#since we watched pacific rim together last week

[archies-litterbox]

honestly... since they brought in so many elements of pacific rim into rise of the titans (like the fight with varvatos' giant robot and... literally just the titans in general) I would have loved to see the movie involve something like drift compatability

like... maybe once nari was snapped out of mind control she was weakened by its toll on her but still wanted to fight for her friends using the earth titan... so Douxie offered to try controlling it with her to carry some of the burden of piloting the titan so it wouldn't exhaust her to do it alone

and Nari and Douxie both controlling her titan together would be so COOL visually!! like Nari could have controlled one side while Douxie controlled the other!! like a jaeger!! and like it would have still been green and viney and tree-like but it could have glowed with douxie's blue magic!! and Douxie and Nari could have held hands as they fought (and maybe a green vine with blue magic could've wrapped around their joined hands to show how Strong their sibling bond is)

and maybe if Skrael still gutted the earth titan in their fight... the severity would have been halved with two pilots (or Douxie's magic stops Skrael's ice from freezing Nari/deflects it back at Skrael) so instead of killing Nari it just injures both her and Douxie

also... nari and douxie piloting the earth titan together and destroying skrael with it would have really driven home their theme of "no more running" that was so prevalent for them in the movie (even though we really don't get to see any of the "running" they did after Wizards but I digress)

and just... yeah. magical siblings fighting together with drift compatability

[haledamage]

Coming Home

I'm a day late because this thing got much bigger than I expected, but better late than never! This is for @shepherds-of-haven Shepherds Summer 2021! The prompt was Pacific Rim AU!

Some of the backstory stuff is from this post here. Some is just pushing ShoH canon slightly to the left so it fits better in a Pacific Rim setting. Some is the result of reading ShoH and watching PacRim at the same time and then taking a nap to see what seeds got planted. There will be a part 2 to this because I had to split it up in order to finish it on time and then I was late anyway.

Shepherds of Haven/Pacific Rim AU. Iorwen Emroth/Blade Bronwyn (well, hints of it. more in part 2)

---

The Haven Shatterdome looked very small from overhead. Iorwen watched it loom closer with a trepidation somewhere between “being late for an important exam” and “being read her last rites.”

It had been just over two years since she’d last been this close to a Jaeger, half a world away and in a different life, but all the Shatterdomes looked the same after a while. Steel and glass and everything painted in olive drab, black, and safety yellow. 

Part of her felt like it was too soon to walk into those hangar doors again, the empty space at her side where her partner used to be still a raw, open wound. She couldn’t even think xer name yet without feeling like she couldn’t breathe. Returning to work felt like a betrayal of xer memory.

Another part of her, louder with every passing minute, was just so happy to be home again.

"Wen!"

Iorwen had barely stepped out of the helicopter when she heard her name called and turned to see Red jogging toward her. He looked more tired than she remembered him, but his smile was as bright as ever, his hair vivid against their otherwise drab surroundings. She’d known he was here - he’d transferred to Haven shortly after she left Capra - but hearing it and actually seeing him were two very different things.

She dropped her bag carelessly to the tarmac and ran to meet him halfway, throwing herself at him as soon as he was close enough to wrap her arms around his neck. He hugged her back without hesitation. They were making a Hel of a scene in the middle of the landing pad, but neither of them really cared.

"I knew you'd come back," he mumbled into her hair.

"Had to." She finally pulled away, stepping back just enough that she could see him. "You can barely tie your shoes without me, Liefred."

He only laughed before leaving her side just long enough to grab her bag. He slung an arm around her shoulders as he rejoined her, dragging her towards the hangar. "Welcome home."

She stared up at the Shatterdome, hangar doors towering over them. It didn't look nearly as welcoming as Red seemed to think it should, and was much more intimidating than it had been from the air. It still smelled like blood and motor oil - or maybe it was her memory that did.

She tried to put on her best smile anyway, for his sake if not her own, and let him drag her inside.

They stepped into a hive of activity, the sounds of machinery and voices echoing off the walls, laughter and shouting and clanging metal rising up to greet them. She tried to stop and take it in, but Red was still dragging her along with him out of the main hangar and into a labyrinth of hallways; she probably could have escaped him if she tried, but she didn’t really want to.

“Have you met the Marshal yet?” he asked, once they were in a quiet enough place that he didn’t have to yell to be heard.

“Not yet. Mostly talked to his second so far.” Trouble Alder had, in fact, shown up out of the blue one day three months ago, sitting on her front porch with a stick of charch between his lips and looking completely at home. He’d revisited her every day for a month until he’d finally worn her down enough to convince her to come home. Stubborn bastard. “What's he like?”

“Intense,” Red answered almost immediately. “Most of the younger crew are terrified of him. He doesn't like me.”

Iorwen scoffed. “Bullshit. You’re the most exceptionally likeable person I’ve ever met. Everyone likes you.”

“He doesn't.” 

They stopped in front of a door in what was probably the barracks, the walls lined with identical doors on either side. Sure enough, there was a simple bed, a dresser, and not much else inside. Iorwen didn’t mind; she didn’t need much else.

Once she’d dropped off her bag and they started down the next hallway, Red continued, “I don't know if he likes anyone. He barely says two words to anyone but Trouble.”

She was still skeptical, but didn’t push. “Well, he must be doing something right. Look at this place. Capra barely had a skeleton crew compared to this.”

“It’s amazing!” Just like that, Red lit up again. “Some of Blest’s best and brightest are here. Pilots, mechanics, scientists, strategists, you name it.”

“And which of those are you? All of the above?”

“Mostly scientist, I think,” Red rubbed a sheepish hand over his hair. “There’s better pilots. Pan, Neon, and I serve better in the lab than on the field most of the time.” He paused, watching her cautiously, before adding carefully, “And… which will you be?”

“I’ll be working in the clinic,” she said quickly. “As a Healer. I’m not… ready to be around Jaegers again. I might never be.”

“I understand,” he assured her, reaching out to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We all do.”

They fell silent after that, and stayed that way until they stopped in front of a door labelled Administration. “This is Shery’s office. She’ll get you all set up.”

“Thanks, Red.”

“Anytime.” With one final quick hug, he turned to leave, only to stop halfway down the hall. “Oh, and Wen?”

“Hmm?”

“Welcome to the Shepherds.”

---

It was two weeks before Iorwen finally met the Marshal, and it happened entirely by accident.

She had just finished a shift in the clinic, patching up minor burns and bruises on unlucky mechanics and restless pilots. The silence between Kaiju attacks left everyone on edge, and that led to carelessness, which inevitably meant stupid injuries. She didn’t mind. All things considered, she’d rather have the silence.

As she turned a corner, she noticed a light was on in the training room, and curiosity led her there without much input on her part.

She recognized the man in the room easily enough. Even if they’d never spoken directly, she’d seen him around enough to know who he was. He commanded the attention of a room like no one she’d ever met before. He was hard to look away from, even here, out of uniform and either unaware or uncaring of her presence.

Magnetic. That’s what he was.

He was also much younger than she expected for a Marshal. He was close to her own age, or at least she assumed he was. She wondered about the story there - obviously there must be one - but knew better than to ask the rumor mill. Gossip was like dust: inevitable, everywhere, and harder to see through the more you stirred it up.

The Marshal’s back stiffened, and Iorwen knew she’d been caught staring even before he glanced over his shoulder in her direction. She stepped into the room as casually as possible. “Hello, Marshal.”

He simply nodded, dark eyes unreadable. “Ranger.” She bit her lip to stop herself from correcting him. “Emroth, right?”

“Yes, sir.” She approached until she could finally see his face. “Iorwen.”

Another nod. “Blade.” She thought he would leave it there, but after a moment, he spoke again. “Antiqua speaks highly of you.”

“Of course he does. He's biased.” She laughed, rolling her eyes at the idea that Red was going around extolling her virtues to anyone who would listen. When the Marshal - Blade, she mentally corrected herself - gave her a look that she interpreted as curiosity, she elaborated. “We trained together as cadets. He was my first Drift partner actually.”

“But you never piloted together?”

“No. It…” Iorwen broke eye contact, the floor suddenly fascinating. “It didn't work out that way.”

“It's not too late,” he said, almost softly.

“Yes it is. I'm not a Ranger anymore. Not after…” Xer name got stuck in her throat, like it always did. She took a couple of deep breaths until she could comfortably breathe around it again, but her smile was still sad. “I'm happier on the ground. I'm a good Healer. It's where I should be.”

She could feel Blade’s eyes on her, but she didn’t look back up to meet them. Eventually, all he said was, “I see.”

He turned his back on her again and it didn’t take long before her gaze was drawn to him again. He was wearing a tank top, like most people did when they came here to train or spar, and standing this close she could clearly see the web of electrical scarring trailing over his arm and shoulder.

She knew those scars well. The scars of someone forced to solo pilot a Jaeger. She should know, she had a matching set.

Blade did an admirable job of pretending he didn’t know he was being observed, but he moved too carefully for it to look entirely casual. Or maybe he just always moved like that. He picked up a bo staff and tested the weight of it.

Iorwen took the opportunity that presented without thought or hesitation. “Looking for a dance partner?”

The briefest flash of surprise crossed his face before his expression smoothed back out. “Are you… sure?” he asked carefully. If she didn’t know better, she might say he almost sounded nervous.

She found it charming. She found him charming, with his not-quite-smile and his cool confidence, this magnetic man who could simultaneously terrify the cadets while inspiring absolute loyalty in them.

But she didn’t tell him that, of course. She just grabbed a staff of her own and grinned as she lifted it in a fencing salute. “On your guard, Marshal.”

---

After that first night, it became a regular thing. Not every day, not even on a set schedule. But sometimes after she was done in the clinic or in the garage, Iorwen would stop by the training room, and sometimes when she did, Blade would already be there. Not waiting for her, not exactly, but never surprised when she arrived.

He never really said much, but she didn't mind talking for the both of them. She could tell he was warming up to her, as the weeks passed; his silence felt much less formal and stiff and more cordial. Eventually, even friendly.

Two things were apparent from the very beginning, though. Well, three things. The first was that Blade, as a fighter, was completely out of her league. She never stopped by with any expectation of beating him; she was content to follow his lead. It was nice to be active again, to feel the familiar burn in muscles left dormant in her self-imposed retirement.

The second was that they were extremely drift compatible. While Iorwen could never beat him, she could consistently predict him. They could both be blindfolded and still know what move the other would make. There was an effortlessness to the way they understood each other that bordered on the supernatural. It was a kind of connection that she hadn’t felt since Zori had been killed.

The third thing was that neither of them were willing, in any way, shape, or form, to admit the second thing.

It was barely a week before Red found out.

He flopped down on the bench next to her in the cafeteria. “I brought those papers you were looking for to your room last night, but you weren’t there.” He didn’t say it as an accusation, but it still managed to feel like one.

“I spent a couple hours in the training room,” she said as casually as possible. “Trying to get back in shape.”

Red blinked a few times, letting that sink in, before smiling wide. “That’s really good. Let me know if you ever need a sparring partner.”

“I kind of… have one?”

“You do?” His smile went from friendly to devious, the look of a man who had four sisters and was willing to tease her as if she was a fifth. “Who?”

Before she could stop herself, she looked across the room at Blade. He sat at a table with Trouble, whose laughter was loud enough to reach them even from the other side of the busy cafeteria. The Marshal’s face remained impassive, looking like he wasn’t even listening, but Iorwen knew him well enough to tell he was amused.

As if he could feel her watching him, his eyes snapped up and locked on hers. She smiled at him; he nodded almost imperceptibly.

Red cleared his throat, and she looked away quickly, turning her attention back to the smugly amused grin of her best friend. “Well, I guess maybe it’s not everyone he doesn’t like.”

“Guess it’s just you.” She nudged his shoulder and he rubbed at it as if she’d hurt him. “He’s not as bad as you made him out to be.” She couldn’t stand his knowing look anymore and turned away, but doing so led her eyes right back to Blade. “He's nicer than he looks. And surprisingly funny. He doesn't treat me like I'm fragile. Like I'll break if someone talks about… Zori.” 

Mentioning her former Drift partner and copilot didn’t hurt as much as she expected it to this time. Less like twisting a knife in her heart and more like being poked in a fresh bruise.

Mentioning xer also stopped whatever comment Red had been about to make right in its tracks. He studied her with obvious curiosity, mouth still half-open in surprise. Whatever he saw on her face had him leaning forward and tapping his forehead against hers, a quick gesture of affection and understanding. She leaned into it until he pulled away.

And then his teasing smile was back as if it had never left. “Plus, he's handsome.”

She eyed him warily, but let him have the subject change. “That too.” She picked up a piece of fruit from her plate and popped it into her mouth. “Please don’t say anything about this to Pan or Neon.”

“Scout’s honor.”

“I mean it, Red. Not a word.”

---

“So I hear you and the Marshal have a thing.”

Iorwen sighed from the very depths of her soul. “I hope Red knows how very dead he’s about to be.”

Panrachus looked legitimately confused at her response. “What? I didn’t hear that from Red, I heard it from Caine.” Then he gasped, eyes widening with sudden, delighted recognition. “What does Red know?”

She only barely bit back a groan. “Why are you even here?”

“Right! We’ve got something you oughta come see.”

She followed him, with more than a little trepidation, out of the clinic, through the office labyrinth, and out into the hangar. It took her a few minutes to get her bearings and realize where exactly they were going. “Why are we going to the Jaeger bays?” He didn’t answer. “Pan?”

Then they turned the corner, and she had her answer.

Looming over her was a Jaeger unlike any she’d seen before. It looked almost lanky, the proportions lean and sleek instead of the more familiar bulky designs. It would be unbelievably fast with the right pilots; she could tell that just from looking at it. From the top of each wrist, a wicked-looking blade extended over the hand, almost long enough to drag the ground. It was painted black, navy, and silver, but its eyes glowed bright blue.

From the ground, it almost looked like iladrin. Like the same blue light that lit Iorwen’s own eyes.

“What’s her name?” she whispered, unable to tear her eyes away from the Jaeger.

“Stellar Enigma.”

“Who’s piloting her?”

“You are.”

She jumped at the unexpected voice behind her and turned to see Blade, Red, and Trouble approaching, along with an entourage of what looked to be equal parts Shatterdome leadership, actual engineers, and nosy onlookers.

“You are,” Blade said again, quieter, softer, “Ranger.”

“Blade, I--” Iorwen started, but she wasn’t sure what she actually intended to say.

He reached up and lightly pinched her cheek, a faint smile on his lips. “You’ll be alright.”

Before she could reply, Trouble gently but pointedly cleared his throat, reminding her of their audience. She glared his way, just for a second; he grinned back, unabashed and unrepentant.

“Who’s my copilot? Sir.” She added the last as an afterthought, trying to act some semblance of professional.

“I get the feeling you already have someone in mind.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Bit early to be reading my thoughts, isn’t it, Marshal?”

---

Iorwen’s suit didn’t fit as well as she remembered. Tight around the shoulders, too loose at the waist. Like it was meant for someone else, no matter how many things tried to tell her otherwise.

Blade’s fit him like a second skin. He looked like a Jaeger cockpit was where he was always meant to be. Like it was the rest of the world that didn’t fit him right instead.

She met his inscrutable gaze before ‘admiring’ could cross the line to ‘ogling’. “You look good.”

He paused for a long time, staring back at her in silence, before finally clearing his throat. “You too.”

She grinned, both at the compliment and at the sight of the Marshal so off-balance, but she took pity on him and changed the subject. “Do you want the left or right?”

“Right.”

“Good. I prefer left.”

They didn’t speak anymore as they connected to their harnesses and their suits started interfacing with the Jaeger, the computerized voice talking them through system checks. It took longer than Iorwen remembered, but it had been a long time since she last Drifted with anyone, let alone with someone new.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, once their helmets were in place and they’d run out of checks to do. “I’m not--”

“Yes,” he interrupted sharply. “You’re ready. We both are.”

There were a lot of things she wanted to say. To thank him, mostly, for a list of things that seemed to be growing bigger by the hour. She kept quiet; he’d hear it in her thoughts soon enough.

“Initiating neural handshake in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… neural interface drift initiated.”

Between one breath and the next, she was somewhere else. Images flowed over her, some familiar, some new. She did her best to let them pass, to not cling too hard to any of them.

The destruction of Drummond's Point, the first attack the day the Kaiju came. Iorwen, dragging Zori's unconscious body out of town as fast as thirteen-year-old legs could carry her. Blade, stern and silent even as a child, a soldier from the day he was born. Zori, tears at the corners of xer eyes as xe laughs at a joke Pan told, Red and Neon joining in, the three of them always together even then. Blade's older brother, startlingly similar to him in appearance and demeanor, the two of them either sparring or fighting; for them, there had never been much difference.

Zori's scream as xe's ripped out of the cockpit. Gladius didn't make a sound as he met the same fate.

Iorwen's grief washed up against Blade's, soothing in it's familiarity. A gentle reminder that they weren't alone anymore, that thanks to the Drift they'd never be entirely alone again.

She saw him in her memory of their first meeting. Stern, aloof, but warm underneath, like a fire behind frosted glass. Captivating her before he even so much as looked at her. 

And then herself through his eyes at that same introduction. Sad, withdrawn, but still burning bright. The embodiment of stubborn hope, like a flower blooming in a snowy field.

And then they broke through the surface, both gasping as they came up for air. Below them, Stellar Enigma came to life. The rush of memories and emotions settled into the background, present but no longer demanding attention.

“Pilot connection stabilized.” It wasn’t the computer’s voice this time, but Shery over the intercom. “How do you feel?”

Moving as one, Blade and Iorwen lifted their hands, right fist resting on left palm, and bowed. Stellar Enigma did the same, moving as smoothly as her pilots did. Iorwen couldn’t tell which of them the wave of elation came from, but it burst out of her in a laugh.

“It feels like coming home.”

[dualswordskings]

Ulrich handles very well being in love with Odd. (spoiler : it's not true)

aaaaah i’m finally done with this rbfkdjw i hope you guys will enjoy it !! i’m not english so sorry if some things don’t make sense. (i’d love to see what you thought about this so don’t be shy to comment or leave tags if you reblog 👉👈) a big thanks to @vexfulfun for motivating me to write this djsjd that being said... enjoy !

• Yumi comes out to Ulrich as aromantic a few months before they finally beat Xana, and now that they're on the clear about the nature of their relationship, it's easier to move on from the massive crush he had on her since Day One. Considering how pretty chaotic their relationship was sometimes, he thinks that the next time he gets a crush on someone it will be easier (spoiler : it's not. it's really not.)

• He figures out his crush on Odd a few months after putting an end to Lyoko, during the summer break. They got closer a few weeks before the end of school, and they've been texting or calling each other almost non-stop since the holidays started. Now Ulrich is lying on his bed, looking at the blank walls of his bedroom, wishing Odd was here to fill the silence like he did in their shared bedroom at the school, when it hits him and he's like. oh. Oh. OH NO.

• At first he thinks it's going to go away if he doesn't think about it, so he tries, but now that he knows, he sees it everywhere. And it doesn't help that Odd keeps texting him things like "hey it sucks without you, Kiwi and i miss you". (Granted, Odd does says the first part to every of their friends, but the Kiwi part ? that's just for him, and Ulrich loathes how proud and happy it makes him feel)

• So, yeah, the "i do not see it, i can not see" method doesn't work at all, but it's okay ! Ulrich is Smart, he can find a solution to that ! Maybe if he represses it hard enough, it will go away !

• Surprise : it doesn't work too.

• So whatever. Ulrich has a crush on Odd. It's fine, it's totally fine. (It's not.) He can handle this. (He can't.)

• Ulrich ends up being in a constant crisis about it during the whole summer, until the last week before school starts and he texts Yumi to tell her everything because, and he hates to admit it, he can't handle it and he might need help.

• Yumi instantly makes fun of him BUT she does help and at the end of the day Ulrich is much calmer about it because he finally got it off his chest and can now think a bit more clearly.

• So, he has a crush on Odd. And it... might be not that bad. Actually, it's okay. Yes, he has a crush on his best friend, and so what ? It's just a crush, and it will all be over soon, when they get back to seeing each other everyday and Ulrich is going to remember the little things he dislikes about Odd and why they would never work together anyway.

• ...It’s a month and a half in the school year when Ulrich thinks he should start taking circus classes, because he's becoming a clown.

