#wilfully psycho

Because I once read that every fandom needs a Pacific Rim AU, and I am nothing if not determined to be Terrafell's fandom. I have a vague idea that I might have posted something like this before, but Tumblr's search function says I haven't, so...hopefully this post is sufficiently different from any previous posts that may or may not exist. XD

I know most of the time fandoms like to make their romantic couples drift compatible, but I think that Morwen and Gavrel actually aren't. Partly because Gavrel in his current state wouldn't be able to drift with anyone due to repressed trauma that would have him following the rabbit every. darn. time, but partly just because they are so very mentally different.

No, Gavrel is drift-compatible with Atticus. This was discovered not in the official sparring ring but because Atticus tripped Gavrel in the mess hall and Amelios saw the ensuing food fight and immediately dumped them into a Jaeger together because neither of them could get a hand up on the other and nobody else had ever been able to get a hit in on either of them. They both hate it. They hate it so much. They catch themselves walking in step and deliberately stop for half a second to change the rhythm but they stop for the same amount of time so they're still in step. Atticus tackles Gavrel. Gavrel noogies Atticus. Atticus bites him. The only time they can work together without getting into a slap fight like children is in combat, where they are terrifyingly effective.

Lekjun and Ae-Ra are, of course, a brother-sister pilot team and very good at it. However, they seem to go out of their way to cause property damage in any city their tiny backwater country has ever disagreed with, which is a lot of countries, which means they only get deployed to weird remote locations or when absolutely nobody else is available.

Kaera and Atticus were drift-compatible once. They were both teenagers. They piloted an abandoned Jaeger to defend the little town they were living in, and they fought off the monsters, but the Jaeger was torn to pieces and Atticus left Kaera for dead. She has never forgiven him. She would probably have been drift-compatible with the man who found her in the wreckage and taught her to fight, but they never got the chance to try. She is now a Jaeger mechanic fuelled by pure rage. Everyone knows better than to suggest that she so much as exist in the same room as Atticus, let alone try to get into a Jaeger with him again.

Casimir is definitely the base mad scientist. He's also the base medic. More than one person finds this concerning, but nobody else who is capable of doing his job has a strong enough stomach for it.

Peles...I think Peles might be the base commander? He's weird and ominous but he's good at keeping things running and eventually everyone adopts him as their creepy dad marshal. He is drift-compatible with Casimir, but Casimir is absolute pants at combat unless! he's on a boat. As you cannot take a Jaeger on a boat without sinking the boat, this means that the risks of putting the two of them in a Jaeger massively outweigh the rewards, most of the time.

The Vanced family can all pilot each others' Jaegers and they swap drift partners like it's a game of musical chairs. They have all swapped mannerisms with each other subconsciously and are nigh-impossible to tell apart, but they're also all great company. They collectively manages the pilots on a day-to-day basis, I think. Anything that isn't a big enough deal to involve Peles, you take to a Vanced. Any Vanced. If he/she can't fix it, he knows who can. It's not a military chain of command, though they know how to fake one if anyone outside the base comes knocking, but it works really, really well.

Bishop and Izzat are drift-compatible but not people-compatible. Don't touch them. Don't look at them. If you have to look at or touch one of them, make it Izzat; at least he won't stab you.

Amelios is not officially in charge of any of these people. Officially, he is some form of bureaucrat. Nobody knows quite what kind. Practically, he is the only thing standing between the pilots (gifted, necessary, incredibly undiplomatic) and political stupidity that would probably annihilate the world by taking them out of action. He can drift with anyone, in theory. In practice, the last person he trusted enough to be anywhere near a psychic bond with died five years ago because Gavrel sacrificed him in a desperate play to stop a monster. Atticus has never forgiven Gavrel for this because said person was also his foster-father. Amelios is Fine About It because he has higher priorities. (He is not actually fine, but he's also never gotten over anything in his life and he manages to function anyway so it doesn't make as big a difference to him as it does to Atticus.)

