why did i pick red? i dont know. it’s 4 am. everything is a good idea right now.
OK, um, excuse me, this is bloody brilliant and I want to write a fic that includes this scenario of Hermann smashing one of Newt’s tanks for some reason.
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Pacific Rim (Movies) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb Characters: Newton Geiszler, Hermann Gottlieb Additional Tags: Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, vague spoilers for several marvel movies, the first half of this is incredibly self-indulgent, and the second half is angst, it’s all fun and games until the parallels kick you in the feels Summary:
Newt, for his part, has always gravitated more toward monster movies than superhero films, and Hermann’s memories of them are rather fuzzy, so they are both going in with very little knowledge of what to expect. Hermann is sure it will be fine, though.
This is his first mistake.
I’d been kicking this idea around for a little while, and then this post by @avelera finally inspired me to sit down and write it.
Newt, for his part, has always gravitated more toward monster movies than superhero films, and Hermann’s memories of them are rather fuzzy, so they are both going in with very little knowledge of what to expect. Hermann is sure it will be fine, though.
I know GDT confirmed that he planned Newt’s possession before the first movie, and the tattoos clearly have significance as a stand alone character detail, but I like to think that they were also foreshadowing newt’s eventual status as a kaiju by proxy to the precursors. Even going so far as to parallel his tattoo design’s kaiju-homodginization with the super kaiju he likewise analgamated à la dr frankenstein which he seemed to be mentally tethered to.
YES. Found a gif of this, finally!! This is one of my favorite Hermann moments in the first movie.
This is what totally gives him away. Even a casual viewer can’t walk away from this shot without realizing that he cares for Newt. He didn’t shoot down Newt’s drift hypothesis to be mean. He didn’t say “impossible” just to embarrass him in front of the Marshall. He did it because he knew the risk was too great, and Newt’s mind too valuable. It’s not something he wanted to be right about, but even more, he didn’t want to see it tested.
And here he’s seeing his worst projections play out, and it’s awful.
(Also, it’s his fault. Newt said it himself. But he probably meant it differently than how Hermann felt it. Hermann should have kept a closer eye on him. After all those years he should have known that a lack of resources, and a verbal admonishment alone wouldn’t be enough to keep Newt from trying something so interesting.)
As I’ve said before: Newt must be a terrifying person to love.
I was watching the first 2 episodes of “My Hero Academia” and it reminded me of some storytelling tips my teacher at Odyssey related, and it was really interesting to see them put so effectively into practice:
– Start with a protagonist – Even before we’re shown the world of superheroes, we meet Deku and learn about his personality (driven but emotional), his goals (to be heroic), and his obstacles (childhood bullies/physical weakness) in a fairly non-magical scenario of being beat up by bullies while defending a friend. We learn tons about his character before we ever learn this is a magical world with superpowers, and then that revelation expands the situation. We then get our monologue about why this world is magical. There’s a temptation with genre fiction writers to front load the monologue about their magical world: do not do this. The audience at this point has no reason to care about your magical world. They need a protagonist to latch onto to see through their eyes why we should care about any of this. We care about the world of superheroes because Deku cares about it, and we are given reasons to care about Deku in the first scene (his earnestness, his drive, and his goals).
– Your protagonist should have goals – Like all good Shonen heroes, Deku wants to become the best of the thing that defines his world. For Naruto, it was to become lead ninja (Hokage) in a ninja village. For Deku, it’s to become a top class superhero in a world that is 80% heroes, except for the 20% which are normal people like him. Everything Deku does in the story is him being driven by this goal. He watches videos, keeps a notebook, and doesn’t just daydream but actively strategizes day and night about the kind of hero he’s going to be. His goal drives his every action in the story, even when it gets him in trouble.
– The setting should match your protagonist – Deku doesn’t want to be a superhero in a world of people who want to be stockbrokers. I see a lot of writers get tripped up on their settings, because they build elaborate worlds with no one to populate them. The setting should center on the story of your protagonist, its details don’t just exist because “it has to be this way”. Your world is fictional, even if it’s the real world you’re still focusing on the things that effect the story of your protagonist. Everything is created by you, so nothing is arbitrary. Deku’s world is perfectly suited to tell the story of Deku’s rise to become the greatest superhero.
– Flaws only count as flaws if they inhibit your protagonist from getting the object of their goal – I see a lot of authors struggle when building new characters with the concept of giving their characters “flaws” so let’s clarify: a flaw is something that holds your protagonist back from their goal. Saying your romcom heroine is adorkably clumsy is not a flaw unless she’s trying to become a dancer. However, if her goal is to become prom queen, but she’s too shy to make friends, then shyness is a flaw. Shyness is not a flaw if her goal is to become an author who hides in her room all day writing, etc etc. Deku wants to become a superhero. His flaw is that he was born “Quirkless” and can’t become one. His flaw stands in opposition to his goal and must be overcome within the narrative, ideally through his purposeful actions (and not by coincidence).