• His crush does not go away. His crush gets WORSE. because of course he dislikes things about Odd, like how coward he can be sometimes, or how bad his feet smells, but it's not important compared to how many things he -loves- likes about him. and the worst thing is, they do work well together !

• Ulrich hates it ! He is tired of feelings, he doesn't want them ! Why did it have to be Odd ! Why does he keeps getting crushes on people he shouldn't !

• Eventually, after a long time.. He learns to live with it. He ends up accepting (for real, this time) the fact that he has a crush on Odd, and that it's not going away any time soon. And he's fine with that ! If he's destined to pine over Odd forever, then so be it. Ulrich finds that it's not a terrible way to live, anyway.

• He does try to date some people there and there during high school, but he always ends up cancelling plans after the second date because it's clear it's not going to work and people deserve better than being a last resort to a guy who has a crush on his best friend.

• He takes a gap year after high school, because he doesn't really know what he wants to do with his life. Odd goes to an art school in a close town, and ends up being roommate with Sissi, of all people ! (She moved out of their city before starting high school, and she changed a lot during that time).

• They don't see each other as much as they used to, since they're not in the same town anymore and they both have different things to do. They were both scared of drifting apart or not finding the time to hang out with each other (or with the rest of the group), but in the end they make it work.

• But still, a lot of things change. They spend week-ends together, whether it's Odd going to Ulrich's place or the opposite, and sometimes they go out, or they stay inside when they can.

• Ulrich barely sees Sissi because she's not here a lot during week-ends, and he still believes that Odd has been lying to everyone when he says she's nice now and they're getting along really well, because there's no way that's true.

• Anyway, the point is. They spend a lot of time together, and Ulrich ends up having dog food for Kiwi for when Odd comes over with him, and Odd ends up having Ulrich's clothes in his closet (and yes, sometimes he wears them but you can't blame him ! it's not his fault Ulrich keeps forgetting to take them back !) (what really happened is that Ulrich only forgot his clothes one time, and then he noticed Odd wore them, and look, he's enough of a disaster already, let him at least have this, he's been pining for *years* now). It's totally not gay, purely platonic, of course.

• And then comes The Competition. They don't remember when it started, but one day they noticed that every time they hung out outside, people mistook them as a couple and... well. They started playing along, calling each other ridiculous pet names, and of course it turned into a competion, to see who could come up with the worst pet name and who could be the most mushy.

• They're insufferable. Jeremie, Aelita and Yumi are planning their deaths because they're so tired of their stupidity.

• There’s no “rule” for this, but they never call each other pet names that are used a lot, like "babe" or "darling" etc. It always has to be ridiculous. Why, you ask ?

• Because one day Ulrich called Odd "babe" and they just. stared blankly at each other, both desesperatly trying to hide the fact that they were screaming inside, and both went "uh. that was weird. let's never mention that again." and that was it.

• So voila, everything is fine in their lives. They flirt (but as a joke), and they sleep in the same bed when they see each other during the week-end (because the couch is uncomfortable, and it would be rude to make someone sleep on it) and Odd wears Ulrich's clothes sometimes, and Ulrich keeps dog food in his apartment for Odd's dog (but there's nothing domestic about that). Everything is fine.

• Yumi, Aelita and Jeremie aren't as stupid as them though, and they kind of notice that... there's no way this is going to end well for Ulrich. (Ulrich hadn't planned on telling Aelita and Jeremie about his crush, but they figured it out themselves after a few years, because Ulrich is sometimes pretty obvious) (yes, Yumi, Aelita and Jeremie are keeping bets on who's going to confess first)

• So Yumi tries to talk to Ulrich, like 'hey maybe you should confess because you're kinda acting like a couple but you're not and we don't want you to see heartbroken the day Odd starts dating someone else'.

• And Ulrich wishes he could pretend everything is fine and there's no way this could go wrong, but he's a Responsible Adult now, or at least he's an old teenager, and maybe it's time to.. stop waiting. Maybe he could tell Odd, and it would make their friendship change, but maybe that's for the best. Maybe. So he promises to think about it, and he does.

• There's comfort in the way things are now, but at the same time, Ulrich has to move on someday, because as much as he loves loving Odd, it doesn’t stop it from hurting. and he doesn't want to wait until forever to confess either. the only reason he hasn't done it by now is because he's never sure about how Odd really feels about him, but then again, if he waits to be sure, then he'll never say anything.

• So it's decided. Ulrich is going to confess, and then life will move on, with or without Odd in it.

• He hopes it will be with Odd in it. He really, really hopes it will. He doesn't know what he would do if he had to live without him. Because before being his crush, Odd is his best friend since middle school, he's family, and Ulrich can't find the appeal of a life without Odd, no matter how hard he tries.

• (Fuck, Odd was right when he told him he wouldn't be able to live without him, the first day when they met.)

• It's a good thing to know you're going to confess. But the important question is, how are you going to do it ?

• Ulrich doesn't know. UnFortunately, he doesn't get the chance to think about it for too long.

• One week-end, while they're watching Pacific Rim again in Odd's apartment, with Odd buried in Ulrich's big hoodie, his legs resting on Ulrich's lap, Sissi comes home early.

• It's a little bit awkward between her and Ulrich, in the way that they're only acquaintances now, so they don't know each other really well. But that doesn't mean they don't get along, which is why it's not much of a problem when Sissi decides to watch the end of the movie with them.

• But she keeps glancing at them, especially Ulrich, until it's time for him to leave. And it's weird, because Ulrich doesn't understand why she would do that. It might be stupid, because it's not a big deal, but Ulrich got a sinking feeling in his stomach during the whole ride home and it doesn't leave him even after.

• Odd texts him a few hours later, and for the first time Ulrich doesn't want to know what he said. But still, he opens his phone and reads the text, because he's a weak man who can't refuse anything to Odd.

• It's something along the line "Sissi thought we were a couple hahahaha, that's so weird."

• It shouldn't be a big deal. It shouldn't. It's not the first time someone tells them they look like a couple anyway. Heck, they often pretends they are with the pet names competition. But there's something about that makes Ulrich sick in his stomach.

• Technically, nothing is wrong, because Odd still texted him, and he's laughing about it, like he always does, but. But Odd never uses capital letters, and he never types "hahaha" and he never puts punctuation in his texts, and sure, it's just some details, but Ulrich knows Odd and he knows that something is wrong and that somehow, now, everything is going to change. For the better or for the worst.

• He types back a simple "yeah, weird." and Odd never replies.

• It's... strange, for about a month. Odd starts avoiding him, answering his texts really late (if he answers them at all), never calling, coming up with shitty excuses to not spend time with him. They don't see each other once. Ulrich doesn't know how to feel about this situation.

• He's frustrated, because what the hell ? What happened ? Did he do or say something wrong ? He keeps replaying the last time they saw each other in his head, but he can't find anything out of the ordinary, except, well. their last texts.

• It angry, too. Because he doesn't understand. Odd had never been bothered when people mistook them for a couple, so why did he now ? And even if this was the reason, his behaviour still didn't make any sense. Odd would never stop talking to someone just for that, or at least he never did before.

• Did he discover Ulrich's crush on him and decided to put some distance between them because he thought it would be awkward to acknowleged it ? Odd had never acted like that when learning someone loved him, but maybe because they were best friends, this was different ?

• It hurts to think about it. It's not like Ulrich wasn't prepared to be rejected if he were to confess, but losing Odd like this ? It sucks. Odd is his best friend first and foremost, so of course Ulrich doesn't want him out of his life. He just always thought Odd would want him to stay in his, too.

• He's angry, and he's sad, and he's hurt and he's tired of this. It makes him mad that Odd was right when he said Ulrich wouldn't be able to live without him, and he’d like to believe that maybe he's got it all wrong and something else happened to make Odd stop talking to him, but he knows it can't be anything else after spending time with Yumi, Aelita and Jeremy. They all acted a little awkward, and Ulrich knows Odd still talks to them on the regular, and it's enough proof to know that the problem is indeed with him.

• He talks to Yumi about it, and she just tells him that Odd is an idiot and that maybe he should still confess so he can move on.

• Ulrich actually starts thinking about it, after the third week. Moving on that is- not confessing, because that is way too scary.

• And of course it's not going to be easy and it sucks but if Odd wants to act like a dumbass then fine, Ulrich isn't going to wait and cry about it forever. He deserves better than this bullshit anyway.

• (It doesn’t make it any less hurting. Ulrich is not really sure he wants to fully admit that he lost his best friend.)

• He tries to talk to Odd a few times during those three weeks of course, but it never ends anywhere. He either leaves him on read or answers vaguely and doesn't participate in the conversations. Ulrich tries to confront him one time, and they end up fighting. It's not a big fight, but it's still shitty, and Ulrich stops trying after that, and Odd doesn't say anything.

• Then out of nowhere, on the fourth week, Odd calls him. Ulrich stares in shock and considers for a brief moment not answering and ignoring him, because that would only be fair, but he ends up answering, because maybe this their chance to make it right again and fuck, he missed his best friend, okay ?

• It's... it's awkward. At first, Odd tries to act like nothing happened, and Ulrich pretends that they don't need to talk about it, but they both know ignoring the elephant in the room won't resolves anything.

• And surprise ! After a few awkward silences, they do end up talking about it. Or at least a little.

• Odd apologies, but doesn't offer any explanations, and Ulrich decides that it's enough, at least for now.

• They start catching up on what they missed during the month, though not a lot happened on both sides, and they joke around and that's pretty much it.

• Ulrich is sure life is going to go back to normal (until he confesses), and he's happy with that, but then it's the end of the call, and Odd tells him about this movie that's going to come out soon and how they should go watch it together, and Ulrich agrees, and Odd says "cool, so it's a date then ?" which is. what. WHAT.

• Ulrich takes five whole minutes to answer because his brain decided to shut down. He's not sure if it's a joke, like their pet names competition, or if it's a dream, but it can't be real. Except Odd is silent at the end of the line, so he must be serious, and oh, Ulrich is a weak, weak man.

• "Uh. Yeah, ok." "Cool, see you on the week-end for our date then !"

• And that's it. That's how the call ends and Ulrich doesn't know for how long he stares at his phone like it holds the secrets of the universe, but when he finally registers what happened, a lot of time has passed.

• Ulrich has a date. With Odd.

• He wakes up Yumi by calling them. (They're mad because they lost the bet on who will ask the other out on a date first, but she doesn't tell him that.)

• And so the week-end comes, and Ulrich gets ready. to go on his date. with Odd.

• He's expecting this to be a bad prank but still, he takes his time to dress well and make sure he looks good. And then he goes pick up Odd on his motorcycle and tries his best not to have a gay panic when Odd comes out of his apartment wearing his best date outfit with the jean jacket Ulrich bought him for one of his birthday.

• They go to the cinema, and it's awkward at first, because how are you supposed to act on a first date with your crush who's also your best friend who you also haven't talked to since a month ? It's.. a little bit weird, doing romantic coded things together for real and not as a joke, but it's nice. It's something they could get used to, something they /want/ to get used to.

• And so it doesn't take long for them to be comfortable around the other again, and everything falls back to normal, and they have an amazing time.

• None of them confess that day, because they want to take the time to enjoy this new thing, and they go on a lot of other dates and Ulrich feels weird because he's not used to have luck on his side when it's about romance, but he's definitely not complaining about it.

• A few months later, when they're coming home to Ulrich's apartment after a midnight walk with Kiwi, Odd tells him about the month when they stopped talking to each other. It slowly becomes a confession, because it turns out Odd realized he was in love with Ulrich after Sissi's comment and didn't know how to process it, but Ulrich cuts him in the middle of it to confess how he feels because 1) he hasn't been suffering all these years only to not confess first and 2) Yumi would kill him if he didn't.

• So that's how they start dating.

• Yumi, Aelita and Jeremy are like "finally ! we can have peace now. no more them being fools." and also very happy because they've been waiting for this for so long and their best friends deserves to be happy together.

• jokes on them though, because now that they're dating, they're worse than before. the pda, the jokes, the love confessions at any given time, they're everywhere. the awful pet names ? even worse now because they call each other regular pet names too.

• But hey, for their friends happiness, they can endure it. a little. they do deserve to be happy after all of this.

• Bonus :

Later, after a few years of being together, someone looks at them and goes "wow, you're such good friends ! i would love to have a bro like that", and it's the pet name competition nightmare all over again, except it’s reversed. Yumi, Sissi, Aelita and Jeremie have to deal with them calling each other "bro" or "dude" constantly and they regret being friends with them.

[ct-1500-mango]

Tandem - Platonic Obikin

Hello, welcome to week 3 of Mango drabbles. I have been in the Star Wars fandom since I was six years old and I have been a fan of Pacific Rim since it came out in 2013. Today, some people in the NSWC server were watching Pacific Rim and I thought it would be incredible to do a crossover of the two. 

Tandem 

Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Marshal Stacker Pentecost, Tendo Choi

Rating: T

Word Count: 1595

I recommend listening to this when you read. 

Kaiju (Japanese): Giant Beast

Jaeger (German): Hunter

Drifting (English): Two minds being joined into one for combat

“Rebel Blue, report to Bay 05, Level A-42, repeat, Rebel Blue, report to Bay 05, Level A-42.” 

The blaring of the nuclear siren rings in Anakin’s ears as his eyes shoot open. He blearily rubs his eyes as the words repeating over the loudspeaker register. 

“Rebel Blue, report to Bay 05, Level A-42, repeat, Rebel Blue, report to Bay 05, Level A-42. Kaiju. Code name: Insidious. Category 3” 

He grins, adrenaline flooding his system. He jumps out of his bunk, pulls on a shirt, his dog tags jingling. His copilot, Obi-Wan slept peacefully on the lower bunk. Anakin slaps Obi-Wan’s mattress and then gently slaps his face. 

“Obi, wake up old man! We got movement, we’re being deployed!” 

Obi-Wan groans and Anakin takes that as a signal to keep prepping. He darts over to their mini kitchen, pulling out two protein bars. As Obi-Wan emerges from his bunk, pulling on a shirt, Anakin throws a bar to him. 

“G’morning.” Obi-Wan’s lightly accented voice rings through the air, slurred with sleep. “I see we’ve got a big one.” 

“Yep! And before you ask, it’s 1 A.M.”

Obi-Wan sighs. “Can’t these damn Kaiju appear according to my circadian rhythm?” 

Anakin laughs and Obi-Wan smiles. They are interrupted by a banging on the door. “ObiAni, hurry it up. Time for the drop.” 

Obi-Wan grabs his leather jacket from the chair he draped it over last night and tosses Anakin’s to him. Together, they don them and stride out the door. 

They make their way down to the launch bay. The massive steel doors are emblazoned with their sigil and “Rebel Blue” painted in white calligraphy. As the doors creak open, Anakin whoops. 

“Let’s get this show started, boys!” He practically bounces into the room. 

A small army of techs is waiting for them. They shed their jackets and step forward, taking their positions. Like squires to the knights of old, the techs help them into their armor. As Anakin’s breastplate is being attached, he looks at Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan meets his gaze and winks. About thirty seconds later, they are suited up. The white armor shines under the fluorescent light. Together, they step forward and put on their helmets. The door to their Jaeger opens and Anakin walks in, followed closely by Obi-Wan and three techs. Together, they lock their feet in place. The techs secure their back harnesses and the third hands them their hand consoles. As the techs exit, a voice rings out through their headsets. 

“Welcome to the party, ObiAni!” 

Obi-Wan grins and replies, “Hello Tendo. What’s the weather like?”

The two men can hear Tendo’s grin. “Ah you know how it is. Cloudy with a chance of Kaiju blue.”

“So perfect weather then.” Anakin rolls his neck, making sure he’s all stretched out. 

“If you say so.” 

“Engage drop, Mr. Choi.” The stern, no nonsense voice of Major Pentecost interrupts their banter. The two men immediately switch to battle mode. If Pentecost is here, then it’s time to roll out. Making sure their comm channel is muted on their end, Anakin turns to look at Obi-Wan. 

“Ready to add another scratch to our wall of kills, Obi-Wan?”

“Only if you are. And make sure to cover our side this time, my side still hurts from the last one.”

“I told you, it came out of nowhere.”

“No, it clearly came out from the left, which is what you’re supposed to be covering.”

“If you recall, I was a bit busy with the prehensile tail!”

The hiss of the pod door sealing interrupts their banter. Both men do a final systems check before Obi-Wan reopens the comm channel. “Rebel Blue ready for the drop.”

With that confirmation, the floor plummets. Anakin’s stomach drops to his feet as the pod descends rapidly down the shaft. Instinctually, he lets out a scream of joy and terror. He looks at Obi-Wan and sees gritted teeth and closed eyes. He remembers that the drop is the part Obi-Wan hates. The pod slows and settles gently onto the shoulders of their Jaeger. A towering two hundred and eighty foot extension of their bodies. The pod, which is actually the head of the Jaeger rotates first left, then right, confirming mobility. Anakin and Obi-Wan adjust to the moving pod as the Marshall orders initiation of pilot to pilot protocol. 

Around them, filling their ears, Rebel Blue’s beautiful voice speaks, “Pilot-to-pilot connection protocol sequence.”

Anakin locks eyes with Obi-Wan. The soft blue glow of the helmet coats Obi-Wan’s features. The last time they dropped together, they took a pretty big hit. It took all three of them a few months to recover. Now, Rebel is as good as new and Anakin swears he isn’t going to let anything happen to Obi-Wan. The hum of Rebel’s nuclear core rattles the massive avatar. Obi-Wan nods to Anakin, a gesture of trust and faith that Anakin returns. They are some of the best pilots in the fleet and they know it. They will do their job and return to their friends and family. After all, they have a little sister waiting for them. 

Dimly, they hear the sounds of the bay doors opening as Rebel wakes up around them. They stumble slightly, jolting forward in their harnesses as the massive transport begins to roll towards the hanger doors. Through the viewscreen, they can see small helicopters buzzing like bees around their head. As the transport rolls off the launchpad into the unforgiving ocean, Anakin comms Command. 

“Rebel Blue, ready and aligned.”

“Rangers, this is Pentecost. As you know, this is a category 3. Last time you fought a C.3, you were nearly split in two. Try not to do that again. Prepare for neural handshake.”

Tendo’s voice takes over. “Starting in 15 seconds. 15…” 

As the countdown begins, Anakin mutes their channel. “What are we thinking, Obi-Wan? Music?”

“Oh definitely not. We have been out of it for a while, let’s not get cocky, even though that’s your specialty.”

Anakin rolls his eyes. “Fair enough. Can’t wait to hear your grating voice in my head.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

“3… 2… 1…”

Rebel Blue speaks over Tendo, “Neural Handshake initiated.” Anakin closes his eyes, focusing on breathing. A sensation not unlike drowning overtakes him. His whole body goes cold, spreading from his head, down his torso, through his legs and arms. There is a pressure settling around him from all sides, slowly squeezing tighter and tighter as the memories begin. 

Obi-Wan, meeting Anakin for the first time in college. 

Anakin, swimming with Ahsoka, shouting and laughing. 

Anakin, the day his mother died, face wet with tears as the cancer finally took her. 

Obi-Wan, age 5, playing with his parents in a verdant, rolling field.  

Obi-Wan’s grief and guilt after his last copilot died.

Anakin’s insecurity at being compared to Obi-Wan’s former copilot. 

Obi-Wan and Anakin, the first time they drifted.

Obi-Wan and Anakin, becoming ObiAni. 

In tandem, their eyes snap open as the link finalizes. Two men and their hulking avatar, a perfect union of flesh and steel. ObiAni feels cold wind and sea spray on his face. He blinks, trying to dislodge a water droplet that isn’t even there. When you drift, you aren’t just melding with your copilot, you are embodying the Jaeger too. He hears and feels laughter echoing in his head. 

I missed this. I missed you. 

Was it Anakin or Obi-Wan who said that? It didn’t matter. All that matters is Anakin and Obi-Wan are one. Two halves of a whole, greater than the sum of its parts. ObiAni breathes, feeling his chest rise and fall as the heartbeat of Rebel Blue thrums in his ears. 

“Neural handshake strong and holding.” Tendo’s voice brings him out of his reverie. 

Right hemisphere, calibrating. ObiAni speaks, raising his left hand out to his side. Metal creaks as Rebel Blue obeys his command. He rotates his arm so his palm is facing up and slowly curls his fingers into a powerful fist. 

