eightlazylegs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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bakerstreet2013-10-23 10:59 am
eightlazylegs) wrote in bakerstreet2013-10-23 10:59 am
Pacific Rim Meme
We always thought alien life would come from the stars. But it came from deep beneath the sea, a portal between dimensions in the Pacific Ocean. Something out there had discovered us. The first Kaiju made landfall in San Francisco. The second attack hit Manilla. Then the third one hit Cabo. Then we learned this was not going to stop. In order to fight monsters, we created monsters of our own. We needed a new weapon. The Jaeger Program was born. Two pilots, our minds, our memories, we were connected. Man and machine became one.
In the near future, giant monsters identified as "Kaiju" have begun attacking Earth's coastal cities, resulting in a war that takes millions of lives and quickly consumes humanity's resources. To combat the monsters, a special type of weapon is designed: massive robots, known as Jaegers. The Jaegers are controlled simultaneously by two pilots who are bound together in a process called Drifting, creating a neural link between their minds. The link lets them share the mental strain which would otherwise overwhelm a single pilot. The Jaegers are the last, best hope for humanity's survival.
Instructions:
1.Choose a role (or multiple roles!) and post with your character/fandom.
2. Others will post to you with a scenario.
3. All Jaeger names must made up of two words that have little to do with each other. This is mandatory.
4. Go big or go extinct. Or just have fun, that works too.
Roles:
1. Jaeger Pilot: The rock stars of the kaiju wars. You and your partner may be siblings, spouses, parent and child, or just two people who have the trust and compatability necessary for a successful Drift. Get out there and kick some ass.
2. Engineer: The war against the kaiju isn't just fought by the pilots. You're one of the countless support staff that design, repair, and enhance the Jaegers for maximum kaiju-smashing potential.
3. Scientist: Biologist, physicist, kaiju groupie. You study these horrific monsters so you can figure out how to destroy them...or you just really have a thing for alien anatomy.
4. Mission Control: Off the front lines but not out of the battle. You're watching the monitors, dealing out the orders, and generally making sure your Jaeger pilots don't do anything more stupid than normal.
5. Civilian: A black market dealer in kaiju organs, a reporter trying to get a (literally) big scoop, or just some poor schmuck trying not to get stepped on. You're one of the folks that the Jaegers are fighting for.
6. Other: Go wild.
Scenarios:
1. Preparations: Dealing with kaiju is a process, not a moment. Pilots need to physically and mentally hone their strength, engineers need to perfect the Jaeger weaponry and armor, scientists need to run their experiments, and black market dealers need to make their money.
2. First Neural Handshake: It's time to Drift with your partner. You'll experience each others' most painful secrets, joyous memories, and the time you got drunk and made out with the captain of the football team. Hang on, it'll be a bumpy ride.
3. Downtime: Chill out, have a beer, pretend the world isn't ending. You can explore the thriving towns that have grown up amongst the kaiju remains or just stay in the Shatterdome doing combat practice. However you relax, you've earned it.
4. Kaiju Detected: Battle stations, folks. Get to your cockpit, your command post, or your underground bunker. The monsters are coming, and they ain't gonna stop until someone does something about them.
5. Combat Mode: It's go time! You're in the heat of things, punching these otherworldly abominations in the face with your awesome. Remember to call your attacks; it makes them more powerful if you shout their names first.
5. Aftermath: Job well done, folks. Sit back, enjoy the celebrations, put another tick mark on your kill count...and if necessary, mourn the dead.
6. Other: Go further wild.
guess this counts as 5 and 6 :|a
Raleigh's grateful for the night shift; it makes for a good cover so he reduces the risk of being recognized. The dark leaves companionable silence between him and the workers that meld metal in his section, every one of them quiet with the intensity of the concentration they invest in keeping themselves balanced on the beams. Crowds and human noise are things Raleigh'd known, but isolation had come to him slowly, learned in his time alone since he'd first shoved off that hospital bed in Alaska and hit the ground running — traveling with the Wall, chasing shifts to make a living.
