Thor 3: Destruction of Ovaries (Chapter 1)
FANDOM: Tom Hiddleston RPF
CHARACTERS: Tom Hiddleston and Faith (Original Female Character)
SUMMARY: Faith has an impossible mission to fulfill: Go through the whole production of Thor: Ragnarok without letting Tom know she is one of his crazy fangirls. A task of Herculean proportions, because she is the set costumer for this fic.
TYPE: Multichapter (Work in Progress)
Find everything I have written here.
Author’s Note: I know nothing about filming and production, etc. I am making the internet help me, but in case you know more than me and find something weird in my fic, please tell me and I will change it.
CHAPTER 1
Ever look at a video of people meeting Tom Hiddleston and get jealous, entirely certain that the giggling fangirl in the video is the luckiest person alive? Ever wished upon a shooting star (and even tons of regular stars) that you get to meet him too?
Yeah, it’s hardly fun when the stars hear your prayer. It is fucking terrifying as all fuck, because you are supposed to behave like a rational human being and not make your favourite actor cringe with your antics. Which will be all the more difficult if you have to work with the tall drink of sexy everyday.
I am Faith, of Midgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose. I am responsible for dressing up the cast of Thor: Ragnarok. I am new here, because my job used to be sitting back at the office instead of being on set. I made some of the clothes for the extras, and other odds and ends, but never set foot on set. That job was reserved for the more elite people of our group, namely Ben Allard, Jason Airey, and a few others.
Until the very start of the negotiations for Ragnarok.
Apparently, quite a lot of people were unhappy with quite a lot of things, they left, and before I knew it, I was next in the hierarchy to be on set. It was weird. Very wierd. Technically, Alexandra Byrne was the costume designer. I, however, was to be on set, leading the team. Being set costumer for a Marvel project was going to do wonders for my career.
If I didn’t freak out in this meeting.
Alexandra and I had a major task on our hands–Loki, being ruler of Asgard now, was more front and center in the movie. Among other things, we were tasked with creating an entire wardrobe based on an unpolished version of the script. This was one of the first concept meetings, just to get things started and pick one another’s brain. The actual costume display meetings with the rest of the crew would be later. Alexandra had already chatted with the director, Kenneth Branagh. I had a couple of ideas to pitch to Alexandra, but we had only met for a couple of minutes here and there, and I wanted to try and pitch them here. Besides that, we were taking Tom’s new measurements today.
“Hello,” said Tom as he entered the conference room, looking a bit harried. “Sorry I am late. I swear I really did get stuck in traffic.”
“Oh, stop it,” said Alexandra, laughing. “You are barely five minutes late.” She accepted his buss on the cheek.
Tom turned to me. “Faith? Hi, I am Tom.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hiddleston,” I said, then let out a very undignified squeak as Tom bussed my cheek too. Holy fucking horseshit!
I sat there blinking rapidly like an idiot while Tom sat and exchanged some small talk with Alexandra, then we got down to business.
“Right,” said Alexandra. “You know we are absolutely going with the asymmetrical thing still. The costumes, no matter what setting they are in, need to have an essential tone of nonconformity.”
“Yes,” said Tom, nodding. “I get that. So, are we going with the same colors again? Black, green, gold?”
“Brown leather was good last time around,” I spoke up, insanely glad my voice was not quivering. If my hands were, well, at least they were under the table. “We were thinking of sticking to that.”
“I was also thinking,” said Tom. “What about nightwear? Sleepwear? Or does he sleep naked?” Once the words were out of his mouth, he laughed, embarrassed by his own words. “I mean…”
Stop your stupid blushing and act like a woman grown, you stupid fangirl! Speak up! “Well, I don’t think so.” Alexandra looked at me, wanting me to elaborate. I did. “Well, think about that moment in the last one when Thor visited him in his cell. Loki was devastated, and he looked it. But what did he project to Thor? Perfect hair, perfect poise. That is what he wants people to see.”
“Yes, but no one is going to see him when he is sleeping, Faith,” said Alexandra. “It is a great opportunity to display him without worry and relaxed. What he would like to wear if people weren’t looking.”
“I know,” I replied. “But all I am saying is, he can’t wear a Marvel T-shirt and sweatpants to bed. Because he isn’t relaxed at all. Asgard is not home anymore, not really, because everyone hates him. He said so, when Thor talked about home. He said, “I don’t have it.” He knows it is no longer his. But he still hopes.” Tom’s eyebrow winged up, and I suddenly realised I had said Loki’s dialogue in his voice and tone. I fumbled a bit, then continued. “Besides, his costume is important. Because it is not just an expression of who he is anymore. It is also an expression of who he is supposed to be.”