Left hemisphere, calibrating. This time, he brings his right arm up, repeating the motion. He bends his arms together and thrusts them forward in a powerful double punch. 

“Proofed and transmitting.” Rebel Blue coos in his ear, speaking to him and Command. ObiAni flexes his fingers. He curls his left hand into a fist and his right hand he leaves palm up. Fist meets palm in a powerful show of strength and aggression. ObiAni cracks his neck and views the HUD of Rebel Blue critically, making sure all systems are green. 

Pentecost begins giving them orders. “Rangers, you are to keep Insidious away from the coastline. Terminate it quickly then get back to base. As you know, breach activity has been increasing, I don’t want you caught in an ambush. Copy?”

Copy that, sir. 

ObiAni switches off comms and the bodies of the men that were Anakin and Obi-Wan look at each other. Obi-Wan’s face has a thin layer of sweat. Anakin’s breathing is spiking as adrenaline takes over. Their hearts beat in tandem with the nuclear core of Rebel Blue. 

You’re in my head, you know what I’m thinking. 

I do. 

Let’s go get this sonuva bitch. 

Flexing his muscles, ObiAni begins to walk and Rebel Blue follows suit, water sloshing around their ankles. Death could be on the horizon for ObiAni but now, he is whole, he is powerful, and he is going to save lives. 

And that’s all that matters.

[rainbowcrowley]

do you have any favorite stony fics that you could rec?

oh nonnie strap yourself in because there are A FEW

i’m just gonna list them all and say a few words. and this post became massive so i’ll put them under a read more... here we gooo!

oh and disclamer: most of them are rated E. it’s not that i only read explicit stuff, it just so happened that my faves are all E lol sorry

The AWAKANINGS Universe - i think these few fics are the first few i read and every single one of them were absolutely amazing. i even started re-reading them i few weeks ago!

Resistance - this one is a WHUMP. the tags almost scared me away at first, but i gave it a shot and ...holy maccaroni. it’s so well-written and in character. the drama. the emotions. the action. simply amazing. not for the squeamish, tho.

The Dick Pic-verse - most chapters are shown as text message conversations on iOS and if this concept alone isn’t dope as heck i don’t know what is.

almeno tu nell'universo - a really emotional civil war-fix it that made me shed a few tears here and there...

Of Beards And Best Defenders - a cute and funny, non canon compliant post-endgame fic (...so it’s a fix it lol) in which tony has a thing for steves magnificent beard.

take my heart clean apart - angsty start, happy ending. tony’s hopelessly in love.

Open For Christmas - ferret has a lot of awesome fics, but this one is my absolute fave. idk why. mechanic!tony does things to me, i guess.

Come on Closer - a sexy but kinda?? cute one. idk it makes me go “aw steeb”

these next two are written by my best friend and partner in crime @diebecceee! she originally posted them on a german a fanfic site (and in german, lol) and i hope she’ll continue to translate One More Miracle soon!

One More Miracle - an endgame fix-it she started planning mere moments after i made her watch endgame for the first time. magical shenanigans, wakandan technology and steve, who is determined to get tony back to the world of the living.

Just Cookies - everyone leaves the tower for christmas, steve has no where to go and tony hates christmas.

and last but not least... a few from my dear friend @ylissianprince:

Stark’s Tower for Strays - KITTIES! it’s been some time since i read it, but i remember loving it!

Twelve Days - an emotional one with a happy ending, ghosts and a lot of holiday magic

in the drift - a fresh one; pacific rim au!

aaaaand here are a few peeps who frequently share their awesome writing on this hellsite:

@therollingstonys @omg-just-peachy @s-horne @starklysteve @maguna-stxrk (there are so many more fhjsdfhsjk i’m sorry if i forgot someone it’s 1am and i’m tired okay) (check the stony fic of stevetony fic tags for more hhhh)

*~*~*~*

there are SO MANY MORE. i really had to keep my shit together to no list every single. one. i read. at some point lol. i’m gonna stop talking now. this took way too long already. thanks for the ask, nonnie!

ask me stuff, tell me how your day was or share a secret, on or off anon!

[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

[b-e-h-o-l-d-e-r]

Kong Skull Island (2017)

* * * * ° 

Wow, this movie is one hell of a diamond in the rough.

Ok, if you're the type to poo poo "popcorn" action fantasy monster movies as not worth your time, you probably are determined not to be swayed and will eye roll your way through this whole thing but THEN I want of all of you uppity elitists to hand over your praises of Jurassic Park. This film has been the closest spiritual successor to JP I've seen and it's been a long darn tootin time since I felt like the kid that watched that in cinemas.

After being particularly disheartened by Ghost in the Shell, this was a much needed revitalisation. A reassurance that under the right guidance, a format crafted by Japanese cinema can still be translated without losing its soul in the process.

For anyone not so familiar, this is by no means the period piece '30s Kong that Peter Jackson was supporting. This is of the Japanese incarnation (yes, the one that would end up fighting giant Octopi and Godzilla). A must see for anyone who grew up watching the various Kaiju films from the 60's/ 70's onwards.

People who come to see the hairy king go apeshit will not be disappointed. Kong here is a deity that will not be shipped over to the US in a box. The largest representation in cinematic history (although still dwarfed by the size of this franchises Godzilla) battles the ferocious monstrosities that gave him the undesirable title of "last of his kind" and of course the ever big dick swinging, over-compensating military (this time at the turn of the Vietnam war, with anti-war film references a plenty).

What is most surprising of all is that Jordan Vogt-Roberts (pretty much a newcomer to cinema) nails that delicate balance between giving us the Kong we came for and supplying a supporting cast of characters on the ground that are equally entertaining. With Goodman, Jackson, Hiddleston, Reilly and Larsson in the mix, it would be easy to squabble over who gets the spotlight and its often the pitfall of Hollywood's monster movie adaptations that fail to give the humans a compelling reason to seem anything more than filler material to the main attraction.

The main cast all get a fair chance to play the cards they were dealt. John C Reilly is hilarious in this movie. It often feels like he wandered on from a completely different set and a less confident director might be pushed into giving him too much screen time but thankfully his work is brief and serves as delightful punctuation to the action centric plot. Jackson comes with his usual kit of tongue in cheek and Hiddleston/ Larsson keep the film on track without ramming a love story in there (am relieved to see Hollywood is using that device less and less in their action films).

The supporting cast may not all have amazing roles but considering HOW MANY people are in the cast, giving them all screen time and more than 10 words to say is a shit tonne more than many others have attempted to pull off.

It's also worth saying this film looks amazing and I wholeheartedly recommend seeing this in 3D. The elements are thoughtfully composed by Larry Fong (of Lost, Watchmen and Super 8 amongst others) and its action distances itself from the Bay-ist CG craziness and proves the value of shooting wide and letting the beasties speak for themselves. When Kong isn't laying the smackdown or the ground team isn't spraying bullets desperately at things that go bump in the night/ day/ whenever the fuck they want to the movie lovingly recaptures a classic 70's feel owing much to Apocalypse Now, not to mention having a kick ass soundtrack for those who love the songs of the era.

I was there opening night of Gareth Edwards' Godzilla 3D Imax premiere (which, aside from the aforementioned human story problems, I ABSOLUTELY can get behind) and this film has sealed the deal. I am totally in hook, line and sinker into Legendary's MonsterVerse franchise! With how this film was put together, I could not be more excited to see what's ahead in this gigantic wrestlemania.

With Godzilla: King of Monsters to begin shooting within weeks for 2019 release (whereby everyone's favourite flapper, Mothra, will join the fray) I am just a bit concerned at the pace they're setting for themselves for a Godzilla vs King Kong 2020 release. It doesn't help that the Pacific Rim sequel looks set to disappoint in 2018 so by the time the two titans put up their fisty cuffs, Legendary may just be to exhausted to keep their arms up.

The problem with setting up a franchise with many of Godzilla's famed rivals hinted at joining the party (KING GHIDORAH the WINGED THREE HEADED LIGHTNING BREATHING INTERGALACTIC DRAGON!!) is that the inertia doesn't allow it to get out while the gettings good and at best will be abandoned if it proves fruitless. I'm against over franchising as it stamps out cinematic diversity but for what its worth, once in a while there's a film in there with a glimmer of something special and I honestly think this is one of them.

[dusk-realm]

Chrysanthemum [Chapter 13: Rogue]

Tagging: @featurelengthfics @thedungeonsbat @severussnapesupporter @southsiderepresent @pan-lokistan @gbatesx @a-slytherin-sin @wangmangagavroche @theblackdeath87 @zeroscarletcross @xxaamzxx @soft-slytherin-sweetie

A/N: and I said I could get this ready earlier, you know, like a liar.

Masterlist

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(Y/N) sat in front of Severus’s desk, frozen and fearing him as ever, watching the man in front of her as though he was a complete stranger.

He hadn’t even sat down yet; he had been pacing back and forth behind his chair almost since he dragged her by the arm to the dungeons.

The Gryffindor table had made sure to cheer loudly at the little scene that took place in the opposite side of Great Hall. The Head of Slytherin, however, didn’t see the heroics, and he icily ordered the student to sit while he picked what he was going to say first.

The silence felt heavy in the room. The air was dense to breathe. (Y/N) felt tiny and defenseless on that chair. She’d never seen Severus angry, and she had the certainty that it would be less scary if he simply screamed at her like any other professor would do.

‘Care to remind me…’ he finally spoke, in such a soft tone that she could barely hear him, ‘what did you call Miss Parkinson?’

The apparent calmness of his voice barely masked the seeping venom of his tone.

(Y/N) didn’t answer immediately - why bother? 

What did he want from her? Embarrass her? Make her feel remorseful?

Oh, she would regret this dearly, of course. Pansy Parkinson would ensure it one way or the other.

But he stopped his pacing to look at her with an arched eyebrow, and she knew she had no option but to answer.

‘...Filthy inbred swine,’ she murmured.

Severus didn’t say anything for a long while, again. (Y/N) was starting to feel like they had spent hours like that, when he laid both of his hands on his chair’s backrest and leaned forward.

‘Why?’ He breathed.

Why… Why? Was he seriously asking why?

(Y/N)’s eyebrows scrunched together.

Are you blind, Severus Snape?

Severus’ hands slammed against the wooden desk in annoyance. (Y/N) had never seen him this mad, with his lips pressed together into a thin line and his eyes fiery.

‘Answer me, girl!’ He roared.

The harshness of Severus’ voice made her cower in her seat. She wished for the chair to suddenly develop a mouth and swallow her whole right in that instant, but it didn’t come true.

She huddled a little more and hugged herself, trying to find a little bit of comfort. Her fingers softly traced the trail of bruises on her side. 

They still hurted, as well as her empty stomach, and her head spun as well, but she had to bear with it.

More silence.

While the idea of just telling Snape everything was terribly attractive… Snitches get stitches.

It was a mystery what Pansy would do to her in revenge, and, to be honest, she prefered that it stayed a mystery.

After an elongated pause, Severus grew tired of waiting for an answer that wouldn’t arrive, and spoke again, firmly:

‘You will serve detention for three weeks, starting tomorrow after dinner with Professor Lockhart.’

Severus watched her intently, hoping for a reaction.

Anything.

Sending (Y/N) off with Lockhart was the professor’s last attempt to pull something out from her; an excuse, an explanation, a protest... Anything that would let him understand why his pupil had so recklessly slammed another girl’s face against the table in front of everybody else, and breaking her nose in the process.

His attempt, however, was futile.

In the end, he let her go without further conversation, tired of watching the student just sit there in silence, staring into nothing.

Maybe on another occasion, he told himself.

Severus plopped on his chair and buried his face in between his crossed arms.

He sighed softly and closed his eyes for a moment, somewhat feeling that he had failed.

He had been so sure of having (Y/N) figured out.

Severus thought... no, he could assure that (Y/N) was a pacific girl, what had gone wrong? He had not noticed anything wrong with her behavior, so he had let her be.

She was difficult to see sometimes, yes, and with food and meal times, but that wasn’t strange either in her whatsoever, as he saw in his own house, when she was under his care. The girl would skip plenty of meals without even bothering to give an excuse nor an explanation.

Severus raised his head to stare at the chair on which (Y/N) had been sitting a while ago and let out a small groan of frustration, which got lost in the solitude of his empty office.

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On the next day, a rather strong arm suddenly flopped on top of (Y/N)’s shoulders, and right after, another one did the same from the opposite side.

The Slytherin panicked in the darkness of the dungeons, unable to identify the people there with her. At first, she thought it’d be Pansy and Millicent wanting a hot-served revenge, until someone spoke:

‘That was a blunt hit, you should be the next Slytherin beater.’ A boy said.

Then, the other guy hummed, and they lit their wands at the same time.

‘I’m Fred,’ said the boy that had spoken.

‘And I’m George,’ the other said.

Fred offered his hand for her to shake, and so did George, making (Y/N) cross her arms in order to shake both of their hands at the same time.

Their little game made her smile a little bit, and she introduced herself as well.

‘I’m (Y/N) (Y/L/N),’ said she, as the twins led her upstairs, where the morning light bathed the castle’s insides.

‘We know!’ They exclaimed in unison.

‘Do you have plans? Care to have breakfast with us?’ George asked.

‘Uh… no, not really… wait, you don’t mean on the Gryffindor’s table, right?’

‘Yes!’ They answered in unison again.

‘(Y/N)!’ A familiar voice echoed in the corridor, and (Y/N) turned around.

‘Hermione?’ (Y/N) whipped her head to look at the Gryffindor witch, who joined the group, and they all entered into the Great Hall.

Too late to back away.

The twins sat down flanking her, near their younger brother Ron, and also with Hermione, and Harry, and Neville was also around. A few of the other Gryffindors stared at the Slytherin and whispered between them, but Hermione didn’t allow her to think too much of it.

‘(Y/N), what happened yesterday with Pansy?’ She inquired.

(Y/N) noticed how everyone was watching, even though most of them already knew about what happened, but they still wanted to hear it first hand. So much attention made her cheeks flare with embarrassment, and she tried to calm down by staring only at the rim of her skirt, under the table.

She didn’t really want to answer, though, because that would probably mean attracting even more attention to herself.

‘It was just… Pansy Parkinson being Pansy Parkinson.’ She answered, and then looked around. Neville lowered his head, and a few others nodded in quiet agreement.

While Parkinson was not the most abominable bully at Hogwarts, she sure had a history on picking on other students and sometimes even publicly humiliating them, like poor Neville.

‘You’re Slytherin’s public enemy, how does it feel like?’ asked Fred in a journalistic tone, softly elbowing her.

‘I- uh…’

True, she was still at the Gryffindor table… What would her housemates think now?

‘I think I really should leave now, before they lock me out of the common room…’

She said, and with that, (Y/N) tried to stand up and leave as soon as possible, but George grabbed her by the arm.

‘Nonsense, stay with us for today.’

━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━

(Y/N) and Hermione were heading to the library, as they used to do lately, although now they would not spend as much time together.

‘...Anyway, I don’t think I’ll stay late today, I need to show up for detention, today’s the last day.’ (Y/N) commented on their way.

‘Oh, of course… Are you still going to Professor Lockhart’s office?’ Hermione asked, and (Y/N) shrugged it off with a soft hum, as if it was no big deal.

‘I’ve been putting up with him for the last two weeks, I suppose I’ll survive another one.’ She said, watching with amusement how Hermione gritted her teeth. 

Later, both girls had settled their stuff on the table and studied together, or at least they pretended to do so in front of the other. Hermione suddenly looked very indignant for some reason, and her quill slid so furiously on the parchment that she was spritzing black ink everywhere.

(Y/N) sat there staring blankly at her book. 

She hadn’t been able to bring herself to continue reading it, because it reminded her of Severus. 

They hadn’t talked again since he sent her to detention, not even during class.

It just… hurt.

Her heart shrank and ached each time she thought about how much she had trusted him, how she had expected him to just look out for her, and how wrong she had been in believing in him so much.

It made her cheeks burn and her limbs go numb, she felt like a fool now being aware of how much she had simply taken for granted.

‘(Y/N)?’ A tremulous voice dragged her back to reality, and (Y/N) glanced up at Hermione with glassy eyes.

‘Yes?’

‘Are… are you alright?’ Hermione’s eyebrows were scrunched together with concern, seeing how her friend was at the verge of tears.

‘Yeah… I was just… thinking of returning this book.’ Said she. (Y/N) gently placed her hand on the over the title Moste Potente Potions and felt the leathery cover with her fingertips. Yes, returning it was probably the best idea.

Hermione saw her chance, and cleared her throat. The trio’s lucubrations were now trailing off more towards Draco Malfoy, and they still needed the book to rat him out as the Slytherin heir.

‘Are you not interested anymore? Can I have a look?’

(Y/N) pondered it for a minute. Would Snape know? Probably not, and she was not sure the he would give a damn anymore anyways, but, on the other hand… could she risk making him angry? it was a book from the Restricted Section, after all, and there were reasons as to why not any student could access it...

‘I don’t think I should let you, Hermione, sorry.’

‘Why not? Snape mentioned it in class, didn’t he?’ The Gryffindor protested, a little more hot-tempered that she would’ve wanted.

‘Professor Snape signed a note for me to borrow it, perhaps you could ask him to sign one for you as well?’ (Y/N) put away her belongings in her bag and stood up, ‘I’ll return it now anyways, I don’t want it anymore.’ 

Then, (Y/N) bid goodbye and left the library after a brief talk with Madam Pince.

‘Moste Potente Potions?’ Madam Pince repeated suspiciously, trying to take the note from Hermione; but Hermione wouldn’t let go.

‘I was wondering if I could keep it,’ she said breathlessly.

After (Y/N) announced her intention of returning the book, Hermione had been fast to fetch Harry and Ron to accompany her to check out the volume.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Ron, wrenching it from her grasp and thrusting it at Madam Pince. ‘We’ll get you another autograph. Lockhart’ll sign anything if it stands still long enough.’

Madam Pince held the note up to the light, as though determined to detect a forgery, but it passed the test. She stalked away between the lofty shelves and returned several minutes later carrying a large and moldy-looking book. Hermione put it carefully into her bag and they left, trying not to walk too quickly or look too guilty.

The term seemed to get wilder and wilder day by day; soon, the news that Harry Potter had caught the snitch during a Slytherin versus Gryffindor quidditch match started spreading much to Draco Malfoy’s dismay, the Slytherin’s seeker. It wouldn’t had been that extraordinary if he hadn’t broken his arm in the attempt, and Lockhart had erased his bones while trying to mend them, leaving Harry in the Hospital wing with fleshy gelatin as a limb. On the same day, there was another attack. The new victim was Colin Creevey, a first year Gryffindor that was completely obsessed with Harry Potter and chased him around taking pictures of the living legend. Now, his body laid stiff and cold to the touch in the infirmary, waiting for a cure.

All the first years walked around in packs, tightly pressed against each other as they looked everywhere. (Y/N) was extra wary as well, as she couldn’t erase Pansy’s words from her mind.

No Slytherin had been attacked so far, but that fact alone would not suffice to calm her down; the legend of Hogwart’s founding told that the school had been founded over a thousand years ago by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. 

The four school Houses are named after them: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. The castle was built far from prying Muggle eyes, as it was an age when magic was feared by muggles, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution.

The founders worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then, after some years, disagreements sprang up between them. A rift began to grow between Slytherin and the others. Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while, there was a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school. Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing and, according to the legend, sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school, who would unseal the Chamber of Secrets and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic.

(Y/N) thought that the Slytherins were a bit too overconfident; while the builder of the chamber was Salazar Slytherin himself, what guaranteed that no Slytherin would be harmed? The purge had begun with the muggleborns of other Houses, yes, but why wouldn’t the cleansing reach the Slytherin House as well? Wouldn’t the heir want eliminate those unworthy of being in Slytherin by the status of their blood? What would happen to muggleborns? Or… Half-bloods, like Severus himself!

Severus...

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December rolled in quite quickly, and although her detention had ended a long ago, (Y/N) was still sore with her protector. The girl still refused to talk to him about how her classmates treated her, and decided that it would be wisest to move on and deal with the matter on her own, as she had been doing in the past.