(The work is a good distraction. If Raleigh saves the daylight for sleep, the dreams aren't so bad. Not like the ones he used to have, waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweat — rain? — the synapses of his brain branding the memory of Knifehead into every nerve, abusing the scar of his brother's death until the tissue's numb from dead nerve endings.
If he's moved past being an open wound, then maybe he can get used to the shape of his scars. It's as close as he'll ever get to recovery, Raleigh figures — and it'll still be more than he ever expects. Or deserves.)
A year's passed since Yancy's died, and Raleigh knows now, with sudden, numbing clarity, exactly what it's like to have that wound reopen.
Raleigh's mind's projected the image Yancy standing in the hallway of the locker bay, where the men and women all congregate at the end of shift; the shape of his brother stands out easily in the crowd of a hundred — familiar, and so different from what he's remembered from before. He's distantly surprised that he's capable of inventing new details, like the red, raised lines on this phantom Yancy's neck, matching the lines on Raleigh's arm, stark and visible under the artificial lights.
Raleigh opens his mouth to say something, form Yancy's name, but nothing comes.
He's not here, Raleigh thinks. Reminds himself. That's not him.
Raleigh looks away. ]
forgive me
( The name he goes by doesn't fit well over his skin, but it's all he has since he woke in a hospital room in British Columbia a little short of a year ago. It was strange, wondering how he knew everything else except the shape of his own name. It was hard, not knowing why news of what was going on along the Pacific Coast would send him into crippling panic attacks. )
He shuts his locker, glad to be done for the day and when some of the other workers call out a greeting his way, he lifts a hand Thanks, guys. I'll pass. See you schmucks tomorrow.
He walks by Raleigh and gives him a gentle pat on the shoulder. ] Get out of your digs, kid. Go home.
oh my GOD noey
He's glad Yancy can't be in his head for this.
The jockey leaves him alone.
His brother's fucking ghost doesn't, though, and Raleigh hears him from afar, muted and soft as if his head's underwater; doesn't fully comprehend the movement going on around him until a hand claps down over his shoulder, jolting him out of the haze like a shock of electricity --
get out of your digs, kiddo, time to go home
-- Real, then. Raleigh tenses up so fast, it's a wonder his muscles don't seize. ] Yance --
[ His mouth's desert-dry; Raleigh swallows, reaches out to where Yancy's back's to him now, grabs the sleeve of his arm with nerveless fingers. ] Yancy?
i would apologize but then i wouldn't really mean it
But the guy hadn't been a soldier, and he'd dropped off his rations in apology. The man had to eat, had to send stuff home to family, but he couldn't because of the crazy guy who was nice enough -- just as long as you didn't touch him.
When the kid's fingers curl on his shirt, he wants to call out no, don't do that but it's like he goes on automatic, arm sweeping back to catch the boy in a headlock because his nerves are on fire ( don't touch me, don't fucking touch me ) and his mind is filled with static noise, the kind that you try to fix by moving the antenna to-and-fro. ]
i dislike that and i dislike you
So when Yancy snaps, twisting him into a chokehold, Raleigh's already flung an arm around Yancy's back to force his hand under Yancy's chin before he remembers --
-- this is his brother. The headlock is tight, Yancy's forearm shoved into his airway, but Raleigh's mostly trying not to choke on that.
He stills his arm, dropping his brow against Yancy's side and breathing in, just one long, shuddering inhale to get his head screwed on straight -- the measure of time it takes for Raleigh to remember, most importantly, to get the rabbit-pulse of his heart to slow. Even through the barrier of clothing between them, Yancy's particular scent seems to cauterize part of the ragged hole in Raleigh's head he's been carrying around since Anchorage; it isn't overlaid with the smell of hot polycarbonate drivesuits and relay gel anymore, but it's familiar enough to send him reeling again.
