad shoulders. He’s not that tall, but he’s tall enough that he takes up too much space in my cramped room.

“Are you really telling me you’re not excited about our match?” 

“Yes, actually. That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” I grit my teeth and try not to look at him. I don’t know why he feels the need to invade my space, now, either. Unfortunately, I know what will happen if I try to kick him out. Absolutely nothing, because Peeta Mellark does what Peeta Mellark wants. So instead I sit down on my mattress, as far as I can get from him, and begin unlacing my boots. 

“Katniss, this is huge,” the incredulity in his voice is hard to miss. “No one ever gets a 98.” 

“It must have been a mistake,” we both know it wasn’t, but I’m still going to hold out hope. The test is never wrong, and it’s not about to start messing up compatibility matches now. 

Peeta huffs out a sigh, and when I glance up at him he’s staring straight at me. Was that noise to get my attention? His blue eyes are sparkling with what looks like happiness, and my mouth turns sour. It’s just another reminder of how different we are. He’s like a giant golden retriever, but so much more loud and brash and in your face. Never not joking around, strutting through the base like he’s so special. Like nothing can touch him. He’s happy. 

“Come on, you know you want to give me a chance. Give us a chance,” he lifts his ashy blond eyebrows in expectation, and I can’t stop the snort that slips out. 

“I really don’t,” my words are honest, and I see the moment they hit him. His eyes dim a little and his mouth twitches down slightly, but as soon as the frown appears it’s gone again. Expertly smoothed away and masked by that signature confidence he’s known so well for. Or cockiness, if we’re all being honest. 

There’s no doubt that Peeta Mellark is the best Jaeger pilot in the country. Even I can’t deny that fact, as much as I don’t like him. His hit counts are legendary, and he’s never missed a drop. Even through the training exercises and demonstrations he gave to the academy students, my class included, it’s clear that he knows what he’s doing. 

The only problem? He can’t keep a drift partner to save his life. 

“Katniss,” he says my name again, his tone pulling the syllables into a little melody. I hate it, and I don’t try to hide my glare at him. “You won’t even spar with me?” 

“No,” shaking my head, I sit back up and push my boots off one at a time. When my feet are finally free, I can’t help but wiggle my toes in relief. The standard issue uniform is uncomfortable at best, and the leather of my shoes are still stiff after months of wear. 

“Not even once?” 

“Not even once,” I stand and move toward the door. I can’t take having him in here any longer. It’s making my skin crawl, and I want to scrub my nails across my arms until I feel like myself again. “Now please leave. I have things I need to do.” 

Surprisingly, he listens. It’s a first, and I struggle to cover my shock at his sudden compliance.

“Fine, but I’ll be back,” he promises me with a wink. 

When he struts out of my bunk, I finally let out the breath I’ve been holding in my lungs. It’s the most I’ve ever spoken to him in one sitting, and the only time we’ve ever been alone…. And I’m not looking forward to when it happens again.

———————————————————–

That night, I can’t sleep. I toss and I turn so many times that it feels like my skin is starting to chafe from the friction against the rough, standard-issue barrack sheets. Every time I close my eyes, I see that damn list. Then, I see Peeta’s grinning face, and I get frustrated all over again. It goes on and on for hours, no matter how many times I try to direct my mind elsewhere or to focus on something else. I can’t. 

How could I match with him? Of all people? 

We couldn’t be any more different, and I don’t understand. I would have bet my entire life savings that I would have been matched compatible with Gale. It made sense. This? This doesn’t make one lick of sense and I don’t know how to begin processing it. 

The worst part is that once you’re a pilot, you can’t deny your drift partner. If you’re matched, you’re matched. You don’t get to be picky, and the only way to get a different partner is to find a better match. It’s either that or drop out of the program entirely. Which is not an option. Then again, neither is finding a new match. The likelihood of finding anyone above a 98% is impossible. Even Gale’s highest match was an 89%. Some people don’t even find eligible matches after graduating from the pilot’s program, and to have such a high result on my first shot? It’s likely that I’ll be stuck with him forever, or until one of us inevitably dies. 

Even though I tried to deny the test results earlier when Peeta was in my room, I can’t. Over the last few years, they’ve refined the process until it’s virtually flawless. It’s never been wrong before, and it won’t be wrong now. It would be stupid to try and believe otherwise. The tests look at every possible aspect of your personality, analyzing and categorizing you until you’re just a series of traits. There are thousands that it ranks you on, taking into consideration the tiniest of details and adding them up into one profile that gets added to the compatibility database. 

Your memories. Your experiences. Good and bad, it looks at everything. No stone is left unturned. It reviews your temperament, your fighting techniques, your natural dispositions and your best skills. The test itself takes an entire week to complete, and it spans from memory puzzles to written essays to physical sparring matches. It even takes into consideration references from the academy, and how you interact with other pilots. Simulated Jaeger drops complete the test, but at that point it’s just a formality. 

I know I’m good. Gale and I both are, and we graduated at the top of our class. Even our instructor, Haymitch Abernathy, couldn’t disagree. We had the highest simulation kill rates in the last five years. Which, coincidentally, was when Peeta Mellark graduated from the program. 

It’s the only thing we have in common. 

Everything else, we’re polar opposites. I wouldn’t consider myself petite, but I’m small enough. Him? He’s easily 10 inches taller than me, with stocky muscles and a body made for brute force. I’m lithe and quick on my feet, trained from a young age when Gale and I used to have to hunt for food to feed our families. After both of our dads died during a Kaiju attack on the coast, the two of us had to step up and fill the gap.

Peeta? He grew up in a happy home. Or at least, it sure as hell looks happy. It was normal at the very least, as everyone knows when his parents give tearful interviews on TV about him and how wonderful it is to have a son that’s out fighting for the safety of the world. As if there’s no one else out doing the same thing, and the entire Jaeger program is resting on his shoulders. 

Ugh, I roll my eyes in the dark of my room. 

I’m confident, yeah, but I’m not cocky like he is. I would never go around bragging about my drop/kill rates the way that he does. Or boasting every time he loses a partner that it’s “for the best, because he’s the best.” If my memory serves me, he’s never had a drift partner last longer than a year, and he’s gone through six since graduating from the academy. They’ve never been higher than a 90% match, either. 

Not that I was paying attention. 

With a heavy sigh, I twist my body around in the thin blanket until I’m laying on my back again, then push myself into a sitting position. There’s no sense in trying to pretend I’m going to fall back asleep. If it hasn’t happened yet, it wont, and I need to do something with the restless energy that’s coursing through my limbs. 

With ease, I get dressed in the dark, pulling a pair of clean shorts and a t-shirt from my dresser. That’s something else they taught us, back at the beginning of the program. Get dressed fast, because there’s no time to waste if a Kaiju crosses the breach at 2 AM. 

Shooting off a quick text to Gale, I pull on my running shoes and lock the door to my room as I head toward the gym. Even though there’s still an hour or so before dawn, he’ll likely be up soon. I can get in a few miles on the treadmill, and then practice sparring techniques until he shows up and we can do our regular workout together. 

Pulling a deep breath into my chest, I try to settle my raging nerves and focus on what changes I want to make to my workout routine today, instead of the impending drift training with Peeta Mellark. 

———————————————————–

He only gives me three days of space before tracking me down again. I’ll give him credit for lasting longer than I would have bet, because I expected to find him camped outside of my room on more than one occasion. 

Then again, I have been avoiding him, so maybe I didn’t make it easy. 

Gale immediately jumped into training with his new partner, Thom, which has left me with more free time than I’ve had since enlisting in the academy. Training with your new partner means spending almost every available moment with them. Eating meals together, exercising, sparring practice… Anything to give you insight into who they are and what it’s going to be like when you get hooked up for your first drift. Everything I’m not doing with Peeta.

Even though the pilot academy had us doing weekly drop simulations, the Jaeger Program keeps the drift technology under lock and key. Only certified pilots are cleared to drift, and from all the stories in our history books… It’s dangerous. Not as much as it used to be, but dangerous enough that only certain types of people are cut out for it. 

People like me and Peeta, apparently. 

Back before they refined the technology that enabled two minds to link up into one massive machine, the Jaeger Program lost a lot of pilots. Some to brain aneurysms and strokes, because the neural load was too much, and others to madness. They learned pretty early on that it’s too much for one brain to handle on their own, but you can’t just throw two people into the drift together and expect it to be okay. When you link up with a drift partner, you see everything about them. The things that make them who they are, the events that shaped them into the person strapped in to the Jaeger beside you, facing down death and destruction. It feels like you’re there with them. It feels like you are them. You see the innermost workings of their minds, and see what they are thinking before the thoughts can translate into words. In the drift, you take a little bit of themselves into your mind, and they do the same in return. 

So if it’s not a good match? You’ll never be the same. 

I can’t imagine what Peeta’s mind looks like after six partners. I’m sure it will be utter chaos as soon as we link up, and I can only theorize on the types of things I’ll see. Flashes of his memories, definitely. Probably some from his childhood, and others during the academy. Not only does he have a reputation as a cocky pilot, but he’s a playboy to boot. I’ll see him sleeping with half the female population on the base. At the thought, I shudder. It’s a worse reality than knowing I’ll see what it’s like to face a Kaiju in the middle of the ocean. 

That, I can handle. I’ve studied the pictures and the videos. I know that they bleed toxic blue sludge and scream at ultrasonic frequencies that will burst windows and fry electronics. They’re big and brutal and deadly. I’ve spent years learning about them, starting in school when they added the first attacks to our history books. After my dad’s death, I grew up with a desire for vengeance burning in my chest to finish as many of them as I can. I’ll die in a Jaeger, if it means I can protect another child from having to experience the same grief and trauma I did. 

Hearing about Peeta Mellark’s sexual escapades are one thing. Seeing them and feeling them as if I’m him? It’s enough to make my stomach churn. The overwhelming nausea only increases when I realize the reality of the situation…. If I have to see all of Peeta’s dirty little secrets, he’s going to see mine too. 

Oh god. He’ll see the awkward kiss that Gale and I shared in the woods. When his lips were so cold from the morning frost they felt like ice cubes against my own, and I laughed through my nose at how strange and wrong it felt. He will see the day that my mom sat me down and told me that my dad was dead, and that his body was never recovered so we couldn’t even have a burial. He’ll know the sharp stomach pains that I felt when I realized my mom was too depressed to go grocery shopping, and that I would have to do something about it if we wanted to survive. 

He’ll know the nights that I laid awake in the too-small room I shared with my sister, listening to the steady whispers of her breathing while I wondered what it would be like to survive. To succeed.  

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t even see him when he comes into the gym. Or when he leans against the wall, watching me as I finish out my three mile run. My eyes are straight ahead, burning holes into the wall while I think about all the ways my life is about to get turned upside down. 

It was always supposed to be Gale. 

“Wow,” Peeta’s voice jolts me out of my reverie, and my left foot catches on the belt of the treadmill. My feet stumble a little but I right myself quickly, sucking in a deep breath and slapping the emergency stop on the machine. My heart feels like it might burst through my ribcage and out of my chest completely, but I cover my surprise with a hard scowl in his direction. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone frown so hard before. I’m almost afraid to ask what you’re thinking.”

“Then don’t,” snatching my water bottle from the holder, I step off the treadmill and move toward the door, but his words stop me. 

“It’s just a matter of time before I see it for myself, anyway.”

I can’t stop the flash of anger that makes me turn on my heel and march right up to him, crowding his body against the wall. I’m small, yes, but I’ve got more anger than he does.

He steps back a little, pressing his body into the wall, but looks down at me with an amused expression, like he’s waiting. Waiting for what? To see what I do next?

“Leave me alone,” I demand. 

“I have,” he shrugs, completely unbothered. “I gave you three days. It’s time you get your head out of the sand so we can start training.”