Truth be told, (Y/N) felt at her loneliest. While she had a handful of new friends, the weakness of their bond was almost tangible for the Slytherin, and their thinly veiled conventions left her to feel incomplete. Their company was never enough, as she found those relations way too shallow. Too new, too superficial and too irrelevant for her to really enjoy. Each of them had different interests, and different chores to do and deal with, which created a growing feeling of frustration, feeling that her loneliness could not be mended.

The motivation to earn points was also long gone.

Her absenteeism had started only due to the time she was obliged to waste in detention, and she had even missed helping around in her free time, mostly when she could’ve been with McGonagall or Flitwick instead of the swanky Professor Lockhart. However, once her detention was over… what was the point?

Why bother struggling so much to earn points for her House, when her work would go unnoticed?

What for, if not even Severus would be looking?

Why risk it, when there was a monster on the loose, and nobody knew who could be its next victim?

Her abulia soon translated even to the classroom; while the term had started with a heart fluttering with enthusiasm, (Y/N) now limited her performance to sitting in class and staying in silence. The Slytherin’s behavior was still pretty much unproblematic, but her mind was obviously in another place.

Her apathy, though, did not go completely unnoticed.

[somethingmorecreative1]

Renegade Dawn, Chapter 2 [klance fic]

the klance pacific rim au 

Here’s Chapter 1, if you haven’t read it yet! And here’s the AO3 link if you’d rather read it there. 

Stay safe, stay healthy, and take care of yourselves xoxo

;;

Chapter 2

September 2029—Year 22 of the Kaiju War

The Kaiju roars in agony as the plasmacaster blows through its chest and destroys the heart cavity. Its empty screams echo off of the buildings and the partially destroyed Wall of Life in Los Angeles as it collapses.

��Great job, beautiful!” Lance exclaims, moving into a complete standing position on the gyro-stabilizers, the elliptical pedals that hold him in place in the cockpit.

“Are you okay?” Allura asks, looking over at him through her helmet. She looks tired, but her eyes are bright, just like they are after every Kaiju kill. Clawtooth, codename for the Kaiju that attacked Southern California early this morning, had gone down after a long fight. Some of the coast was destroyed in the battle, with a large piece of the completed and supposedly indestructible wall torn to shreds.

Lance nods, surveying the Kaiju’s body where it’s scattered in pieces around them. He says, “Yep. I’m glad we were here. This son of a bitch would have ruined L.A.”

“Riptide, get back to the coast and prepare for pickup,” the voice interrupts from the comm system, speaking over the heavy noise in the cockpit of their Jaeger. Lance and Allura don’t recognize the voice, but that’s probably because there are only a few officers left at the Shatterdome. Even Lance, Allura, and their Jaeger, Sunshine Riptide, had been only half an hour from being relocated to Hong Kong when the Kaiju was tracked heading toward L.A.

Through the drift, Lance can feel how angry Allura is about them being relocated. He hums along with her, equally as pissed, and they start walking back toward the coast, crushing the skull of Clawtooth for good measure. Fuck Kaiju.

“It’s bullshit that we’re doing this,” Allura grumbles aloud, even though she knows Lance can feel and hear everything in her head. She must be really angry to vocalize it too. “The only reason L.A. isn’t in ruins is because of us.”

“I know,” Lance agrees, tapping at the control panel hanging from the roof of the cockpit. “I thought the Wall of Life was supposed to be indestructible and keep everyone safe, but this bastard tore through the wall in less than twenty minutes. Cutting the Jaeger Program is a bad idea.”

Allura hums in agreement, and they trudge toward the coast.

The first time that Lance met Allura was one of the most embarrassing and best things to ever happen to him. After the Garrison, Lance received his placement at the Shatterdome in Los Angeles. It was a miracle really; L.A. had been his top choice because it was close to his family and it was still one of the more active bases on the Pacific Rim.

Lance had been brought into the Jaeger Program, the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps, with a dozen other new candidates from across the world, including Allura. Lance had spotted her first, standing in line with the other cadets, all beauty and grace. She hadn’t even glanced his way, which obviously meant that she was just his type. After the briefing from their superior officer (that Lance had barely listened to; he had been fantasizing about his future with Allura, whose name he hadn’t even known at the time), Lance had walked up to her, smirked, and said, “Are you religious? Because you’re the answer to all my prayers.”

Allura had stared at him for half a second before slamming her knee into his crotch. She’d left him curled up on the ground, moaning and biting back tears as the other cadets laughed.

Later that day, when they were being paired up for physical training, one of the officers paired him with Allura, and she had frowned at him before throwing the first punch.

Lance dodged, sweating nervously. His voice shook more than he wanted to admit when he said, “Listen, about earlier—”

She threw him on the ground and smirked, “Do you believe in doctors? Because you’re going to need some serious medical attention when I’m done with you.”

Honestly, the heart eyes that Lance had for Allura just got worse after that.

His training from the Garrison finally kicked in, and after a few minutes of her thoroughly kicking his ass, he was able to get back into the fight. Once he was paying attention, he discovered that they were somewhat evenly matched. She was good, but Lance could keep up and hold his own too.

They drew a decent sized crowd. Eventually, Lance thought that their superior officer came over to watch as well, but he was so focused on the fight and the energy between him and Allura that he wasn’t paying attention to anything else.

Allura had him pined to the ground, and Lance was fighting his way out of it when a sharp whistle broke his concentration. Then, a voice barked, “Enough!”

Both him and Allura turned to look. A few officers were standing there, along with the Marshall. Lance immediately rolled to his feet, face burning, wondering what they had done wrong.

“Interesting,” the Marshall had said, raising an eyebrow. “It seems as though the two of you are drift compatible.”

And the rest had been history.

Lance and Allura started their training together then, since they were ahead of the other pilots in their program who hadn’t found a co-pilot yet. The Marshall and their commanding officers all kept a close eye on their training, and after two years, they started building Lance and Allura’s Jaeger, a Mark IV angel, if Lance was honest. He and Allura had fought with the engineers over her name and design for weeks.

They became best friends somewhere along the way. The first time that they had done a drift test, it had been so different from the last time, the time he had tried with Keith. With Allura, he had all the training that he and Keith hadn’t had. He understood exactly what the drift was and how it worked; he knew what he needed to give to make this work with Allura.

He wasn’t even worried about drifting with Allura. It had been as easy as breathing.

Now, as he thinks about it, he can feel Allura going through his memories with him, smiling at several of the times they’ve had together so far.

Lance wonders what they’ll do if the Jaeger Program is completely decommissioned.

The tone in the drift shifts enough for Allura to speak again. She says, “That won’t happen. The Wall isn’t a good enough defensive tactic. Jaegers are the only thing strong enough to fight the Kaiju.”

“What if we’re moved over to Hong Kong and they ground us?” Lance asks.

Allura is worried about it, he can tell through the drift, but she says, “I don’t think that will happen. Sunshine Riptide is the most successful Jaeger that’s still operational. The only Jaeger that had stronger pilots and more drop-kills than us at the time was Black Paladin.”

“Yeah, and that worked out well for them,” Lance mutters, voice bitter and sad at the same time.

Allura prods at the feeling gently, but Lance guides her away from it. Even though it’s been three years, he’s still not ready to share that aloud with her. She’s seen everything, of course, but drifting with someone is different. There are things that Lance has seen in Allura’s memories that he would never dare ask her about. This just happens to be one of his.

“That was a freak accident,” Allura challenges him, secure in it now, after years of thinking about it, worrying over it, regretting it. “It was before the new system for categorizing the Kaiju was developed. If they had known that Kaiju was a Category 3, they never would have sent Black Paladin in without backup.”

“I know,” he sighs. He doesn’t argue with her, mostly because she’s right, but also because he’s tired. They’d been deployed at 2:45 this morning, and it was well past 08:00 now. Lance needed a nap.

They walk the rest of the way in silence. As they leave the city, it starts to wake up behind them. There are several helicopters zipping through the skies, getting close enough to film them as they walk. Absently, Lance hopes that someone has gotten their kill on camera so it will play repeatedly for the next couple of days. It would be a good thing for the world to see. Despite the destruction of the city and the potential lives that had been lost, the United Nations needs to know that defunding the Jaeger Program is a terrible idea. If Sunshine Riptide hadn’t been here, all of L.A. could have been destroyed.

The helicopters and the loading ship are waiting for them at the coast, and as they make their way over to it, Lance grins at Allura and says, “You wanna wave to the crowds?”

She laughs, bright and easy, and they both turn and lift their arm to wave in the direction of the city.

“Please proceed onto the loading dock, Riptide,” the voice from base replies, probably completely aware (and unhappy, if Lance has to guess) at their publicity stunt.

He smirks over at Allura, and they follow orders.

;;

“Prepare for drop,” the AI hums through the cockpit, and Lance and Allura jerk as the helicopters release them. They drop to the ocean, hitting the water and seafloor with a sharp thud. They’ve been dropped far enough out that they can barely see the coastline because the impact from the drop can often cause a small earthquake if they are too close to any fault lines. In a fight with the Kaiju, it doesn’t seem as important, and the Wall does help avoid damage to the city, but the Jaegers have to be careful when being transported.

Which means that Lance and Allura have to walk all the way over to the Shatterdome now.

Once they’re standing upright, Allura picks up her right foot, and Lance echoes her immediately. They walk through the water, and the coastline gets closer and bigger with every step.

Through the drift, Lance can see that Allura is thinking about the last time they were here in Hong Kong, when they fought against the Kaiju with two other Jaegers: Metal Lipstick and Black Paladin.

It had been a legendary battle. It was the first time that there had ever been a double event—two Kaiju coming through the breach at once. They had lurked down the Pacific and descended upon Hong Kong hour after their arrival. Sunshine Riptide had been deployed from L.A., journeying across the ocean to join the fight with Metal Lipstick and Black Paladin.

Both were mythical Jaegers. In fact, with Sunshine Riptide there, they were the three most powerful Jaeger teams in existence, all fighting together at once. Metal Lipstick, piloted by a set of twins from Australia, had some of the best defensive tactics in the world, and Black Paladin—well, Black Paladin was the most successful Jaeger to have ever been built. Its life was young, having been built specifically for its pilots, but its power couldn’t be defined by age.

Lance can still hear the echoes of the other pilot’s voices in his memories, but he blinks hard. The last thing they need is to get caught chasing the rabbit in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

They don’t talk as they make their way over to the coast. It doesn’t take long to get there; the Hong Kong Shatterdome is built on an island off the coast of the city, where the Jaegers have easy access to the water so they can stop the Kaiju before it reaches the coast. The massive building sticks out against the rest of the coastline. Shatterdomes are easily the biggest structures on the planet, and to house Jaegers, they have to be.

Up ahead, the base has a loading tank prepared for them. It’s designed to roll the Jaegers into the Shatterdome to avoid hurting the pilots in such close quarters. Even though the Shatterdome is big, it’s not big enough for a Jaeger to just walk inside with its pilots.

“Sunshine Riptide,” a distinct voice, heavy with an Australian accent, filters through their communication system. “Welcome to the Hong Kong Shatterdome!”

Allura grins immediately and reaches up to hit her speaker. “Hello, Marshall. It’s nice to be here.”

“Under unfortunate circumstances, I’m afraid, but we’ll have to take what we can get in these times I suppose, eh?” he asks, voice still bright. “Please be careful on the loading tank and removing yourself from the Jaeger. A team will be out to assist you and bring you into the facility.”

“Copy that, boss,” Lance says, smiling at Allura. Even though they might be getting the plug pulled on them, he guesses that it’s worth it to see Allura this happy. She doesn’t get to see her uncle, Coran, very often anymore, not since he took the Marshall’s position. At least she will get to spend some time with him while they’re here.

They trudge forward, continuing up onto the loading tank easily and carefully climbing up out of Riptide. When they open the top hatch, Lance is blinded by the sun. It glints off Riptide’s sharp metal, flickering different colors in the light.

Coran’s team helps them climb down to the ground, and Lance shakes himself, blinking to get the haze of the drift to fade. Staying in the drift for a long time takes a toll on the mind, and it still makes Lance a little dizzy and overwhelmed after they’ve been in for a long time.

Allura grips his arm and jostles him softly, “Wake up.”

“I’m awake,” he says, batting her hand away.

Groups of officers and military personal are standing around them and their Jaeger, looking up at Sunshine Riptide in all her glory. She stands tall, so tall that she’s blocking the sun. She’s a Mark IV, rebuilt for Lance and Allura when they finished their training. She was decommissioned after being torn to shreds in one of the very first Kaiju battles, but they rebuilt her, loaded her up with a new neural interface, and slapped on a bright orange coat of paint. She has two plasmacasters, one in each fist, built to destroy the Kaiju in close combat, which she’s designed for. To Lance, Sunshine Riptide is one of the most beautiful Jaegers in existence.

Some of the people around them are also looking over at Lance and Allura, and their expressions are too close to awe and amazement. Any other day, he would be preening under the attention, smirking and flirting his way through the crowds, but today, he’s too worried about their future.

Allura glances over at him when one of the officers gives them the go ahead. The Shatterdome’s bay doors are opening a few hundred yards ahead of them, and there are people everywhere. Every Shatterdome has been pulled and moved to Hong Kong, so everyone in the Pan Pacific Defense Corps is grounded here now, well, what’s left of them.

Lance removes his helmet, tucks it under his arm, and steps up to Allura’s side. She nods, and they step out in front of the tank where their Jaeger has been loaded. It’s a brisk walk, but it’s something that Lance always takes pride in. People in front of them clear a path, parting for them, and they enter the Shatterdome bay to a round of applause because of their most recent victory.

The base is full. There are soldiers, mechanics, and scientists crowding the floor, and there are even more people on the higher levels as well. In this bay, there are a handful of Jaegers—probably the last ones in the world. Only three have made it this long and this far; Crystal Venom, Omega Shield, and Razor Edge sit in the Shatterdome already, and now that Sunshine Riptide joins them, that means they have four Jaegers left in this fight.

Within the last few months, Kaiju activity has increased exponentially, more than it has over the entire length of the war. More and more Jaegers have been defeated because of the growing number of attacks and strength from the Kaiju. Now, there are only a few remaining.

It’s why the United Nations pulled the funding for the Jaeger Program. Jaegers were dying so fast, and the Wall seemed like the only other option. Jaegers are expensive to make and run and investing money in something that seemingly doesn’t work does seem like a waste.

But Lance knows that it’s not. Jaegers are the only things that stand in the way of the Kaiju destroying their world. If there’s anything he can do about it, he’s not going to let that happen ever.

“Ah! And here’s a friend you may remember. Sunshine Riptide, welcome to Hong Kong!”

Lance hears Coran’s voice before he sees him, but when a crowd of soldiers clears out of the way, there he is, standing in the middle of the base, gesturing up to their Jaeger. He’s standing with two other people. The person on Coran’s right is short and looks young. She’s dressed in a navy-blue military uniform with a pair of round, large glasses on her nose. On Coran’s left, there’s a tall man, dressed in a leather jacket with a duffel slung over his shoulder. His black hair hangs down to almost his shoulders—

“Pilots!” Coran calls excitedly, “Join us!”

Lance feels Allura hesitate at the same time as him. Normally, she’s very excited, not at all hesitant, to catch up with Coran. But this time—this time is different.

Because Keith Kogane is standing on Coran’s left, and he’s looking over at Lance like he’s just come back from the dead.

;;

After the Garrison, Lance hadn’t heard anything from Keith in almost two years. He never really forgot about him, never forgot the feeling of drifting with someone and almost being destroyed by it. He thought about it a lot actually, especially as he trained with Allura. He thought about what could have been different, what they could have done to make it better, to maybe have not tried to kill each other and destroy any semblance of a chance at being co-pilots.

In the end, Lance always reminded himself that it never mattered because they weren’t drift compatible and they never would be.

The first thing that he ever heard about Keith after the Garrison was in an online interview. He had been checking his tablet, scanning through the news, when he saw it.

Jaeger Black Paladin takes down largest ever Cat 2 Kaiju in Hong Kong last night. Pilots Takashi Shirogane and Keith Kogane famed for victory.

Allura had found him later, obsessively looking through the internet for more information about Keith.

As it turned out, Keith had found drift compatibility with someone else too—Takashi Shirogane, an older and more experienced pilot from Hong Kong. Staring at his face on the tablet, Lance had a vague feeling that he knew this man, and he finally he realized that it was because of the memories he got from Keith when they drifted together.

Keith and Shiro were placed in a Mark IV Jaeger, Black Paladin, in Hong Kong. Keith had even finished his training almost six months early so they could put them in a Jaeger. The fight with the Cat 2 Kaiju in Hong Kong had been their first battle together, and they quickly ran through the ranks of all other Jaeger pilots in the world. Their drop-kill numbers were so high, accuracy so amazing, that they were deployed for every Kaiju attack they were physically close enough to.

Lance and Allura were finally deployed for the first time eight months after Keith and Shiro’s first victory, and Sunshine Riptide ripped through the Kaiju just as quickly as Black Paladin did. It made Lance smug, and he often wondered if Keith kept up with him as much as Lance watched the headlines for Keith’s name.

Almost a year later, the first ever double event happened in Hong Kong. Lance and Allura were deployed from L.A., and Metal Lipstick was sent over from Australia to join Shiro and Keith in the fight. It wasn’t the first time that Jaegers had teamed up to fight the Kaiju, but it was the first time that all three of the most powerful Jaegers were fighting together.

Lance remembered it like it was yesterday. He and Allura had physically jerked when he had heard Keith’s voice for the first time since they were eighteen.

“Prepare for drop,” the AI hummed just as the helicopters dropped them in the ocean, right on the other side of the Kaiju.

“Nice to meet you, Sunshine Riptide!” the voice from Lance’s memories—Shiro’s voice—said, echoing in the cockpit of their Jaeger.

Lance smirked and hit the button on his comm system, “Same, we’ve been waiting on a chance to save Keith’s ass.”

Shiro laughed a little, but Keith was back, growling, “Fuck you, Lance.”

Allura and Lance joined the fight then, putting aside everything else. It was harder than any other fight so far, even with all three Jaegers. Allura and Lance led the first one, codename Diablo, while Black Paladin and the Australian Jaeger, Metal Lipstick, finished off the other.

Diablo had Lance and Allura around the waist, crushing them slowly as the plasmacaster powered up. Then, they shoved their left fist into its chest and fired.

“Empty the clip!” Lance shouted through clenched teeth, his ribs aching, as they kept firing into the Kaiju. “Empty the clip!”

Finally, Diablo fell into the ocean, just as Black Paladin and Metal Lipstick were turning to aid them.

Allura grinned, reached up to the comm, and said, “Thanks for the help, but we’ve got it.”

Lance was laughing, grinning at her too because holy fuck, she was the best thing to ever happen to him.

After the battle, they were all stationed at the Hong Kong Shatterdome for a few days to get repairs done on their Jaegers. Sunshine Riptide was so damaged that she wouldn’t make it home without the important repairs completed first.

Lance met Shiro officially for the first time, but when they shook hands with each other, he felt how weird it was. He already felt like he knew Shiro from seeing him in Keith’s memories, even just the little that he had, and Shiro was looking at him the same way, like he knew him too.

Keith had stood off to the side with his arms crossed, glaring in their direction.

“This is Allura,” Lance said to Shiro, reaching out for her arm to pull her forward. “She’s my co-pilot.”

Shiro smiled at her softly, and Lance grinned while they shook hands. She was being uncharacteristically nervous now, meeting Shiro. Lance would tease her about it later.

“You guys were impressive,” Shiro said, looking between both of them. “We’ve been keeping up with your deployments, so we were excited that you were coming for this one.”

Allura started to thank him, but Lance interrupted. His grin widened, and he shot a look over at Keith, “Oh yeah? Keith’s just been waiting for a rematch.”

Keith rolled his eyes, not at all friendly, “Whatever. I’d still kick your ass.”

He laughed and winked at him, relishing in Keith’s glare and how he couldn’t take his eyes off Lance’s frame. Sure, they hated each other and were rivals in every essence of the word now, but who said Lance couldn’t have a little fun with it?

It wasn’t the only time that they had seen each other since the Garrison. They spent a couple of more days at the Hong Kong Shatterdome, and when Allura took to hanging out with Shiro, Lance and Keith had no other option than to be around each other too.