“Supposed to?” asked Tom.
“I mean, he wants to be that person. The God who doesn’t give a flying–” I caught myself at the last minute. “–damn what the world thinks of him. Screw Odin, screw Thor, I am a god in my own right. This is who I am. So his clothes cannot have a radical change–be red or pink or yellow. Because his clothes, and their stark difference from everyone else’s, tells him he is different from everyone. That he will not be loved, so he has to stop caring. Besides, as long as he is posing to be Odin, he is always going to be alert, always on guard. There are no deep sleeps for him.”
By the end of my impassioned speech, my inner fangirl was yelling at me to just shut the fuck up. So I did. Abruptly.
“You’re right,” said Alexandra. “We can’t give him proper jammies. And no naked sleeping.”
Tom shook his head. “No, he’s not going to be that defenseless. What did Kenneth think?”
“Faith wasn’t there, so the idea was colors you would probably never see him in. But Faith has an interesting point.” Alexandra opened the portfolio we had brought with us. “These are some of the rudimentary designs we are working on. Anything you want to add to the practicality or the wearing side of it? More zips? Extra something? Less something?”
Tom laughed. “Less swamp water in my chest cavity?”
We laughed too. It was hopeless. Then I pitched the second thing I had thought about. “If we can’t show vulnerability in broad costume choices, can we make little changes that hint at loneliness and vulnerability?”
“Like what?” Alexandra’s eyes were sharp.
“Like… I don’t know. Open collars? I remember looking at Adam in the open robe and thinking that he looked lonely and miserable. But then again, that was Adam.” Since I could hear my voice degrading to the really fast and exciting cadence of fangirl-talk, I stopped.
Uh-oh. Freak behavior. Stop that! “Um, sorry. I speak like that sometimes. Sorry. Adam is just a character Mr. Hiddleston played. He was in OLLA. Oh, um, Only Lovers Left Alive. Great movie.” I was so flustered, I just wanted to hit myself over the head with a hammer and be done with it.
Tom was looking at me a little more speculatively now. Something I said? I looked away before it became hard to breathe. “So, open collars?”
“Let’s keep it in the mix,” Alexandra agreed. “I am going to give you some of this stuff as homework, Tom.” She cheerfully ignored his put upon groan as I envied her easy camaraderie with him. “Nothing major, just a little outline of what themes are important to show at what points in the script. Make whatever notes you want, and we will discuss it at the next meeting.” Her phone rang, and she whooped. “Fucking finally. Sorry, I have been waiting for this call for centuries. Faith? Could you measure him?”
Without waiting for an answer, Alexandra left me alone with the man I had once thought about very briefly while masturbating. What? I was ridiculously drunk. It was comic con. Yes, that comic con. Admit it, you did too.
Silently, I took out the one of the standard charts everyone in the costume department had. Then I turned to him. “Please take off your shoes, Mr. Hiddleston.”
“Tom,” he corrected silently. “You have a tendency to stop talking abruptly, Faith.”
“Nothing, sorry. Carry on.”
Yeah. Keep calm and carry on. “Your jacket too, please. Stand against the wall for a second?” I marveled at how good he could look trying to get out of his boots. I looked like a hippopotamus on crack if I tried to do it standing.
I took a deep, fortifying breath. Without a word, I walked forward, small sticker in hand. I reached up and stuck it where the top of his head lay against the wall. He moved away, and I measured his height. “Well, you are still six feet two.”
“I am shocked beyond words. I have been drinking my milk too.” When I looked up from where I was making a note on my page, he grinned at me. I couldn’t stop my answering grin.
I walked over to him again, sorely wishing for someone else to write down the measurements I took. I slipped the measuring tape behind him with one hand, catching it with the other to measure his chest. It was a bit like an awkward hug. Tom, however, was being absolutely professional. I liked that.
“Umm…” I wondered how to say this one. “Could you maybe sit for a bit?”
He smiled as he sat, and his amused eyes locked on mine while I took the measurement of his head. With the tape around his head he looked a bit dorky. He looked a bit like he did when he wore his headtorch so proudly–the one that flashes. I debated whether or not to tell him that. I didn’t.
“That’s done,” I muttered, moving on to the neck. And if my eyes stuck to his Adam’s apple a bit, well, it was just proof that I am a woman. Besides, at least I wasn’t staring into his eyes like a loon. Or throwing up with excitement.
“So tell me about you,”he said.
“Tell you what about me?” I countered distractedly as I measured from the top of his arm to his wrist bone down the outside, slightly bending the arm.
“Why you need to measure your words so much.”
