Yknow what I don’t ever get to dive into this one, so for my own holiday fun, let’s elaborate on the ranger AU:
The girls are room mates, rivals for a long while, the tape line that divides their shared space like a battle zone.
Plum is obsessively neat about her books but otherwise is chaos, clothes everywhere, shoes scattered. Bed is about the only thing she makes and keeps clear to sit and work, desk is a mess of research notes and dog eared manuals. Her dratini is utter chaos, unruly doesn’t even describe how Missy is. Plum was raised in a very well off household but her family never came home, work keeping them almost completely busy. This leaves one girl who knows what she’s all about because she had to figure it out, plum is just as wild and chaotic as her Pokemon in her own snooty kind of way. Very particular teenager.
Meanwhile peach has never been allowed to be a kid, she was told what to do and when to do it, hobbies we’re chosen for her, free time used up working hard, training harder, her Pokemon just as pushed to keep up standards. The prodigal daughter put on a pedestal has nothing but pressure from day one. She doesn’t listen to music, have toys or hobbies, even her clothes are plain and not really things you’d fully expect a teenager to wear. She had to just go with her family always pushing her to do what they want and be who they expected. Failure was not met well. Her personal space is painfully tidy, purely because she doesn’t really have much to fill the space at the start. Val is volatile at best, but Bob keeps his sunny disposition, often out in the dorm room happily.
Plum soon realises peach has not developed a personal taste of her own, and cannot understand how that just never happened. So begins her task of getting peach to find things she likes and enjoys. None of her skills sound like things that excite her, peach is this dead pan teenager with no fire for anything. Her hot head rears up when she’s backed into a corner, so when pushed too hard peach snaps, she doesn’t know what she’s suppose to like or do, out of her family home she can only sit and watch others and try to assimilate quietly. A skill she’s quite good at, so most just assume she’s cold and distant by nature, an angry face leading to most leaving her alone.
Plum proceeds to open up a whole world of things for a teenager who never got the chance to just exist without an objective. Music, junk food, staying up late to play games or gossip. They sneak out to town, maybe they steal some overly sweet awful booze, maybe they hide it in their dorm to stay up and talk some nights. Plum gets peach to pick clothes she wants, tries to encourage her to care about anything noticing she’s got piercings, so like…punk?? Is that her thing? No clue, but it’s the total opposite to plums sporty preppy cute outfits, so together they look like night and day.
Their initial arguing and dislike of each other eases off fast, peach realises that maybe not everyone is so awful, and that she’s been stuck with a highly intelligent if not a little scatter brained girl who actually encourages her to live, not just simply exist. It is tentative steps into realising she is more than the weight of her family name.
Other dumb teenager things: peach pierces plums ears for her. Ranger team work tasks that the girls smash through. Late night dorm activities with the other students, you know, typical junk like spin the bottle and such.
Plum 100% is cocky and straightforward during a party and makes sure peach never lives down that she stole the grouchy girls first kiss, etched into her memory forever.
Peach realising “oh no. Very very not straight. Oh no.” To which she’s in deep denial and horrified, because her family CANNOT find out. Seeing as her mom likes to dig through her memories from time to time, peach is utterly terrified to go home.
Plum seeing her roommate return from a weekend back at her family house looking more exhausted and worn out than when she left. Never asks why, never pries, tries to be cheery and help peach not feel so crappy. Peach can’t ever tell her what she’s done, or the guilt she’s carrying around, and as they grow closer, it becomes harder to lie.
Then Booker happens, where the story line splits from canon to the ranger AU. Instead of peach taking the little mon and running, leaving plum without more than a ‘sorry’ and an old bangle on the dorm door handle, she instead cracks, can’t hide the truth anymore, packs up to leave, but can’t go without telling someone, anyone that she’s been a monster, and has to change. Has to do better than she had before. Through tears and drama the truth comes out, plum learns it all, and sees her best friend with a bag on her shoulder, running away.
Through a convincing speech and an understanding and grounded view on the situation plum gets peach to stay, with her, with the rangers, they’ll face it together. For once peach does not want to feel so alone, everything she’s ever done has been singular, even though she’s been surrounded by people pulling her strings, it’s never been because of care or love, just progress. ‘The family comes first’ echos in her mind, and she has to stop this cycle. So peach stays, is deathly afraid her family will hurt plum for getting involved, she hardly sleeps for a while, making sure the night is safe, that no one’s trying to tamper with the path she’s trying to stay on. A good one. A kinder one with less bloodshed.
Plum encouraged peach to take up boxing, for her anger, so she joins a club and finds a love for it. The gains begin, and plum is at every fight, shouting from the side lines. Peach loses a few and takes it really badly. Loss in her family is usually cause for punishment, for isolation or consequence. She expects the same from plum, shocked when it never comes. Her partner is nothing but worried bout the bruises, but seems very encouraging. This is not what was expected.
Plenty of later year teenage shenanigans. Usual suspects, figuring out things like future career options, sexuality, the parties, sneaking out, stress over exams, first hangovers, smoking a little pot after handing in final coursework as a celebration. Peach finds herself, but both girls find a family in each other. Thick as thieves, forever entangled in each others memories now.
The girls grow as rangers, have a few run ins with peach’s cousins but otherwise are left with only a few scars, scrapes and bruises, and eventually they graduate, top of their class none the less. The powerhouse duo that others couldn’t compete with.
Plums become the agile ranger she was meant to be, strategist, a woman who knows every option before you even take your first move, but she lacks practical instinct and brutality, which is peach’s area of expertise. It’s head and heart at it’s most perfect balance.
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I have so many little headcanons bout this alt set up, but I’m tired, it’s the holidays, and I wanted to blurt this one out. Sorry to all for putting up with me haha
Give me peach gut laughing for the first time and plum realising she’s totally mad for this person.
Give me ranger prom/graduation where they both dress up and get to sneak off and dance together.
Give me chaotic but perfectly drift compatible fights with them and their Pokemon.
Give me prank wars, makeup help, hair style tests, bad hair dye attempts, pizza hang outs.
Give me plum learning how to train Missy well with peach’s help.
Give me adoptive momma bears for Booker.
Give me them laughing so hard one of them nearly throws up at something so stupid and dumb.
Give me the moment that penny drops and they realise they can’t move forward without each other.
I am thriving on this.
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