It worked out, mainly because of how much Allura berated and begged Lance into being nice to him so she could talk to Shiro. He listened to her, only because she was his best friend and loving co-pilot, so when they all went out to a dive bar where no one would recognize them to celebrate, Lance called for a truce.

“I’m just saying,” Lance’s voice was a little too loud because of the last couple beers he’d had. “This is stupid. You’re stupid.”

“Wow,” Keith had crossed his arms over his broad chest. “What a great way to talk to someone you want to be friends with. Really, has anyone ever told you how good you are with people?”

Lance scowled at him, “I’m not giving up.”

The other man had shrugged, “Whatever, Lance.”

After that night, things between them became a little better in terms of the limited amount of times they had to deal with each other. There were only a handful of times and places where they were deployed to fight together, and even fewer times where they got to see each other outside of the Jaegers and the Shatterdomes.

Which is right about the time that Lance developed a huge fucking crush on Keith. In all actuality, it hadn’t developed—Lance had finally become aware of it.

He had been working on a plan to get Keith to start talking to him again. In fact, Allura was even talking to Shiro, which was good for him too. If Allura could get Shiro on their side, then they would all four have to spend time together and—

Then the accident happened.

Black Paladin was deployed to defend Hong Kong from a supposed Cat 2 Kaiju, codename Knifehead. They were already sent out to meet Knifehead in battle when the Marshall and techs realized that the Kaiju wasn’t a Cat 2—it had been the first ever Cat 3.

And Black Paladin was unprepared for it.

Lance can still remember watching the video feed of it the next day. Seeing Knifehead tear off their Jaeger’s arm, then, completely rip out the right side of the Jaeger—Lance thought he was going to be sick while watching it.

Sunshine Riptide hadn’t been close enough to help. Even if they had been deployed at the same time, there wasn’t anything that they could have done.

That morning, Lance and Allura had received the report at the L.A. Shatterdome. Shiro was dead, and Keith—Keith was in a coma. He had killed the Kaiju on his own, controlling the Jaeger by himself, and effectively killing his brain with the amount of strain on the neural bridge. He had even gotten the Jaeger back to the coast on his own, lasting almost a full hour in battle by himself.

It made sense that they thought he wouldn’t make it.

So Lance and Allura—they didn’t know what to do. It was like their world had been ripped away from them. Black Paladin—Shiro and Keith—they had been the strongest and most successful Jaeger pilots ever.

And the Kaiju had taken them away. Just like that.

In the time that Keith was in a coma, there was another Kaiju attack, another Cat 3 along the coast of California. Allura and Lance had begged the Marshall to deploy them, and when they went, they were both so angry that they ripped the Kaiju to shreds, hoping every last helicopter got it on camera so it would play it, as if it would justify all the wrongs the Kaiju had already done to them.

It hadn’t.

Lance and Allura did their best to deal with it. Allura was so sad, and Lance was practically distraught. When they drank too much one night and stumbled into bed together, Lance didn’t regret it because at least he had felt something for a little while.

A few weeks later, Keith surprisingly woke up from his coma, but before Lance and Allura could get over to Hong Kong to visit, he left the hospital, left the Shatterdome, and disappeared without a trace.

And it’s been three years since.

[lady-olive-oil]

So Into You: Prologue

Note: AHHHHHHH it’s here! It’s finally here! The prologue for my first ever Chris Evans x Poc OC series! If you’d like to added to the Tag Squad, let me know. Without further ado, let’s take a journey through the friendship of Chris and Roxie and let’s see where it takes them.

Warnings: Slight spoiler for Endgame (If you haven’t seen it, then oops)

Word Count: 2.3k [this is only the beginning]

Choxie Squad: @themyscxiras || @honeychicana || @maddiestundentwritergaines @crushed-pink-petals || @dc41896 || @swirlevans || @areubeingserved || @stillevansbae

_____________

“Roxanne Alexander!” A voice called from the back of me.

“Yes?” Going over my notes for the interview with Jimmy Fallon, in my hands, I was nervous. Normally wasn’t nervous for my interviews, but that one meant big moments to come.

“You’re I’m in 15.” The producer, Katie Hockmeyer, smiled gingerly in my direction.

With a gentle nod, I practiced my breathing. Being an actress has always been a dream of mine. Only been in the game for a few years, 10 tops, I had a lot riding on these interviews.

I was recently in Avengers Infinity War and Endgame, as a fellow Dora Milaje. It was a fun job to have and soon, I’m gonna be in a new film which I can’t wait to start filming.

Hearing the theme song go off, I closed my eyes and let my feet do the walking as I got into position. This was going to be the interview of all interviews. To shoot my career even further, and make me a better actor.

Hearing my name being called by Jimmy, I got up on the stairs and walked on to the stage. The crowd was alive and well, to welcoming and warming. I felt at home.

“Roxanne Alexander. It is such a pleasure to finally have you on my show.”

“Jimmy, the feeling is mutual. Out of all the interviews I’ve had, or will have, I’m sure this one will be my favorite.”

The audience was eating this up so much. The conversation kept going; the energy was live and the vibes were right. Talking about my family; my pets, my friends, I’ve kept along the way and so much more.

Jimmy‘s smile lit up. “Ok! So I know everyone is dying to know about your endeavors. How did you get to where you are now? How did you career start?”

“It all started when I graduated from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, class of ‘99. Boston gal born and raised. I did a few plays in school, I didn’t go to college until I was 21. Had what most would call a “Grace period” and went to Howard.”

“Howard? Nice! I know a few grey actors that went there.” He nodded in my direction to continue.

Explaining my journey always made me tear up a bit. I went through so much with trying to find myself; prove myself and just go on this journey of self discovery.

“After I graduated college in 2007, I went on another few years off; seven to be exact. I had my bachelors degree in theatre arts and a minor in business management.”

“Booked and busy. You go girl.” I couldn’t help but chuckle at Jimmy’s remake and high fived him.

I shrugged with a smile. “Have to be. I started a business venture called Cairo and The Nile, which is a skin and hair care line for natural hair. I’ve done a few movies, and a series, back when I graduated from Howard. I was also a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader for 2 years, from 2014 to 2016. That’s when I went back to school for business in Dallas.”

“I went to school while a dancer, with an acting background. Within the last five years I’ve done a few movies as well, which I know you’ve all seen.”

“Of course! Just to name a few Gods of Egypt, Pacific Rim 2: Uprising, Venom, Black Panther, Avengers Infinity War as a Dora Milaje and Avengers Endgame.  Along with some before those: Color Me Crazy, Meet at Midnight, The Get Down, Cards on Deck and Dear White People.” He nodded with a smile, while the audience cheered with enthusiasm.

“So, inquiring minds want to know: how did you get to be apart of Marvel first 10 years? And what can you tell us about Endgame?”

Smiling from ear to ear, I sighed happily. “Well like any other actor I sent in my audition tape and it went very well from there. But yet, I got a little push from a good friend of mine who just so happens to be in the films as well. So it worked out for us both.”

“As for Endgame, all of us don’t know. We all don’t rehearse together. All we do is come in; read what they give us, do the scenes and go home. With breaks in between. Because Holland and Ruffalo can’t keep their mouths shut. So the Dora Milaje and I including Okoye, I love you Danai! Know nothing.” With a gut busting chuckle, I felt tears spilling over my eyes.

“Dang, well I tried.” With a shrug, we both laughed.

“Good friend you say? Who is this good friend?” Jimmy leaned in close over his desk, arching a brow.

“Well he’s been my best friend since we were kids. We met at age 4; our mothers are best friends from college. The bond between our families is tighter than ever and just full of love.”

He tapped his chin in curiosity “Tight bond; Boston kids, mothers are still college best friends?”

“Mhm. Tight like glue on a lace front, as I’d put it and I’d get a weird expression from him.” Laughing a bit at the memory in my head. The audience seemed to like it too, so I got more comfortable.

“I got nothing. You gotta give us some clues or just tell us. We’re dying to know.”

“Now jimmy, where’s the fun in telling you? But I do have a little story to the day I became a DCC.” Smirking a little, I winked at the camera.

He pretended to be hurt, with a gasp “Ouch, Roxanne. I am hurt.”

“Do you wanna know how upset my best friend was when I told him, I was a DCC? I’m sure you’ll guess who he is. It leads up to us both starring, in an up an upcoming film, called Married at First Sight. Y’all should go see it.” Shameless plug.

“I’ll give it a shot, I have so many people in mind. How upset was he?”

“He’s a true Patriots fan. Like hardcore, and when I told him I made the cheer team he was filming another film. He didn’t talk to me for 2 weeks.” The audience gasped, causing me to shrug and chuckle. That day I told Chris was hilarious cause that following day, we went to lunch and then it started.

“Two weeks, two solid weeks. I can’t go that long without talking to my wife. I bet it was hard.”

I nodded a bit. “It was hard cause we talk everyday.”

“Childhood friend. Boston born and raised. Hardcore Pats fan.” He gathered all the info he had.

“Mhm.” I couldn’t help but grin like the Cheshire cat.

“Oh!! Roxanne, is your best friend is Chris Evans!”

“Ding ding!”

His facial expression was priceless, the audience loved it even more. This is the first interview I’ve had someone ask about my best friend and how we’ve stayed so close this long. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Chris, and vice versa.

Jimmy let out a cheerful exclamation. “That is amazing. 30 plus years of friendship and you’re still tighter than ever. Any nicknames?”

“Never better. We have our moments, but we come back every time. With our characters in Marvel it’s been a nickname I’ve had since we met, which I’m auditioning for one actually. He calls me Ororo Munroe, who is the badass Storm from X-Men, and Of course call him Steve Rogers. Never saw one without the other.” The thought of us breaking up our friendship hurt more than anything. We go to each other for everything and sometimes, I can’t tell him everything. Like the crush I have had on him since we were young.

“Munroe and Rogers. I like it, cause like another detective show. Can’t wait for the new movie to come out, will be on the lookout for the trailers. Anything you wanna say to the audience or your best friend?”

“Of course.” Turning towards the camera I smiled gently. “If you’re watching this like I told you to, then you’re already on the right track. Most of the time you don’t ‘wike it’ when I tell you to do things. Oh well! That’s what best friends are for right? I’ll see you soon, Evans!”

“Roxanne Alexander, ladies and gentleman! Thank you for coming. We’ll be right back after this break!” Shaking his hand, I waved the audience as the music sounded to the commercial.

The director yelled out to us all. “And we’re clear! 10 min everybody.”

Heading back to my little room noticing that my phone was blowing up with Instagram; Snapchat and Twitter. So much love from the fans and even a text from Chris.

“Oh shit. What did he say.”

Chris: Saw the interview today! You did amazing as always Rox, and great job plugging the movie too. Gotta get all the exposure out there.

Heartfelt. So far so good. I wonder if he’s free today.

Me: thank you bud! Means a lot to me to hear you say that.

Chris: any time. Say wanna catch up sometime this week? Sight see in LA?

Chilling with my best friend, or with the family? I’m always with my family or my other friends, and so now I think it’s best to chill with Chris. Which I never do outside of rehearsal.

Me: I’m free today and a few days this week actually. Aside from rehearsals and more interviews.

The drive to my LA apartment was a breeze. Normally it’s be hell in traffic but not this time around. Upon making it home, I saw the Boston boy in all his glory, in front of my driveway. Sending a goofy face my way, he moved to the left a bit.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the goofy string bean, parking the car in the garage. “You just can’t help yourself huh? You love being in my way.”

“What can I say? I love messing with you Munroe.” Showing off his cheesy grin, he welcomed me with a hug. It was as if he lived there and was happy to see me home. If only it was real.

“Ha ha, very funny Rogers. So where’s my son, can’t have ya home without- Dodger! There’s my boy!”

Giving the beagle some love, along with receiving them, I managed to hug him as well.

A pouty Chris emerges. “Why don’t I get a hug like that?”

“You on top of me, would cause a lot of controversy and issues my dude.” Arching a brow at him, we headed inside and for comfy.

He mumbled under his breath. “You sure about that?”

“You say something?”

“Nah. Just uh, so wanna do Disneyland tomorrow? I hear Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is open”

“Yeah we can do that. Oh and Lune is in her room, which Dodger found easily.”

Glancing at the two dogs in the little space under the staircase, we both smiled happily.

Clapping my hands together, I gave the Boston boy a look. “Happy dogs. Alright Evans, couch or bed?”

“Bed. The Mummy with Brendan Fraser, or Tom-”

“Fraser, no contest. Matching pjs, or just underwear?” We tend to finish each other’s sentences and it never gets old.

“Matching. This time, my old title.”

“Old title? What do you mean? Chris no way…”

“You don’t know?!” His face was hysterical. He got dressed in my walk in closet, as I changed in the bathroom. After a quick shower of course. Heading downstairs to make popcorn, I had to pull myself together.

“No! They didn’t tell the Dora’s nothing. Danai couldn’t tell me shit! Let me guess, Sam gets it?”

The look on his face as he saw me in my Captain America leggings and matching tank top, was blissful. I’ve never seen that look before. He looks damn good in his sweatpants too, along with being shirtless at that.

Snapping out of his trance, he nodded eagerly upon flopping on my king sized bed.

“Yes he does, and it’s a beautiful send off to Steve. You came into my trailer that one day when I was getting prospects done remember?”

Passing him the bowl of extra buttered popcorn, I slid next to him and grabbed the remote to program Netflix.

“Yeah. That’s what it’s for? Now I’m intrigued. Need a date for premier?” Finding the movie, I paused it for a second, pulling my curly hair into a high puff. I caught him staring at me.

“Why yes. Yes I do actually, would you like to go with me?”

“Why are you staring at me like that? Besides, I’d be insulted if you didn’t ask, I was going anyway.” With a shrug I played the movie and grabbed a handful of popcorn.

“I can’t look at my best friend without their being an ulterior motive? Don’t hog all the corn now.” Snatching the bowl from me, he got some on the bed.

“Nope! What would your girlfriend think? You’re cleaning that up, slov.” Throwing some at him, made it worse, seeing as though it caused a popcorn fight.

“Why bring her up? You two need to have a sit down, and chat. I can’t have the two most important women in my life hating each other.” He threw it back at me and tackled me down.

“Your mother and I get along fine thank you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah yeah. I’m sorry. Let’s get back get back movie.”

“Oh, and I’m the slob? Says the one with candy wrappers on her dresser.” He pressed played on Netflix and cuddled me. Strictly platonic.

“My house; my room, my rules. Fine I’ll talk to her, you better catch her if she steps out of line.”

Hearing him stifle a laugh, he pinched my arm, which ricocheted into me thumping his head.

“Funny. Let’s watch the first 2, cause the China one made zero sense and the Scorpion King.

The marathon led to us both drifting to sleep, cuddled around each other.

Days like this never got old, and I hope they never change. Yet there’s always a few people who want to see you fall, and that person and I never got along when it came to Chris.

[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

[dat-fandom-losertown]

The Drift Between Us

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Chapter 5: Caught

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Hank Anderson x Connor and Gavin Reed x RK900

Pacific Rim AU

Warnings: Just a sliver of anxiety this chapter

Word Count: 7,340

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Previous <~> Masterlist <~> Next

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      It’s been about a week and a half since Connor’s mood dip, and Ritch is happy, if not suspicious, that everything’s been calm since then. Connor hasn’t had any signs of another episode, and he gets along with Markus and Simon really well, too. Josh and North, on the other hand, aren’t having quite as much luck.

    It isn’t entirely their fault, though. Josh is the official “Inclusive Friend” of the group, so he’s always bringing Connor into the conversation, which puts his brother on edge for whatever reason (Ritch has learned by now to not question things like this). North is... Well, she’s just North; she’s blunt, kind of brash, quick to start fights– even if most of them are meant to be playful. She’s pretty much the exact opposite of Connor, which has them both walking on eggshells around each other. It’s mostly fine, though, because they all are comfortable enough with one another, considering the rocky start.

    For some reason, Connor is still hanging around Mr. Anderson during every meal rather than with Ritch and the Jericho Squad (it’s an inside joke, apparently). If someone had asked him how he felt about that last week, he would’ve said that he was itching to get Connor away from the potentially toxic situation, despite coming to the conclusion that Mr. Anderson probably isn’t as bad as most people think. Although, after seeing them sit together in calm silences for the past week, Ritch is starting to think that Mr. Anderson may be helping Connor keep his head beyond giving him a blanket and an old ball. Ritch doesn’t know how, but he’ll just leave them to it. He’s learning that anything that helps Connor adjust to this environment shouldn’t be questioned or messed with, at least not for now.

    He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to understand people like those two, especially how relationships of any kind work between two people who seem to be so different. It’s incredibly frustrating because Ritch knows he’s missing something essential and he knows that if he asks Simon or Josh for their opinion, they’d be able to see why they get along immediately, but he still can’t. One would think that after being a certain way for as long as he could remember, Ritch would get used to the feeling of being alienated for these types of things, but he’s not. He can’t even think about this particular topic for too long or else a strange irritation starts to boil deep inside of his gut, and– surprise, surprise– he doesn’t know why that happens either.

    It’s incredibly frustrating and isolating, indeed.

    However, on a more pleasant topic, training has been going well so far too. Both Connor and Ritch have healed from their injuries from that first day of evaluations and are currently placed at the top of the class, even with them holding back and purposefully getting questions wrong to prolong their graduation and buy time to find new partners. Neither twin is worried, though, because another student–, Traci, is right on their tails, so they aren’t complete outliers.

    The three of them together make up the tutors of the class for when the other students have a minor question and/or the instructors aren’t available. Ritch is enjoying his new role quite a bit more than he thought he would, and has found that he likes helping the others with these types of things. He’s genuinely proud of and happy with himself for the first time in longer than he cares to mention, in longer than he thinks he can even remember, maybe.

   Connor has been doing a good job mentoring as well, even though most of the class can tell he doesn’t exactly enjoy doing it. He likes to help, and he’ll do what he can to do so, but he’s so unsure of himself and always gives Ritch these looks when explaining something, almost as if he doesn’t know the information he’s explaining like the back of his hand.

    Honestly, he doesn’t know how Connor can be so unsure of himself after all these years of preparation, but he assumes it’s the same or a similar reason for why wording certain questions wrong will force him into his bed for hours at a time. It’s just another quirk that Connor avoids talking about and another thing Ritch doesn’t question for that reason.

    The only complaint he has about the past week and a half is that classes are still mostly flexibility and strength building. He can tell that at least half of the people there really need it, but he, Connor, and Traci are beyond that point. In Ritch’s honest opinion, his days have been pretty boring.

    That’s why Ritch has slowly been appreciating the run-ins with the less-than-pleasant jerk Gavin Reed, more and more lately, as it seems to be the only thing exciting and challenging in this place right now. He doesn’t know if it’s planned by Gavin or not, but they almost always run into each other around lunch and/or dinner time. Ritch still contentedly walks along after dodging whatever shoulder-check or trip attempt Gavin tries, then walks away and ignores the taunts and occasional swears behind him with a smugness that’s been growing recently. Honestly, that man doesn’t give up, and Ritch doesn’t know why Gavin decided to latch onto him of all people, but he has stopped questioning that as well.

    Beyond Gavin, it’s almost suspicious how calm and routinely everything has become. There hasn’t been a single time in Ritch’s life that he can remember things going this smoothly for so long. Even as a child in the orphanages and foster homes there was constant moving around and always a group of kids that would tease him and Connor for whatever reason they came up with. He’s not used to calm and predictable. Calm and predictable means danger in the end, and he knows Connor shares the sentiment.

    Maybe that’s why they’re not too shocked when Luther calls them on the 15th day of training, informing them that Marshal Fowler wants to personally see them in his spare office that morning. They simply call out “Yes, sir” like the good little soldiers they were trained to be and ignore everyone’s varying expressions of curiosity or concern. They both leave the room silently and make it down several hallways in the same manner before Ritch decides to try his hand at small talk. He’s been watching Markus interact with others and memorizing how to do it in hopes of learning how to get better at acting like a real person.

    The first two steps– get their attention and mention something they’re interested in– he has down. It’s the third and fourth steps– having to actively listen to something he’s not interested in and find appropriate responses at the appropriate times– that he consistently fails at and has him stressed out.

    “So, Connor.”

    Connor tenses slightly next to him, but tries to hide it in his tone. “Yes?”