I sighed, deciding the truth will shut him up. “Because I talk too much. Usually about things other people have no interest in, or are appalled by the amount of unnecessary knowledge. I am a fangirl, that’s what fangirls do.”
“Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,” he said promptly.
“Brevity is the soul of wit,” I countered. “Listen to many, speak to a few. I can quote the Bard too.” We smiled at each other as I motioned for him to stand. “I am not hiding anything, Mr. Hiddleston. I am simply trying very hard to act like an adult, and a professional.” I wrapped the tape around his waist, his arms out to his sides.
“I have gotten fatter, haven’t I?”
I snorted in a very unladylike manner. “Fatter, my ass. You couldn’t if you tried.”
His eyebrow winged up as he took my non-verbal cue to thrust his leg out. “Really?”
“I mean, I am not saying there was no difference between Oakley and Coriolanus, cause there was,” I said as I recorded his outseam measurement. “All I am saying is, it is going to take a very big lifestyle change for you to grow fat.”
“Ah,” he said. Then he smiled again as I fumbled a bit awkwardly over the next bit. Well, at least someone was having fun.
“Inseam,” I said as way of explanation, handing him the starting end of the tape. He held it at his crotch while I knelt in front of him, trying to take an accurate reading at his ankle bone. My head was mere inches from his crotch, a fact I was very aware of. “You have ridiculously long legs, Mr. Hiddleston.”
“You know what? I have heard ‘Tom’ has a lot less syllables.”
“Okay, Tom,” I said, then frowned as I noticed something. “You are holding it wrong.”
Tom looked down at his crotch and back at me. “No I am not.” He looked genuinely perplexed. “Am I?” He looked again.
“Hold it at that seam there,” I pointed to the inseam of his jeans. “You are like an inch away.”
I nodded, then looked away as I realised I was kneeling before him and staring at his crotch. I hurried through the hip measurement. His hip measurement hadn’t changed at all either. I was a little jealous.
“Um… Tom? Kneel.” Do not grin. Do NOT grin. Be professional.
He laughed first, so I was off the hook for grinning. He sank to his knees, making me wonder how someone that tall could do this so gracefully. I took the waist-to-knee measurement without worries, and he clambered upright again. “How does it feel to make Loki kneel?”
I grinned. “If I had said that to him he would have choked me to death, Loki’s army or no.”
“So you are my fangirl,” he deduced. I stopped my scribbling. His voice sounded a lot less amused and a lot more satisfied now, and I wondered why. He knew he had legions of fans, and I guess I would be super glad to meet my fan too. Mentally shrugging, I took the next series of measurements–nape to floor, nape to waist, and shoulder to shoulder.
This time when the measuring could have become awkward, I didn’t let it. To measure the girth, I passed the tape end one hand to the other between his legs, and held them both ends at the shoulder. Getting on my tippy-toes, I got the reading, then slid the tape beneath his crotch again and back in my hand. I handled it very professionally, and I was proud even if I do say so myself.
“What is that?” Tom suddenly asked, pointing to the measurement sheet I was writing in.
“Sorry?” I looked back at him. “It is the sheet where I write all the measurements, Mr. Hiddleston.”
“Are we back to that again?” he groaned playfully. “I meant the symbols on top of the page.”
I looked. I had jotted down the character name, as was the norm, on top. But without realising, I had used the Elder Futhark. I answered as I knelt to take the thigh measurement. “Loki’s name. In Runic. Sorry.”
“Oh,” he said. Grabbing the sheet off the table, he studied the four symbols. “That’s how to write his name?”
“Yep,” I said, popping the p. Then I took the calf measurement. “I am all done! May I have the page? I need to write the last two down.”
He obediently passed them back.
Alexandra hurried back into the house, still having an animated discussion on the phone. She made a beeline for the chair and said, then yelled, “Fuck you too!” into the phone before slamming it on the table. Both Tom and I winced. “All done?”
“Yeah,” I said as I showed her the sheet. “Just shoe and suit size left.”
I got sprung pretty quick after that. I spent my afternoon roaming around London, enjoying the sunshine and the last few hours of my freedom before pre-production schedules turned hectic. As I window-shopped my way home, I looked back at my meeting with Tom. After physically cringing at my fangirling a little, I realised what Tom had been doing the whole time.
He was trying to put me at ease.
He must have noticed how tense I was, and that was why he made so many jokes and got me comfortable. I felt a surge of gratitude for him, and took pleasure in the fact that I was going to work with such a nice, considerate man.
Fun fact : I am writing the second chapter, and just spent around six minutes looking at a picture of Loki, trying to decide what order his costume goes on.
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