“I’m not training with you,” I spit back, crossing my arms over my chest. It’s still heaving with exertion from my run, and I’m fairly sweaty, but I don’t care. 

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were dropping out of the program. My apologies,” the smirk that stretches across his face is so smug that I have to refrain from throwing my water bottle across the room. 

He’s got me backed into a corner, and there’s nothing I can do. I either train with him, or I drop out. I knew what the stakes were when I enrolled in the pilot program, I just didn’t realize I’d get screwed so hard. 

“Not today,” I shake my head and move to leave. I need more time. 

“Then when?” he laughs, following me.

“I don’t know.” 

I only make it halfway to the door before his large hand wraps around my wrist, halting my steps. 

“That’s not good enough, and we both know it,” when he speaks, his voice is low and rough. 

“Let me go,” I yank at my wrist, but he doesn’t give. 

“No,” he replies, and when I turn my head to glare at him, his eyes are sparkling. 

“You know, I heard a lot about you from Plutarch. And Haymitch. They said you were good.”

I don’t understand why he’s telling me this, and I try to back up a step but he pulls me closer instead. 

“But I didn’t take you for a quitter.” 

His words hit me like a punch to the chest, and the water bottle in my opposite hand drops to the floor with a clatter. 

“You–” I start, snarling the words as I rear back to punch him. But he’s too quick, catching my fist with his other hand, as easily as he might catch a ball during a game of toss. 

“There she is,” he laughs a little, watching me as I struggle. He’s too strong, and with my hands locked in his palms, I’m almost helpless. Almost. 

Continuing to pull with my upper body, I wait a moment until it looks like he’s distracted by holding me still. His arms are big, yeah, and roped with muscle…. But his center of gravity is a lot higher than mine. 

Dropping low, I sweep my leg out, catching his ankle with my foot and knocking him down to the ground. He lets out a grunt, releasing my hands to catch his fall, but I’m too slow to scramble away. My limbs are already feeling heavy from my brutal run, and he takes advantage of my slower pace by yanking me down on top of him.

It turns into a scuffle almost immediately. When I go to roll off of his body and on to the floor so I can get back up, he locks his leg around my waist and twists his torso. I know what he’s doing–he’s trying to get me pinned. It’s the same move I typically use on Gale, and it’s not exactly in the sparring rulebook. Unfortunately for Peeta, I know how to get out of it easier than he does. 

With a quick shift of my weight, I pull my leg up and press my knee against his chest, using the leverage to push him up and off with a heavy grunt. Just because he’s bigger doesn’t mean he’s going to get the upper hand. For all his strength and power, I’ve got speed and flexibility. The force of my shin on his abdomen causes him to let out a rough groan, but I don’t get anywhere that fast. He latches his arms around me and rolls backward, taking my body on top of his.

His biceps are like iron grips around my torso, and we pause at the same moment, breathing heavy and in sync. 

“You’re a little spitfire, aren’t you?” he doesn’t sound mad that we’re wrestling around on the floor like a couple of children. He sounds amused. 

“Screw you,” I hiss between clenched teeth, bucking his hold. Or at least, trying to. I don’t get far, but I manage to loosen his hold enough to get one arm out and press it against his throat. 

“Let me go,” I demand.

“Is that all you’ve got?” he wheezes, trying to suck in air while I press down hard on his windpipe. In a flash, I’m back on the floor, my back hitting the polished concrete with a dull thud. The only thing keeping me from smacking my head against the floor is the strain of my neck, keeping it upright while I struggle to get my footing. His weight is pressing me down and he moves into a hold position, swinging his legs around to the side and pressing down on the tops of my thighs with one heavy knee. 

“No,” I know if I can twist myself around to my stomach, I can leverage myself up and back. The move will push him off me, and I’ll have all the power. If I wasn’t afraid of getting a citation and being put on bathroom cleaning duty, I’d throw in a headbutt to disorient him. 

And to give him a bloody nose. 

Pushing my arms out, I loosen his hold just enough to make room so I can turn around underneath him. It’s stunted by the fact that he’s pressing his entire weight down on top of me, and I pull a shoulder muscle in the process, but I get there. 

“Not so fast,” he manages to catch on to my maneuver and shifts his body the rest of the way on top of mine, pressing me down completely flat. 

Shit. He’s easily got a hundred pounds on me, and I can’t move. I’m plastered to the floor, sweaty and exhausted, and I can’t even lift my hips by an inch. When I try, I suck in a deep breath to hide the gasp that rises up my throat–Peeta’s hips are pressed into my backside, and I can feel everything. He’s not hard, but the outline of his penis is obvious enough through the thin material of our workout clothes. 

“Let me go,” I grunt the words out again, trying my hardest to get out from underneath him. I barely move an inch, and he laughs. 

“Is this what you’ve been running from? You don’t want to spar with someone who’s on your level?” 

“You’re not on my level,” I try, but it comes out weak. We’re evenly matched, as much as I don’t want to admit it. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be wrestling around on the dirty gym floor. We’re highly skilled, trained fighters. One of us should have won the match immediately. 

“I am and we both know it. Hawthorne, on the other hand…” he trails off, musing to himself like he’s not practically laying on top of me. 

“Don’t talk about Gale,” I snap, shoving my shoulder back. It bumps him in the head, but he only tightens his hold. 

“Why not? Your precious boyfriend isn’t that good. I’ve seen the way you whip his ass every time you guys spar. It’s not even a contest,” he says the word contest like it’s an insult, what Gale and I do. And sure, maybe I am a better fighter than Gale, but that doesn’t mean he’s bad. 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I don’t know why I feel the sudden urge to clarify that to him, and I regret the words as soon as they fall from my lips. Peeta must be processing the words, and in his moment of confusion, I know what I have to do. I have to do what he least expects, because that’s the only thing that can take him by surprise. It’s the only thing that would take either of us by surprise, and it’s the one thing that we’re hardwired to never do. 

I give up. 

I go completely limp underneath him, letting the air rush out of my lungs on a heavy sigh. My arms go slack and my legs stop twisting, and I feel my heated skin melt into the hard floor beneath my body. 

“What the–” Peeta’s sudden confusion isn’t lost on me. It’s the first time I’ve given up a fight since enrolling in the academy. 

“That’s it? You’re giving up?” 

“Please let me up,” I try for a nice tone, but it’s ruined by the fact that I’m grinding my teeth together. I’m sure I’ll have a hell of a headache to show for it, but I just want him off of me. 

“Promise me you’ll come to training, then.” 

“Fine,” I sigh after a moment of hard silence. I’ll get a summons if I don’t, anyway. 

With a slight huff, Peeta rolls off of me and extends his hand. Shooting him a hard look, I press my palms on to the floor and push myself up, ignoring the offer. 

“Plutarch wants to push up our training schedule. He wants to get us in the drift immediately.” his words stop me in my tracks.

“What?” taking a step back from him, I look around. There are only a few people in the gym at this hour, and they’re all avoiding looking at us. Probably because we just made a huge scene, and they’re just waiting for us to leave so they can all start to gossip. 

“We aren’t supposed to drift until after we train together. To see if we work,” I shake my head, like I might be able to dislodge the outrageous statement he just told me. It’s too soon–we need time first. 

“Maybe for the others. But we’re a higher match than anyone else in the program, and I’m the best ranked pilot in the entire country. There’s no sense in wasting time.” 

“God, you’re cocky,” reaching down to pick up my discarded water bottle from the floor nearby, I shake my head. 

“Yeah, well, get used to it. I’m yours now. And you’re mine.” 

This time, he doesn’t wait for my response. He walks away, sauntering through the gym and out the double doors before I can pick my jaw up off the ground. 

———————————————————–

I’ve got another new reason to add to my list of why I can’t drift with Peeta Mellark, and it’s because as soon as we connect, he’s going to see the effect he had on me. That when he walked out of the gym two days ago, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his body felt on top of mine, and how, for once, his swagger was enough to make me feel a little weak. 

And I think I might be sick because of it. My stomach is rolling, and acid is burning at the back of my throat as I walk through the Shatterdome. It’s total chaos in here, with Rangers and Jaeger technicians running from machine to machine. Right now, there are four massive Jaegers stationed inside, ready and waiting. 

And one of them belongs to Peeta Mellark. 

There aren’t that many pilots in the program. In total, it’s a little over 15, now counting me and Gale. It’s a ranked system, with the best and most established pilots getting their own Jaegers. Gale and I would have been at the bottom of the list, too, as new graduates. I suppose he still is, but I’ve managed to cheat the system somehow, even if it wasn’t intended. 

Two of the Jaegers are dedicated to pilot teams, including the one that I’ll be joining Peeta in today. It’s a big hulking thing, with a nuclear reactor nestled in the chest and cannons attached to each arm. It’s an older model, a Mark V, but it’s strong and sturdy. The second one is manned by Finnick Odair and Johanna Mason, and as a team they’re both about as ruthless as they come. They’re cunning and fast, and the Mark VI machine is made for speed. Aside from Peeta, they’re the best in the country. They’ve been at it longer than he has too, by several years and a few extra kills.

The other two are kept as backups, and when the Breach Alarm sounds, they’ll be filled with whoever is stationed on base and the most qualified. It’s a last line of defense, and if Peeta or Finnick and Johanna do their jobs right, they won’t need to be deployed. 

I guess that means me too, now.

“You ready?” my old instructor, Haymitch Abernathy, comes limping toward me as I’m stuck staring up at the massive machines. I’ve seen them in person before, and it’s never short of breathtaking. The pure power is undeniable, and if I were the type to cry… Well, it’s a good thing I don’t wear mascara. 

“As I’ll ever be.” 

Haymitch used to be a pilot, back when the Mark II machines were considered state of the art. But after his partner died in combat and he was left to pilot the Jaeger back to safety with a crippled leg, he’s never stepped foot back inside one. Now he’s just a gruff instructor who likes to give me shit. 

“Why are you here, anyway?” I ask him when we step into the elevator that will take us up to the loading platform. The drift tech is nestled deep inside each Jaeger, and the best way to drift with your partner is inside the machine you’ll be piloting. 

“To make sure you didn’t kill him before getting into that machine,” Haymitch flashes me a wry smile, and heat creeps up the back of my neck. 

“That obvious?” 

“I had a feeling from the first day you stepped foot into my classroom.” 

The choked noise that erupts from my throat makes him chuckle, and my mouth drops open as I sputter for words. 

“Don’t get yourself all worked up about it now,” he shakes his head, cutting off whatever denial I was about to come up with. “It was just a hunch. Gale’s a good guy, but…”

“But?” I shake my head, waiting for his answer. The elevator doors open to the loading platform, but I’m not going anywhere until he gives me some sort of explanation. 

“You’re fire. And so is Gale. And you know what happens when you burn too hot? You either explode or you extinguish yourself entirely.” 

He walks right past me, limping along like there’s nothing ridiculous about what he just said. I follow before the doors can close and separate us and catch back up in a few swift steps. 

“Your partner is supposed to be someone who’s just like you. Who can anticipate your thoughts before you can even finish thinking them. Who knows you, inside and out.” 

“You learn who your partner is through the drift, Katniss. Not beforehand. And your partner isn’t supposed to be just like you. Your partner is supposed to be there to compliment you. To make up for your weaknesses with their strengths. And so you can do the same for them.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” I try to argue, but he shakes his head and stops me with a hand on my shoulder. 

“Get your head out of your ass. I know I taught you better than that.” 

He leaves me behind again, making his way toward the control room without a look back. The technicians behind the control desk will be monitoring our drift. They won’t be able to see everything that we do, but they’ll be able to watch how our bodies react. They’ll see our vitals as they spike and drop, as we rush through a lifetime’s worth of memories in just a few seconds. 