Morwen has to be the plucky but gifted newbie, of course. She...hm. I feel like her tendency to blow herself up takes the form of solo piloting adventures in this world, but I'm not 100% sure how that should happen. I'll say that she lives in a coastal town and somehow a monster manages to deactivate a Jaeger within a very short distance of the shore, and the pilots use the escape pods but that takes them too far away from their mech to get back in time to save the town. Enter one determined Morwen with a car battery and the power of grim determination. She jump-starts the Jaeger somehow and fights the monster off, barely, but then she passes out due to neurological strain. The pilots return and rescue her, and she wakes up on base with Casimir looking after her (which is why she likes him and thinks he's helpful rather than being put off by his mad scientist side). She bonds with Gavrel and starts pulling him out of his post-Arcturus depression, but it's painfully obvious to everyone that the two of them are not drift compatible and not going to be, even though Morwen is a better pilot than she has any right to be. She also manages to bond with Atticus, and this forces Atticus and Gavrel to be around to each other, which leads to the food fight which leads to them being assigned together as pilots.

One thing I have not figured out is who Morwen actually ends up being drift compatible with in this world. Does she join Atticus and Gavrel's team somehow? Three-person Jaegers are a thing. Or does she end up working with one of the many Vanced cousins? Perhaps she even worms her way into a father-daughter relationship with Amelios and the two of them end up piloting a Jaeger together to everyone's collective confusion.

@scleroticstatue @exploding-the-wine-cellar @kanerallels @accidental-spice @sunflowergardens-world

O ho! I had not thought about this and will be delighted to come up with answers!

Morwen: She would like to be a mad inventor if she had time between all the things trying to kill her. She wants to make golems and invent bandages with magical painkilling properties and crochet Gavrel an afghan that keeps away nightmares and reduces chronic pain and consult with Atticus on how to make tanks. She will not have time to do most of these things. She'll probably manage the golems and the afghan, though.

Sock Police: ...uh...don't be mad, but, uh, he doesn't really...have...hobbies. He likes to go to the baths when he comes back from the Dungeon! And sometimes when he's taking a fetch Quest he only has to fight the monsters that come after him, and that's sort of like a vacation. It counts, right? Right?

Trauma Baby: Reading books of arcane magic for days on end because sleep is for the weak and food is for those who run the risk of insanity if they take too many HP replenishment potions, something which he is obviously immune to (he is not). Think a grad student whose idea of fun is taking amphetamines and reading the entire school library in five days, and sees nothing wrong or unhealthy about this.

Stable But Not Sane: SAILING! And fighting sea monsters! On a boat! Away from his Guild and from all the paperwork! (He used to be a member of the Sailors' Guild, but guild masters can't usually be members of other guilds, so he had to give it up. He misses it. Morwen and Gavrel are plotting to invite him on a quest at sea.)

Furniture Man: I think his hobbies are brooding, looking ominous, and feeling guilty for his monstrous nature. The Lady of the Castle is trying to get him to branch out. I suspect that her success has been limited, but at least he has someone to tease him when he's brooding now!

The Doc: Researching forgotten and possibly forbidden magic and conducting dubiously moral experiments, but in a way that is mostly benevolent. In the long run. I mean, he's seeking immortality, but it's not for himself, it's for other people so they never have to suffer again, so dabbling in the grey arts is okay, right? And it's so fascinating!

Smol & Angry: Pondering her revenge on Atticus. Then Morwen came along and talked her out of most of it and now she has no hobbies. She needs new hobbies. Jury's out on whether she's found any.

Wilfully Psycho: FIGHTING AND BLOOD AND VENGEANCE (blood isn't a hobby but I'm not telling him that to his face). Also, pestering his sister.

Hmmmm. I'm not up on the latest conspiracy theories, but I'll do my best with this!

Morwen: Her pet conspiracy theories are mostly medical and mostly things that wouldn't have been considered conspiracy theories in almost any other era, such as: herbal medicine works and is good for you, isolating chemicals you don't fully understand and using them as medicine is dangerous, and seed oils are trying to kill you.

Sock Police: Canonically believes that the Vatican is haunted and suffers from undead monsters because of the relics (disturbed bodies = higher chance of monsters in Terrafell). I'm not sure anyone in our world believes this, but I think it warrants conspiracy theory status just because it's so bonkers. I also think he would continue to argue for it after making it back to America. He 100% believes in ghosts. (Crack crossover: he gets recruited into the Stargate program and CONTINUES to believe in ghosts and undead monsters, to the consternation of his team.)

Doc: I believe ancient aliens came up in connection to Doc in an earlier post, and I think it fits him. He's always trying to understand things and looking for explanations other people have missed, so he'd absolutely go down the rabbit hole of how the pyramids were actually built by aliens. Does he believe it? Maybe not. Maybe. Does he argue for it anyway because it's cool? Probably. He and Atticus argue about this frequently and it's unclear whether they are vehemently agreeing or disagreeing.