– The protagonist of your story should drive the action – Every step of the way, Deku’s actions are driving his story. He is inspired at a young age to become a hero. Trying to be a hero gets him into trouble that shapes him as a person. He keeps a notebook of hero strategies and when it’s stolen and messed with because he tells his dreams to the class, he takes actions as a result. He is attacked and then rescued by his idol (yes, technically that would be a non-protagonist driven coincidence BUT his actions after meeting his idol are driven by him) and in the process of being rescued, chooses to latch onto his hero while All Might is retreating, thus setting off the action in which the villain is accidentally set free and wreaks havoc again. During the second confrontation with the villain, which was caused by Deku’s actions, while all the other superheroes are frozen with indecisiveness, Deku chooses to dash forward to save his classmate. As a result All Might chooses to circle back with this kid, and apologize for his earlier words, thus fulfilling Deku’s (at this point) life long dream of being told he can be a hero by his idol. Yes, a second person fulfills Deku’s dream, but it was Deku’s actions at every step that led to this happening.
– Coincidences should hurt your protagonist, not help them- the reason we groan and roll our eyes at bad storytelling when everything falls into place for the hero is because it feels cheap. In general, coincidence should frustrate your hero and empower your villain in a traditional genre story. The river your protagonist needs to cross has coincidentally flooded, so they need to go around, but that gives the villain time to catch up to them. This raises tension up until the point of the fever pitch of the climax, where the hero is at her lowest point and the villain is at her strongest. Deku in the anime coincidentally met his idol but in the process, set free the villain who then coincidentally found a more powerful host to wreak havoc.
These were all principles I struggled with until I attended my workshop. It was the reason I couldn’t figure out how to go from writing fanfic, where all of this is built into the narrative, to creating new characters in new worlds. Of course there are caveats and exceptions to all of the above rules, but they’re really helpful to follow in starting a new genre fiction story from scratch.
Ships aren’t food, they’re not exercise, they’re not even a nonfiction book or a classic novel. A steady diet of LGBT+ ships with no age or power gap won’t make you emotionally or mentally any healthier. It won’t teach you about how actual relationships work and it won’t prevent you from getting into an unhealthy relationship.
Unhealthy ships won’t ruin you. They won’t corrupt you, they won’t destroy your understanding of actual healthy relationships or erode your morality.
Your fictional diet isn’t your actual diet. There’s no organic vegan gluten-free ship that will fix a single goddamn thing.
Relax. Enjoy yourself. Read whatever fiction fascinates you, tantalizes you, engages you. The content doesn’t matter much for your health, but the joy it brings you might.
Also? While it’s good to find out, and cooperate with, what your body wants and needs (just as you should read things that bring you joy, whatever those are) – being obsessed with purity in your actual diet isn’t a healthy thing either, it’s an eating disorder.
Seek out the things that nourish you! Don’t sacrifice them on behalf of judgmental people who have never cared for your well-being.
This holds true if you have a food allergy – this holds true if you are an obligate omnivore. Thriving is a good deed, for yourself and for others.
That’s exactly what fandom purity wankers are like – the grocery cart police.
One of my favourite historical phenomena is technology that’s based on a totally off-the-wall theory about how the world works, but ends up being sort of effective because it’s close enough. Like those old-timey plague doctor masks, whose enormous beaks are an enclosed breathing apparatus stuffed full of dried aromatic herbs on the theory that disease is communicated by the odour of decay – which is completely wrong, of course, but the masks ended up being reasonable effective at their purpose anyway because it turns out that sticking a big wad of dried plant matter in front of your airway is a pretty effective way to avoid inhaling aerosolised bodily fluids.
My favorite is the fact that scurvy was cured, and then un-cured because a bunch of perfectly sensible and intelligent people didn’t know what a vitamin was.
A bipartisan report released by the CIA, FBI, NSA, and ODNI stated unequivocally that Russia, under orders from Putin, carried out a far-reaching cyber operation with the goal of interfering in the 2016 U.S. elections.
One branch of this attack involved fake Russian accounts spreading disinformation, discord, and inflammatory content (in a word, propaganda) across many social media platforms, most notably Facebook and Instagram, but also tumblr. The Department of Justice indicted 13 Russians and 3 Russian companies for these actions. The defendants referred to their activities as “information warfare”, and stated that their goal was to “spread distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.”
In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, President Trump has dismissed reports of Russian meddling as “ridiculous”, and has publicly stated that he believes Putin’s assertions that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections.
We should all be concerned about outside powers seeking to interfere with the integrity of our elections, regardless of which candidates or parties benefit from such interference.
As the midterms approach, be wary of voices sowing discord, fear, and despair. Look for solutions and ways to help instead.
Be wary of anyone who says your vote doesn’t matter. It does.
Be wary of anyone who says that “both sides” are the same. They’re not.
Be wary of anyone who says an election result is a foregone conclusion. It isn’t.
Be wary of anyone who argues for ideological purity and categorical rejection of “flawed” candidates. Perfect people do not exist.
Be wary of sharing posts from sources you do not recognize or know to be trustworthy. Always corroborate with a reputable source.
These people want you to stay home on election day. They don’t want you to exercise your rights and your power at the ballot box. Remember, voter turnout is always lower in non-presidential years, which means your vote counts for more.
Avelera 