“Katniss Everdeen?” a tall woman pokes her head out from a door nearby, catching my attention. “We’re ready for you.” 

Behind that door is where I’ll get suited up with a specially designed set of full body armor, made exactly to my measurements. Casted out of lightweight carbon fiber, it’s rigged with the latest and greatest technology to keep me safe. To keep my brain connected with Peeta’s, and our bodies connected to the Jaeger. 

With a deep breath, I summon what little bravery I can find and walk through the door. Once inside, I come to a full halt. Luckily, Peeta isn’t in here, but it seems like half of the Shatterdome is. It’s packed full of people, bustling around like mad. A smaller man comes rushing from a door to the left with a helmet tucked in his hands, while another begins detaching hoses from the armor that’s hanging against the far wall. Hydraulic fluid. I recognize the color, and I wonder why they’re doing a full service on the drift suit since this is just a trial run. It’s a bigger deal than the simulations we go through, but it’s not like they’re preparing for a drop. 

“What’s the deal?” I manage to catch one of the armor technicians as he passes by, wrapping my fingers around his upper arm. 

“The suits always have to be ready to go. Just in case,” he shrugs out of my hold and continues on his way, hurrying toward the control desk. 

“Are you ready?” the same woman who pulled me from the hall takes a long look down my body. “You’re going to need to undress down to your underwear, please.” 

In here? I think, my eyes darting around at all the people, but before I can argue she purses her lips. 

“Come on, we don’t have all day. You better get used to it if you want to be a pilot.” 

Shit. With a sigh, I reach down to untie my boots, kicking them off one at a time, before following with my pants. As soon as my shirt has been pulled over my head, another tech comes and sweeps away my pile of clothes. I guess that’s that. I try to resist the urge to cover my stomach with my arms, and press my shoulders back instead. This is it.

“Okay, let’s get you ready to drift, pilot,” her face warms a little when she smiles, and I soak in the title. 

Pilot. 

It takes three technicians to get me dressed in my armor, but I’m surprised once it’s all on. It’s lighter than I expected, and I can move around freely in a way that I didn’t think would be possible. 

“Ranger Mellark is ready to go, Captain,” the same tech that collected my clothes comes by again, this time wearing a headset. 

“Copy, tell them we’re headed to the loading platform,” the woman beside me answers, straightening to her full height and resting a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go.” 

As we walk out of the room, I catch sight of her nametag. It’s situated on her left breast above a stack of medals and commendation pins. 

Paylor. 

“Any parting words of wisdom?” I ask when we approach the loading dock and she stops at a wide yellow line on the floor. Past that line is the interior chamber of the Jaeger, where my co-pilot is waiting for me. Where everything is about to change. Everything I’ve been waiting for has led to this moment. Everything I’ve worked for, hoped for, and dreamed about. 

My palms are beginning to sweat, and I pull in a shaky breath. With a smile, Paylor pushes me forward. “Good luck.” 

Peeta is waiting for me in the main chamber, with his back to the door. He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet, shaking out his arms and stretching his neck as he gets ready to step into the mechanisms that lock our bodies into the Jaeger. There are two techs ready and waiting to help us step into the controls, but he turns to me before they even catch that I’ve entered the room. 

“Katniss,” he smiles, and a strange warm sensation floods my system. 

“Peeta,” I nod, unwilling and unable to muster a smile. The warm sensation morphs into something else, rolling over my stomach like ocean waves against a buoy. Don’t get sick. Don’t get sick. 

“Did Haymitch have to drag you here, kicking and screaming?” he asks, even though his face is lit up like a little kid on Christmas Day. He might be giving me shit but he’s completely alive right now, in his element and ready to drift. 

“Is it that unlikely that I would show up on my own?” I avert my eyes forward and step into place, locking my feet into the metal stirrups that control the lower half of the machine. 

“Yes,” his answer is blunt, and he follows my movements. As soon as we’re locked in, the armor technicians come around and pull our helmets over our heads, securing them into place. 

“How many summons did you get?” his next question is louder in my ear because of the comm system in the helmets, and I wince at the sudden noise. 

“Just one.” 

There’s no sense in trying to lie. He’ll see for himself soon enough. 

“Ready?” he asks, giving his technician a thumbs up. I repeat the action with my own and nod, even though he’s looking straight forward. 

“I guess so,” the words barely make it out of my mouth before the countdown begins, crackling through the earpiece speaker. 

“Drift initiating in five… four… three… two…” 

Peeta interrupts the countdown in a low whisper. “See you on the other side, Everdeen.” 

“One.” 

With a jolt of electricity, my body seizes up. It’s like being struck by lightning, but instead of my vision going black, it’s pure white. Flashing images and noise flood my system, and I can’t make out a word of it. I can’t hear anything through the sudden chaos, but I feel the gasp as it rushes into my lungs. As soon as I manage another breath, the images start to get sharper, morphing into recognizable scenes. 

A little blond boy, being hugged by his father. Peeta. Then he’s laughing and running through an empty yard with two older boys who look a lot like him. Brothers?

It flashes again, changing suddenly. He’s cowering in the corner, clutching his arm. It looks odd and bent at a weird angle, and he’s trying to shield his body away. There’s screaming, but I can’t make out any of the sounds, until a woman comes at him with a large wooden rolling pin. 

Don’t chase the rabbit, don’t chase the rabbit. I try to resist the pull… if you pay attention to the memories too much, you could get stuck in them. 

“You’ll never be as good as them. Your brothers have always been better than you. I don’t even know why you keep wasting your time,” the same woman is looking at Peeta now, but he’s older. Almost an adult. And he’s got a book in his hands… about Jaegers? “I need to at least try,” he tells her, but she laughs at him instead. 

I shake my head, but it doesn’t dislodge the memories. I have a sinking feeling that the woman I’m seeing is his mother. From my recollection of the television interviews, it looks a lot like her… This version is just younger and less grey. 

“Peeta Mellark!” he’s greeted by sudden applause at the academy graduation ceremony, and he’s decked out in his dress uniform. His satisfaction is hollow though, and empty when he looks out across the crowd and doesn’t see any familiar faces. 

A sudden flash of lightning and a force rocks me back on my heels. No, it’s the memory. He’s locked into the Jaeger, stepping back into position with his partner. The Kaiju has swept it’s tail round, knocking the side of the machine with brute force. It’s trying to take them down into the ocean. To drown them– “No!” both Peeta and his copilot shout at the same time, fighting back as one. “Get ready!” he shouts, pulling forward the controls. They’ve got one shot left in the cannon, and if they don’t hit the beast right in the middle of it’s bulky body… Thousands of people will die. Easily. 

The floor stabilizes, and the images blur again. “Your partner has been reassigned,” Plutarch Heavensbee rests a hand on his shoulder, apologetic at the news. “Again?” Peeta can’t help but sigh, and the rejection stings like a knife in his stomach. I can feel it, and my hands clutch at my abdomen, even though there’s nothing there. “The right match will come up one day, just wait. You’re too good to go solo,” Plutarch tries to joke, but Peeta can’t even muster a smile. 

Damn, she’s good. The voice in my head is now Peeta’s, but I see… myself? 

He’s watching me spar with Gale, I realize. We’re wrestling on the floor of the academy training center, and my hair is pulled back in a tight braid. I remember this day… It’s the day he came to speak to our class about what it was like to fight off a 2500 pound Category 3 Kaiju. “She’s pulling her punches for him,” Peeta whispers to the man next to him. Haymitch? “I know,” he responds. “But you can’t tell her that.” “She’s not going to get any better if you keep babying her.” “You think I’m babying her?” Haymitch laughs, but Peeta’s eyes go back to me. I’m grappling with my legs wrapped around Gale’s torso, my elbow driving in to the back of his neck. “God, she’s magnificent.” 

The last words fade, and I realize he didn’t speak them out loud. He’s thinking them right now. I suck in a breath, but the vision falters to a final scene. 

“Oh god,” the words are more of a moan than anything else, and Peeta laughs deep in his chest. “Be quiet,” he shushes her. “Before someone hears you.” He’s trailing kisses over a woman’s neck, but I can’t see her face, They’re locked in a dark closet somewhere, cramped between shelves, but that doesn’t stop them. He’s grinding his hips into hers, and her legs are latched around her waist while she writhes against him. When his lips find the spot on her neck that makes her clench, he laughs again. 

“Katniss,” I hear him speak, but I’m too focused. I can’t look away, even though there isn’t much to see. I can feel everything. His desperation. His desire. All of it. Buried deep underneath the haze of lust, though, is something else. Something smaller and harder to pinpoint. It feels dull and achy, like a scar that didn’t quite heal right. 

“Come on,” I hear him murmur into her ear. “You love it, don’t you?” “I do,” she cries, raking her nails down the back of his neck. I can feel the warmth flooding my system like I’m right there with him. Like I’m her, whoever she is, and I shudder in a ragged breath. It’s so good, and it seems so close–

“Katniss!” Peeta shouts into my earpiece, and I suck in a breath like I’m breaking the surface of the ocean. It feels like I’ve been drowning, and as soon as my eyes pop open, I realize that I must have closed them. I’m out of the haze of his memories, back in the middle of the Jaeger with him. In person. Not a memory. 

“You chased the rabbit,” he chides, and the heat that floods my face is second only to the raging fire between my legs. “See anything good?” he laughs, but I know that he knows. 

Now that I’m not submerged in 25 years worth of his memories, I know what he saw of mine. Prim following me around when we were just kids, when she still carried around the stuffed yellow bear that was her favorite. The day my dad died, and when Gale and I started hunting together. The promises we made. My first day at the academy, when I thought I might faint at the sight of a jar of Kaiju blood on my instructor’s desk. When I got the news that Peeta was my partner, and the strange heat I felt after we sparred in the gym. 

“Drift successful. Pilots, you are now linked,” the technician’s voice filters through the earpiece, tinny from the control room transmission. 

“Well, well, well,” I hear Peeta say, but when I look at him, there’s more written on his face. It’s clear as day, but it takes me a minute… no, the emotions that I’m sensing aren’t on his face at all. They’re in his head, and so am I. 

The worst thing isn’t that he knows that I’m turned on by what I saw. It’s that he’s turned on by me, too, and now we both know it. 

[gumnut-logic]

Need (Part One)

Title: Need

Part One

Author: Gumnut

8 Mar 2020

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: We need to do what we need to do.

Word count: 1944

Spoilers & warnings: Season 3

Timeline: Sometime after the end of season 3

Author’s note: This last week saw my muse completely fry under stress, mostly from work. I didn’t write for something like five days. I couldn’t write. It was bad. Nutty was a frazzled mess. So, when I did start writing, I didn’t care what I wrote as long as I managed to get something down on the page after being unable to for so long. So, we have the beginning of another fic. I have written and completed Part Two and am into Part Three so there is more to come, I promise. This does not mean I’m abandoning any of my other WIPs, I just need to be kind to myself or I’ll end up writing nothing. This is better than nothing, trust me. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

This is in answer to the ‘brain trauma’ prompt from the whump prompt list. Many thanks to @sofasurf for the suggestion and the plotwork chat ::hugs you::

Many thanks to @scribbles97​ and @i-am-chidorixblossom​ for the read throughs and reassurance.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

 “Dad, I’m over eighteen. It’s my leave, I can do what I want.”

It was said calmly, without malice, but Virgil still frowned as he walked into the comms room.

“Regardless, Alan, I still don’t think it is a very good idea.”

Just as equally calm and considered. Their father was standing near his desk frowning at Alan who was in the sunken lounge not quite glaring up at his father.

“It is safe, Dad. The track has the best safety record on the planet.”

“It is still car racing, Alan.”

“I fly a rocket. How can racing a car be more dangerous than that?”

“It isn’t the car. It’s all the other cars that complicate the matter.”