    “You and Mr. Anderson seem to be tolerating each other.” He sees Connor getting defensive and tries to placate him. “I’m not going to try to cause any trouble. At least, not unless there’s proof of him hurting you in any way, which there isn’t so far. I am just genuinely interested in what it’s like to sit with him at lunch. He seems to hate everyone with a passion except you, and he was kind of your idol when we were younger. I’m curious of how that works, exactly.”

    Connor pauses, then hesitantly responds. “I don’t think he hates everyone so much as he’s tired of how everyone treats him. He hasn’t told me as much– we rarely talk to each other, actually. It’s kind of a silent agreement that he gets a bit of socialization and I get some time to relax. But anyway, we don’t talk often, but I could tell from the few times we have and the way he interacts with me versus everyone else.” Connor looks up at him, “He’s just a normal guy who’s gone through some traumatic stuff, just like us.” He straightens out again.

    “Like us?” Ritch turns his head to look at Connor fully, confusion in his eyes.

    He suddenly looks sheepish, “Well, that’s something I think I’ve discovered while hanging around Mr. Anderson. Like, during my mood dip? Right after I completely moved past that, he grumbled something about me being too young to have PTSD? When I denied having it, he gave me a bunch of shi– crap for thinking so.” Connor smiles the most genuine smile Ritch has seen from him in years. “It’s quite funny, looking back on it now. At first I thought it was because he wanted me to get lost or something so he was trying to make me uncomfortable, but now I know he wouldn’t have even mentioned it if that was the case. He has very little patience for others. It’s for good reason, though. I don’t blame him.” He takes a breath. “Anyway.”

    He suddenly faces Ritch with a newfound confidence and seriousness, slowing his walk and lowering his voice. Ritch slows with him.

    “Did you know that not all cases of PTSD is having manic terror or violent episodes? That it’s not all becoming an antisocial hermit who’s terrified of turning on an electric egg beater because of the sound? The unpleasant flashbacks I have that are supposedly triggered by little to nothing, the random flashbacks and nightmares you have, how we hate mentioning anything that could make us think of certain things of our past… Mr. Anderson made me want to research, and the sites I visited said that those are all real symptoms of PTSD.”

    That catches Ritch’s attention. “Really? Are you sure?” This goes against everything Amanda convinced them of. Then again, these kinds of revelations are surprising Ritch less and less

    “Of course I am! I wouldn’t have brought it up if I wasn’t absolutely sure! It actually wasn’t hard to find at all, even on Markus’ smart phone.” Connor lowers his head to stare at his feet before continuing quietly, “We could have known about this years ago if we had smartphones or tablets, especially since it’s something we definitely would’ve researched for health purposes.”

    Ritch pauses for a second to process this and think. There’s only two reasons Ritch can come up with at the moment why Amanda decided to do these things, and he doesn’t want to seriously consider the second one yet. Therefore, he only voices his first potential reason.

    “If this is true… Do you think this is another thing Amanda didn’t want us to concern ourselves with? We both know how she was with injuries and your random days in bed. Do you think that she probably thought this was another thing we were strong enough to face on our own?”

    “I… I don’t know. Part of me still wants to believe that she meant no harm, but…” Connor looks back to Ritch, “Why would she not let us have electronics? She said it was to keep our focus on our goal but–”

    “–If that were the real reason, you’d think she’d let us have at least a computer or something of the like for instructional and research purposes during our free time.” Ritch finishes his sentence, “It would have aided us greatly, not having to rely on the television and instructors to learn new things.”

    “Exactly.”

    Ritch sighs, “I want to think that she was just a stubborn and particular person–”

    “–But one by one, things keep proving otherwise since we’ve been here–”

    “–And it’s slowly getting harder to trust that everything she did was done with the best intentions for us.”

    “Yeah.”

    After a pause, Connor smiles and shakes his head. Before Ritch can ask what he finds amusing, his twin idly answers without realizing.

    “We haven’t done the twin thing in years.” His smile turns bittersweet, and his eyes go unfocused just that tiny bit; a tell that he’s looking back on something in the past.

    “I haven’t even thought of those days in so long. Not since Amanda requested the…”

    Actually, I don’t want to think about this right now.

    “How…” Connor starts awkwardly, “How have, uh, your appointments been going? If you don’t mind my asking. I know you’ve been going every four to five months…”

    Now Ritch thinks he knows how Connor feels when he’s asked a question that’s on the verge of being too uncomfortable and personal to answer.

    “I’m pretty much done with them now, but they went well. Much better than anyone expected considering my age at the time. Things could have definitely ended up much worse. I’m actually surprised they didn’t.”

    Connor must pick up that he doesn’t want to talk about this anymore because he only nods a response instead of asking the questions that Ritch can tell are swirling in his head. They slip into a comfortable silence after that, the tapping of their footsteps and bustle of people somewhere in the distance the only things breaking it. They remain this way until they reach the room where Marshal Fowler should be. Ritch is not pleased to see Gavin Reed enter the room as well, but he doesn’t outwardly react to the pilot’s presence. He still doesn’t know much about the irritable man, but what he does know leads him to believe that he’s either currently in trouble or is looking to complain about something menial.

    Either way, they don’t hesitate and make no show of entering the waiting-room-like area. From what Ritch has heard, Marshal Fowler occasionally uses this office when he wants a bit more privacy with whoever he’s meeting with, since his main one has a large glass wall and nowhere to put curtains. Ritch doesn’t know how to feel about Marshal Fowler wanting a more private chat with them, but he doesn’t get too much time to try to figure it out because suddenly the door to the actual office section of the place slams open and Gavin Reed storms out of it. He ends up violently sitting himself down in a chair– because only Gavin Reed could find a way to make sitting down violent (Ritch disregards the intrusive thought of North possibly being able to as well)– immediately crossing his arms like a child and impatiently bouncing his leg with a deep scowl on his face.

    “The fuck’re you lookin’ at?” Reed snaps.

    Ritch smoothly diverts his gaze to the door to Marshal Fowler’s office. “Nothing in particular.”

    Marshal Fowler chooses then to make an appearance. “Connor, can you come back here?”

    Connor starts moving to where the marshal stands in the doorway, and Ritch follows by default. Whenever someone needs to talk to Ritch or Connor, that person commonly ends up needing to talk to both of them because they’re twins and supposed partners. He stops almost immediately, though, when Marshal Fowler raises a hand at him.

    “I only want Connor. You’re after, go ahead and find a seat out here.”

    Ritch nods and says “Yes, sir”, ignoring the growing concern and confusion. He turns sharply and finds a seat on the opposite side of the small room from Gavin Reed because he took a seat in the middle of his row, otherwise Ritch would opt against having to face him. The chair under him squeaks under his weight, then the entire room is plunged into a silence more tense and painful than the one earlier with Connor had been. He’s not surprised, though. It’s Reed he’s alone with, after all, so it’s to be expected. It’s also no real surprise that it’s Reed that breaks the silence since he can’t ever seem to keep his mouth shut.

    “The fuck’s up with you two?”

    Ritch contains the urge to roll his eyes and instead gives Reed a flat look. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

    Reed huffs and rolls his eyes dramatically. “Why the fuck are you guys in here?” He sneers, “Are you guys finally being kicked out? We all saw those injuries you got last week. Gonna get those boo boos from earlier this week kissed by mama when you get home?”

    Now Ritch openly rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “If you’re going to try to insult someone, could you at least do it in a more mature and creative way? Because you sound like a child and most children can’t be taken seriously. Also, Connor and I are currently placed at the top of our class, so we certainly aren’t getting kicked out for that reason anytime soon.”

    Reed loses his cockiness real fast and replaces it with blatant irritation. Honestly, this guy is a landmine who’s practically begging to be stepped on. Ritch wonders how many people have fallen for this act, because he certainly won’t. This isn’t his first time dealing with someone as testing as Gavin Reed, as disappointing as it is.

    “Top of your class, ey? Is that why you beat each other to a pulp, then? Are you two just not compatible and tryin’ to prove a point?” He barks out a sharp laugh, “That’d be the icing on the cake. Fuckin’ identical twins not bein’ drift compatible. I bet–”

    “You seem to misunderstand.” Ritch interrupts, “We want to be incompatible, so it would certainly be ‘the icing on the cake’ for us to be officially seen as such, since that has been our goal since the beginning of training.”

    Ritch prides himself for the look of bewilderment on Reeds face.

    “And why the fuck would you guys suddenly not want to be partners? You obviously came as a pair. Got into a cat fight or somethin’?”

    Ritch grins sharply, feeling oddly encouraged by Reed’s antagonizing. “That’s for me to know and for you to preferably never find out.” Reed opens his mouth to speak, but Ritch continues. “And I would suggest that you keep away from other people’s businesses. Someone may accidentally mistake your abrasive nosiness for actually caring.”

    Reed grumbles and angrily slouches low in his seat, not unlike a pouting child would. Within his grumbling, Ritch barely makes out the word “fucker”, but the way he pronounces it makes him mentally do a double take. Sure enough, just a few seconds later, he murmurs what sounds like “phker” under his breath again, and Ritch can’t quite contain the careful, blank expression on his face anymore, letting his eyebrows furrow just the slightest.

    Does he actually say it like that or is he just shitting around? He said it normally before… What even...?

    “Ritch,” Marshal Fowler suddenly calls, startling the twin. He can’t let himself lower his guard like that again, lest he get hurt. “You’re up. Connor, you’re free to go so this disaster of a human being doesn’t start influencing your behavior.”

    “Really feelin’ the love, Fowler.”

    “Just do me a favor and shut up. You’re damn lucky you’re a good pilot or else you’d’ve been gone ages ago.” The marshal slams the door behind him with Ritch already inside the office. He turns to face Ritch.

    “Now then, sit down. I’ll make this short.”

    That wasn’t usually a good thing to hear, and Ritch never got the opportunity to read Connor to see how he was affected. He’s going in blind. Thankfully, Marshal Fowler makes do on his word of keeping things quick and barely waits for Ritch to sit down before starting business.

    “You and Connor still refuse to work together, and it’s come to my attention that you guys have started trying to experiment on your compatibility with the other trainees, yes?” Ritch nods with a, “Yes, sir.”, seeing no reason to lie since they’ve already been caught, and the older man continues. “So, what are we gonna do about this, then?”

    Ritch waits in silence for a few moments, thinking it was a rhetorical question, but when he doesn’t continue, Ritch searches for an appropriate answer. The marshal doesn’t actually let him answer in the end, which miffs the twin. He’s careful to not let it show, though.

    “We can consider your paperwork to be ingenuine, thus terminating any chances of you and Connor ever being pilots.”

    Ritch feels like this is the first of multiple options with the way he said this, but it’s obvious that this is a test of some kind, so he plays along. Besides, this is something they’ve already tried to admit and clear up during the first day of being here, so they can’t entirely be in the wrong.

    “I suppose, in a way, our paperwork was ingenuine, but we didn’t have a choice in the matter at the time.”

    “And what does that mean?” He probably knows what it means from Connor, but once again, this is probably a test to see how eagerly he wants to be a pilot.

    “Our stepmother and instructor, Amanda, was watching us fill them out, and we–”

    “Wait, wait wait wait wait…” He holds a hand up and takes a second to process something, then points at Ritch almost accusingly. “Your trainer was your stepmother? You share her last name?”

    Ritch doesn’t know how he messed up, but he feels like he did. “Yes, sir.”

    “So your trainer was Amanda, as in, Amanda Stern?”

    “Do… you know her, sir?”

    “‘Do I know her’, he asks.” He spins in his chair to address an invisible audience incredulously while throwing his hands in the air, then spins to face Ritch again. “You mean to tell me that you just didn’t know that your supposed stepmother, Amanda Stern, is known for training some of the best jaeger pilots we’ve had? You two know so much about everything else ‘round here– because it’s obvious that you and Connor purposefully threw some of the evaluation questions, and we’re gonna talk about that too– but neither of you knew who Amanda Stern is? You didn’t think to mention this little detail to us?”

    “I… suppose not, sir. Maybe she didn’t tell us she was known for anything because she wanted us to get in through skill and not because of her name? All we knew was that she had experience in training soldiers and that she offered to train us to give us a better chance at being accepted.”

    “Did you not have any internet? A magazine on jaeger pilots and training, even? Anything?”

    “No, sir. At least, not often and usually not unsupervised. She didn’t like us being distracted from our main goal, much to our own irritation.”

    Marshal Fowler opens his mouth as if to ask another question, probably one out of concern if his facial expression is anything to go by, but he instead sighs deeply with a shake of his head. It’s obvious that he’s pretty much done with this situation and that he wants this to be over as soon as possible. Ritch feels very much the same way.

    “That doesn’t explain why you purposefully answered questions wrong on the written evaluations, and both Luther and I have a sneaking suspicion that you guys have been holding back ever since that first day of physical evaluations. And you better not lie to me, because lying about your potential during evaluations has already put you on thin fuckin’ ice here.”

    See, here’s the problem, if Ritch’s story doesn’t match up near-perfectly with Connor’s, then they’re both done for. Therefore, Ritch has to try to figure out if Connor told the truth about buying time to find a new partner, or if he bent the truth and claimed it was to get more time to gain the “trainee experience”. If Marshal Fowler was this tough on Connor as well, then he would’ve cracked and simply told the entire truth then beg for forgiveness afterward. Although, if the marshal went easy on him and is only being short with Ritch right now because of the accumulated stress, then Connor would have bent the truth to keep his superior from getting angry in the first place.

    This is where being able to see Connor’s expression would have helped immensely. Even just a quick glance at his eyes; the twin-telepathy would have taken care of the rest.

    When Ritch answers, it’s soon enough after Marshal Fowler finished speaking that there’s no noticeable hesitation. His decision is made and is hopefully correct.

    “To put it shortly, we were trying to avoid any possible chance of early graduation in order to buy time for us to find new partners to pilot a jaeger with. Due to past events, Connor and I will certainly have a difficult time going through the neural handshake. It can be done, we’ve been trained most of our lives to be compatible, but it’ll be more than uncomfortable and taxing for both of us.” Ritch takes a page from Connor’s book and looks down with hunched shoulders, knowing it should accentuate the guilt and trepidation he’s feeling. “We’d really rather not have to find out how long we’d last.”

    The marshal sighs again, this time less angrily, “And why did you not state this on your papers when signing up?”

    Ritch lifts his head, completely confident in his answer now. “As I said before, Amanda was quite literally standing behind us during the entire process, and she would have been… less than pleased if she saw that we were trying to write down anything besides eagerness to work together. She’s–” Ritch’s voice cracks, so he clears his throat quickly, “She can be a force to be reckoned with, one could say.”

    Marshal Fowler stares down Ritch, probably for any signs of dishonesty, but the trainee knows that he’ll find none. The way he sighs once more, this time more in defeat, tells Ritch that his choice to come clean was the correct choice. It also shows that he should probably get back to Connor as soon as possible. Knowing him and his patterns of self-blame and punishment, he’s probably already digging himself a ditch with the amount of fidgeting and pacing he’s likely doing.

    “Connor said something similar.” He states as if Ritch didn’t already figure that out, “He never mentioned that your trainer was Amanda Stern, though. That kinda changes things, here.” He sighs again. Ritch kind of feels bad for giving him more stress than he already had.

    “I apologize for making things complicated. You probably have enough on your plate as it is without worrying about two questionable trainees.”

    “You’re damn right I do. I’m glad you recognize that.”

    Another halt in conversation. Marshal Fowler breaks it, this time, with false nonchalance.

    “Mind if I ask how long you stayed with Amanda?”

    “We lived with her for nearly eleven years, but we only trained for a little over ten.” Ritch answers automatically. This is a question he’s answered many times before in the past.

    Ritch hears the marshal hiss a distinct “Jesus” under his breath before continuing out loud. “Did you have anyone taking care of you besides Amanda? Like a maid or something?”

    “I have Connor and he has me, but we’ve always been mostly self-sufficient. We never particularly needed anyone else.”

    Marshal Fowler scrutinizes him for a moment, before dropping his gaze to the table between them. Richard feels another sudden wave of sympathy for the older man.

    “Alright, I’ve got things to do and another human to talk with, apparently, so you can leave now.” He gets up from his chair and steps to the door. “I’ll have someone tell you the verdict once the people who normally take care of this kind of stuff decide what to do with you two.” He opens the door then shouts with impatience, “Reed! Get your ass in here!”

    Ritch starts walking out, eyeing Reed, who is just getting up from his chair. He doesn’t know what prompts him to do it, but Ritch suddenly can’t simply walk past the trash-human without saying something. It’s an odd feeling, one that he’s never had before, but he relates it to a strange mixture of smug, cocky, and maybe a bit playful, yet he has no reason to be any of those. As they pass each other, Ritch lowers his voice enough that marshal Fowler shouldn’t be able to tell he said anything from where he’s sat in the office chair again.

    “Here for another day, Reed, let’s see if you are too.” he taunts, relishing in whatever this smug, cocky, thrilling feeling is.

    Reed stops in his tracks, but Ritch continues on as if nothing happened.

    “What did you just say to me?”

    “Reed!”

    Ritch allows a shit-eating grin to form when he hears the loud growl from the pilot only because his back is to him. It drops completely as soon as he opens the door because he finds Connor waiting right outside in the hall. He normally would have retreated back to their room by now to calm down, but here he is. At least there’s one part of his pattern Connor’s still following; pacing and fidgeting with his fingers in an obvious show of anxiety. Ritch doesn’t get the chance to ask if he’s okay because Connor’s suddenly darting to him.

    “Ritch! Ritch, I’m sorry! I told him everything and I messed this all up and–”

    “You didn’t mess anything up, and you didn’t tell him everything.” Ritch cuts him off before it gets out of hand, “He was surprised when I told him Amanda was our stepmother and trainer. Apparently she’s downright famous in our line of work.”

    “I–” Connor freezes, his eyes widening in recognition. “I think I knew that already. I’m pretty sure North’s said something like that...” Connor replies dumbly. Ritch can tell he’s trying to process that what he imagined in his head isn’t becoming reality, so he gives his brother a second to adjust before continuing.

    “It’s okay that you told Marshal Fowler everything, because I did too. We were caught, and lying would have made things worse. He seemed receptive to our reasonings for lying by the end of our talk.”

    Connor slowly lifts his head up in order to meet Ritch’s eyes. “...was he really? Or are you just trying to make me feel better?”

    “Connor. I never say anything I don’t mean, you know this better than anyone, so the fact that you’re asking me if I am bending the truth for anyone’s benefit means you need to take some time to lie down and think through things before this afternoon. That’s what you normally do during times like this, yes?”

    Ritch turns and starts walking back to their dorm, knowing full well that Connor will start following behind him. Sure enough, he hears the tip-tapping of footsteps behind him almost immediately.

    “I do… But what if He might’ve been putting on an act to make us think we’re safe. What if we get kicked out? We don’t have any other skills–”

    “If things really go down the drain, I’m sure we could at least find jobs as bodyguards or some kind of fighting or self-defense instructors. Besides, we’re still young. We still have time to learn a new trade if worse comes to worst. But I genuinely don’t think it will come to that.”

    “How can you be sure? What if–”

    Ritch stops and turns to his brother abruptly, “Stop letting your head and emotions get the best of you. Calm down and think clearly. Marshal Fowler never yelled at you, did he? Didn’t get short with you after you explained yourself?”

    Connor takes a deep breath, “...not really, no.”

    “And he didn’t with me, either. He simply said that he’d give the information to the people who officially decide what to do with us.” He stops Connor before he can freak out, “Now think, if you were in their shoes, and you got a case about these brothers whose stepmother, who is well-known for being at least mildly threatening, apparently, was watching them through every step of the enrollment process and forced them to put answers they didn’t like, would you blame the kids?”

    “I don’t know because I’m not informed on–”

    “Connor, come on, just use your head for a second. Would you do it?”

    His brother stammers, “But I’m too soft and–”

    “Connor.” Ritch snaps.

    “No.” Connor barks back, anger bleeding into his tone. Finally, he’s feeling and showing something other than anxiety and fear.

    “And in the end, I don’t think I would either. People can’t blame kids for being afraid of the consequences of going against their parent’s or guardian’s wishes. In most cases it’s the adult’s fault, so I’ve heard.”

    Connor pauses, looking down. “You’re sure about that? Where have you heard this from?”