Furniture Man: Also drawing on an earlier post -- he believes that technology is possessed and the phone has an evil spirit in it. This will not prevent him from FaceTiming the Lady of the Castle religiously every day he's away from her.

Smol & Angry: Thinks the moon landing was faked and has the receipts to show anyone who will listen. Also argues vehemently about this with Atticus, who insists that it was real because (a) it's cool and (b) he and Smol & Angry have made arguments the core of their relationship and this topic is always good for at least an hour.

Stable But Not Sane: Insists UFOs are real, mostly to watch peoples' reactions.

Wilfully Psycho: Probably was the grassy knoll shooter, honestly. You can't prove it wasn't him.

Trauma Baby: Likes to debunk conspiracy theories, but believes that there are aliens in Area 51.

So...Morwen has a giant mead hall for a house. The Inn at the Village is full. The logical conclusion was for Morwen to invite all her friends who don't already have houses to stay with her! An unforeseen side effect of this is an ongoing stream of little domestic moments that there wasn't time for on the road, which I absolutely love. So here are a few of them!

Bedea has put the babies down to sleep and is looking quite relieved, though highly distrustful, as Peles helps her wrangle the children to bed as well. Doc is finishing washing dishes, while Kaera reads, and Lekjun and Ae-Ra are grooming themselves. Atticus isn't there.

Everyone seems to have settled. Peles and Doc are both making notations in personal notebooks or possibly reviewing old notes, Taina and Bedea are chatting quietly while the children sleep, Kaera is meditating, and Ae-ra and Lekjun are both maintaining their various weapons. Morwen finds herself abruptly at loose ends. She does not have any books in her inventory. It is actually kind of nice to have this many people around being peaceful in a larger space than usual. She decides to take her cue from Kaera, and meditate until Gavrel arrives. She does not think this will be more than 15-20 minutes. She assumes that he is probably doing something that needed to be done in his house.

It's Morwen's house, except full of people. Bedea and Taina wrangle children while chatting about whatever adult women talk about in Terrafell, Casimir reads, Lekjun and Ae-Ra are currently engaged in what might be a staring contest while Kaera naps and Gavrel... Twitches. It feels a lot less giant and empty this way, and Morwen likes it. She kind of wishes that not all of these people were going to go home (or elsewhere) after the Tournament. She plonks down on her couch if there's a free spot, and asks Gavrel if he has that pistol shooting book, wondering why exactly he's twitching this time. "Yeah, I do, just let me—" he scrolls through his inventory a bit to find it, then passes it over. "I just... Want to help," he finishes lamely. "Well, would you rather teach me?" she offers, pausing before she opens the book. "You are being helpful, honestly." "Oh, um, for pistols, you'll probably be better off reading rather than having me teach you." "Goose," she says, and pokes him in the shoulder before settling down to read for a few minutes, until it's time to eat and leave. She reads for a bit while Gavrel tries to fix that very, very holy shirt on his own (and fails) until it hits 6:45, in which Morwen got up to level 14, and Gavrel pokes at her to go eat.

He opens the door for her, crowding into her space and then seeing her in. He comes in, too, just to check. Only Peles is currently awake, tinkering by lamplight at the golem station. She whispers her thanks to Gavrel, and waves to the Count.

I don't know, I just find it endearing. Morwen's going to be kind of sad when they all go back to their respective homes and there's nobody just in her house chilling! She's gonna invite all the Adventurers over, but it won't be quite the same, since they have their own residences. But for now, it's fun.

@scleroticstatue @exploding-the-wine-cellar @kanerallels @accidental-spice @awwyeah-rambles

Ooh, this one will be fun!

Morwen: has to sweep, mop, and dust by hand because her magic is unpredictable and she might clean the whole Village if she got distracted. Alternately, she has to meditate for five minutes every two or three items she cleans. Is disgruntled by this.

Sock Police: uses magic to clean ALL THE THINGS. For once, it doesn't matter that he doesn't control his magic at all, because he wants to clean everything anyway! Fabrics canonically smell like Gain after his cleaning spells. He will come and clean Morwen's house if he sees her disgruntlement. Or even if he does not. He likes visiting Morwen's house and she thanked him for cleaning it once. :)

Trauma Baby: uses magic and is probably very smug and superior about only cleaning the specific thing he was aiming for if Gavrel is nearby. However, he has much paperwork and many books on his desk, so while it is now clean, it is not at all tidy.