“That’s what makes it fun!”

“Alan-“

“I really want to do this, Dad.” A swallow. “And I’m going to. I’m sorry.”

Virgil watched as his father straightened, his expression stiffening. “I only want you to be safe, son.”

Alan climbed up out of the pit and approached their dad. “I know.” A hug was offered and the older man drew his son into his arms.

Only Virgil could see the desperation in his father’s expression as he scrunched his face up behind Alan’s shoulder and the engineer realised neither of them knew he was there. Virgil had the sudden urge to backtrack and get out of the room before they discovered him.

Too late.

A pair of grey eyes opened and caught sight of him and widened just slightly.

Father and son parted. Alan, still unaware of Virgil’s presence, looked up at their dad. “I’ll do you proud, I promise.”

Their father looked down. Quietly. “You already have.”

A nudge and Dad indicated Virgil’s presence.

Alan jumped.

And so he should. This was a discussion that had already occurred between Scott, Virgil and Alan on several occasions. Sure, now his brother was eighteen and technically he could do what he wanted, but Scott had forbidden it multiple times already.

“Oh, hey, Virg.”

“Alan.” He put everything he needed into his little brother’s name.

Dad frowned.

Virgil narrowed his gaze to the young astronaut. “Scott is working on One. You should go give him a hand.”

“Virg-“

“Now.”

Whispered. “FAB.” He slunk out of the room, his expression one of dread.

That left Virgil with his father.

“Hey, Dad.”

The older man turned back to his desk and poked at a holographic file. “Good morning, Virgil.”

“How are you feeling today?” He couldn’t help himself. He probably shouldn’t ask but his concern for his father was a physical thing that gnawed at him in the dark.

Those broad shoulders tensed up.

No, he really shouldn’t ask that question every morning. Damn.

“I’m fine, Virgil. You don’t need to worry.”

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

His father turned slightly to look at him. “It is understandable, but you really need to worry less.”

Virgil snorted. “Habit.” Scott had been worrying him for a lifetime. Dad was just a bonus round at this point.

Of course, that word earned him a frown. “Have you had breakfast?”

“Was on my way down.” When he heard his little brother wrangling his way into getting what he wanted. Scott was going to strangle him when he found out.

“Mind if I join you? A little brunch wouldn’t hurt.”

“What time did you get up?”

The grey glare hit him between his eyebrows and he threw up his hands in defence. “Okay, okay, no more questions about your health.”

“Your Grandma already roasted me this morning. The two of you are going to need to coordinate.”

He had to snort at that.

The two men trotted down the stairs to the kitchen together, rustled up a rather indulgent meal and decided to partake it out on the patio. For once in his life, Gordon was not in the pool, so they had the glorious morning to themselves.

He didn’t fail to notice that his father couldn’t help but stare up into the blue of the sky as if he couldn’t believe it was that colour.

Virgil focussed on his coffee and its gift of sanity, its warmth crawling into his belly and booting his brain.

“Has Alan been driving long?”

An arched eyebrow in his father’s direction. “Not really. He learnt a couple of years ago with Parker, like all of us, but he doesn’t get much of a chance to upkeep the skill.”

“Then why...?”

“He has a thrill-seeking friend. Brandon Berenger.” Initially, Virgil had thought it a great thing for Alan to hang out with the teenager. Scott had his reservations, but had agreed that living like a monk on an island in the middle of the Pacific was not healthy for any of them. Alan found a friend, so he spent time with him.

The problem was teenagehood.

The arguments were inevitable.

“Alan is not stupid, he just wants acceptance with his peer group.”

A wiry smile curled his Dad’s lips. “I remember that.�� It slipped into a grin. “Do you still maintain all those piercings?”

“Daad!”

His father held up his hands. “Hey, I did warn you, but you were just as determined.”

Virgil glared at him over the rim of his coffee cup.

“The purple hair was particularly entertaining.”

“Oh god.”

His father snorted and laughed. “Don’t worry, son, we all look back and groan. Trust me.”

“Sure. I bet you were as sharp and as perfect as Scott.”

That earned him an arched eyebrow. “What gave you the idea that Scott was perfect?”

“Uh, the grade average and the air force uniform?”

Another snort.

“What?”

“Not my story to share.”

“Oh, c’mon, if you’ve got dirt on Scott...”

“Of course, I have, Virgil. I’m his father.” The grin was genuine. “It is my prerogative to know all the embarrassing things about my children.” But then the grin faltered.

Virgil reached out and grabbed the older man’s hand. “There is plenty more to come. I have no doubt that Alan will screw up multiple times between here and his twenty-first. Enough for a movie marathon, Dad. You’re here now, we value that more than you can know.”

A shaky exhale. “I’ve missed so much, Virgil.”

“We’re still here. We still love you. It wasn’t your fault.” He had said those words so many times in the last year. At his father’s bedside. In the dark of night after nightmares. He had done his best to reassure, to reinforce the man’s confidence.

The irony was that the father he knew before his stranding wouldn’t have taken so much notice of his son’s opinion. Their relationship and most definitely been father and son. Now the relationship had changed. Jeff Tracy wasn’t as strong as he used to be. He had been shaken, he doubted himself, thrown by what he had missed and didn’t know about his sons. Grandma was there for him, but it was with Virgil, not Scott, the man was willing to discuss some of his concerns.

Virgil was both grateful and worried about this state of affairs. He helped in any way he could. Caught between a sometimes frantic Scott and an injured father, it was a challenge. But if they needed him, he was there.

Of course, that was the very moment his comms went off.

“Hey, Virg, have you got a spare hydrospanner?”

Virgil rolled his eyes and thumbed his collar. “Gordon, where is yours?”

“Uh...”

“You know if you put them away when you’ve finished with them, you tend to be able to find them next time you want them.”

“Augh, yes, Mom.”

His father raised an eyebrow.

“You borrow mine, it goes back when you are finished.”

“I know the rules, Virg. Where have you stashed it. I’m in your workshop and I can’t find it.”

“Gordon-“

“I’m in a hurry, Virg. There’s coolant leaking all over the deck of module four.”

“What the hell, Gordon?”

“Kill me later, spanner now.”

Virgil shot an apologetic look at his father. “I’m coming down.”

“Virg-“ He killed the connection.

“I’ll be back in a moment, Dad.”

The eyebrow was still raised. “Take your time. Sounds like you’ll need it.”

Virgil glared at him and stalked his way down to the hangars.

-o-o-o-

Virgil loved his aquanaut brother, but although the fish could manage maintenance on his ‘bird, anything more complicated and he really needed a hand. Virgil was quite happy to be that hand on most occasions, but a little more notice would have been useful.

He left the aquanaut scrubbing the deck of module four and headed back upstairs to finish his breakfast.

He actually enjoyed moments with his father. They had connected in a way since he had come back that hadn’t been possible before. And he cherished it.

Of course, it hadn’t been perfect. He never expected it to be, but to have the chance to talk with his father in any way was such a blessing, he could only value the opportunity.

So, he was a little disappointed when he heard his father talking to someone else as he approached from the kitchen.

“You should be proud. He is so much like you.”

Virgil stopped where he was. Who?

“He has your eyes and your kindness, and such strength.” His father sighed and Virgil slipped quietly closer, trying to see who the man was talking to.

The patio was empty except for his father.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Lucy. I don’t know... I try to be their father, but they don’t need me anymore. And Alan...”

The lone figure fell silent and for a moment, his head dropped to stare at his hands in his lap.

“Alan is a young man I don’t know. I love him, honey, and I know you do, too, but I don’t know him. I’m trying. He’s trying. But...love, it’s hard.”

Virgil’s eyes widened and something in his heart snapped. “Dad?”

His father startled and spun in his seat. “Virgil?” But instead of embarrassment or worry, a grin split his face. “Did you save your brother?”

Virgil blinked, his whole emotional state sideswiped and struggling to right itself. “Uh, yeah, we got Four’s temperature regulation system back in one piece. I’ll need to restock our coolant supplies on our next run.” His father had been speaking to his mother. “Dad, you okay?”

Those grey eyes narrowed into a flat stare. “Haven’t we already had this conversation?”

“Uh, yeah, sorry.” His heart was thudding in his chest.

His father frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, Dad, sure.”

Those grey eyes assessed him in a way eerily similar to his eldest son. “Gordon difficult?”

“Huh?” He blinked. “Oh, uh, no. He tries. I have to give him credit for that.”

“That is all we can ask of anyone.” Those eyes were still staring at him.

“Yeah. Uh, I need to speak to Scott. What have you got planned today?”

His father shrugged. “More catch up. Gordon has me for more rehab this afternoon.”

Virgil nodded once. His father was reading mission reports and Tracy Industries updates, slowly coming up to speed on what had happened over the last eight years, realigning himself knowledge-wise as his body slowly did the same. “See you at lunch?”

“Of course.” The frown deepened. “What is it, Virgil?”

Virgil straightened and took better control of himself. “I’m fine, Dad.” A blink. “Take it easy.”

Those grey eyes rolled in their sockets. “I couldn’t do anything else with you around, could I?”

Virgil’s smirk was forced.

“Love you, Dad.”

His father sobered a little, a small smile curling his lips. “Love you, too, Virgil.”

A soft smile, and Virgil turned and fled.

-o-o-o-

End Part One

Part Two

[cmitz]

Personal top movies of the decade. There were a lot of great ones and I didn't watch them. Instead we have:

3. Pacific Rim. For a majority of people this isn't really anything to write home about in terms of anything other than production design and world building. I love this movie. I've seen this movie the most in theaters more than I have any other movie. As a life long tokusatsu/kaiju movie fan, seeing something like this one the big screen was a dream come true. It's far from perfect. The lead actor is...something. I feel that it's enjoyable and I notice something new every time I watch it because, really, the art direction in this is maybe too good for this movie.

2. Shin Godzilla. The best Godzilla movie to come out since 2001. It took my breath away when I saw it in theaters just because of how horrific they made Godzilla once again. If you're not a fan of the two newer American iterations because they may be too bombastic, this is the perfect foil. It's like an episode of West Wing, but the problem is Godzilla. I at least find it very interesting to see the concept of a giant monster taken this seriously and the tactics they they deploy to deal with the situation.

1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Once upon a time I wanted to be an animator and make a Spider-Man movie. That shit didn't and isn't happening anymore, but I doesn't need to because this movie exists. It's really everything I want in both an animated movie and a Spider-Man movie and it's not a horrible mess. The animation is stylish as hell and doesn't rely of realism to be impressive. There's a lot of Spider-Man characters and fan service and it's all handled beautifully. The script is tight as hell, the pacing is great. It's an absolute total package.

The other, arguably better, great movies of the decade:

Rubber: A spoof, meta "horror" movie about a killer tire. I love humor and the way weird structure of the story. There's an audience watching things unfold, but only some people in the story know it's a movie. Real weird. Into it.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: One of the best live action adaptations of a comic. Really dig the neon, video game style and the editing.

13 Assassins: 13 samurai are hired to take out a warlord. This movie is wild. It's 2 hours long and just builds and builds up to the 40 minute long, non stop action climax. I haven't seen anything like it and haven't seen anything like it since really. An impressively patient movie.

The Raid: Cops go into a building of criminals and they all fight. Some of the best fight choreography in cinema. It's a rush.

The Muppets: I like Muppets and it was good to see them all again. I thought this movie was very funny and sweet.

It's Such a Beautiful Day: An interesting animated film about a man's bizarre life and his place in the universe told in little vignettes. I'm big on the visuals and the dark humor.

Why Don't You Play in Hell?: Yakuza's decide to make a movie. Weird, violent hilarity ensues. Probably my favorite movie about making a movie. There's four story lines presented and they all come together with the joy of violence and film making. It comes off as so sincere, pure, inspiring, and heartfelt but is juxtaposed with wild violence. Like it.