Jesus Christ, Raleigh thinks. Yancy's name, running like a feedback loop in his short-circuiting brain, over and over.
He forces himself limp, hands raising unthreateningly away from Yancy's body. ] Yance, it's oka-- it's okay, get a grip!
no u don't u love me and you love the pain i give you
It's a herculean effort to pull back, to pry his arms away from the hold that seems to have a mind of it's own. He stumbles back and his head is reeling, flashes of -- something, there behind his eyes. Flashes that hurt, which is why that he lifts the heels of his palms to press right beneath his brows.
He hasn't had the headaches in months. Not since news broke that the jaeger called Romeo Blue was taken down by the kaiju in Seattle. Not since a little girl on the sidewalk across the run-down apartment he lived in up until six months ago stared at him as if she recognized his face.
He shudders, blinks repeatedly as if to get the stars our of his eyes, laughter in his head from a place he doesn't know and the image of ice and snow and a worn, makeshift net that he remembers weaving all by himself.
His breath is labored as he stares at the kid. Raleigh. The kid's name is Raleigh and he's more of a veteran at this than he is. Washout rockstar, one of the guys had leered, Takes the dangerous shifts. Got no issues with heights then again, not surprised. ]
What did you call me? [ He asks, under his breath. ]
i'd have to be demented
( When Yancy was fourteen, he had fallen off a tree Raleigh'd dared him to climb; they'd taken him to the hospital for a broken leg and a concussion, nothing serious. Yancy'd reassured Raleigh that he'd be fine, 's just a bump, that's all, but the too-bright fluorescent lights of the hospital had a way of making even healthy people look sick under their stark glow. It wasn't until their mother had parted the curtains to let the sunshine stream in that Yancy could say with certainty that he felt better already.
Watching his brother now, Raleigh senselessly thinks: if only we could get some sun -- )
When Yancy looks up, there is no recognition in his eyes.
Raleigh's heart, it calcifies to stone in his chest. It's difficult to say Yancy's name now, when it had tripped off Raleigh's tongue so easily before. ]
Yancy. [ He tries to swallow -- finds that he can't. Throat's locked up again. ] Yancy Becket. You're my brother. Don't you- [ Don't you remember? ]
:c this is so late sorry
He's shaking his head when the kid goes Yancy. Yancy Becket. You're my brother and before he knows it, he's slowly starting to back away because the room's stuffy and there's not enough air in here for him to breathe and he needs the cold wind in his face. ]
Don't have a brother. [ Don't remember much of anything. But he doesn't add that last part, because admitting things out loud means letting go of the only thing keeping his head above a feeling that's threatening to drown him. ]
Sorry. I just-- [ --can't breathe, need to go out.
When he turns and stumbles, the other workers give him a wide enough berth that no one's in his way when he makes his way out of the lockers and into the cold Alaskan air.
He slumps against the side of the enclosure. Sinks down and cradles his head between his knees. ]
IT'S OKAY! and now it's my turn to be late, oops
They’ve got an audience now, milling about and talking to one another with hushed voices – probably have been since Yancy put him in that headlock – but he doesn’t care about that now, not when his brother is falling to pieces in front of him and Raleigh’s heart is breaking in his own goddamn chest.
He doesn’t know where he finds the willpower to follow Yancy outside, but he manages to stumble out to the dirt path by the locker bay, where the air smells like the ocean, fish, and snow, and Yancy’s sitting crouched by the metal side of the enclosure. Raleigh recognizes the panic attack for what it is, so when he falls to his knees in the snow by his big brother, he makes sure not to touch him.
Maybe it’s echoes of the ghost-Drift they’d lost so long ago, but the ache in his bones tonight aren’t Raleigh’s – or he hopes it is. What wouldn’t Raleigh give to shoulder some of the burden Yancy carries around with him? ]
Hey -- [ Raleigh swallows back the reflexive Yancy. ] Just breathe with me, okay? You’re doin’ good.