    “North complains about her parents sometimes.” Ritch starts walking again, and Connor follows. “They’re eerily similar to Amanda in a lot of ways, as far as I have been able to tell, and what I told you is what Simon told North once or twice. She seemed to agree with him.”

    “Oh…”

    Ritch nods and continues his trek to their bunker again. The relatively short trip is spent in silence for the rest of the way. When they arrive, Connor surprises Ritch by not entering the room when he holds the door open for him. Instead, he states that Lunch will be starting sometime soon and he’d like to get there a little early today. Ritch decides against questioning it, even if this doesn’t match his brother’s usual behavioral patterns, so he simply nods and bids Connor a polite farewell before closing the bunker door behind him.

    Not questioning certain things seems to be a repeating theme for Ritch lately, but he can tell that if he did start questioning them, he’d spiral into an unpleasant mindset. He isn’t quite sure why, probably something like a long lost self-preservation method that has become a simple habit over time, but he really doesn’t want to delve into that right now. Maybe another time when he knows the following day will be a day off, but not now when he has to go back to training in just a few hours. Ritch has a feeling that this particular “maybe later” will become yet another “not ever”, but he can’t bring himself to particularly care at this moment. He seems to have a lot of “maybe later”s too, now that he’s thinking about it.

    He shakes his head and forcibly moves any and all of those types of thoughts like taking boxes of trinkets and stashing them in the shed or garage when one’s too lazy to go to the dump. There’s a fleeting thought that this is probably unhealthy, but it’s gone and forgotten as fast as it tries to arrive.

    What Ritch decides is okay to actively think about is the feeling he got when he started taunting Reed today. He’s still not even sure why he did that, since he vowed just last week to never escalate things like the other man wanted so desperately, yet here he is. This is probably the first feeling aside from enjoyment and annoyance that Ritch has genuinely let himself feel in a while, and it felt… good. It felt really good. That’s what’s concerning him.

    Ritch doesn’t “just feel things”– that would have gotten him in a lot of trouble with Amanda and thus turned him into a nervous wreck like Connor. At first, Ritch picked and chose which emotions to put on his face in order to please the people around him, not unlike what Connor tries to do. Although, at some point, he just became a robot of sorts. He didn’t realize until it was too late, but he doesn’t really feel anything anymore, as “teenage angst” as that sounds. He knows what he should be feeling and acts accordingly, and he, for the most part, can tell what other people are feeling, so he acts accordingly then, as well. Not that Ritch has any problems with himself, that’s just the way he is.

    He even started tamping down on the annoyance too. That is, until Gavin Reed entered the picture. Ritch ignored the man easily whenever he tried to start something in the past, as he normally does, but something about him keeps grating at his skin, so to speak. Ritch has no clue why, and there’s no way he’s going to ask for Connor’s help. His twin is living his own life now, he doesn’t need Ritch dragging him down as well. Besides, Ritch wouldn’t even know how to begin describing the strange feeling he gets when treating Gavin to a bit of his own medicine. He’s pretty sure Mr. Anderson would be able to help, but there’s no way in hell he’s approaching the old alcoholic. That’s Connor’s type of thing, not Ritch’s, and it’ll stay that way for as long as he can help it.

    Whatever, it’s not like this is actually bothering him. This feeling and his and Reed’s interactions are the only things keeping Ritch from going insane with boredom and lack of sunlight, after all. As he starts preparing himself for lunch and the second half of the training day, he wonders if his superiors would let him go for a run around the aircraft launch, or if that would be too dangerous.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Tina has been asking the same damn question at lunch every day ever since Gavin told her about his plan to break Ritch; “Make any progress with your boy toy, yet?” Her excuse had been because “He’s a boy and you have been trying to toy with him, therefore, boy toy.” Gavin understands where she got boy toy from, thank you very much, he just doesn’t understand why she says it the way she does, like she’s expecting something else to happen. It also doesn’t help that she usually says it loud enough for the surrounding tables to hear. He wouldn’t be surprised if the “Slut Gavin” rumors started their rounds again soon because of it.

    Gavin only started picking on the guy just to try to get a rise out of him. He does the same exact thing with the other trainees just to see how long their patience lasts. Honestly, what do people expect from him? Every single person he’s encountered has cracked, even those dudes Simon and Josh, who Gavin thought were going to be the toughest to crack because they’re so mild and peaceful. But nope! Just one degradation of their little friend group and they got defensive as hell. Gavin hasn’t even tried with the other twin– the one that sits next to Anderson for some fuckin’ reason– because the pilot can tell that one’ll crack within seconds of Gavin doing his thing. Plus, if he and Anderson are actually buddying up with each other…

    Let’s just say that, while the rest have been spoiled with their robots and fancy technology and hence have lost that certain edge, Anderson still knows how to take and throw a damn punch. Gavin figured that out the hard way a couple years back, and he isn’t going to jump at another opportunity to test it again.

    Ritch, though… Ritch is a fucking robot or something. He’s never surprised, always stoic no matter what Gavin says and has a constant resting bitch face, even when he’s with his little group during lunch. Even with all of the attempts at getting him to do something, anything, Ritch is always fucking blank and it’s irritating. Honestly, Gavin was even about ready to give up trying to get something out of him. If he hadn’t so much as slipped up by now, he probably wasn’t ever going to crack enough for it to be worth it.

    However, as soon as that fucker walked into the waiting room, Gavin got the feeling that today was gonna be different, and he was right. Ritch slipped that little bit while waiting for Connor, and that was instantly enough proof that Gavin should keep going, that it was possible to finally get a reaction. He thought that was going to be it for the day. He was fully ready to call quits for now and plan how to get him to break some more tomorrow. He didn’t expect that slight fucking quirk in his lips and that twinkle in Ritch’s eye when the trainee walked out of Fowler’s office.

    “Here for another day, Reed, let’s see if you are too.” is what the fucker said. And to top it all off, Gavin caught that fucking smug-ass grin on his face afterwards. He didn’t know little Ritchie-boy could dish anything out, let alone not only get away with something like insinuate that Gavin was gonna get fired with the fuckin Marshal in the same damn room, but also get Gavin in trouble for “trying to start something again”? He had to endure ten extra minutes of lecturing because he “still wasn’t respecting the trainees” and “hasn’t solved his anger issues”!

    You wanna finally participate in the game you’ve been ignoring for so long? Then I’ll make it impossible for you to ignore it again. I know how much fun you had in that moment. So let’s fuckin’ play.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Now, Gavin doesn’t normally wait for people. He prefers to play the whole “Oh look who I just ran into” schtick, but that ain’t gonna work for little Richard, anymore. He doesn’t even know if it ever worked for the prick in the first place with how calculated every single one of his movements seem. Oh well, it doesn’t matter anymore, he’s already leaned up against this wall in a way that everyone knows by now means to stay clear of him. He’s on the hunt for prey, and he can see his target walking down the hall in his direction right now.

    “‘Sup, dick.” Gavin calls, “Oh I’m sorry, did you prefer Richard? Ritch, maybe?”

    The twin doesn’t miss a beat this time, “Hello to you too, wetland grass. Although, I thought I told you earlier to come up with more mature and creative insults if you wanted to stop being seen as a child.”

    “First of all, fuck you–”

    “No thank you, I’m not interested.” Dick interrupts, pausing a few steps away from Gavin, “Oh, and Reed, Ritch is short for Ritchie, not Richard, so I wouldn’t be called Dick anyway. You can try again next time, though, maybe with more finesse. I’m known to be a very patient man and am willing to wait the time it will take to do so.” He has that same eye sparkle as earlier, even if his face is still morphed into something like disregard.

    “You keep calling me childish, but who’s the one who has a baby face? Are you even old enough to shave? Cause you don’t look a day past fourteen.” Gavin sneers, miffed that Ritch is now walking away from him as if he doesn’t have a damn care in the world. That’s supposed to be his own move!

    “No, I don’t shave,” he replies over his shoulder, “but I don’t see how that’s insultable since I waste no time in my mornings shaving and my face never itches. Have a good afternoon, wetland grass. Or do you prefer Reed?” and he’s out of casual speaking distance, effectively ending this round unless Gavin wants to throw away his pride and follow the dude or yell down the hallway. He does neither.

    He may have won this time, Gavin certainly underestimated this guy, still having doubts that he wouldn’t go back to being unemotional. Although, little Ritchie is a fool if he thinks these petty, elementary insults are all Gavin’s got. Gavin smirks in a way that has a middle-aged man clearly avoiding him where he was passing him in the hallway.

    Game on, bitch.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

Previous <~> Masterlist <~> Next

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

A/N: Hello again, guys! So, yea, I know this chapter is basically all dialogue and it’s kind of boring compared to other chapters, but it’ll pick up again for the next chapter or the one after that. I had to do some setting up for future plot points, ya dig? XD Also, this chapter has been sitting in my google docs completely finished for four days now because I’m a dummy who thought I already posted this Lol. But anyway, I know there isn’t much Reed900 action like what I promised last chapter, but they’ll have their time to truly shine eventually, I promise! 😅 So yeah, feel free to shout at me about literally anything at all, and Thank y’all so much for reading!! 😄💕💕

[twobrokenwyngs]

Back in October 2017, I happened upon a Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them fic featuring a beautifully, miserably touched-starved Percival Graves and lost my mind. I ended up leaving a 2.3k-word comment on this 4.5k-word fic because I loved it so damn much. Then, the same thing that possessed me while commenting on that fic took over me again on another fic by the same writer. I couldn’t stand it, it was all just... too good.

In the coming days, I ended up getting a private message from that writer here on Tumblr, thanking me for my feedback, and we started to chat it up. That writer was @clockheartedcrocodile. 

To my delight and excitement, Annika and I ended up sparking up a friendship! Also to my delight, this girl kept on writing. She followed me into the Exorcist fandom where she started churning out one incredible masterwork after another. But her very first, and perhaps greatest achievement in that particular fandom, she gifted to me. It was truly humbling and a gift that I still cherish. In early 2018, we decided to do an Exorcist rewatch together. This sparked up a tradition of watching something together every Monday - a tradition that has persisted, without fail, for a year and a half now. Since then we have watched countless movies and TV shows together and it’s always such a highlight of my week!

And in that time, Annika has set her talents loose on a very lucky array of fandoms: Pacific Rim (here’s my FAVORITE), Hannibal, Star Trek, Welcome to Night Vale, and more. (Seriously, if any of these fandoms are up your alley... you need to get over to her AO3 page immediately. You’ll thank yourself for it.)

All this to say, that in the time I’ve known her, Annika has brought so many people so much joy with her art, and she has brought ME so much joy as a friend. She is one of the most caring, selfless, earnest, dependable, thoughtful, sweet, supportive, nurturing, lovely individuals I’m lucky enough to know. She’s supported me in my own art, she’s offered a loving ear and wisdom beyond her years when I’ve been in need. I even got to meet her last May! Not to mention, she’s a little goddamn prodigy, lol. It blows me away sometimes to think of all she’s accomplished at such a young age and excites me to think of whats in store for her in the years to come.

And today - today is her birthday!!! SO! I just wanted to wish the happiest of birthdays to my friend, my Monday Movie Night partner, a delightful and supremely talented young woman that I appreciate so much.

Happy birthday, @clockheartedcrocodile / Annika!!!

[rokutouxei]

unfaithful

mystic messenger unrequited (?) 707/MC, Jumin/MC route | hurt/comfort, angst, smut | 3336 | [ao3] warnings: EXPLICIT, tw: cheating, spoilers: 707′s name disclaimer: i don’t intend to romanticize their behaviors at all. so, as a reader, please don’t romanticize what they’re doing too.

It was bad enough that Jumin hadn’t been returning your calls or messages for the past week. But to top it off with one of the biggest Korean tabloids plastering an image of your husband holding hands with another woman as he’s on an international business trip—one that would last a whole month?

You didn’t know what to do.

You decided to have faith in Jumin, like you promised him you would. That you would understand if he had long business trips, if he couldn’t stay by your side as much as another man probably could. You had talked all about this before the two of you got married. You’d both settled it well like adults, literally the only thing missing would have been a contract to really finalize the deal.

You sent him messages. [Text me when you have free time!] Not that he ever did, not without you prodding him to. When he’s really busy, when he’s in the zone, he’s rarely the first one to send a message. You set that aside. [Who are you with today? I hope meetings go well!] You try your best to be as patient, as understanding, as ideal of a wife as you can be.

But you’re only human.

It’s been six months since the grueling start of the complex, international trade deal that had shaken C&R. It was a good connection; something that, in Jumin’s words, “would dramatically increase and aid in the development of C&R as a national and potentially international business success”. This is why Jumin had taken the entire dealership into his hands. Six months of traveling out of Korea to settle deals and other contracts with international partners and clients.

He’s only been home for a non-consecutive 2 weeks since the year started. The penthouse is empty with only you and Elizabeth the 3rd.

The first one you call is Seven. You’ve considered the other four members of the RFA as your best friends (you’re not as close to V, as much as you wished), but Seven has always been especially close to your heart. The two of you vibed really well, jamming together with your bad, nerdy jokes and hanging out a lot.

When your husband refuses to respond to your calls, you’re glad when Seven answers.

Jumin hasn’t put it into words, but you know he doesn’t like it when you hang out with the other RFA men on your own. So you invite Zen, too. That first dreadful week, it’s the three of you who end up in a dimly lit bar in one of the busiest streets downtown, sharing bottles of beer (and juice for Seven, because he “doesn’t drink”).

You try not to cry, but you’re already on the verge of tears. “I just, I don’t know what to think of it. I’d like to think he isn’t that careless to get caught!” You say, sarcasm dripping in your voice.

Zen has a hand on your back and a soothing, comforting voice. He mirrors your anger; comfort that you need. “That Jumin Han… thinking he can get away with this.” He rubs calming circles on your shaking back.

“I don’t even know who that is, but the tabloid blew it up so hard, and now everyone is talking about it,” you whimper. “I said I’d ignore it, but I see it everywhere. It’s like, ‘Hello, I’m his wife, I’m right here!’ I haven’t even talked about it with him, and yet the whole of Korea is already up in flames about it.”

Seven runs his thumb over the back of your hand. “It could have been nothing, yanno,” he reasons out. “A clingy, touchy colleague. You know those kinds.”

“He’s married,” you groan. “She’s holding the hand with our ring on it!” The tears are waterfalls now, and they drip on the shiny glass bar where you guys are seated. You wonder what you’d done to deserve this. “He’s not telling me anything. I haven’t talked to him in a week. I don’t know what’s happening. If I hadn’t seen that headline--those photos--I would have assumed him dead.”

“When does he come home?” Zen asks, taking a swig of his beer.

Seven does the math. “Three more weeks?”

You lean your head against Seven’s shoulder and sob. “Seven, Zen, have I not been a good enough wife? Have I not been enough for Jumin, after all this time?”

“Oh, babe,” Seven sighs, gently patting your head. “You’ve always been enough. Please don’t ever think that.”

But you do. You do it all the time.

It’s hard not to, honestly. You know Jumin does his best to make you feel loved and welcomed and part of his world, but you come from completely different social classes to begin with. You grew up and lived with different rules, different functions, different expectations. It’s not like you can go around ignoring what other people say about the two of you. You’ve heard it all: “lowlife”, “gold digger”, “user”, “manipulator”—you’ve gotten so used to it you barely flinch any more.

But they still sting.

You’ve watched enough dramas to know the type of girl that suits Jumin—maybe someone who is into business as well, someone who grew up affluent, who knows what to do with this much money and wealth, someone who doesn’t sit and keep the house. You know he needs someone who can keep up with him.

You want to be someone who can keep up with him. But no matter how hard you keep chase, it’s like you never really reach that “ideal girl for Jumin” in your head.

You know Jumin loves you. You like to think he does. Even when he’s busy. Especially when he’s busy. He said it himself—he’s not choosing to ignore you, it’s just that the things he has to do in order to make sure you’re happy, and everyone else around him is successful, sometimes he has to do while spending time away from you.

You try your best to be the ever-accepting, ever loving wife.

You try.

It’s the second, nearing third week since Jumin has last answered your messages. You’d invited everyone out. It’s a weekend. But Jaehee is busy, covering for Jumin for C&R, and the work never ends. It’s Yoosung’s first day at this animal volunteer center, and he can’t miss it. Zen has rehearsals, and being the lead man, he can’t easily skip out of it, much as he wanted to. It was only you and Seven. The two of you meet at an arcade, and decide to spend the afternoon trying to beat each other in all the different racing games. You won the last two rounds, but you know it’s because Seven went easy on you.

How you winded up in Seven’s apartment is lost to history. Somewhere between “I don’t want to go home in that empty penthouse yet” and “Maybe we should watch a movie? Something long that’ll keep you distracted?”, you ended up in the back of his red Ferrari going double the speed limit to his bunker on the outskirts of town.

Seven pulls out his sofa into a bed, and throws in two blankets and four pillows for good measure. He lends you a pair of pyjamas to change into—“that dress is pretty, but that’s not comfortable for a movie night that’s for sure!”—and as you get dressed, it takes him no more than 15 minutes to prepare a large monitor to watch Pacific Rim in.  

You lay down huddled in blankets next to each other, Seven humming an excited tune as the movie begins. It’s one of his favorite movies, he says, makes him feel brave and strong. When the protagonists suffer the first blow, you instinctively reach out to hold Seven’s hand; he gently places his other hand on yours comfortingly. The little child hides behind a large rubbish bin, and you cling to Seven’s arm in near-tears. “Will she make it?” you ask yourself, will I make it? Will I make it? Will I make it?

You don’t even realize you’re crying until you feel the warm touch of Seven’s lips against your forehead. And you don’t know what comes over you, but the instinct is loud, and simple, and sudden. With one fisted hand you pull Seven’s collar towards you and kiss him flat on the mouth; his lips part open in a gasp and you take it as an invitation; you slide your tongue into his mouth, hot and constricting. You swallow the moan that leaves his throat.

When the two of you part, he is panting and so are you. “Uhm—"

“Don’t ask,” you say, leaning your forehead against his, hot puffs of breath against his own shaking lips. “Just kiss me.”

He hesitates. Rightfully so. But it only takes a few heartbeats for him to change his mind, scooping you up into his arms, his hand against the back of your head as the two of you kiss.

You haven’t been kissed like this in months.

His mouth trails wet kisses down your jaw, down the side of your neck, and where his lips are it feels like burning. With Jumin, it’s always been warmth, and comfort, and belonging, but with Seven…with Seven something sears in your gut, like a wildfire. He pulls away from you just enough to tug you out of the shirt you are in, his shirt, his pair of pyjamas, his—and to lift your bra to cup your warm, soft breast against his hand.

Everywhere he touches he feels like he’s trespassed, but he’s waited so long and he can’t say no—

“Seven,” you croon out, as he kisses your bare shoulders, you know you shouldn’t, you know this isn’t what you came here for, all you wanted was a little—

He stops. “Saeyoung,” is what comes out of his mouth, and he whispers it against the skin of your neck. “My name is Saeyoung. Call me that.”

The taste of his secret is bitter on your lips, but sweet in your loneliness. “Saeyoung,” you breathe out, and he presses his fangs on your pulse. You don’t see him but you can feel his predatory gaze, his pupils blown wide. “No! Don’t bite.”

“I won’t,” he says, only grazes his sharp canines along your neck—just enough for you to feel it, to feel your pulse racing because you know this is not what you should be doing.

But you let him anyway, with every fiery touch you chase the cold of the loneliness away. Seven—Saeyoung presses light kisses along your neck, but you can feel their hunger, just barely holding back.

You don’t know when you start crying, but your cheeks are wet and your eyes sting. You chant his name—Saeyoung, Saeyoung, Saeyoung, your cries broken with tears and sobs as he makes his way down your body, his hands on your breasts, your ribs, the curve of your waist. He kisses right along the hem of the pajamas, asking permission, and you lift your hips just enough for him to pull everything down to your ankles. As he lifts himself up to pull off his own shirt, you kick off the rest of your clothes to the floor.

He presses his hands right above your knees and stops.

“Hey… are you… are you sure about this?”

You don’t have a drop of alcohol in you, but you’re drunk on his touch; every time his hands graze your skin you feel a little more intoxicated. You meet his eyes, molten gold with a heat that goes right through your skin, and nod.

“Please.”

You cry out when he finds his way to your thighs—his hands feel so different but they fill the empty gaping hole that Jumin left—and kisses the skin slowly, reverently, as if it was holy.