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Might be my favorite Wes Anderson movie? I personally think it's his funniest. I like the art direction and the visual comedy of the movie. Really great stuff.

The Lego Movie: This could've been so bad but it wasn't and was way better than it needed to be. Really surprised by how funny it is and the animation in this is really crazy. I thought for like the first 15 minutes it was stop motion.

Colossal: Anne Hathaway controls a giant monster across the planet. I didn't expect to enjoy this movie as much as I did. Jason Sudeikis is really fantastic in this movie.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2: The best Marvel movie. It's impressive for a movie like this to have this many major characters and for all of them to have some sort of pay off. I'd say the most emotionally charged of the Marvel movies as well. It's really something special and I wonder if Guardians 3, or any other Marvel movie, will come close to this.

Logan Lucky: Ocean's Eleven but in the south. A really funny and clever heist movie. The acting and characters are great and what make it. I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel to this.

The Shape of Water: What a strange little love story with fish people. Really liked the look of the world and the fish guy. Michael Shannon is a great villain. Del Toro has a lot of great human villains.

Hereditary: A family comes to terms with a death in the family. The scariest and most emotionally brutal movie I've seen in a theater. Don't know if I'll ever watch it again but I really liked it. I know some people didn't think, horror wise, that it was anything special but subjectively hit every one of my branches on my subjective horror tree. Tony Collette should be recognized more for this.

Annihilation: A group of scientist travel into a weird space bubble in Florida. Stalker with monsters really. This movie really should've had more eyes on it. The pacing is great. The acting is pretty great. There's very weird, suspenseful moments. Four scientist female protagonists. Great effects and story. It's the dream of combining the spectacle of blockbusters with the character and emotion of more grounded movies. A beautiful middle ground.

Mission Impossible Fallout: Ethan Hunt does more impossible missions but all his shit doesn't work. One of the most impressive spectacle movies I've ever seen. The whole helicopter bit is a stand out for me.

They Shall Not Grow Old: The day in the life of a World War One soldier. An incredible documentary and a revolutionary step forward for film restoration. It's mind blowing to see the work that went into making look as good as it does. Highly recommend if you're into that sort of thing.

Booksmart: One of, if not, the best teen comedy I've seen. Great characters and humor. It's good to hear teenagers sound like teenagers.

Movies I should've watched and didn't:

Blade Runner 2049: I'll get around to it. Leave me alone. I'm lazy.

Sorry that this got long and congratulations if you made it this far. Also watch Tampopo. It came out in 1988 but I watched it in this decade and it's one of my favorite movies of all time now. Same for Zazie dans le Metro. Both terribly charming films. Can't remember if I first watched The Abominable Dr. Phibes this decade or not but I like that a whole bunch too. Watched Buckaroo Banzai in 2007 but it's still my all time favorite. Will always recommend that. Keep watching movies.

[lannister-slings-and-arrows]

I was tagged by @rzrcrst to share five things about me so we all can get to know each other better. Thanks sweets! :D

I was raised in a tiny house with six other people and a bigger side of medium sized dog, I thrive on noise and chaos lol. I am loud, opinionated, have a lax standard when it comes to boundaries, and don’t take personal offense easily. (Do I get Angry? Yes. I have a Temper that I really should see someone about lol, but I don’t take personal offense if someone gets mad and calls me an idiot or steals the last of the pop tarts.) That being said, I am well and truly satisfied being by myself, making my own noise however and whenever I see fit- I think it’s the novelty personally, it probably won’t ever wear off lol. That’s not to say I don’t miss those chaos days. Getting back together with all of my siblings is my favorite thing to do. No one can quite match me screaming opinion for screaming opinion as they can lol. In the line of my friends my siblings will always come first, they’re built in bffs that you never have to worry about pretending with.

I’m sure that at some point very early on in my life I must have made a conscious decision that my big brother was The Authority on Everything That Is Cool and Awesome, but it must have been VERY early because I don’t remember it. All I know is that the standard by which I have always measured if something is Cool and if I should Like it/Do it has been if Kevin has either done it before or also thinks it’s cool lol. Kevin did karate, so Meghan did karate. Kevin wore flannel shirts over tee shirts? Meghan STILL does that lol. He got sick of the more age appropriate boy bands I was listening to in jr. high so he burned me CDs with bands like Blue October and The Tea Party and Rammstein and Korn et al on them and said they were cool. And So It Was lol. And that hasn’t changed- to this day I’m still not really sure if I actually like all the things I like or if I just accept that I do bc he does lol. Honestly it hasn’t been all bad, in fact it has some pretty great advantages. I’ve never been in a Terrible relationship in my life; the second Kevin doesn’t like someone they’re gone- it’s been pretty damn useful having a guy look out for all the shitty things that guys do and point them out so I can head that mess off at the pass lol.

I think I was probably 12 when I wrote my first fanfiction? It was this LONG ASS multi chapter behemoth that was written in I think four of those black and white notebooks? The marble ones? You know what I’m talking about? It was about the characters from the movie Gladiator lololol. It didn’t go on the internet (fandom online was in its INFANCY back then and I wasn’t a part of it until years later) and no one besides me read it. Like NO ONE. I’m honestly not sure if anyone besides me actually knew that I wrote this lol. I kept it hidden in different places all over my house, my back yard (zipped in those gallon freezer bags lol), and a few times my grandparents basement lol. Every week like clockwork I would move it’s hiding spot- I don’t know why I felt the need to do this but whatever lol. Unfortunately (maybe fortunately) the first time I smoked pot in high school I came home so fucking paranoid that I took it out of its spot in the shed in the back yard and burned it. Just set it on fire lol. I was convinced someone knew where it was and was going to read it so clearly the only thing to do was destroy it before my secret could get out. That was also the time I realized that pot makes me too paranoid to function and I should not be allowed near lighters when I was high lol. Thankfully for all you I have become much more lax about letting people read my writing since those early days.

When I first saw Pirates of the Caribbean I, of course like any decent human being, fell in love with Jack Sparrow. Who wouldn’t. But for some reason I could not put my finger on every time I thought of or looked at or had to talk about Elizabeth Swann and Kiera Knightly I got so MAD. Like unexplainably FURIOUS. I HATED her and I really didn’t have any good reason to. About a year later my brother introduced me to the original Lara Croft movie (the Angelina Jolie one) and I watched it constantly- I LOVED it. And then came the Kate Beckinsale Underworld movies which I couldn’t get enough of. It was okay to say that those two women were hot cause Kevin said so too right? And I just kind of branched out from there? I didn’t deliberately identify as bi, I just kind of started taking it for granted that I looked at women and thought they were gorgeous the same way that I did men. My mental block about Kiera Knightly finally lifted sometime in college and I can now finally admit that the first girl I ever had a crush on was Lizzie Swan in POTC lol. (Not that I will EVER tell my mother or the adult members of my very Catholic, very conservative Republican extended family that I have, in fact, kissed girls and liked it lol. There are some things that even I am not stupid enough to do lol.)

I fucking LOVE science fiction. The camp-iest, the cheese-iest the better. I love space travel/adventure sci-fi the best, I’m sorry I don’t care what ANYONE says, Flash Gordon is a cinematic masterpiece and I will fight anyone who says differently. I love Firefly and Star Trek and oh my god the Riddick movies are so fucking great. And when you can combine my love of sci fi with my pure and unadulterated THING for cowboys (I don’t know where that came from by the way I just. I have a cowboy kink that cannot be stopped. I need professional help lol) you have right there a double threat of Meghan is gonna love this. (I unironically STAN Cowboys and Aliens ok. And Pacific Rim.) I’ll read sci-fi, I’ll watch it, I’ll listen to it, you put it in front of me and I will consume it.

I’m tagging @spacegayofficial @youmeanmybrain @pajamasecrets @pascalispretty @stevieharrrr @keeper0fthestars @zeldasayer @hystericalmedicine and frankly anybody who sees this and wants to share. Tell me about your interesting selves!! :p

[oscar-isaacs-number-one-bitch]

Top 10 Worst/Most Disappointing Movies of 2018 (That I Saw)

     Here we are, guys, the final two lists of 2018! Most people like to go best and then worst, but I’ve always believed in ending our reflections of the cinematic year on a positive note, so I like to do the reverse. For context: I don’t go out of my way to see bad movies since I don’t (yet) get paid to do this, and as such, some of the ones on this list aren’t truly bad per se, just disappointing given the potential they had. Also, this is my personal list. Some of you may like or even love some of the movies on this list, and that’s totally fine, but for my money, these were the bottom ten that I saw this year. So, let’s get started.

10) Bohemian Rhapsody

Told you not all of them were bad. Bohemian Rhapsody does have some nice stuff to it, like the Live Aid scene and the majority of its performances, but it mostly doesn’t add up to more than the sum of its parts, which is a real shame considering the huge potential it had. I wouldn’t count Rami Malek out for a Best Actor nomination though; he really brought it.

9) Solo: A Star Wars Story

Wow, what a weird feeling. This is the first time a Star Wars movie has landed on a “worst” list since I’ve been making lists, and it’s really a strange thing to consider. Solo, like Rhapsody, isn’t really a bad movie, but the huge potential it had was squandered on more fan-service than anyone needed and less narrative than even the prequels had. This isn’t as bad as those (well, the first two of them anyway), but even Revenge of the Sith had better thematic resonance. That’s not great.

8) Tomb Raider

Really, it’s Alicia Vikander that saves this one, plus some pretty cool sections where she actually gets to do some action stuff, but Tomb Raider feels so assembly-line it’s almost unfair. It’s one of the more competent video game movies we’ve seen in a while, but doesn’t quite have the strength to make them good with an unfocused and sluggish narrative hogging the first two acts.

7) Sicario: Day of the Soldado

Wow, I was way too kind to this one when it came out. While I do enjoy Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro getting to go, well, full Brolin and Del Toro, the lack of Emily Blunt’s perspective character really does hurt this one. The fear-mongering in the beginning is just unnecessary since we’ve already seen how brutal this world can be, but Day of the Soldado’s main problem is how it completely betrays the message of its predecessor that this is how we shouldn’t do things.

6) Mary Queen of Scots

Yeesh, talk about potential. Mary Queen of Scots had everything it needed to be great. Two powerhouse leads, a fantastic historical period to study rife with costume and production design and cinematography opportunities, and an Oscar-frequent studio/distributor a much better director could have actually made use of. But instead of using all of that to its advantage, it just…uses all that. There seems to be a running theme in this worst list that these movies keep forgetting you have to craft an actual interesting narrative and then add the cool stuff, and this one is no exception.

5) Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

I wasn’t a fan of the first one either, but at least it was a cartoonish fun time. The sequel just forgets any semblance of intelligence the characters had before, instead opting for a mid-level horror showpiece that not only isn’t all that scary, but features some of the most out-of-character turns in the entire franchise. It’s lazy, it’s frustrating, and at this point, it’s just a waste of time. Please, just stop with these. Stop giving them money.

4) Pacific Rim: Uprising

There was no singular movie I was simultaneously looking forward to and suspiciously skeptical about more than Pacific Rim: Uprising, and it turns out, I had good reason. I really enjoy the first one a lot, but without Del Toro, the creators just don’t know what to do with this franchise. Even the kaiju and jaegers in this one aren’t as impressive on a visual effects level. And that stunt they tried to pull with Charlie Day’s character? Pathetic. Literally so pathetic.

3) The Nun

And here I thought the Conjuring franchise was actually on its way to surviving without James Wan at the helm. Annabelle: Creation was a refreshing return to quality for the box office juggernaut series, but The Nun (while it had a few redeeming qualities) squandered what good will it had and failed to make Valak an actual terrifying presence rather than a cipher for two characters with no chemistry to want to bone even though one of them is literally a nun (and not even the nun this movie is about).

2) Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Even more than Pacific Rim: Uprising or Mary Queen of Scots, this was perhaps the greatest cinematic failure in the year of 2018, and definitely was the greatest failure as far as blockbusters were concerned. The sequel to the prequel to the Harry Potter saga plays like an actual book, except the expositional author narration is shoved into the dialogue, where characters you don’t know or care about anymore beg you to take it seriously as “the dark one,” and absolutely refuse to justify Johnny Depp’s presence as the villain who doesn’t actually do anything all that villainous until the film’s final act. Go read my review for the full run-down but suffice it to say, if I hadn’t dipped into some Netflix Originals, this would have been the worst of the year.

1) A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I did dip into the Netflix Originals this time around, and this was the result. Now, I’m not one to just up and watch a Netflix Original just for the sake of it (not really my thing), but I watched this one because I’d seen the first one and it was so bad I just had to see this, and oh boy, it is something you have to see to believe. It’s genuinely laughable, and I mean that literally – I laughed almost the entire time at how ridiculous it is, so I wanted to reward it with the number one spot since I really enjoyed the experience. There’s a bizarre anti-union subplot that makes zero sense, one scene has 5 camera zooms in a row, and Richard has a single expression for being angry where he never moves his neck. Plus the father is literally a completely different person. 15/10, would absolutely love to do a commentary on these movies sometime.

     And those are my results for the worst movies of 2018. Keep in mind, I only picked the bottom ten that I saw, even if not all of them were genuinely bad. Did any of these disappoint you as much as they did me? Are you going to catch up the Christmas Prince Netflix films now? Let me know in the comments section below!

[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.

[nuttersincorporated]

Pacific Rim Uprising review

Does anyone want to make an au with me of what happened after the first movie ended? Please?

Spoiler under the keep reading

Gosh darn it! Why!? Why would you do this?

I love the first movie so much. It deserved a better sequel than this. The characters deserved better. There are a LOT of things I disliked so I’m gonna number them.

1. Newt and Hermann are no longer working together which means that the kaiju have been able to turn Newt into their puppet. He never breaks out of it either. He’s just their slave now and trying to destroy humanity so that those on the other side of the rift can come live here.

This was the most obvious ‘plot twist’ ever and I think everyone saw it coming a mile away. It was so unnecessary too. There were a thousand better ways of doing this. Here are just a few-

Newt didn’t continue to drift but what he’d seen scared him. He’s not working for the kaijus but made the new jaegers as a last defence if needed. However, the kaidus are able to take them over or a greedy human did it so that they could ‘rule the world.’

The kaiju learnt more about the jaegers than they ever had before through Newt and Hermann’s drift in the first movie. They were also able to recreate Gipsy Danger once the rift closed. They don’t need a human puppet and couldn’t have controlled Newt or Hermann even if they’d wanted to.

“In his house R'lyeh dead cthulhu waits dreaming.” Listen, the kaiju have their followers. Of course they do. People who think that the kaiju are a judgement and we deserve to die

people who think they’ll be spared if they help the kaiju, those seeking power ectara. BUT Newt is not one of them!

There are no kaiju behind the new ‘evil’ jaegers. It really is just human greed. The jaegers where needed during the war but after it finished and we no longer had a common enemy, humans started fighting among themselves again. Human war on a whole new level.

Rogue AI. For years, they’ve been working on making the jaegers more automatic so that they can minimize human causalities but they’ve become self-aware and they have plans of their own.

It’s Hannibal Chau. Remember him? Cos this movie certainly doesn’t. He was using dead kaiju to make money. He’ll have known about how Newt and Hermann drifted, learned how to close the rift and survived. Doesn’t tell me he wouldn’t try it too, just to see what he could learn. He’s either doing this by himself or the kaiju are tricking him.

There are more ways but you get it. This ‘twist’ wasn’t needed and I hate it. I hate it so much.

2. They killed Mako! FUCK THAT! She didn’t even get an arc in this movie. She didn’t get a heroic death helping save humanity, like Pentecost did. She got turned into Man Pain™ to push Jake into growing up and taking responsibility.

He couldn’t just grow up when he realised the world was in danger. NOPE! It’s gotta be personal so they killed Mako off.

3. Forget drift compatibility. Everyone can drift with anyone now.

4. It’s not just old characters how deserved better. New ones do too.

Amara Namani is great but they put her in the recruit program to train as a jaeger pilot. Then there is a totally pointless rivalry where another female cadet. Viktoria, is needless hostile towards her until, ‘guess we’re best friends now for no reason at all?’ Why couldn’t they have been friends to begin with?

5. Also, while Viktoria was just mean for no reason to start off with, she was kind of right. Why was Amara made a cadet? She built a small jaeger out of bits of scrap and it worked! She recognised tech from different companies without any training. She was super hyped to get in there and dissect/dismantle the kaiju/jaeger hybrid.

What I’m saying here is that she should have been an enjoiner or a scientist. Imagine her making better jaegers or working with Newt and Hermann. She could still have fought when the time came.

“I know this jaeger better than anyone. I built her from scratch after all. I’m the best chance we have left!”

Or she could have realised that she could help better back at command coming up with solutions.

6. Jake and Nate have a pointless sort of love tringle with a woman who’s name I can’t even remember. It does nothing but eat up screen time that could have been better used for character development or plot.

Jake sees her and thinks she’s pretty, Nate says not to go there, Jake keeps thinking about her, Nate falls on top of her during an attack and she kisses them both on the cheek before they head into danger and tells them not to die. That’s it! That’s the romantic subplot which exists for no reason.

*Sigh* Okay, that’s the negatives I can think of off the top of my head. Here are some positives cos I don’t like being so negative.

I do like Jake, Nate, Amara and Liwen Shao. Think they deserved to be in a better movie.

Liwen in particular deserved more development than she got. Jake and Amara did get some but Liwen didn’t. She was set up as the obviously fake villain and then she’s just one of the good guys. She got her heroic moments but I want to know more about her as a person… okay so this one has sort of turned into a complaint again, sorry.

I really enjoyed the romance between Jake and Nate. They were so very domestic together in the ice-cream scene and Jake telling Mako how handsome he thought Nate was, was just adorkable. However, it probably counts as queer baiting so… dang it! I’m trying to be positive here!

The fights take place during the day so we can see them better.

Hermann is treated really well in this movie.

It’s not Indiana Jones 4 bad.

That’s it. That’s all I can think of and two of those positives were negative too. I really love the first movie. Why did this have to suck so bad?

[miniwolfsbane]

Copied from @andalite-angel post. Edited slightly.

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, etc. are allowed.

Biospecialist, Marco/Rachel, Sam/Rahne, all cannon Disney Princess pairings, the two young kids Pacific Rim Uprising,  Lancitty, Evo Kurt/ Amanda,  Jott in Evo. Skyward??

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or ***** that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

Fanfic writers and Evo romy, adult Jubilee x Gambit, others.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Never gonna be big on Evo Romy ever again, will forever hate Rahne x Roberto, Sam and Rahne with anyone but each other!!

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

Evo Romy...somtimes. Because it does sorta make sense IN FANNON, but not in cannon. And Jean x Scott, because it’s so iconic, but I only like them in Evo, so...yah.

E - Have you added anything cracky crazy/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what? 

See my fan fiction.

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

The Little Mermaid and Star Trek have been there for 95% of my life.

G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?

Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask, Sam/Rahne, Ariel and Eric (first when I was 5, even though I wanted to be Ariel), Rachel Tobias (first when I was actually gettin into fandom), Jake/Cassie (Animorphs), Clark/Lana, Clark/Lois (I think??) and Chloe/Ollie, Romy (even in Evo at a point!), and now Eliza and Goliath in Gargoyles. I keep saying I’m not a shipper, but I think I’m just a subtle one that pines and doesn’t read a lot of fanfic, but my heart swells over seeing my OTP on screen

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

TV Shows and Western (superhero) Animation mostly, but also a few animes.

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

I was annoyed by the Agents Of Shield fandoms behavior for a while, but I’ve never stopped liking any fandoms because of Tumblr. 

J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)

SuperWhoLock, Riverdale...some other popular teen shows.

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Tie between Sailor Moon and Gambit I guess, but I’m sure there are lots of others. Sailor Jupiter has a good arc as well, even though she doesn’t have a lot of character development TBH.

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)

Roberto Dacosta’s super strength power is pretty cool and he’s a chill guy. And rich. (I just realized that a lot of X-Men characters are rich, actually. Gambit, Xavier, Warren and him. Holy crap.)

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Moon. TAS Rogue too, because she seems fun to hang with, and who wouldn’t like to be called “Sugah” all the time?

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

MORE GAMBIT (and comic Nightcrawler) IMAGINES!! And just more love and less fan wars across all fandoms, really.

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

Hero by Chad Kroger. Ship: Romy or Mollyx Remy. Character: Gambit or Angel.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

For any fandom? A mad scientist and a famous baker get together after the scientist contacts aliens, resulting in a warring invasion on earth.

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

To be perfectly honest, The Smurfs because we’re a Christain household and we found it had stuff in it we didn’t agree with. I was three.  Other than that, I’ve only given up one other fandom permenantly that wasn’t what I thought it was and chosen at a bad time. 

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

Kurt and Kitty in Evo, and Logan and Kurt is cool, but I don’t actually pay much attention to it.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

Hmmm. One that isn’t too boring? Remy isn’t (wasn’t? He is married now) particular about a woman’s height and is comfortable enough with himself to date a woman much taller or shorter than he is. (Remember, Frenzy was freaking 6′7 before she got rebooted to a normal height and it was implied they had history.) For a while it was a wish of mine they’d pair him with a short gal, because all X-women are physically clones of each other, minus Rahne, Kitty and Jubilee. Blargh. Oooh, just had an idea for a new art project to make the girls look individual! ^_^

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

Besides the above? Uh...headcannon that Remy smells good and his hair is silky to the touch and yes I’m a sick, weird little person, I know. Haha, not really. I’m not much of a headcannon person. 

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

* Gambit: Hot, suave, lit, accent, good cook, romantic, my fictional ideal man (told you, I’m sick and weird). * Sailor Jupiter: Sweet, loyal, living on her own at bloody 14 years old, strong physically and emotionally, had trouble believing/finding her feminity like me, tall (not like me!), brunette character, thunder powers. * Tuvok (Star Trek): My second crush ever, calm, reflective, hot grandpa, sarcasm galore, strong, suffers emotionally and physically, POC and like the only black vulcan that I know of, cute little boy chest, that butt (XD), frakin’ hot.

V - Which character do you relate to most?

Surprisingly, one I haven’t talked about yet and that I’m not really fandom-y about. Rapunzel from Tangled. When I saw the movie, I was attached to her immediately. I’d grown up homeschooled and at that point I’d been caregiving for one of my parents for six years at that point, unable to move out and get married and have much of a life, so I was always metaphorically in a tower too. I have childish interests, am artistic and creative, have done LOTS of self-insert art like her, and am a generally happy person (even if I don’t always show it and don’t smile enough). So, out of every character in my many fandoms, I relate to Rapunzel the most. Also, I have only 2 things of Tangled merch-the movie, the soundtrack, and a gorgeous bedspread that’s actually based on the show, but doesn’t look like it. (I don’t like it’s animation/character designs, so it’s been hard to get into it.)

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

OMG, do we have to go here? Anything over-sexualized or kinky or just plain gross/weird. (v***, gore, ect.) There’s this one X-Men:Evo artist on DA that would be brilliant, but I can’t stomach their gallery because they feel the need to do a few  v*** and bondage pics amongst otherwise G-rated pictures. *throws up* IT’S A SHOW FOR 7-YEAR OLDS!! 