Furniture Man: has servants for that, except he is too nice to make them do their jobs when they shirk because he can hear all their mental justifications. He canonically scrubs his own stairwells if he gets blood on them. (He is the ruler of an entire city-state.) The Lady of the Castle has to intervene to prevent him from cleaning the castle himself and make the maids do their own work.

The Mysterious A.T.: has employees for that and is not too nice to make them do their own jobs.

The Doc: his infirmary and surgical suite are doubtless immaculate, and he probably takes responsibility for some of the cleaning himself rather than leaving the disinfection to the staff, but I suspect his rooms are rather disorderly. Not like Atticus', which are probably teenage boy levels of cluttered, but in the way of the absentminded professor who has book stacks the height of a whole person next to his desk from where he was researching something. He probably cleans them himself with a de-dusting spell when he remembers to.

Stable But Not Sane: does not like to clean and is not magically adept enough to use cleaning magic effectively. Will clean by hand. Would like some employees to help him with this, as he has a whole Guild to keep clean.

Wilfully Psycho: canonically puts his feet on desks to be irritating, so I bet he leaves a mess in public areas expressly to annoy his sister. His weapons, however, are doubtless beautifully maintained.

Bishop, Egil, Lekjun, Hozzogroc, Esmial (Amelios's sister), Casimir, and Kaera.

Ooh, now this will be interesting! And challenging.

Go grocery shopping with: Hozzogroc is now the last name remaining on the list, so he gets the first prompt. I have a feeling this will end in his familiars eating a fair chunk of the produce section, but he clearly has good taste in food, so I'll go with it. And I think he might find a grocery store interesting, in a 'how much of this can I afford to give to my familiars as treats' sort of way.

Have lunch with: Egil. He's cheerful, knows how to tell a good story, appreciates good food if he's anything like Nik, and will overall be a very enjoyable guy to sit down and chat over some brisket with.

Have coffee with: I am now down to Casimir and Hozzogroc. Having already picked one cheerful, matter-of-fact guy for an outing, I'll have coffee with Casimir. Poor man probably needs coffee anyway. We can commiserate about our coworkers and managers.

Go thrift shopping with: Lekjun. He'll provide colourful commentary at every turn and he might steal some stuff or even threaten some people, but (a) thrifting is an adventure anyway and (b) I feel like he'd also be able to find unusual and valuable items in back corners for unusually good prices.

Explore a museum/art gallery/aquarium with: Bishop. People tend to respect your personal space in museums and galleries and such, so he'd do well there. And there might be exhibits on our world's birds, which I bet he'd find fascinating.

Go the library/bookstore with: I thought Casimir was the obvious choice, but actually, I'm picking Kaera for this one. She is at least as much of a nerd as Atticus, and has demonstrated the ability to coexist with Morwen in something approaching harmony as long as she has a cool magical thing to look at. Libraries and bookstores don't usually have cool magical things in this world, but she could probably find something to interest herself. If it's a library in Terrafell, even better. This could go south very badly, though.

Because it's been a looooong time since we had a Terrafell headcanon post, and Furniture Man's love language being friendly haunting came up in conversation, so...

Gavrel: Anything he comprehends as affection. Which mostly means physical touch. If he thought you were throwing rocks at him affectionately, though, he'd be happy, he's that starved for any sort of kindness.

Nik: Hugs! And sparring. And going out to kill monsters together. So physical touch and quality time.

Atticus: Probably quality time, in the form of reading the same books and geeking out together. Possibly also gift giving, if the gift is a book he doesn't have.

Furniture Man: Also quality time, since he's pretty gun-shy about touch and he tends to spook people in close proximity. Also, as above, friendly haunting. Oh, and pranks. All the pranks.

Doc: Medical treatment and general fretting.

Wilfully Psycho: Attempted murder, but not, like, serious attempted murder.

Wilfully Psycho's Sister: Probably keeping her brother from murdering you.

Kaera: I'm sure she has one, but so far all I've read off of this child has been rage.

Sir Dwarf: Judging by his interactions with Morwen, making giant puppy-dog eyes at you.

The Mysterious A.T.: Uh. Does he allow himself to have love languages? I don't know. Does letting a former girlfriend stab him count as physical touch? I kind of hope not.

Emperor to Be: Does conquering cities for you count as an act of service?

Morwen herself: Naturally quality time and acts of service, but the act of service Gavrel needs most is "hug", so she's branching out into physical touch, and a lot of the party need sleep schedules, so she's also branching out into "send Gavrel to drag you away from your workstation until you eat food".