This is the first time Saeyoung has touched you like this, and he’s trembling a little but he doesn’t let that stop him. He doesn’t force you pliant against the sheets, doesn’t go and claim you as his own. No, this—this whole thing, this was for you, he was only the warm body closest, most eager, most available. He eats you out like a man starved; his nose pressed against your pubic bone as he teases every sensitive part of you. He proves to be a fast learner, figures out how you like your clit laved with his tongue, accentuated with shallow licks to the rest of your slit.

“Fuuuuuuck,” you groan out.

When he looks up at you, you look absolutely wrecked. Eyes at half mast, tear trails running down your cheeks, mouth open. You’re holding on to the sofa with a vicelike grip and cry out when he pumps his first finger into you, one knuckle, two, and you’re doing your best not to grind your hips against his face. He pulls his finger out and presses in two, gently prodding, and then you shriek as he touches something electric. He holds your thighs down with his other arm, keeping you in place as he works you through a rising orgasm—he whispers “come, come on,” with his tongue against your clit and come you do, crying out in halted, high-pitched whines as your muscles spasm and the feeling of release washes over you like a tide rolling in.

And so he lets go, watching as you relax back into the sofa, sniffling and sighing at the same time. You uncurl your fists from the mattress, brush your hair out of your face, and close your eyes.

“You okay?” he asks, hesitantly, not really knowing how to talk about this, but he can’t say the regret has settled in quite yet. Awkwardly, with his boner tenting his pants, he sits by your legs and waits for what’s to happen.

For what to do next.

You gingerly get up to a sitting position, your heart still loud like a drum against your chest. You look at Saeyoung carefully, his mussed hair, his obvious erection, the way his eyes look so dark but the most alluring shade of gold, framed by his red, red hair.

You crawl towards him, and you watch as his adam’s apple bobs in his throat when he swallows.

You wonder what he’s thinking right now.

Saeyoung doesn’t flinch when you reach out, just watches as you put your arms around his neck, and press his lips against his. A soft kiss, almost shy, nearly chaste; but then you slip your tongue in his mouth and you swallow the moan that drawls out of his throat. His fingers weave into your hair, pulling gently, and you sigh into his kiss.

When you part just enough to take a breath, he looks into your eyes as if making sure. And you’re sure. In this moment, right now, this is all you’re sure of. Saeyoung is all you’re sure of.

So when he pulls you into another kiss, you don’t hesitate to drag your hands against the hardness of his cock, dragging the fabric of his pants against the sensitive spots. He nearly chokes in surprise at the action, but he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t falter. You pump him through his clothes until you’re sure he’s as hard as he can get. You push one palm flush against his chest, just enough to get his attention.

Your lips let out one word that makes him hot all over. “Off.”

Yes ma’am, you hear him whisper under his breath, as he stands up and fumbles with his belt and his zipper. The pants fall to the floor with a clink of his belt and the boxers soon follow. You only have a moment to admire his fully naked form, the first time you’ve ever seen him this bare, before he’s back on the sofa bed and he pulls you up against his lap.

The two of you sit there for a moment, just watching each other for any sign of breaking. Any moment now you feel like he’ll tell you to stop, tell you that this isn’t right, tell you that you should stop. This is a wind-up ticking time bomb and you’re waiting for everything to burst.

But then you feel his arms around your waist pulling you closer to him and you let go.

“Please,” you ask him, again, your lips kiss-swollen, your eyes still glassy with tears. “Have me.”

“I don’t—” he swallows, again—“I don’t have… condoms.”

You shake your head. “Neither do I. I don’t care. Please,” you say. “For me.”

And the thing is, he can’t say no when he’s loved you all this time—

His arms are broad in a way different to Jumin’s; you relish in the muscle hiding underneath the skin as you cling on to him. He fixes your positions on his lap as you align the head of his cock against your entrance, and slowly, slowly, almost agonizingly slow, you slide down against him. He doesn’t move—barely holding back a thrust, and you felt that—and so you go ahead at your own pace as you take him in inch by inch. You feel his grip tighten against your waist the deeper you go, and by the time he is fully sheathed in you all you can let out is a ragged breath.

He holds your thighs in his hands and presses a kiss to your forehead, a gesture so gentle that it makes something in you break.

“Relax,” he says, his voice low. “I got you.”

He starts to thrust into you, a slow pace that makes you feel dizzy. You wrap your arms around his neck and press your face against the crook of his neck. Your hot breath fans against the skin over his pulse and he shudders at the contact, thrusting a little too hard that it makes you cry out. Sorry, he mumbles, before readjusting. Your nails leave crescent-shaped marks against your back as he fucks you.

Feeling his own orgasm coming, he pulls your leg higher around his torso and tilts; your back hits the bed as he continues to thrust, the sound of skin on skin sloppy and loud. You let out a stilted “Ah, ah, ah, ah” as he pushes against you deeper, just enough for him to brush there. He hits a spot that makes you see stars, over, and over, and over again, your body electric, every single thrust is charged, and it makes you cry out—“Jumin!”—

And he doesn’t mind.

That’s the thing, he doesn’t mind, because he’s knowing he’s claiming things that aren’t his to begin with, so he just keeps going, going and going until your vision goes white, and everything collapses into a wave of an orgasm that leaves you boneless. “Inside me,” you gasp out just in time, as he follows soon after, his movements erratic and nearly primal. He bites his lower lip hard as he can when he does, doing his best to follow your request to not leave marks.

When he pulls out of you a different kind of emptiness floods you, and you lay there feeling like someone that could have been. Saeyoung is thorough as he cleans you up, and doesn’t ask any questions when after it all you only roll to one side of the bed, wordlessly pulling the blanket up your chin. He turns off the movie, turns off the lights, turns off his emotions, sets aside what has to be set aside; deals with the aftermath on his own, as you, exhausted, fall into a fitful sleep.

When morning dawns in the bunker, sunlight does not stream in the window warmly. There’s only cold walls, and Saeyoung’s glow-in-the-dark stars from the ceiling. You see Saeyoung’s jacket draped over your blanket. You hold this against your bare chest, think of Jumin, and cry.

[addictsitter]

F, G, Q, and T

F: What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? consistently? god, uh. i think probably kingdom hearts? but that was years back. maybe stranger things since i did get into it like, a month after s2 aired but it was a backburner fandom. wait no nm it’s descendants. cause i’ve been more or less YES DESCENDANTS GOOD a lot for the last three and a half years. so. also kind of tortall bc i get sporadically bitter about neal/kel every month or so and have since about 2007.

G: Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it? ooh okay so the first otp i remember is john sheppard/teyla emmagan from stargate atlantis and i just. never really got over them. (they’re my forever otp)

Q: A ship you’ve abandoned and why: oh okay this one is kinda tough but i guess the best example is probably jay/carlos and mal/evie from descendants? like, i have nothing against the ships themselves and there’s plenty of material there. BUT. the fandom, rachel. i hate. the descendants fandom. so goddamn much. because they’re really obnoxious (never 4get the j*ylos stans who called d3 the straightest of the movies despite jay/gil being as close to canon as we were gonna get for a descendants movie just bc carlos was still with jane. also all the j*ylos stans who complained about them ~no homo’ing~ j*ylos in d2 because carlos liked jane and jay and carlos’s friendship got less focus while completely ignoring the harry/gil kiss that was scripted, filmed and then cut!!!)

(”alec are you still bitter about d2″ I AM ALWAYS BITTER ABOUT D2)

T: Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

ahem. excuse me. [retrieves stack of paper] we’re going to go alphabetically by fandom. and by alphabetically by fandom, i mean you’re getting some highlights.

under a cut for length

battlestar galactica: hello yes have i talked about kara thrace being a lesbian yet? no? so kara thrace is a lesbian and lee adama is a trans lesbian and they are happy and in love. thank you, have a nice day.

being human: s3 established that annie feels things that people feel when she touches them which leads me to the headcanon that mitchell, nina and george made all her old favorite foods for, like, an entire week and ate them so she could enjoy them again, along with other things. (we do not discuss the plot that involved that part i don’t acknowledge 98% of s3 for a reason.)

descendants: uma’s mother is ursula, this is canon, but i fully headcanon that her father is a deity of some flavor and she, like mal, is a full on demigoddess. aside from that, i also will live and die by the idea that ben can go beast without audrey’s magic being involved. also carlos is non-binary, evie’s a trans girl, harry is the definition of chaotic bi and non-binary and gil’s a trans boy.

elementary: i. i have so many. where do i start. um. easiest is this: during the time skip in the finale while joan underwent chemo, kitty came back to new york and archie and arthur spent, like, all their time together while sherlock and kitty traded off watching the kids. also: joanlockbell ot3 or bust.

the get down: shao got the fuck away from annie and got a happy ending and met zeke again at some point and they lived happily ever after. also DIZZEE IS TOTALLY FINE.

gilmore girls: finale what finale. revival what revival. logan and rory are happily married and working on their careers and EVERYONE IS GOOD AND NOBODY IS PREGNANT.

gossip girl: dan’s not gossip girl what the fuck show. trans girl jenny or bust. also trans girl blair.

harry potter: [insert requisite dean/seamus and sirius/remus comment here] also harry became a goddamn teacher fuck that auror shit that boy needs to get away from more fighting goddamn. also someone please get him into therapy. please.

high school musical: listen chad danforth is a trans girl and people can come fight me. also requisite chad/ryan comment here.

izombie: post-s3 did not happen, ravi is either immune or a zombie and he and liv are happily together and clive is regularly grossed out by them as a couple. major goes back to being a social worker, as he fucking should have.

i had a kingdom hearts thing here but tbh i just. have so many emotions that i can’t even touch it 

leverage: listen. listen. eliot absolutely worked for the stargate program and nobody can ever convince me otherwise. it was supposed to happen and they couldn’t manage it so i’m declaring it my canon. also hardison may or may not have learned his hacking skills from his nana.

i. had magicians headcanons and i still have magicians headcanons and one of them is genderfluid quentin and that is literally the only one i can think of without crying right now.

one piece: aro/ace lawlu or bust. genderfluid sanji or bust. lesbian nami or bust. also. my asshole babes aka cp9 aka now at least partially in cp0 are not, in fact, back working for the government inexplicably but are instead working undercover in cp0 for the revolutionary army. also mishanks was a thing bye

pacific rim: gender gets really fucking weird in the drift. nobody’s cis.

shadowhunters: hi yes do you have a moment to hear about jacemaia and how they are actually friends and spend time together and help each other with trauma and like each other

stranger things: BI STEVE BI STEVE BI STEVE BI STEVE BI STEVE steve and robin are bi/lesbian solidarity and any job they have in a non-80s small town setting involves robin roasting the fuck out of steve for failing with people of every gender. also elmax.

tortall. TORTALL. okay so. alanna is non-binary of some flavor idk what. alanna is with george and they both might also be with jon who’s publicly married to thayet who’s really married to buri who’s publicly married to raoul for ~appearances~ who’s actually w/ gary and maybe jon if he’s not being a dick that day. also. kel is married to neal and yuki and they all live together at new hope and all absolutely suck at hiding that fact and everyone at new hope just, like, conveniently ignores it. also i have A Lot of neal/kel feelings and headcanons but those would take me twelve hours, three powerpoints, a fifth of whiskey and yelling directly at tamora pierce to get through.

uhhh i think that’s it? maybe? possibly? i can’t think of anything else that i want to talk about at this point? i’ll stop now, at least.

[yellowpeach]

For the film asks, all of them? (2010/Chris Evans/Brie Larson/Edgar Wright for the *insert here* questions)

ahh!!! thank you so much for asking anon! this will take a while so i will probs stick most of it under a cut :)

a movie you’ve seen most times in cinema.

i answered this one here!

your most rewatched movie.

that’d be between toy story, the lord of the rings trilogy, moulin rouge, to all the boys i’ve loved before and this weird animated film called tubby the tuba. my grandma owned it on vhs and i spent basically every school holiday at her house so i watched it more times than i can think of!

a movie you quote on a daily basis.

i quote dumb youtube videos more than films on a regular basis, but i do quote a lot of lord of the rings lines like “it comes in pints?!” or anything else that comes out of one of the hobbits mouths.

favorite movie soundtrack

probably moulin rouge? that or the first guardians of the galaxy. they’re the only two that i still own on CD..

top 5 films of your favorite actor and actress

okay so my initial thought for favourite actor is actually tom hanks, so in that case.

forrest gump

philadelphia

toy story

 the green mile

larry crowne (not the most amazing film in the world but it’s so endearing to me!)

and for actress i would probably say toni colette? her or blake lively, but i don’t have a top five for either of them. for toni it’d be;

about a boy

muriel’s wedding

miss you already

and for blake it’d be;

a simple favor

the age of adeline

elvis and annabelle

top 5 performances of your favorite actor and actress.

see above, they’re one and the same to me.

a movie storyline you wish you had actually lived.

about time. might be biased since i’m watching it now, but it’d be nice to do things over if i could.

a movie that reminds you of your mum.

local hero. i’ve watched it with her many times and it’s one of her favourites.

a movie that reminds you of your dad.

any of the harry potter films. we went to all of them at the cinema together.

favorite movies from your childhood.

it’s gonna be toy story again. this will likely be a running theme, i fucking love this movie.

favourite quote(s).

too many to count from the lord of the rings. sam’s monologue at the end of the two towers, gandalf speaking to pippin in return of the king. also sam saying “i can’t carry it for you, but i can carry you!”. this is really just a love letter to sam now, isn’t it….

top 5 favorite female performances.

i would have to come back to this, i can’t brain right now.

top 5 favorite male performances.

see above.

favourite year for movies.

after googling, it looks like 1993 was a bloody good year.

your favorite movies from [insert year].

2010 is the year you mentioned and from looking on google, my faves are toy story 3, how to train your dragon, black swan, scott pilgrim vs the world, easy a, megamind, tangled, AHH DAYDREAM NATION CAME 2010!! MY FAVE!! man, 2010 was a good one :D

favorite [insert actor/actress/director] movies?

so you said chris evans, brie larson and edgar wright. so faves in order would be:

short term 12

captain america: the winter soldier

hot fuzz or the world’s end (can’t pick between the two soz)

list all you’ve seen from [insert actor/actress/director].

so many, my dude. so many.

an underrated actor.

brain is fried. i’m sure there’s some but i’m blanking hard.

an underrated actress.

see above.

an underrated director.

see above.

an overrated actor.

johnny fucking depp.

an overrated actress.

scarlett johansson soz lol

an overrated director.

QUENTIN FUCKING TARANTINO

a film you wish you had seen on the big screen.

like any of my favourite 80s movies or the original psycho. also the lord of the rings, for some reason my folks didn’t take me to those.

a movie you’ve seen that you think no one else’s here will have heard of?

i am yet to encounter someone who knows the previously mentioned tubby the tuba.

favorite movie characters.

steve rogers, rapunzel from tangled, leia skywalker, lara-jean song-covey

a film that was better than the book.

i love to all the boys i loved before, but the film captured me in a way that the book didn’t as much.

best remake.

i’d watch tom holland or andrew garfield over tobey maguire for spiderman any day fight me.

your first favorite actor.

probably orlando bloom? back when i was a wee bab, i watched anything of his that i could find at the video rental.

your first favorite actress.

hilary duff probably. child me watched all of lizzie mcguire and any movies of hers.

favorite animated film.

if you’ve read this far and can’t figure it out, i don’t know what to say. it’s toy story, obviously.

your most anticipated films.

endgame and basically any other superhero movie coming out, toy story 4, the sequel for to all the boys i’ve loved before, the richard curtis movie called yesterday that is coming out in june (???) i think, STAR WARS.

last movie that disappointed you.

sierra burgess is a loser. fuck, no one else wanted that movie to be good as much as i did.

last movie that surpassed your expectations

nothing will ever match how blown away i was by pacific rim when i saw it. i went with my cousin knowing literally NOTHING about it. also i guess 2017′s it. i’m not big on seeing horror at the cinema and i didn’t expect to find it as funny as i did because the kids in it were so great.

actor in need of new agent.

idk bruh, i can’t think of anything right now for this.

actress in need of new agent.

see above.

share an unpopular film opinion you have.

idk how unpopular this is because i’m pretty sure thanks to #metoo most people want these kind of people want out of hollywood, but i despise woody allen and roman polanski films. the fact that i had to study them while getting my degree is despicable, and the argument that they’ve done a lot for the film industry is trash. don’t make their work important, studying it so thoroughly gives it power and i want to never have to speak about their trash again.

favorite Oscar win/speech.

who couldn’t say olivia colman’s from this years oscars. that warmed my cold dead heart and i cried for her.

biggest Oscar snub(s).

arrival should have won/been nominated for more than it did.

who do you think is overdue for another nomination/win?

amy adams!!! she was so fucking amazing in arrival, i wanted her to win all of the things.

how many movies have you seen (rough estimation)?

must be hundreds (not that these answers are any indication since i’ve talked about approx four films) since i own hundreds of DVDs, i go to the cinema regularly, i am constantly watching stuff on netflix and any other streaming services.

a movie that made you go ‘wtf was that’.

un chien andalou, requiem for a dream and mothlight. the first two because they’re fucking disturbing, the last one because its just close ups of parts of moths and i had to watch it for a film paper. it’s a no from me.

a film that scarred you.

the mummy. the beetle under the skin gave me nightmares and i haven’t been able to watch it since.

most movies watched in a single day.

i havent’t taken notes, but i did watch all of the mcu movies with cap in them recently in a day?

a film that always makes you cry.

coco. i’ve yet to make it through without having a full on mental breakdown for the last third of that movie. also marley and me because doggos. and the last part of mamma mia: here we go again. and philadelphia. the take away from this answer is that i cry a lot in movies.

a film that always makes you laugh.

hot fuzz. in my first flat we watched it nearly everyday for like two weeks when we all moved in and watching it makes me think of how much we all laughed and quoted it to one another.

movies that you think everyone should watch (not necessarily your favorites).

get out, psycho, star wars, at least one classic film noir, arrival, the cornetto trilogy, back to the future. there’s more but i think this is a good starter for what i at least find to be important viewing.

a movie that took you a couple of viewings to appreciate.

honestly probably the lord of the rings. they didn’t really click with me until high school, and then they really really clicked. also fight club i guess; the second time around watching it, i got the toxic masculinity themes more. it sucks that men read that movie as the exact opposite.

a book you want to see adapted to the big screen.

i believe i already answered this here!

a book you really, really, really don’t want to see made into a film.

does jk rowling’s twitter count? i want to see nothing more from the harry potter universe that she has had anything to do with.

favorite child performance.

the kids in the goonies and it 2017 come to mind. let kids act like kids!!!

favorite pre-code.

mate, you are making the assumption that i remember enough of the old films i studied in my degree, and that i remember the pre-code dates. i’m sure i have one, but that is buried far too deep in my brain to actually remember.

Favorite silent film.

i really enjoyed the buster keaton stuff we watched when i did my history of film paper.

favorite coming of age film.

boyhood, love simon, the edge of seventeen, my girl (i’ll be honest, i just googled coming of age movies and picked my faves from the top results. doesn’t mean i don’t stand by these!!)

favorite superhero film.

captain america: the winter soldier, spiderman: into the spiderverse, black panther and the dark knight rises.

best cinematography.

i still really like her and wes anderson for their cinematography.

movies you know you should watch, but can’t bring yourself to do it?

so fucking many, my dude. the amount of movies i wrote essays about when i had watched maybe three scenes and read the synopsis is insane. after getting a degree in it, and with how burned out i got, i found it very hard to give a shit about classics that lecturers told me were important. the big one is the godfather; it’ll be a cold day in hell when i finally watch that one.

favorite genres.

i’m a sucker for anything romantic. also film noir, superheroes, animated, female-led, stuff set in the 80s, lgbt film (that isn’t gross and exploitative), comedy horrors. idk man, it’s hard to describe.

least favorite genres.

dull as fuck period pieces that say approximately nothing new and hash out the same old tired shit about treatment of poc and/or women. comedies in the same vein of austin powers, napoleon dynamite and sasha baron cohen stuff. white feminist narratives. anything that is shitty about fat women. 

biggest movie pet peeve.

dark for no fucking reason!!! let films be bright and happy!!! ya girl hates having to strain her eyes to see what the heck is going on.