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Huge guy, Tiny girl! (but it looks...weird...in live action. *Good Luck Charlie flashbacks*.) Also age differences. Some people are put off by Usagi and Mamo’s age difference in Classic, but I think it’s cute and they were really chaste about it. Specifically, I liked the part where he told her to do well in school for some reason. 

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)? Holy crap, Pride and Prejudice and Anne of Green Gables. No one on my dash is into them though, it’s a real life thing. Long story.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)

I have written more self-inserts than is probably healthy, but at least I’ve mostly gotten past my teenage phase of thinking anime guys are hot and it’s extended to Gambit as well. I’d much rather see him be portrayed by a living, breathing actor semi-bringing my fantasies to life than as a drawn character. Well, not that I’m not happy seeing him animated and his voice in Evo is still super hot, but that’s another thing. Anyway, on that note, I wish XM:E weren’t a dead fandom and I could get more reviews instead of just faves/follows. I get so frustrated, because I’m not writing my fics for myself, I’m writing them to finish the story and for the fans. I know OCs/SI aren’t everyones bread and butter, but when you work hard on something, you want people to enjoy and appreciate it on it’s own merits. My regulars dropped off the planet and the fandom is just not that active online. (It’s still kind of active though, otherwise the Gambit and other prints on Steven Gordon’s online store wouldn’t have sold out so fast.) I wish it had been as creative as the MLP fandom, but even that wouldn’t have saved it. Thankfully, there are a few people “keeping the faith”, like Coldfusion180 and some others. They haven’t abandoned it and people have made AMVs for it in recent years, long after the shows cancellation. I know we’ve all moved on in one way or another, but it’s still nice to see the love for the show and it’s characters going strong, even if we’re now a niche fandom, tiny, but there. And even if I don’t get another single review up until the last in the series, at least I can say I finished it, if nothing else. Even if your fandom is dead, keep supporting it. If we don’t keep the characters alive, they die and are forgotten. They need us.

https://fanfiction.net/~miniwolfsbane

[star-nova]

The Lives of the RiffRaff:  Vergil Cho-Far From Home

Previous chapters here.

The library's open on Saturdays from ten until three, but IT only runs on Monday through Friday. Saturdays belong to me and Tracy, and Saturdays are usually spent taking our weekly checks out into Stonesville for a movie followed by Dave and Buster's.

By the 4th of July weekend, Tracy and I had seen all of the summer blockbusters worth seeing: Avengers: Endgame, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Aladdin, MIB: International, and Toy Story 4, and now all that was left before Crawl was Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Having had my fill of Disney by this point in the summer, I was excited for another superhero flick. I never cared for Disney, but supported Tracy's love of it. She's the kind of fan that dresses up in Disneybound to see every movie. She wants me to dress up with her, but I'm just not creative enough.

Spider-Man Saturday is special for two reasons: the first is that it's on the long 4th of July weekend, which begins for me and Tracy on the holiday itself and ends the following Monday. The second is that it falls on Anna Ming's birthday. Anna and her husband, Mamoru, are the biggest movie buffs I know, and superhero flicks are their favorites after monster movies.

We're doing something a little different than Dave and Buster's tonight. Tracy and I go out to Party Fair and come back with Spider-Man partyware and three shiny Mylar balloons—one blue, one “Happy Birthday,” and one with Spider-Man's face. We stop at the Costco to get a cake, and spend the hour and a half before the five-thirty show setting up a nice little spread in the kitchen. And even though it isn't technically a Disney movie, Tracy dons her Spider-Man costume tee with her red beanie in honor of the occasion.

When we meet up with Anna and Mamoru at their place, neither one of us says anything about what we have planned. For me, this is easy, since I don't normally say anything at all. In Tanager, remaining silent means you think you're too good to talk to people, or else you've got something to hide. In the eyes of the Others, both of these applied to me. But those who knew me just knew how bad I was at coming up with anything to say. I'm more of a thinker than a talker, and right now I'm thinking about Spider-Man and birthday surprises, chocolate cake with Oreos on top, and Tracy's two long braids hanging down from her red beanie.

Far From Home wasn't the best Spider-Man movie I'd ever seen, but it definitely wasn't the worst either.

On the way back to the house, Mamoru, Anna, and Tracy chatter on about the original Spider-Man trilogy, while I focus on driving and ruminate in a private corner of my mind about how Marvel might incorporate the new Venom into the Spider-Man films. My thoughts are interrupted when Anna announces that she and Mamoru have big news. “The biggest news,” she adds on, “the best news.”

“What is it?” Tracy asks immediately.

“You'll see,” Anna says with a smug grin, which is the only answer I could ever expect out of Anna Ming. She likes to bust balls.

I forget about Spider-Man and Venom for a second and come up with all sorts of speculations: maybe Mamoru got promoted to foreman at the electrician's firm, maybe they're going on some amazing vacation to Hawaii or the Carribbean or somewhere else exotic, maybe someone dropped a monumental birthday gift. For just a second, a spooky feeling crosses my mind that they might be moving away, but I dismiss it almost instantly; Tanager was a hick town at the best of times and a total shitshow at the worst, but it was home. The RiffRaff were home, and you didn't just go and leave them behind.

When we get to the house, the first thing Tracy says is, “Okay, so what's your big news?”

Mamoru and Anna exchange smug grins. I fold my arms and give them my best “I'm waiting” look.

“We'll tell you,” Mamoru says with a smirk, “when we're good and ready.”

Tracy stands in front of the front door. “I'm not lettin' you in till you tell.”

“Oh gosh!” Anna laughs. There's no way out. She nudges Mamoru with an elbow. “You tell them, Mamoru.”

“You do it,” Mamoru says. “It's more your news than mine.”

“We need a table, you guys,” Anna tells us. “We gotta armwrestle for it. Sorry, Trace, but you gotta let us in.”

“You guys are the worst,” Tracy says lightheartedly, but she opens the door. “We'll go to the kitchen,” she says, shooting me a conspiratorial little smile that I return. She damn well knows that she's just as much of a ball-buster as the two of them are.

When we get to the kitchen and they find our set-up, with the chocolate-Oreo birthday cake right in the center, Anna says, “Oh gosh!” again. “You guys...” She looks at me and Tracy, then pulls us both into hugs, which we both return.

Tracy orders pizza from Castellano's, Mamoru and I set up 7 Wonders, and Tracy asks again, “So, what's your news?”

Mamoru and Anna look at eachother again, silently exchanging the big secret between their smiles. Then Anna says, “All right, we'll quit trolling and tell you now. Mamoru and I are going to have a baby.”

Holy crap! This is more than I ever could have expected.

“Oh! Oh my gosh!” Tracy practically dives at the both of them with her hugs. “Oh, congratulations! This is awesome!” As usual, I have no idea what to say, but I hug them too. “Congratulations,” I tell them. Really, what else can I say?

“When did you guys find out?” Tracy asks, her eyes glittering with the excitement of it all.

“Just before the 4th,” Anna says, “but we wanted to keep the announcement intimate. We'd rather gradually spread the word around than shout it to a whole party full of people.”

I ask Mamoru, “Do you think you're ready now?” For a while, I had doubts that Mamoru would ever be ready for a kid. His reluctance had gotten him in trouble with his ex-wife.

“Well...” Mamoru fiddles with his 7 Wonders cards. “Between Anna and little Gojira himself, I'm going to have one hell of a team on my side. This is gonna be an adventure for all three of us. Yeah, I think I'm ready.”

Tracy laughs. “Are you really going to name him Gojira?”

“Oh, no!” Anna says, laughing too. “Gojira's just what we're calling it until we know if it's a boy or a girl. If it's a boy, his name will be Raleigh Mamoru Hayagawa.”

“And if it's a girl,” Mamoru says, “she'll be Mako Anna Hayagawa.”

Pacific Rim names. The two of them join hands and exchange another secret between their grins. They must be thinking about their wedding nearly three years ago, which had been four days before Halloween. They'd gotten married dressed in Pacific Rim suits. I had been a groomsman, and Tracy was a bridesmaid.

As we start up the game, I expect Tracy to be full of chatter—exchanging fantasies of babysitting and all of the games she plans to teach them, and all of future birthday parties and Christmas presents. But she's surprisingly silent. I figure that she must've gotten all of the excitement out of her system and so she has to wait while a new batch of it generates. Anyway, nobody's talking about the baby anymore. We're talking about the cards we draft and the structures we build. But Tracy isn't talking about anything at all, and that's disturbingly out of character for her.

I give her a little nudge. “Tracy? You all right?”

“'Course I'm all right,” Tracy says, “why wouldn't I be all right?”

“You're awfully quiet,” I point out.

“I'm just thinking, Verg,” she says, and she doesn't say anything else. I leave her to it, though I can't say it doesn't concern me. It concerns me so much more when the pizza gets here and she walks out the door.

“Tracy?” I ask. “Where are you going?”

“I'm gonna go get us some sodas,” she says, and shuts the door behind her before I can ask if she wants me to come with.

Within the span of a few minutes, something has changed Tracy Kwan. It scares me because I don't know what it is.

Anna completes the game's frirst wonder, we're all on our second and third slices of pizza, and there's still no sign of Tracy. The sun's gone down now except for a tiny sliver, and the cicadas that wouldn't shut up all day have finally gone mute. She didn't go out to get sodas...

My first instinct is to get up and go after her, but I don't. She isn't the nerdy little girl I have to protect from the mean girls at school anymore. Besides, out here all we have are the Whisperers and the Hecklers. The Whisperers are easy as hell to just ignore, and the Hecklers are just kids. There's Talia Santiago, but she doesn't go after RiffRaff.

Still, it doesn't feel right without Tracy around, without knowing where she is. It's even worse knowing that something secret is bothering her. All of our lives, Tracy has never kept a secret from me. Her joy was my joy, her pain my pain, her triumphs my triumphs, and vice-versa. If something was eating at her I was always the first one to know.

I can't lie and say we've never spent any time away from one-another. We've been apart for what amounted to much more than slipping out of the house. But we always kept tabs on one-another. I could be gone all day, but Tracy would always know where I am, and vice-versa. To go out on some secret nightly mission with some flimsy alibi like “going to get sodas” was something we just didn't do. Nobody took thirty-five minutes to get sodas in a place like this.

A spooky ass feeling settles over me. I know Tracy doesn't need to be protected, but not knowing where she is is beginning to make me feel like something awful is about to happen, or already did. I can't focus on the game anymore. There's just too many questions. Where did you go for real, Trace? Are you close by or are you far away? How far from home are you? Far from home—what an ironic choice of words.

“Vergil,” Mamoru says, breaking into my thoughts, “it's your turn.”

“Mhm.” I play a resource card. What's going on with you, Tracy? I know you're not all right. This isn't “all right” for you. Just tell me what it is...

Anna asks, “Is something up?”

I look at the clock on the cable box. It's been forty minutes. The sun is just about all the way down. It seems much darker than it is.

I get up. “I'm going out to find Tracy.”

They don't stop me. They know they can't. With Tracy far from home, so am I. Tracy is home.

When Tracy doesn't answer my call or my texts, my worst suspicions are all but confirmed. She went out on foot, so I'll stay on foot too. It would feel a little bit invasive to go chasing her down in a car.

I don't call out for her. I just make my way into the night, watching for a Spider-Man t-shirt and a bright red beanie. I pass by Paige's place, Ramona's, Jager's, and John's. Paige and John are home. Should I go and ask them if they've seen her? No, Vergil, you dope, of course they've seen her. She had to pass by here to go out to the stores.

The stores. She'd said she was going out to the stores, and though I know now it was just a front, there's no reason she couldn't be out near there. I send her another text, “Are you at the Sun-Mart? Or the 7-11?” When I reach the end of the next block, passing by Kammie's lit-up house, she still hasn't answered.

That nasty feeling is close to overpowering me. I'm not a guy who cries, but I feel like I might start up now. At the heart of everything, Tracy is all I have. If something were to happen to her, I don't know what the hell I'd do. The truth is that without Tracy, I don't feel like Vergil. My earliest memories are of the two of us in the summer that we were three and four years old, sipping grape juice out of sippy cups and dribbling it down our astronaut and dinosaur t-shirts. We started preschool that September and walked in holding eachother's hands, scared of the strange new world ahead of us. I've known Tracy longer than I've known how to read.

My heart starts to race. Without thinking about it, I'm making my way up Kammie's front porch steps. I ring the bell. I feel a cold sweat as I wait for her to answer. Maybe she's not home, she just left her lights on...

“Vergil?” Kammie looks surprised to see me at her door. “What's up, man?”

I swallow back a burst of air. “Kammie,” I say, trying my damnedest to keep my cool, “did Tracy come by here a while ago? Did you see her?”

“I haven't seen her,” Kammie says. “Why? Did she go off somewhere?” Her concern is the best possible comfort. RiffRaff look out for one-another.

“She stepped out about forty-five minutes ago to 'get sodas,'” I say, trying and failing to keep the frenzy out of my voice. “We were in the middle of a game with Anna and Mamoru. She won't answer her phone, she won't answer her texts...” I'm starting to shake. Between that and my frantic, raving voice, Kammie can't stay uninvolved. “We'll drive around,” she says. “Hang on.” Yes, we'll drive around. It's become necessary. Tracy wouldn't be ghosting me unless something really happened. I text Mamoru, “Going with Kammie Redrun to look for Tracy. Will be back. Sorry.” I feel like a jackass for leaving them alone in my house on Anna's birthday. But Mamoru understands, as RiffRaff do. He texts back, “OK.” It means Tracy's been ghosting them too, and that she still hasn't come back...

There's no sign of Tracy at any of the stores.

Kammie pulls into the parking lot of the closed deli, and we check the 7-11, the Sun-Mart, and then hop a few blocks over to where the grocery store sits beside Castellano's and the China Wok. No Tracy. We get back in the car and head out to the library, which is also closed by now on a Saturday. I walk around the entryway garden, check the reading benches situated along the sides of the building, and go around to the back to search the smoking area and lounge. Tracy isn't there. A woman—an Other—calls to me from her safe place on the block across the grass. “Young man, what are you doing scuttling around back there?” Young man. I'm twenty-fucking-five. I don't give her an answer, just make my way back to the car.

“Do I have to call the police?” she hollers after me.

Yeah, go ahead and call them. They won't find anything when they get here. Still, I don't answer her. It finally hits me that I should ask her if she's seen Tracy. I turn back around, but she's already off on her way. She doesn't care about Tracy anyway. If she had seen her or not, her answer would be the same: And why are you chasing that woman around town? The Others pretend to know what they're talking about. In actuality, they know jack shit.

I climb back into Kammie's car and I'm about to suggest McEvoy's, if anything because there's likely to be a strong RiffRaff presence there. I didn't want to leave our familiar haunts and end up in territory that belonged entirely to the Others. The Others would want to know what I'm doing running around looking for her. They'd want to know what motivated a woman to take off into the middle of the night and not come back. They'd start up about how we were a man and woman living together unmarried—a cardinal sin, for sure—and then they'd hyper-focus on that and only that, before making up their own stupid explanations for her disappearance that they'd take as the only fact. I'm not about to put up with that shit right now. Oh, Tracy. I sink down into the naugahyde seat. You see what I have to deal with when you go and leave me alone like this? I must look like a sight, because Kammie eyes me for a good long while. I definitely don't look, or feel, like Vergil Cho.

Kammie puts her arm around me and pats my back. “Let's check the park,” she says.

Of course. The park. It's Tracy's favorite place in town, and why didn't I think to check there before? Because I'm not thinking at all, that's why. That spooky feeling that had me before comes back even stronger now that I remember that the only people who come out to the park at night are the junkies and the boozers. Sometimes we hold our games of manhunt out there just after dusk, but it was getting late even for those. Oh, please, I plead, please let Bex or Ramona or anybody be out there playing manhunt right now.

“Vergil!” Kammie nudges me and points. “Look, Vergil!”

She's pointing at a cherry tree in one of the roadside gardens leading out to Cricket Road, an Others street. She shines her headlights on it. There it is, the form of red and blue perched up there on a middle branch like Spider-Man himself.

“Pull over!” I cry, and Kammie does.

I nearly fly out of the car door, and I have to remember that I can't climb for shit to stop myself from scrambling up that tree. Tracy doesn't look at me. She's looking out towards the distant mountains and doesn't even see that I'm here.

I call out, “Tracy!”

“Vergil?” Tracy looks down and finds me standing there at the base of the tree. “You came out all this way?”

“I had help,” I say. “Kammie's here. What are you doing up there?”

“Nothing,” she says. “Thinking.”

“About?”

“Things.”

“You had to come all the way down to Cricket Road and climb up in a tree to think about things?” I try to hold back the edge in my voice. I'm scared, not mad. “Trace, why don't you come on down now?” I hold out my arms for her. “Come on. Come down.”

She makes her way down, and I scoop her up the moment she touches ground. In that moment, Tracy Grace Kwan is the single most precious human being alive. Tracy. My Tracy. Without thinking about it, I give her a swift little kiss. She pulls back in surprise My god, I've crossed a line...

“Vergil...”

���Tracy, I'm...” I look down at the ground and her red Converse sneakers.

“Vergil, you're crying.” She catches me by my shoulders. Her dark eyes look so big behind her hipster glasses.

“I am?” I put a finger to my cheek. It's wet with tears. I'm as shocked as she is.

“It's okay, Verg.” Now it's Tracy's turn to take me up in her arms. “I'm all right. I'm so sorry, Vergil.”

“Why'd you take off, kid?” I ask, without letting her go.

“I'm sorry,” Tracy says again. “I know I shouldn't have. But I guess...well...I needed to think, Vergil.”

“Think about what?” I ask.

“The kid,” Tracy says, finally releasing me, “little Gojira—Anna and Mamoru becoming a mom and a dad. Vergil, what happens when RiffRaff have a kid?”

“Anthony has Melinda,” I remind her. “And Kane has Mara. I know they're both grown, but...”

“It's different,” Tracy says. “They weren't born into it, Vergil.”

She's right. “But this kid will be,” I say.

“It's never happened before,” Tracy says.

“If a kid is born to RiffRaff,” I go on, “is the kid already RiffRaff, or do they have to earn it, like Melinda?” Knowing the Others, I feel like I already know the answer.

Tracy sighs, and turns away for a second. “Little Gojira will be born into a world of Others,” she says. It's a depressing thought. I think about all of the crap we've had to put up with from the Others in our past four years as RiffRaff; the whispers and the heckles, the rumors treated as gospel by people who can't keep their mouths shut, the isolation of a little hamlet where people come up with their own reasons why you'll never really belong. But all the same...

“He'll also be born into a world of RiffRaff,” I say. “He'll have one hell of a team.”

She turns to me. “Like we do,” she says.

“Exactly.” My hand makes its way into hers, and without any sort of thought behind it, I kiss her again. This time she doesn't move. I pat the top of that red beanie. “Kammie's taking us home, kid. Let's go.”

“We left Anna and Mamoru...” Tracy says uncertainly.

“They're fine,” I say. I reach for my phone and shoot Mamoru a text right now: “We found her. She's all right. So am I.” 

[365familymovies-blog]

Mad Max Fury Road Putlocker dead truths

Mad Max Fury Road Putlocker dead truths. I wasn't sold on the movie from the trailers but I had a couple of friends that said they loved it so I decided to give it a shot I went with an objective viewpoint that way I could give it as much credit as possible. The best part about the movie is the lack of cgi which I do give them credit for but the story line was horrible and it was not stop action. They probably could have made this really good but they feel way short on that. I think if they had put more time into the story and less into the action it would have been good and I like action movies. I'm glad I went to the matinée showing because this will not be one I watch again I just want my two hours back

I signed up just to write a review of this piece of trash as i am disgusted by all the positive reviews all around, did i honestly see the same movie as everyone else? people obviously have low standards for what is considered a good movie these days and fury road is a perfect example. HELL, i wouldn't even call this a movie, it's nothing more than en enlongated car chase with miminal story and character development with nothing to show for it but a few fancy but reptitive action sequences. there's no story at all, just a truck being chased from point a to b as they are chased by a bunch of desert thugs with white face paint on, and WTF was with the guy playing the fire guitar??? all the time me and my friend were just looking at each other with confusion, which later turned into wanting our money back as the credits rolled.

overall, this is overrated style over substance dreck and if you ought to be ashamed if you thought it was even remotely good, as do all the people involed in its making. a disgrace to the original mad max series and one of the WORST movies i've seen. AVOID!!!! You know how you go to any amusement park and there's always that really cool stunt show? It could be Waterworld at Universal Studios or the Indiana Jones stunt show at Hollywood Studios (Disney World), any of those. There's a short little story (loosely based on a deeper film plot), a good guy and a bad guy both after something, they do some choreographed fighting, they jump onto specially-contraptions, some areas are rigged with pyrotechnics and water splashes, people are running all over set, maybe even cars are spinning around and chasing each other. For 10-20 minutes, it's a cool live show and a great opportunity to take a break from the long lines and the rides at the amusement park. Do you want watch movie reviews imdb now?

Now imagine George Miller decided he wanted to film one of these shows, edit his footage with some colorful touch-ups, and compile two hours-worth of said footage into a film. That is Mad Max: Fury Road.

I decided to write this review after actually watching the first Mad Max and The Road Warrior so I can understand the backstory of Mad Max. My initial opinion of Fury Road still stands. I really tried to like this film after seeing all of the critics' and fans' reviews. I watched the film twice to see if I was maybe tired the first time. I still felt nothing.

I agree that the action is quite something. All of the stunts feel real and non-CGI, which is particularly rare for films nowadays. But so what? As real as it was, the action felt drivel, repetitive, and boring. I particularly LOVE action films, but this action did not do it for me. Even with the high speed chases (that lasted the entire film), the decked-out cars, the flame-throwing guitars, the explosions, I didn't feel the adrenaline kick in as I had hoped, nor did I ever feel I was viewing a spectacle. There were some action sequences I felt were interesting, such as the chained fight, but they only lasted a few minutes out of the entire film and were mild at best.

It had everything, so what was the problem? What the film lacked was directing. The camera-work and direction don't do anything to help place the audience into the action, to feel it. All I get are either 1. Overhead crane shots that show how large the groups are and what surrounding action is taking place, 2. Long shots to emphasize distance, and 3. Close shots to show what's going on. The camera is only documenting the stunt show that is this film. At times where the film takes a short pause in action and progresses its "story," Miller attempts to develop some emotional depth in the story, but in the end it only comes off as trying too hard to appear deep and emotional. The character development was not there to help the audience understand the emotional moments.

See more: Pacific rim uprising 2018 release date and exciting new things

For my personal tastes, I didn't find the film's theme or look appealing nor unappealing. It didn't click with me. The cinematography was beautiful and emphasized the contrast in a beautiful, naturalistic, post-apocalyptic world. But the costume and prop design I didn't get and at times found it bizarre and gross, and oftentimes flat-out ridiculous. Minimal leather gear in the desert? Mothers basically wearing bikinis and makeup? I didn't get it.

Overall, don't expect any plot or character development in this film. While this IS a sequel and thus does not require deep character development, the original Mad Max series didn't have much depth and development in them in the first place. That said, you can start off with Fury Road and figure out what Max's (minimal) backstory is from there. The action is real and unique, and, yeah, it's cool to watch live for 20 minutes at an amusement park. But two hours? No thanks.